Scott Galloway

How much protein do we consume?

How well do we sleep?

How many books do we read, etc.?

The optimization and gamification of life has created the Hunger Games we're all playing all the time.

As journalist Nitsu Abebe wrote in the New York Times in October, the concept of maxing comes from 1940s academic game theory, but it's been repurposed by online communities to describe a strategy for relentless optimization where balance goes to die.

The language that comes from this layer of the internet has a mechanistic, game-like aura, as if life were mostly just a web of tactics and hacks and mutual manipulation.

According to clinical psychologist Catherine Houlihan, the optimization mindset has many of the hallmarks of perfectionism.

Some commonalities?

Constantly pursuing high standards such that falling short of a goal is seen as failure.

Being preoccupied with results to the point of worry or rumination.

Constantly measuring performance to an obsessive degree.

avoiding tasks if we fear we won't be perfect, slipping into binary thinking, like your diet is either healthy, perfect, optimal, or unhealthy, imperfect, suboptimal.

We don't yet have much research about how adopting an optimization mindset might affect mental health and well-being, Houlihan wrote, but the negative effects of perfectionism are well-established.

A 1923 meta-analysis of 121 studies found that when perfectionism takes the form of obsessive fear of failure, replaying mistakes, tying self-worth to performance, etc., it correlates meaningfully with anxiety, OCD, and depression in young people.

In economic terms, optimization means getting the greatest return on your investment.

Investors, however, aren't perfectionists.

They're pragmatists who operate with an understanding of the Pareto principle, which states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort.

when applied to the personal investments we make in our own fitness, health, and longevity?

The lesson is that we make the biggest gains going from zero to one, but there's a point, likely around 80%, where the efficiency frontier begins to collapse.

If you don't exercise at all, getting moving four times a week will confer significant benefits.