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A while back I set a goal to have a happy, fulfilling life, and then asked what five elements were individually necessary and collectively sufficient to produce

A while back I set a goal to have a happy, fulfilling life, and then asked what five elements were individually necessary and collectively sufficient to produce that. Then I went one level deeper, taking care to be strict with the boolean logic. I eventually got to actionable items. The surprising part was the amount of priorities I had in my life that weren't in that life graph. Stuff that was urgent but not important, and counterintuitively unnecessary when subjected to first-principle analysis. As I started letting those things go, I started to feel more productive since I had more confidence that my actions were aligned with my purpose. It was tedious and time-consuming, and the closer you get to the leaves, the easier it is for the graph to feel "out of date" as your priorities and circumstances change. But the root of the graph (or the top... for me the actionable stuff was at the bottom) has hardly changed at all since those were my core principles. So I'm still not sure it is worth the time to keep it "accurate", but it was a good exercise to do at least once.

aditij 9y ago
Any chance you'd be willing to share more details on what your life graph ended up including?
- tunesmith 9y ago
  Any time you break something down into a collection of "mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive" elements, there's going to be a bunch of different ways you can slice and dice that. What worked for me was something that was kind of like maslow's hierarchy. I think mine broke down into physical environment, financial security, being socially well-rooted, being healthy, and working on "meeting my greatness" (kind of like actualization). If I were to redo it now, I'd probably collapse being socially well-rooted into being a subcomponent of something else that would include service, giving back, etc. But at the time I created it I was very much invested in developing friendships after moving to a new place for a new romantic relationship.

aditij 9y ago

Any chance you'd be willing to share more details on what your life graph ended up including?

tunesmith 9y ago
Any time you break something down into a collection of "mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive" elements, there's going to be a bunch of different ways you can slice and dice that. What worked for me was something that was kind of like maslow's hierarchy. I think mine broke down into physical environment, financial security, being socially well-rooted, being healthy, and working on "meeting my greatness" (kind of like actualization). If I were to redo it now, I'd probably collapse being socially well-rooted into being a subcomponent of something else that would include service, giving back, etc. But at the time I created it I was very much invested in developing friendships after moving to a new place for a new romantic relationship.