🟢 Life’s forbidden pleasures
Are rare only because of our own accidental choices?
(4 min read)
Sex.
Hot showers.
Hot tubs.
Belly laughs.
Vegan ice cream.
The beach.
Walks with my partner.
Wood-burning fireplaces.
Friendly pickup basketball.
Engrossing conversation.
Am I writing the world's most boring dating profile?
No.
💡 Side note! If you are trying to get attention from anyone for any reason, don’t say what everyone else could have said.
From my years as a dating coach when Katie and I owned Soulmate Strategy, I assure you that you’re better off making your uniqueness visible.
Merely revealing that you love “laughing” and “to have a good time” will get you ignored. 😆
It’s a paradox: when you take risks and allow yourself to be separate from the herd, it draws people in…
So what is my list about?
Recently I asked myself what I appreciate, and a longer list came to mind…
Vague concepts like friendship, family, lifelong learning, etc.
But then I figured it might be helpful to get more specific.
What do I SAVOR?
What experiences guarantee that I smile and lose a sense of time and truly enjoy myself?
How can I have more of those moments?
I’m not talking about creating a life of hedonism without fulfillment and meaning.
But I AM talking about reversing the typical achievement-oriented delayed-gratification lifestyle that I see a lot of people unintentionally creating.
One that excuses overworking in the name of improving life “one day” (e.g. in retirement).
I’ve gotten caught in that trap often.
In hyper-capitalist USA, especially in this era of pervasive social media and comparison, it’s easy to get caught in routines that omit my favorite parts of life.
In order to NOT work so hard that I miss out on life, I need to be very intentional.
Katie and I love pointing out where there are no diminishing marginal returns.
It’s an important concept.
When can you add more of a thing to your life without worrying that you’ll go numb to it?
“Sooooo gooooddd!! Every fucking time!”
When do you say that?
THAT’S the kind of experience I’m on the hunt for.
Have you noticed that whenever someone says the words “I want”, they almost always invisibly insert the idea of “(but don’t yet have)”?
I’ve been trying to notice that most of what I want I do have.
And most of what I have I want.
Katie and I like to say “We’re just fine-tuning from here.”
It’s a helpful reminder.
And it feels like a necessary antidote to all of the factors in our world that pressure us to want more.
Currently, she’s working as a supervising therapist, and what about my career?
We have savings, but those would vanish if we maintain our current expenses.
Everyone expects that I’d either say:
🟢 I’m interviewing (to continue my career as a software engineering manager)
🟢 I’m “taking time off”
🟢 I’m trying to create something ambitious
Instead, we’ve decided “none of the above”.
I don’t view my current chapter as “taking time off.”
Let’s flip it.
And I’ll explain.
But first, a helpful side story.
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🙌 Do you want to get featured in a future issue? See details below.
I don’t like the word “meditate”.
I’m not sure why.
For 30 minutes just now, I sat still, keeping my eyes closed, paying attention to sounds, physical sensations.
Noticing thoughts arise and letting them pass.
But what should I call that?
The verb “meditate” sounds too active, too direct.
Sam Harris calls it “waking up” instead.
Within that phrase is a hint, a reframe. Maybe that feels more fitting.
For me, the concept isn’t about repeating a mantra, or trying to allow genius to bubble up, or trying to feel physically, mentally, and emotionally relaxed.
Instead it’s more about “being” without all of the typical “trying” and rushing and achieving.
It’s… stepping outside the river of unconscious habits and routines and acknowledging broader perspective.
“Maybe the typical routines are all based in false premises!”
“What is real?!”
The illusions we live in are so compelling. And I guess we could say addicting.
It very often feels like we have free will. And that time moves forward (and only forward) at a constant, reliable rate.
And that a physical world even exists.
But if I’m honest with myself, I’m not aware of strong support for any of those claims.
Most of life is an illusion (and that’s even if we aren’t living in a simulation, which we almost certainly are).
So.
