“All failure comes from trying too hard.” / NAKATANI Akihiro

1 is bigger than 0.

Obvious, I know. Common sense, I know. But common sense isn’t common. Common sense is the least common of the senses, as other people have pointed out.

1 is bigger than 0. How often we forget this simple fact.

You know how it is. We all learn about mathematical concepts like negative numbers — which were probably considered a wild and crazy idea at one time, and perhaps for good reason — so we tend to think of 1 as only being slightly bigger than 0.

But it’s not. ¹

In RL ², 1 isn’t just slightly bigger than 0. 1 is infinitely bigger than 0. That means it’s not just a matter of 1 > 0 (1 is greater than 0). 1 ≫ 0 (1 is much greater than 0). Because 1 is the start of everything. While 0 is the path to nothing. No matter how many 0’s you string together, you get nothing. But a bunch of 1’s adds up. A bunch of 1’s, multiplied by a bunch of time, adds up. And it doesn’t just add up — it even compounds, like interest.

0 is a white shirt. 1 is a blue stain. 100 is a red stain. 1 is much closer to 100 than it is to 0. No, 0 isn’t even a shirt. It’s a transparent Ziploc bag. No, it’s not even that. It’s a vacuum. 0 is the total absence of existence. Add 0 to anything and…you get the same anything. Add 0 (nothing) to 0 (nothing) and you get…nothing.

The current evidence from places like Swaziland suggests that humans have had math for some 35,000 years, give or take. Yet for most of human history, we didn’t have the number 0. Apparently, mathematicians in Greece and Egypt were like: “Dude, how the FXXX can nothing be something?!”. The entire Roman empire ³ started, rose, declined and fell all without the number 0. Engineers in ancient Rome implemented public works projects — roads, aqueducts, indoor plumbing, massive buildings — on a scale and to a standard that was not equaled in Europe until about last Tuesday ⁴…without 0. We’re talking about people who had to write the number “2347” as “MMCCCXLVII”.

Here — count to 0. Where’s your zero finger? 0 is a very weird number-slash-concept. It sits next to ⁵ 1 on the real number line ⁶, but the real number line, names notwithstanding, isn’t “real”. In content and character, 0 is nothing like 1 or any other number. 0 is not of this world; it is of the math world.

So when you do 0, you’re not just doing slightly less than 1. Doing nothing is of a fundamentally different character than doing something. And doing something is of a fundamentally different character than doing nothing. Something (1, etc.) and nothing (0) are not the same; they’re not friends; they’re not neighbors; they’re not cousins; they don’t know each other; they don’t even live in the same universe.

It’s not doing too little that kills you(r projects). It’s doing nothing. No need to hit home-runs. No need to hit 100. Go easy. Take it easy. No need to swing with all your might. Screw that. Just bunt it. Just do 1. Right here. Right now. No big deal. No fanfare. No parade.

Don’t listen to Japanese. Just play a Japanese song and turn up the volume.

Just do 1.

There are only two choices in life.

1. Do nothing.
   • “I’m tired”
   • “I’m burned out”
   • “I can’t”
2. Do something hard.
   • “It’s good for me!”
   • “Suffering builds character!”
   • “I need discipline!”
   • “I have to”
   • “I should”
3. Do something easy.
   • “No way!”
   • “This counts?”
   • “But it’s so much fun!”
   • “This is so easy!”

You’re like, “but wait, that’s three things!”

No.

Because 1 = 2. Telling yourself to do something hard is the same thing as telling yourself to do nothing at all. Why? Because either:

• You never do hard stuff, or
• You do do hard stuff (like, once), but you don’t keep doing it

So again: telling yourself to do something hard is the same thing as telling yourself to do nothing at all.

Stop kidding yourself. You’re not gonna do that hard thing. You’re just not. It’s not going to happen, and even it does happen, it won’t keep happening. It’ll happen once, and it’ll hurt so much that it’ll never happen again.

So do something easy instead. Do something small. The smaller the better. The easier the better. The choice is not all or nothing: it’s easy or nothing.

There’s a difference between:

(A) Things that are good for you, and
(B) Things that are good for you and that you’ll actually do.

Most so-called New Year’s resolutions are type (A). They sound heroic. They sound “disciplined”. They work. It’s just that no one in all of human history has ever actually carried them out, except under duress.

Kaizen and “just showing up” are type (B). They seem so easy, so doable, so simple, that they couldn’t possibly help. Not only that, but, the cool thing is, a string of type (B) things can and will get you (A)-level results.

Don’t be a hero. Don’t tell yourself you’re going to stop doing bad things. I know you won’t. You know you won’t. We all know you won’t. Instead, just make it very inconvenient to do the wrong thing, and very convenient to do the right thing.

In the long run, (in)convenience almost always triumphs over the human will. Don’t master your will. Don’t become a better person. Master convenience. Move the chess pieces that are the elements of your daily life; change what it is that’s convenient to do and/or not do.

Don’t stop eating bad food. Bad food tastes awesome and you know it. Just don’t allow any bad food in your house. Make it inconvenient to access. Don’t eat vegetables. Just have them cut up and sitting in front of you.

Don’t go running. You know you’d rather be at home watching Daily Show episodes. Just step outside with your sneakers on.

Don’t do only Japanese. Just only have Japanese stuff to do.

This is a chess game with your vices. You don’t win by becoming more moral, you win by creating environments and situations that make victory stochastically inevitable. You don’t win by trying hard and struggling and straining, you win by observing, maneuvering and tweaking. Don’t be the sweet-but-doomed fool. Don’t be the hapless meathead with a heart of gold. You’ll get pwned by yourself if you do that. Instead, be a player. Be a winner.

Metaphorically speaking, there’s a magical bubble around all of us. Typically it’s about one meter in radius, give or take. In terms of information and physical objects, you more or less control what comes into this bubble. But once something is inside the bubble, it more or less controls you.

The trick isn’t to control or manage yourself, but to control and manage, as far as possible, the contents of this bubble. You can be a total bum — lazy, impulsive, neurotic — but coast your way toward good or even highly impressive performance because of a little bit of bubble-handling. The language of this bubble is the language you will learn, whether you want to or not. Handle the bubble — handle the environment — and you’re basically good to go.

Try, test and tweak. Just don’t try hard. If you’re trying hard, you’re probably doing it wrong. Trying hard sucks and it never lasts.

Stop trying so hard and start having fun.