Life of Artificially Calculated Pie
A proxy for whether it was a good or bad year is the number of qualifying life events, a term well known to W-2 employees of the Man as the only earthly happenstance that allows you to change insurance outside of open enrollment. I escaped 2025 with just one — getting fired in July — and arguably the best of the bunch compared to death, divorce or a camelback-breaking-haystack of a third child.
I would have liked to stay at that company for many more years, but the new gig is better in some ways. At age 41, my career identity has come into clearer focus. I have some smarts and work ethic, likely ensuring a decent baseline of salary and stimulation depending on how the A.I. hype materializes. But I won’t be climbing any ladders, starting companies or crushing beyond what’s in my assigned corner.
The limiting factor as far as I can tell is an introversion deep to the core. I do not enjoy being around people and take my sweet time to recharge afterwards. I don’t like bumping into parents at pickup, double dates, being asked questions when I’m just trying to be, listening to people talk as if they’ve just emerged from solitary confinement, really even leaving the house and putting on clothes other than elastic shorts on top of Fruit of the Loom boxer briefs (workout day), J.Crew boxers (rest day) or Calvin Klein boxer briefs (sexy day or more likely, laundry day).
The thought of managing people and a calendar full of 1-on-1’s and stakeholder meetings feels like painful work, while building and learning in software without human distraction can be satisfying exercise for my aging brain. Hopefully A.I. comes with the proper manners to replace this exercise it has already started to take away. In the interim, I seem to be on a predisposed path as an individual contributor that provides a nice living but doesn’t reach remarkable heights.
Perhaps because of this — or more likely causation flows the other way — I’ve realized my life pie has pretty even distribution. To feel good about how things are going, I need a diversity of purpose.
If a disclaimer is needed, this pie chart is the only thing on the entire blog generated by A.I. so far. The abs below were aided by overhead lighting and enough distance to show definition, but this should be excused given the pic was taken mid-holiday bingeing season after my little neighborhood gym was closed for six weeks for repairs.
I feel like a fraud because as I type this my midsection is a bit Jiggly Puff. I will be shredded in 2026, and the hot chicas will flock and spend three hours chatting online with me every day.
Putting work into body and mind monopolizes typical New Year’s resolutions, but I encourage a meta resolution of examining resolutions. (Is that how you use the word? “Inception” was hard for me to follow.)
This requires an honest assessment of who you are and what you want. You might be an entrepreneur or C-suiter hardwired to be at 95 percent career, or you might be one who would benefit from taking it down to 80 percent and getting high blood pressure under control. You might be a stay-at-home mom who joyfully lives for the kids at 100 percent, or you might be one with some room to play with diminishing returns and reallocate 20 percent to find a new outlet.
For me, 40 percent family might seem shamefully low. It’s worth noting the pie is proportional to how you want to spend your time and drive rather than how much you value these things, although the cynic might say we’re splitting hairs here. I certainly love my kids a lot more than 33 percent more than my job. I also certainly would rather spend 40 hours a week in an office than 50-plus hours raising them.
I don’t have the stamina to win Dad of the Year, although I can contend for shorter time segments. My strength is to dial in and go really hard playing, nurturing, bonding, teaching life lessons like defense wins championships:
And let a parent intervene when a stranger makes you feel special and extends an invitation to his inner thigh:
My weakness is the same introversion that enforces a career ceiling. Obviously hanging with my family doesn’t require turning up like in the outside world, but I still need quite a bit of Me time. Whereas I can be around the wifey all day, the children are a double uppercut to the face of both taking away Me time and creating more inherent need for it. Quicker than most, I reach a point of exhaustion or saturation where each passing minute becomes more insufferable.
It’s possible I can be a better father by knowing my limits rather than blindly pushing against them, and also possible this is just a way to rationalize a shortcoming. There is something to be said this time of the new year though for thinking about how you should slice your pie before getting after it.