How to Live Without Options - and Why It's the Key to Happiness

Financial options live in highly liquid markets. You can hold an option on a barrel of oil without knowing the first thing about drilling, and extract value purely through arbitrage.

Human value is illiquid and depends on compounding. You can’t buy mastery of a hard skill, a deep friendship, a sense of community, or a real reputation on any spot market. None of it exists in a liquid state.

These assets accrue only through the sustained, irreversible investment of time and attention.

Hop between entry-level jobs in different industries through your twenties to “maximize your options,” and you optimize for liquidity while failing to compound. A person who irreversibly commits to a single difficult discipline for ten years will eventually generate financial, intellectual, and social returns no option-maximizer ever reaches.

Optionality protects your starting capital.

Only irreversibility lets it compound.

— How to Live Without Options - and Why It’s the Key to Happiness