Last week, I wrote about how the things that are most meaningful to us are generally hard and difficult. The idea was not that hard things are inherently better, but instead that the most meaningful things tend to be hard. Our general preference is for the easier, less energy intensive path, which means that we tend to gravitate to easy things that do not bring us much happiness.
This post extends that idea, except instead of focusing on easy versus difficult, the attention is on time scale. As humans, we’ve evolved with a preference for quick results, a tendency that helped us survive for most of our history as a species. Our brains favor immediate outcomes– in the world of our ancestors, the berries we found today would nourish us today. Decades-long projects with uncertain payoffs did less to improve the chance of survival today. But what worked well in our evolutionary environment may not serve us as well today, and the preferences that optimize for survival in an uncertain world may be poorly adapted to enduring happiness, satisfaction, and health in our modern world.
If we look around at the things we’re truly proud of, we find they’ve often been in the making for years. Meaningful relationships take years or decades to develop and mature. Truly great skills– real mastery– are acquired through years of practice and dedication. Things that we have created and are proud of– companies, projects, art– are the result of years of dedicated effort.
In a world that prizes speed and instant results, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that things worth doing, the things that add meaning and depth to our lives, tend to take years to develop. We look around at what we see missing, and we want to make change now. Then, we get frustrated that building the good stuff takes time. The meaningful things in life are often slow to mature. Real relationships require years of shared experiences and patience; deep expertise takes countless hours of practice and persistence. Unlike the “instant gratification” rewards we can find online or through a quick transaction, these deeper pursuits give back to us in subtler, richer ways over the course of a lifetime.
Quick fixes are not bad, not impossible, and I’m not advocating that we avoid them just because they are quick. Generally, it’s better to fix problems the quickest way possible. Something that takes longer is not inherently better simply because it takes more time; instead, the most worthwhile things generally take a lot of time, and get better with longer involvement.
This slow growth is challenging in part because it can often feel like we’re not getting anywhere, even when we are making progress. Today is usually quite similar to yesterday, and tomorrow is quite similar to today. Even when things are changing fast, the day-to-day change is minimal, and so our perception is that little is happening. However, each moment we put into a relationship, each hour of practice, each small step we take toward building a family, it’s all cumulative. It is only over a timescale of months, years, and decades that we can really appreciate the cumulative effect of our efforts.
This reality is hard, because we instinctively want the instant results, the shortcut, the quick version of success. For example, we identify a need for more connection– but this is not something that can be satisfied easily or quickly. Connection with others takes time to build. The richness of life comes through dedication, a willingness to invest ourselves in things that don’t offer instant returns.
To me, there are two key takeaways from this. One, we have to be clear with ourselves about the game we are playing. If we are looking for deep health, happiness, and life satisfaction, we have to understand that this is a multi-decade process. The most meaningful work and projects that we can undertake are projects that take more than one lifetime. We need to check in with ourselves and make sure we are on the right path, but we fool ourselves when we expect instant results. In fact, we may not even realize what it is we are building until we step back. Let’s be intentional about this.
Second, we need to remind ourselves that the most worthwhile pursuits allow for growth and evolution, rather than having fixed endpoints. Our relationships do not come with a goal to achieve, our projects do not need an endpoint.
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