Our day-to-day is full of contradictions.
Full of us acting as if the universe behaves in ways that we don’t even believe it does.
We get stuck in patterns.
There is something appealing about meditation / waking up / getting in touch with our “larger self” or “higher self”.
It’s enthralling to get a glimpse of what truth is.
And funny that we don’t do it more.
We often go through life robotically and mindlessly.
🟢 On a micro scale: Scrolling, driving, eating, brushing our teeth without paying attention.
🟢 On a macro scale: Pursuing a career, attracting a partner, buying a home, having kids, etc etc.
Relentlessly.
Moving moving moving.
Pursuing.
Without reflecting.
Without questioning.
If I were to say I’m “taking a break”, that would be to define hustling as the default mode (and that of course I’ll resume it soon).
Shouldn’t I want to be mindful on both the micro and macro scale?
So, I have no income, and we have no plans to downsize.
And still no plan to resolve the tension between those facts.
Just a belief that we can figure out what matters.
In my current life, the only thing that even resembles a career is this fledgling newsletter called “Work Less, Profit More”… which I’m starting to question the name of.
You can tell that I’m writing more for myself than for you, which is why I’m not feeling a hurry to get to the profit part.
It’s a bizarre paradox to expose my private ruminations as entertainment when they’re more like a journaling, self-discovery exercise.
Especially since I want to remain detached from outcomes and immune to addictions of social media and validation.
But here we are, because at 40 years old I’ve still never found another way to adopt a journaling habit.
Even though I know journaling is super powerful and has been something I’ve known I “should” do.
If you stick around, you might be able to witness:
clearer thinking
feeling fulfilled
inspiration
pinching myself when money flows into our lives while we do what’s important to us (and don’t focus on the money)
As we told our dating clients, you need to hold your standards high.
Be specific about what you value and flexible about how it arrives.
I’ve wanted to learn how to be more patient and more committed to long-term behavior change.
This is it.
🕙 What we learned in recent posts:
🟢 7 days into my new life and I'm freaking out
🟢 How to gross $500k/yr as an amateur writer (or at least how to say Hi like one)
🟢 The power of slow, power of long, and power of 3 little lines
👀 Caught my eye this week:
I love Lex Fridman interviews, and this one with Jeff Bezos was amazing.
A part that especially resonated with me was Bezos saying:
“Efficiency and invention are sort of at odds. [...]
Incremental improvement is so important in every endeavor, in everything you do.
You have to work hard on also just making things a little bit better.
But I'm talking about real invention, real lateral thinking.
THAT requires wandering.
And you have to give yourself permission to wander.
I think a lot of people, they feel like wandering is inefficient. [...]
The reality is we may have to wander for a long time.”
Bezos also discussed the power of writing:
Slide decks of bullet points enable sloppy thinking while written memos with full sentence structure require and transmit clear thinking.
He likes starting meetings with a silent 30-minute period where everyone reads a 6-page memo.
Then they discuss it and “seek truth”.
“You don't know where you're going or how long it will take.”
In other words, “Crisp document, messy meeting.”
💬 Question for you:
Who (not necessarily famous) does a great job of designing a life of fun and fulfillment without obsessing about earning?
What is unique and unconventional about their thinking?
Reply or leave a comment!
I’ll be so excited to write back to you.
And if you've got a moment, I'd love to hear what you thought of this email.
Send me a quick message — I reply to every email ❤️
I’m encouraging myself to remain detached from anyone’s response to the work I’m doing.
To do it for myself, regardless.
But at the same time, I appreciate you being here and rooting for me. 🙏
And if you’d like to recommend my work to others, surely it would help mellow my lizard brain and make this more sustainable!
If you have a Substack account, you can visit /publish/settings/recommendations and search for “Ryan Walsh” and recommend me.
Substack recommendations are powerful!
If I get subscribers from your recommendation, I’ll include a link to your publication in a future issue as a thank-you.
Thanks! 😁