Strategic insights drawn from a 90's playlist on Spotify
One of the unexpected problems of the information era is the fact that there’s just too much great stuff in the world to absorb it all. Spotify is a great example; there are songs that I absolute love—songs that feel like they're the auditory manifestation of important parts of my soul—that I almost never listen to. There’s just so many great bands, great albums, and great playlists that I just forget to listen to most of the music I love because I’m too busy listening to other music that I love.
Fortunately, I do have a “five star” playlist which I made in iTunes in about 2011, which I’ve since migrated to Spotify, which is a list of all the songs which are my personal “classics”. The songs that I love listening to almost no matter the mood. Not all of the them are actually great songs mind you, I’d probably be embarrassed to release the list in public for fear of judgement of my uncultured tastes, but I listen to the playlist with headphones on so the guilty pleasures all remain my own.
Anyway, that was all just a long prelude to introduce the reason I was listening to Everything to Everyone by Everclear.
There’s a clear stand-out line from the lyrics to the song (underlined by the fact that the rhythm section of the band pauses dramatically at the moment it’s delivered):
I think you are blind to the fact
That the hand you hold
Is the hand that holds you down
I’ve heard this line countless times, but it resonated at a new level for me this week, because it gave a poetic perspective to an idea that was introduced to me by my friend Dominick Quartuccio (host of The Great Man Within podcast). In one of his podcasts a while ago, Dom quoted Robert Brault who said:
“We are kept from our goal not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal.”
I had to pause the podcast when I heard that line, allowing little silence to underline the words.
It was one of those moments where the true depth of meaning takes time to sink in. I was like someone switched on the light in a dark room and suddenly I could see many things which had always been there, but which I had never noticed before.
Profundity is a funny thing. You might be reading this and thinking “yeah sure, it’s interesting, but so what?”, and that would be a completely fair reaction. I’ve heard Everclear sing that line hundreds of times, and it had never before carried the depth of meaning for me that it did this time. Profundity is about message and timing (which is why it’s worth re-reading your top ten books every five years or so).
Anyway, the message was deeply meaningful to me at this point in my life, so I thought I’d pass it on in case the timing is right for you, too. What incredible projects could you be working on, what exciting journeys could you be pursuing, that are left unexplored because you have a clear path to a (worthy but) lesser goal?
Perhaps you’ll get more from the idea expressed in the rational tones of James Clear: "A practical definition of opportunity cost: If you spend too much time working on good things, then you don’t have much time left to work on great things. Understanding opportunity cost means eliminating good uses of time. And that's what makes it hard.”
What’s a good use of time that’s preventing what could be a great use of time?