There exists an important distinction between correlation and causality. Starting early in 2010 through this writing (March 2011) I was looking to separate which of my behaviors caused me to be in an optimal physical and mental state (henceforth OPM) and which behaviors simply correlated with it.

An example of correlation is going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day. I can only do this after I’ve reached a state of OPM and I generally stop right around the time I leave that state. While it does make me feel great, if I’m not already at OPM and I want to be (I always want to be) setting this as a goal is not likely to accomplish anything.

I have found many things that simply correlate with OPM. But after a year of looking, I have found 10 rules that help cause that desired state. They are not yet perfect, and I hope to release an update to them, but, well – see rule #4.

I’ve written an explanation for each rule to help explain why I chose it and why I think it is causal. Some of the rules are actions to be taken often (ideally daily). Others are techniques for creating a state of OPM and protecting it from things like procrastination, lack of focus and being tired.

1.     Exercise
2.     Take a nap
3.     Eat something healthy and drink water every two hours you’re awake
4.     Good sooner is better than perfect later – the first does not preclude the second
5.     Big or persistent problems should be broken into smaller problems
6.     Any thing you want to remember should be written down
7.     To learn a thing – do it. To master a thing – do it for many years
8.     You have no will-power. Bribe, incentivize and trick yourself
9.     Take your hobbies seriously
10.     Balance is more important than any individual success or failure

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Often language falls short of its goal of allowing us to communicate a concept. When this happens we create new words to address the situation. I have three concepts that I would like the word-smiths to address.

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I am simply going to link to this article because I think he is completely right on every point.

http://railstips.org/blog/archives/2010/01/12/i-have-no-talent/

We’re number one, actually more like fourteenth. In a diverse set of statistics, we come up fourteenth (or very near by) for an awful lot of things. As you look at education in a variety of ways, we’re about #14. Church attendance, 14. Per Capita income, 14. Taxation, actually taxation is way too complicated to have any one number bear much meaning, so I’m going to arbitrarily choose 14. The two things that we really have going for us in the “We’re #1″ category are that we have the largest GDP and the largest military spending. But that gets offset by our largest carbon footprint per Capita and highest level of obesity. We also have the highest gun ownership per capita, take that how you will. One place where we fall far behind where we should is in health care. Pretty much however you cut it, we’re below #30. I think we can reclaim our rightful position around #14 in life expectancy, child mortality, health system ranking and obesity. That’s a good goal to strive for.

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In programming you deal a lot with abstractions. Computer code is very complex but repeats certain patterns over and over, so we abstract those patterns away to a single thing. Occasionally these abstractions break down – this is called a leaky abstraction. The thing is, as I look at the world I’ve noticed that abstractions are by no means the sole domain of programmers, they are the rule. Every thing is built on abstractions. The one that fascinates me is our social structure. I was introduced to this by a friend reading Hobbes’s Leviathan (which I have not read). The basic premise of the book is that a whole bunch of people working together are far more powerful than any individual. And even many weaker individuals have more strength when combined than a few stronger individuals.

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I’ve been working on this article for a while, but the New York Times beat me to it. The unchanging, manicured, suburban lawn, I hate it. Not just for what it is, but for what it suppresses. I, like so many other, do give in to the social pressures and put forth the minimal effort in caring for my lawn, but I must take this opportunity to plea for a change. We should all just stop. I promise – nothing bad will happen, but we have the potential for much good. Our current methods employ a damaging two stroke engine, load of toxic chemicals all in a pursuit that distorts our view of nature and wastes our time.

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I don’t know a lot about economics so I may be way off base here, but I think something interesting is going to happen when we start shifting to electric cars. First, my axiom – I believe that when we start shifting to electric cars it’s going to be an accelerating process. This is because many people will genuinely enjoy having electric cars (no oil changes, no stopping for gas, linear torque curve) others will want the latest gadget, they may even be cheaper (than combustion) with in a few years of adoption. This is where my theory comes into play. Everything associated with fossil fuel cars will rapidly depreciate in value as this transition happens. 10% fewer gas cars on the road will mean 10% less gas sales. This will cause a number of gas stations with low profitability to close. The customers who frequented those stations are now inconvenienced. Mechanics will face the trouble. Even if they try and liquidate, the very tools necessary to service a combustion engine will be worth less (only a little less at first, but over time…). Fewer gas stations, fewer mechanics will start to make combustion engines an inconvenience, further driving people to electrics.

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I’ve had an interest in energy since I was young. I saw estimates that oil reserves would run out in my lifetime and became intrigued as to what that would be like. I love high gas prices. Every time that gas goes up, money is dumped into alternative research, and the gap between those alternatives and fossil fuels decreases. Of course the huge negative to high prices that I must highlight is that they have disproportionately negative effect on the poor.

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My mother has a wonderful habit of giving very little unsolicited advice. This is something I try to emulated. When she gives me advice, I listen. I’m not talking about deep pearls of wisdom, I’m talking about things like, use bleach to clean the bathroom ceiling once every six months. She’ll give me a few of these gems every year, and that’s about it. But they always end up making my life much easier, so I take them. A lot of other people give me unsolicited advice constantly, and it becomes too difficult to choose what advice is good and what advice is bad, so I take very little, or none, of it. If you only give a few of your best pieces of advice, people will take them. As soon as your advice starts slipping into the mediocre or overwhelming range, people will stop listening.

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