If just finished reading his article https://jamesclear.com/entropy and had the thought that designing anything in life is about minimising the probably of things going wrong. And not instead about forcing things to go right.
When all of us go about designing things, we focus on how to DO things, however good design is about preventing the things we don’t wat. Trains stations in Japan are well designed because they have barriers stopping people falling onto the tracks, not because they have cool stairs.
People with good self control are the same. They are not superior at forcing themselves to do things, but removing the ability to not do them.
Entropy is a probability, and that probability states that there are only a handful of ways things can go right, but a bazillion ways that they can go wrong. I think I’ve realised that in life we have a higher probability of succeeding if we aim to reduce the negative things that are more likely, than persue the handful of positives that are unlikely.
Finding a partner is the same, what is more likely… that you will figure out your date is “the one” on the first date, or that you will have misaligned interests and world views and not be a match? Therefore what makes more sense to do…
1.go on more dates to get through the bad dates at a faster rate (increase volume ask everyone out and see if they are a match)
2. Look for dates in places where people will have aligned interests? (Rock climbing gym, book clubs, acting classes)
I hope you realise that it is the latter. You could spend a lifetime going on dates with 3.5 billion women and “the one” will never be found as you will die first. But it would not take long at all to meet 70 women in a book club and find the one.
By controlling a way to reduce the most likely outcome (bad dates), you massively increase the likelihood that you will get what you want (a perfect match).