Optimization functions we live by
Whether relationships, jobs, health or some other arena, it is often so easy to fall into autopilot mode. Even if it is just an unhealthy eating habit, it takes some time during the moment of decision to pause and reflect and decide to walk towards or away from a particular choice.
We as humans are always optimizing for something. And this is not limited to engineers. We are optimizing feeling X or not feeling Y or the probability of A happening in the future or the probability of B never happening again. At different points in life, we change our optimization functions, we weigh work less, we weigh emotional health more, we weigh risk in careers as worth it and maybe risk elsewhere not as much. We may calibrate our optimism and how much we as individuals can change another. We may weigh self preservation higher.
These are all lessons we learn over time through experience. Even if we had all the time in the world on an armchair, we may not have gleaned these lessons enough to actually change our optimization functions.
Now about that pain. Like when we have finally fixed a bug whose solution, in retrospect, was “a one-liner just staring me in the face”, there is always a tinge of regret and self-doubt when you realize you have to change your optimization function. Why didn’t I see it earlier? Why was it not obvious to me? Why didn’t I spend more time being strategic about it before jumping in and guessing what the problem was? What a waste of time! I could have done better, more interesting things in that time?! I wonder what others think of me for taking “soo long” on this bug.
To fight this FOMO of sorts, you need three things, forgiveness, optimism about yourself and a gentle nurturing self-narrative.
No one has the perfect optimization function. It takes time, experience and it changes with environment and circumstance. It needs to. Acknowledging that it is constantly evolving and forgiving yourself for the “o so long” time taken to arrive at the current function is a huge part of moving forward. By this, I do not mean making excuses. You need to acknowledge mistakes made, lessons learned, opportunities lost and apologies owed. But you need to also acknowledge that you were not ready and forgive yourself for it. It is OK that you were not ready.
This forgiveness, however, is much harder, if you see your future as a dull bleak hopeless nebulous thing and your past as riddled with gold nuggets that you consistently side stepped. This is why optimism about yourself is important. I don’t say optimism in general, because that requires you to be optimistic about many things beyond you - friends, family, society, country, world. Optimism about yourself is believing in your ability to evolve and believing that you can find happiness and contentment in your life.
Finally, this attempt at optimism is impossible without a gentle nurturing narrative about one self. In every experience, as futile as it may seem upon categorization by exit criteria, there are lessons learned or deepened, growth had or a small spark ignited. In our result driven world, it is often easy to categorize experiences in a boolean manner - success/failure - with little acknowledgment of the worthiness of the journey. But would we adopt that narrative when talking to another adult? How about a child? If we approached ourselves with the same gentleness we would use with a child, we would view each experience as a growth opportunity and not a waste simply because it was not a “success.” This perspective makes it just a little bit easier to continue to venture out in the world knowing that there may be “failures” but that you can keep moving past them.
