Nicholas Charriere on ambition and fatherhood
Here is Nicholas Charriere's absolutely great short essay on fatherhood and professional ambition. I'm posting about this almost entirely because I simply like the essay (and that's a sufficient reason to post about something).
Strikingly, my half-formed reactions as I read the piece were almost exactly stated in the piece's conclusion (always a strong sign that something is resonating):
- Focus on health and energy: most of us would do better worrying a bit less about dividing up the pie and a bit more about growing it.
- Almost everyone spends some time in low-value activities that can be cut out. Again, focus more on growing the bank of time and effort where these tradeoffs are salient.
- Look for compounding gains (which tend to follow naturally upon proper work, anyway). (See also here.)
- There's room to grow the pie even more if you're willing to be a bit weird.