The philosophy of straight lines
The fastest way to get somewhere is, reliably, a straight line.
There seems to be a strange milieu of waiting in the modern age, partially propagated by bad advice about "biding your time" and "being too young" and "paying your dues". While there is no substitute for hard work, this line of logic leads many to a kind of passive spectatorship in life. A cold inertia that is exhausting1.
Complacency is a soft and gentle slope of continuous concessions, without signposts or sudden turnings, until one day it is too late to turn back. Mediocre situations, languished in long enough, simply become lost years.
Some waiting periods and rites of passage—those made articulate—are necessary2. But most exist more in imagination than in reality.
I've written about this pernicious pattern before. The trap of waiting for real life to start. Waiting for some nebulous benefit before deciding. Waiting to feel “ready”. Waiting for permission. Waiting for a conviction that will never come. Sometimes, just… waiting.
When I think about it, much of the advice I've received from adults is scarred by cynicism. "Don't settle down too early, don’t get married, don’t have kids! Have fun! Travel more, drink more, be more free!3" Life is heavy. Time makes its wounds. But a refusal to be pessimistic is the rarity. An open-handed encouragement to pursue the depths of commitment is almost extinct.
Wandering forms character, but one can wander too far.
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It is strange to me when people move to the city "only for a few years," just to work a job they don't want to be doing in a decade4. If everything is treated as temporary, nothing is worthy of care. And if nothing is worthy of care, nothing will truly be cherished. Nothing will feel like home.
If I had one wish, it would be for people to stop being so lackadaisical about life. To stop caring so much about politics and pop-culture and sports, and instead take a serious interest in the direction their life is headed and whether it's somewhere they want to go.
Maybe you can just go to where you want to be in a decade now? What if you could? What if the waiting wasn't necessary? I think it's worth at least investigating.
If you have a ten-year plan, what's to stop you from doing it in two?
Of course, the scripts we inherit do not offer much help here. But the mark of maturity is when someone decides to stop following the script and starts writing their own story.
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The trouble is, we think we have time.
Not that life is a race. But depth deserves all the time it can get. Love grows with time. Trust compounds with time. Beauty layers with time. That sense of familiarity and whole-bodied belonging only thickens and intensifies. When it comes to depth, there is simply no substitute. Last year, I joked that I was sad I would miss Christmas with my wife. I'm not married. I’m not dating. I don't even know who she is yet. But still, it's one less Christmas we get5.
William Blake said that “eternity is in love with the productions of time”. But, I would argue the reverse is also true: the productions of time are in love with eternity. At least, I am in love with eternity.
More and more, I only want to do things that last forever. I only want to invest in things that compound. I only want to love what will grow. I’m less interested in what can be done in five minutes of work, and more interested in what can be done over five years of effort.
I know this philosophy is practically insane, but I also happen to think it’s insanely practical.
For instance, I chose not to live in Toronto, the big bustling city where the bulk of my friends are, because I knew I would never stay there long-term. Instead, I chose Kitchener. A smaller city with vitality and an exciting future, but also plenty of rural countryside and surrounding small towns. I wanted a place where I could plant roots. I wanted to find the cozy coffee shops, befriend farmers at the market, and know what roads not to speed. A place that could convince me to cast off the feeling that I would only pick up and leave again. I wanted to live in a way that doesn’t make sense unless where I am now is my forever home.
There is a chance I am wrong and will move somewhere else. But here, there is room to grow. To build slowly. To see where five or ten or twenty years of effort in one direction could take me. We overestimate what can be done in a day, but underestimate how much can be done in a decade.
Similar with my career search, I was told I had to go work at a big bank for five or ten years before I could do what I wanted: work at a small, high-integrity wealth management firm where I would get close personal attention and have the chance to do meaningful work that affects the company's bottom line. But, stubborn enough to tempt convention, I contacted thirty firms that fit my ideal, doubtful a job was even possible, and three offered to hire me. Now I'm in a position to do work I'm ethically and intellectually aligned with and could keep doing for the rest of my career. Again, I do not know for certain. But there is room to grow.
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The fastest way to get somewhere is a straight line. And if it's the wrong thing, a straight line is the fastest way to figure that out and not hold onto dreams steeped in delusion.
Romantic visions are reckless and unreliable, or so I’m told, but the only thing worse than finding out is never finding out at all. Growing nostalgic for a future you'll never have, resenting not being someone else, yearning for what could have been. Longing for impossible and infinite things, precisely because they are impossible and infinite. Those are the regrets that weigh the most. The things left undone, the words left unsaid, the plans left unproved. The dreams still dusty in the garage.
Our job in life, our duty to ourselves and the world and all the generations to come, is to empty our hearts, entirely. To walk a straight path, making things a little more useful and beautiful as we go.
I came to a point where I decided that if I knew what I wanted, there was no reason to wait. And if I didn't know, there was no excuse not to figure it out.
The beauty of life consists of both light and darkness. But for those who wait too late in the day, shadows may swallow the light.
Your friend,
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👋 what i’ve been up to:
I’ve been settling into my new home in Kitchener, building rituals and routines, and getting integrated within the community. I joined an aikido class, started to swim lanes again, and bought a used road bike to get around.
Next week, I start work. My first full-time, in-office job since 2021. I’m expecting the first four weeks to be uncomfortable, at best, but I’ll adapt and think I’ll rather enjoy it.
After all, it is not from working that a man becomes truly tired, but idleness.
ie. I want X. But to get X, I need to do Y. And there isn’t a way around it.
The average probabilities of success do not apply to someone who is intentional and agentic and thinks long-term.
Life is not meant to be a game of endlessly stockpiling options and building back doors. Optionality is not an end in itself. Often, it's a convenient tool—clothed in reason and good sense—to delay firm commitment.
Similarly, that's why I think having children younger than the norm is underrated. If one's relationship with their child is the most meaningful of their life, each year waiting is a year less to spend with them. Grandchildren, too.
This was quietly seismic. The line that stopped me cold was: “I decided that if I knew what I wanted, there was no reason to wait. And if I didn't know, there was no excuse not to figure it out.” That distilled something I’ve felt for a long time but haven’t articulated with such clarity.
Your whole essay felt like a refusal to be lulled by delay, or seduced by the myth of “someday.” The bit about skipping Toronto and choosing Kitchener felt especially poignant. Most people don’t live as if they’ll stay—but there’s a rare peace in making choices that only make sense if you do. You’re right: a straight line, even to the wrong thing, beats the paralysis of zigzagging indefinitely.
Thank you for modeling what it looks like to live with intention, not inertia.
footnote 5!!! Yes.