Living Life in Perpetual Beta

Technology companies often keep products in beta for a short period of time. During this time the team is experimenting with features, trying new things and figuring out what the product will turn out before they finally release it.

I just turned 30 and looking around I notice that most of my peers have published the final version of their software. All the important decisions of their lives have been sorted out — Where we want to live, who we want to live with, what career we want to pursue.

By 30, life 1.0 is officially out and is very likely that it will be the last version of the software. Most people are done with education by this age. Done with exploration. Done with personal transformation. They are who they are.

But is it too early to come out of beta?

At 30 years of age, you have only been an adult for 12 years. Assuming an average expectancy of 80, that is just 20% of one’s adult life.

At 20% of a movie, the plot has not yet started. We are still learning about the hero. At 20% on your trip to Europe, you are just getting over the jet lag and entering exploration mode.

20% is just the beginning. It is the point when exploration really kicks into high gear. You should be looking out for twists and turns that will change the trajectory of the journey. Life is just getting interesting.

Coming out of beta at such an early stage often leads to what biologists call “Premature optimization”. In evolution “premature optimization” occurs when a species quickly optimizes for a particular environment and then when the world changes all of its optimizations are rendered useless.

Like a giraffe who finds itself in a world where all trees are 5 feet tall, when we optimize early, we take away power from our future selves. We are imprisoning our future selves to the decisions the younger, immature version of ourselves made.

We forget to take into account that we change over time. Our tastes change. Our skill sets change. Our values change. And more importantly, the world changes.

Leave your life in beta for as long as possible. Let your future self make some decisions for you, trust me, he is smarter than you.

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