things that i want to want to do

2025 Nov 27

one of the sad lessons i've come to learn about life is that there are two types of things on my to-do list:

• things i want to do
• things i want to want to do

the less pithy, more concrete way to say this, is that there are things on my to-do list i will willingly make trade-offs for, and things that i will not. running a marathon, doing a handstand, getting better at mandarin and shanghainese (and these two are deeply personal) - none of these are things i'm willing to prioritize over the other passions in my life that i spend my time on (at least not right now). therefore, they go on the "want to want to do" list.

the only things on my actual to-do list are things that i'm willing to make trade-offs for, things that i'm willing to sacrifice some other aspiration for. every decision that i make about how i spend my time, is an implicit decision to not spend my time doing something else - and sadly that includes all the time i spend doomscrolling through youtube shorts etc. as much as i consciously try to avoid doing it.

the one saving grace i've found for this, is that these decisions are exactly what make life interesting.

i got that from a dear mentor of mine. i was talking to him years ago, when i was choosing between two jobs, one at a big tech company making oodles of money (upper six figures) and one at a no-name, barely-any-users startup but where i'd be building from scratch, and i was complaining that i wanted to do both and experience both worlds. his response to me was that having to make this decision was a good thing, and that life is interesting because different people choose different paths, and that no matter which outcome i chose, it was clear i'd have an awesome thing ahead of me.