"Leisure: Giving You the Right to Say I Want It All"

This article is Lu Canwei's 78th original piece.

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When we go traveling, if we are carrying a large suitcase, we consider whether we need to go for a run when we get there, rather than whether the suitcase can fit an extra pair of running shoes. If it can't fit, then we have to decide what to give up. This is a trade-off mindset, similar to what we understand as a zero-sum game.

It is a way of thinking triggered by scarcity. When we start to overly focus on unmet needs, we encounter decision-making dilemmas. The most common example is when we buy something, we can’t buy something else, so we begin to weigh which item is more beneficial to us.

This leads us to another concept: slack.

For example, time slack means arriving at the airport two hours early instead of rushing to catch a flight. Of course, even though I set aside slack time two weeks ago, I ended up writing an article at the airport, which caused me to overly focus and enter a narrow-minded state (what focus dividends and narrow-mindedness bring us), neglecting the boarding time, resulting in me boarding just before the door closed.

Money slack is also easy to understand; it means my budget exceeds what I need to buy, giving me a lot of flexibility in my choices. Here, slack also includes mental slack. For instance, we often talk about clearing our minds; at that time, we can easily handle other matters. However, if our minds are filled with various issues, any interruption will throw us into a state of chaos.

Slack can liberate us from various trade-offs. Like what everyone wants to say about financial freedom, it is the hope that we can be liberated from money, at least not having to think about whether to add a chicken leg when ordering takeout. Research shows that the proportion of wealthy people who do not keep accounts is more than twice that of ordinary people because they can hire a financial planner to help them keep track.

Scientists have studied two different types of bees. Honey bees can build perfect hexagons, with each layer of the hive wall being less than 0.1 millimeters thick, with a deviation of only 0.002 millimeters. This means a tolerance of 2%. What does that mean? The allowable tolerance for the width of prefabricated inner laminated boards used in construction, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is 10%.

The other type is mud bees, whose hives are cylindrical and very irregular. Their building material is mud, while honey bees use beeswax. You can probably guess who the wealthy one is.

So, is more slack always better? I believe everyone has experienced situations like this: for example, during a holiday, we set some plans for ourselves, then sleep in until we wake up naturally, only to look at the time and continue to lounge in bed. While doing things, we might get up to pour some water, remember a friend and send a WeChat message, then watch something on Bilibili, and in the end, time runs out, and we only managed to start our originally packed schedule.

Of course, slack does not mean inefficiency. For example, we might hear a friend say that a nice suitor is pursuing her; in this case, there is a high probability that the two will develop into a couple. However, if you hear her say that there are two nice suitors pursuing her, you will find that while A has its merits, B is not bad either, and in the end, you will discover that your friend is still single.

Slack allows us to easily avoid the burden of choice. Everyone likes to say that only children make choices; when you become an adult, you have the right not to make choices, and you can also choose to say: I want them all.

Why do software development projects often get delayed? It is because there are many misestimated times in software development, and slack is not considered. So when the project starts to get delayed, we can only use the remaining time to make up for it. When we are almost done, we find that the next project is nearing delivery...

The essence of scarcity is the lack of slack.

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