Live life on offense

I was reflecting recently, and I realized that the most interesting and meaningful things that have happened in my life have almost always been the result of taking some kind of divergent action- an action that diverges from the normal momentum of life. A proactive action that would not be the obvious next step if you were to project out your life on a timeline. (Not a reaction.)

From a young age, we’re programmed to react. We’re handed tasks to accomplish, a set of rules to abide by, and we react accordingly. Most people live life in this reactive state, most of the time.

Take school, for example. The curriculum is already laid out for you, the tests & success criteria are pre-defined, and your job is to simply do exactly what has been handed to you. Learn the material, pass the tests.

For most adults, this pattern doesn’t end with school. It continues into the workplace, where your boss, often provided with their own set of initiatives and clear success criteria, tells you what has to be done, and you react accordingly.

You scan your email inbox multiple times per day and look for messages to react to. You wait for something to go wrong with your health to seek treatment. You wait to get fat before considering nutrition & exercise. You wait for problems to arise in your relationships instead of proactively improving them. You wait to be invited to things instead of planning and sending the invites yourself.

The truth is, if you live in a perpetually reactive state, on defense, you will probably never do or accomplish anything unique or meaningful.

The exception to this is if you somehow find yourself taken under the wing of a person who does live on offense, a leader, who strategically charts a course for you to follow. But this is unlikely. If you defer your life’s course to another individual or entity, you will more likely help them achieve something meaningful. This is not a bad thing—so long as you are intentional about who you choose to follow, what you're helping them to achieve, and whether or not that aligns with your own vision for your life.

If you do choose to live on offense, however, you will be rewarded with the potential to live a custom-tailored, fulfilling, regret-free life.

So what does it look like to live on offense? Living on offense requires 1) having and understanding your own values, 2) living authentically, in congruence with those values, and 3) managing & maintaining your trajectory.

Each deserves an explanation.

1) Have and understand your own values

"Value," as a concept, does not exist in a void. Value is always relative to something else. In order to know what your values really are, you must also be aware of the opposing values you’re giving up.

For example, if you value money, there is a significant cost associated with that. You may have to give up some amount of peace, healthy relationships, physical health, time spent with family, etc. In other words, you are "valuing" money over those other things.

If you value exploration & novelty in your life, you may have to give up stability in the many forms it comes in. Security, long-term relationships, a stable community & sense of belonging. But you may be willing to accept these trade-offs as you summit Mount Everest, or travel to 30 countries in a year.

Discovering your values is a process. It doesn’t happen as the result of a 5-minute scribbling-into-a-notebook session. It requires effortful, intentional reflection & introspection.

2) Live authentically in congruence with those values

The technique for figuring out the changes you need to make in your life is simple:

Write down & re-read your values on a regular basis, and ask yourself, am I living in accordance with each value? Aim to identify the inconsistencies between your idealized values and how you’re actually living your life. The gaps represent your potential to change things. And as these gaps enter your field of view, the right ideas will inevitably spawn, giving you the opportunity to act on them and make changes.

It's important to unburden your mind and heart before doing this so that you can see as clearly as possible, without the emotional fog of your life's current state and trajectory clouding your view. Meditation is a good way to do this.

3) Actively manage & maintain your trajectory

Entropy; everything trends toward chaos over time. You may have precisely uncovered & defined your values. You may have carefully reshaped your life around those values. But perhaps the hardest step is defending your values and lifestyle over time—from yourself, from others, and from societal pressure.

Defending against yourself

Specifically:

• Distractions: I struggle with this one. The mind did not evolve to help you perfectly follow your values. It evolved for survival and reproduction. Because of this, your emotions will often allure you into directions that are counter-productive to embodying your idealized values. You will fail sometimes, so you must be willing to take one step back, two steps forward.
• Decision Fatigue: Living on offense means lots of active decision making, which is exhausting. So you must treat yourself as an athlete - take care of your mind, body, and soul, so that you can awake each morning with the energy required to stay the course. Poor sleep, diet, and exercise will deplete your mental fortitude, making it very difficult to stay on track.
• Uncertainty: Taking actions that go against the normal flow of life feel uncertain. And the uncertainty often lasts over a long period of time. You must be willing to sit with, and accept this uncomfortable feeling indefinitely, or you will inevitably revert back to going with the flow and living your life passively.
• Decay: The potent sense of clarity you will feel when you first uncover and define your values, and the enthusiastic optimism you will experience when you initiate the corresponding life changes, will be at an all-time high at the start. But as time goes on, the enthusiasm will naturally decay. Your mind will wander. "Life shit" will happen, forcing you back into a reactive state. Therefore, it's important to reflect on, and recalibrate your trajectory regularly.

Defending against others

Think of every person in your life as having their own "gravity" associated with them. The more time you spend in their presence, the more you will be pulled toward adopting their values, beliefs, and life choices.

Therefore, it's essential that you curate those in your orbit. Surround yourself with people who share your values, and you will find it easier to embody them over time. Do the opposite, and it will become much harder to embody your values authentically.

This is hardly a novel idea. But it's a fundamental one that will make or break your ability the life you want to live. We're social beings, after all. The approval and acceptance of others is a potent drug that all empathic beings crave. So if you're going to crave it, crave it from those who you want to crave it from.

The act of curating the people you surround yourself with is an essential part of living life on offense.

Defending against societal pressure

This one is dangerous because it is subtle. We don't live in a void. Our subconscious is constantly seeking approval from others. As a hunter-gatherer, deviating from the norm meant potentially losing the favor of the pack, and ultimately, abandonment and death. It was essential to fit in.

This poses an interesting challenge. Our minds are, in many ways, wired against living on offense. This manifests itself subtly, through small, almost unnoticable emotions that gently steer you toward satisfying the expectations of others, instead of staying the course, and pursuing the path you've intentionally chosen for yourself.

The solution is the same; curate your environment. Surround yourself with people whose values and expectations of you are most aligned with your own. Create an intentional echo chamber. This may include physically moving to a place where those people are.

In conclusion

If you are reading this, you're likely the type of person that naturally feels the drive to live life on offense. Therefore, I hope this has given you some additional structure to manage & direct this drive, and the reassurance to not suppress it. If you are this person, and you live life in a reactive state, you will feel perpetually frustrated with your lack of agency. The solution is to just start. Walk through the steps. Making any progress will already relieve the pain of feeling like you have no control of the ship.