The Temptation of the Shortcut
We are searching for the holy grail. The one blueprint that magically solves all our problems. The one prompt that would turn our idea into a fully-fledged, functional, and successful business. The pill that makes all our troubles disappear overnight. That one viral post that propels us into fame, making our lives a lot easier.
We’re living at an accelerated rhythm. Speed matters more than the process or the outcome. We expect the results yesterday. There’s a lot going on. New technological advancements are happening at an unparalleled speed. A future riddled with considerable uncertainty. The wins are up for grabs. The frenzy is in the air, and we’re all trying our best to surf these high waves.
In certain cases, speed is essential. If you want to start a business, you’d want to keep it lean, especially if you have limited resources. It’s better to fail early, try out different things, get initial feedback from potential users, and later double down on the idea that seems to be working.
Shipping fast, iterating, failing, and exploring a variety of ideas simultaneously until one sticks may be a good way to develop a business. The future is in flux. Many factors influence whether a business succeeds or fails.
But a speedy experimentation pace does not translate well to the process of creating a sustainable business in the long run, or incorporating fresh habits, learning unfamiliar skills, exploring emerging topics, refining ideas, or living life in general.
Living, Fast and Slow
We can look at these two approaches in a similar vein to Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. Only in this case, it’s living, fast and slow.
Kahneman’s work explains that our thinking and behavior in the world are driven by two systems. One fast, intuitive, and emotional. The other slow, contemplative, and logical. Thinking fast is amazingly effective. It helps us navigate everyday life. Make split-second decisions to keep moving. It’s the system that helped us survive harsh conditions from an evolutionary perspective. Trusting our gut can often save us a lot of trouble. This system is also prone to errors, though. It mainly relies on shortcuts, feeds our biases, leads us to jump to conclusions too quickly, and often causes us to misjudge risks and make bad decisions.
Recognizing that we are driven to act by these two modes of thought is an important step to seek out a balance between the two. The goal isn’t to suppress, or go all-in, on one or the other. Rather, the aim is to know and examine ourselves better and change how we behave, incorporating different habits and changing old ones that might be fueling unnecessary headaches.
These fast/slow dichotomies seem to be a feature and not a bug in our lives. Sometimes acting fast brings great returns. Other times, acting slowly is more fruitful.
The problems arise when there’s no balance between the two, with one style of thinking dominating the other. Things become even worse when we operate fully under one approach with expectations which require that we operate under the other system.
The Trap of Expecting Too Much, Too Fast
For example, we start learning a fresh subject that takes time and effort, and get frustrated after two days when we don’t see meaningful progress. This also applies to business, habits, diet, exercise, etc.
Thinking, writing, creating, constructing, incorporating a recent habit, all take time, commitment, and dedication. Yet, oftentimes we embark on these initiatives with an acting/thinking fast mindset, driven by a host of assumptions that set us back.
When we start learning a different language, we assume that we’ll pick it up pretty quickly. When we don’t notice any progress after a few weeks, not only might we quit, but we could also fall into the trap of thinking we failed at that task. This adds insult to injury.
Acting and creating slowly is a heavy lift. It can quickly turn into a frustration fest. “Life is short. I have an interminable list of things I want to learn and do. There’s no time. I need to move fast.” The thought alone is nerve-wracking.
Moving slowly can give us the impression that we’re falling behind or not keeping up with the latest trends. As a result, we end up chasing and consuming new fads just to stay afloat. Think about social media and algorithms, for example. It’s easy to become a prisoner to the algorithm, constantly adjusting what you post just to keep up, and not fall behind.
Acting fast is all about finding the shortcut, the hack, the prompt, the pill to turn our lives upside down. That influencer did it. That entrepreneur did it. So will I. And the way to go about it is to follow their method, advice, suggestions.
I’d want to make a distinction between acting fast by following a template, and learning from other people’s mistakes. Templates might work. Learning from other people’s mistakes works too. They can save us significant time and effort.
However, we still have to do the hard work. The journey is still relatively slow. We have to commit to the plan and show up every day to do the practice: learn the language, grow the business, write the book, slowly but surely.
No matter the approach or hack, we can’t skip the real effort. The magical GPT prompt may give us the best business idea ever (or not). Establishing that business is a different story. It’s a journey. It builds and compounds over time.
Philosophy Is the Long Game
The fundamental realization is that we have to be active, and actively participate in a deliberate and slow living journey to acquire new habits and create new things. This realization calls for an inquisitive, reflective mindset to examine ourselves, question our assumptions and biases, and engage in a continuous exercise to seek a balance between living fast and slow.
Searching for the system, the hack, the mentor or advisor is only half the picture. The other half demands a disposition and a mindset to help oneself out.
I think philosophy as a way of life (as Pierre Hadot put it), is meant to do just that. It’s more like a continuous discipline that includes meditation, self examination, and slow and fast thinking/acting to cultivate good personal, physical and mental habits.
According to Plato, in its most human and personal form, philosophy is about learning how to die. That also means learning how to live a good life. The million dollar question becomes what a good life is. Philosophers and philosophical schools of thought offer a variety of answers. And that’s besides the point for this article. What they all have in common though, is the attempt to explore these questions deliberately.
The irony is that these teachings over time become distilled into a list of heuristics and aphorisms, beautifully packaged, and appealing. They provide us with yet another framework. We consume them, feel good about ourselves for a second, and then move on to the next popular thing. Today it’s Stoicism. Tomorrow it’s Epicureanism. After tomorrow Existentialism.
Philosophy may not be appealing for that reason. It does not have any tangible or immediate results. Without actively participating in the practice, nothing will change. Searching for the toolkit or seeking only external answers won’t lead anywhere.
At the end of the day, philosophy is a form of existential therapy, and most importantly, a form of self-help. To engage in it, you have to commit to the slow, deliberate, unsexy work of becoming.