[antifragile 4 🔥] a rant on optimization, Derek Sivers on the best choice, Adam Grant on elevation, C.S. Lewis on the end of human endeavor

#31: a weekly 4-item newsletter created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind.

Welcome to the 31st edition of the antifragile 4 🔥.

It’s a weekly 4-item newsletter created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind. Some weeks will have a theme, others will meander. Expect it every Friday.

This week, we’re meandering.

Here is this week’s antifragile 4 🔥:

1. a rant 🤬 on optimization

2. an idea 💡 from Derek Sivers on how to make the best choice in any situation

3. a note from Adam Grant 🧐 on the most reliable way to improve our mental health

4. a passage from C.S. Lewis 📖 on the end of all human endeavor

+ AI Image of the Week 🤖 🎨

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1.) a rant 🤬 on optimization

Optimization is the new sex. It sells.

And it sells because it preys on the one thought we’ve been spoon-fed from our first conscious moments; I’m not good enough.

Your work? Subpar. 10x your productivity. Just buy this book.

Your relationship? Lame! Find out what real love looks like from this video.

Your fitness? Please. Train like a real athlete with this program.

Your golf game? Terrible! Get your shit together at PlayBetter.com (😉).

Nothing is ever good enough. You’re always one step away from greatness - if only you had the right mental model, the perfect habit stack, the latest tool.

Optimization has become the default lens through which we see our lives. If we’re not improving, we’re falling behind. If we’re not optimizing, we’re failing. The message is clear: You, as you are, aren’t enough.

But here’s the real paradox - chasing endless optimization is often the surest way to dissatisfaction. When everything is a means to an end, we never actually arrive. The goalpost moves. The algorithm shifts. The guru updates his framework. And we’re left spinning, convinced that fulfillment is just beyond the next upgrade.

What if, instead, we made peace with the process? What if, rather than seeing life as a series of problems to be optimized, we embraced it as a craft to be practiced?

Not to become perfect. Not to maximize every variable.

But to view yourself as perfect. While also capable of infinite change.

Perfect, yet evolving.

Enough.

2.) an idea 💡 from Derek Sivers on how to make the best choice in any situation

3.) a note from Adam Grant 🧐 on the most reliable way to improve our mental health

I focus on elevating myself a lot. See optimization trap above.

A nasty byproduct is forgetting the power of elevating others - including those closest to me (my wife being one).

There’s something truly magical about pouring energy into someone else. It deepens connection, builds trust, and comes back in ways you’d never expect. Plus what’s the point of leveling up if you’re not bringing others with you?

4.) a passage from C.S. Lewis 📖 on the end of all human endeavor

To be happy at home, said Johnson, is the end of all human endeavour. As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economics, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save in so far as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit.

C.S. Lewis

AI Image of the Week 🤖 🎨

“Pixel art of CS Lewis biohacking on an infinite hedonistic treadmill.”

10/10! Incredible!

Two last things for you this week:

1. Elevate someone else this week (who isn't your kid). Pour yourself into them.

2. Be fire and wish for the wind 🔥

With love,
Chris

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