There is a term I have been thinking of over the past few days and I think I have finally nailed it. I use “Cornhole lifestyle” to describe a very particular career path that involves optimizing for: buying a house in the suburbs, making decent $, building a large family, eating healthy, traveling on occasion and playing cornhole.
I will start by explaining the final point: playing cornhole. Cornhole is one of my favorite games. It is an outdoor lawn game that you play by throwing bags into a hole – very simple! But why bring it up?
I use cornhole as a signifier for a very particular type of lifestyle. To follow this lifestyle, you probably want to be good at climbing ladders, joining big companies, and building out your personal brand. If successful, this can be a very attractive lifestyle that affords many of the modern world’s greatest luxuries.
Whenever I think about my future, I like to use different lenses to understand how things could evolve should I invest all my resources in a particular manner.
This “cornhole lifestyle” is actually not something I am not optimizing for at this moment. My next 6 months will be some of the hardest of my entire life. There are so so many unknowns and even unknown unknowns for which I still do not understand.
The only certainty is that I am continuing to surround myself with people and opportunities that are making me a better, sharper person. I continue to work on the things I care about and am interested in and believe will have a large impact on the future.