“The secret to a happier and more content life, my friend, is macro optimisation.”, said Khedu as we embraced the cool breeze on a fateful night stroll, something that was becoming an occasional ritual shared by me and my brotherly senior.
“I’m sorry, macro what?”, I asked inquisitively, in anticipation of a knowledge cookie. As my good fortune would have it, by the time we had reached the end of our stroll, my hunger had been satisfied.
You see, it’s all about not worrying about the daily efforts and working towards broader life goals instead. Present-day pop cultures, work environments and learning atmospheres have developed a knack of glorifying hard work and attention to detail, so much so that its almost a golden rule now, that if one wants to smash those ceilings of success, toiling hard and doing justice to every undertaken venture is a must. While there’s nothing bad in running in this rat race as the race often leads to desired destinations or prepares us for the unforeseen ones, but running blindly can waste a lot of effort and time, right? This is where macro optimisation comes in. There is no doubt that often, hard work is a prerequisite for success, but when and where the efforts have to be put in matter more than how much effort to be put in. An elementary example can be a predicament that I personally am going through. So, I have reached that zen level of self-awareness where I know that I am definitely not going to carve out a career in my branch. I also know my other interests wherein I can utilise my strengths and indulge in them professionally. In this situation, macro-optimisation dictates that my actions should be contributing to the bigger picture, i.e, my ultimate goal, and my efforts should be mostly concentrated towards the best areas of self-interest. As easy and trivial it may sound, it is not. Most of the times, I sweat the small stuff like assignments, quizzes etc and often devote a huge chunk of my attention and time to exams that are going to have zero contribution to my life, in a broader sense of the term. And this dilemma is something that I frequently see around me, with many souls losing their perspective of happiness, while they burn the fuel of hardwork out. Yes, what many fail to realize is that will power, motivation, perseverance are exhaustible, like petrol. Blind use of any of them, albeit well meant, will just lead to an empty reservoir!
Macro optimisation acts as a timely check of resources like efforts and will power. It can help us to occasionally check where were going in life and whether our actions are actually making our desired journey easier or not. That being said, it’s not just limited to smart work. Decisions taken while keeping the broader perspective of life in mind, can be useful in any field, be it managing the economic crisis of a country or shortage of daily use commodities in a household. It can be done in many ways, depending on who you are as a person. For example – Following a set schedule is an age old way to be productive. But it often remains unfinished. So what you can do is make a calendar instead. Set deadlines for acquirement of a skill or undertaking a venture which gets you closer to your aim. To make sure that the deadline is followed, set reminders in the form of friends, family etc which make you aware about your life plan. Another way to ensure a macro optimised path is to follow the ‘Fun-meter’. Whenever you are distributing efforts in professional activities, look at the fun-meter and measure the amount of fun and content you are going to get while grinding for that activity. So the effort given to an activity should be directly proportional to the amount of contentment you obtain. This will automatically seed out waste of effort and keep you on a path towards the goal you’re aiming for.
Th ability to appreciate the bigger picture and not sweat the small stuff may sometimes lead to moral compromises, but the future returns often outweigh the present compromises. For instance, whenever any government attracts foreign investments, there’s always the risk of local industries and traders losing out on business. But sometimes, the return on foreign investment in terms of both money and employment and the savings that may come from not investing in failing PSUs and drowning local industries, outweigh the moral cons. In my own predicament, I may have to face the initial guilt of letting my grades fall down with no immediate value addition to my career profile, but the future returns in the form of working in the fields of my interest and gaining expertise in those areas professionally, outweigh the temporary guilt and possible backlash from parents.
At the end, it just boils down to a simple demand. If I am already running in a rat race, I may as well run towards the cheese I want!
– Atharv Dwivedi