I have been professionally employed for the last 4,015 days straight.

For over a decade, I’ve built teams, managed campaigns, and learned to keep pace with the constant motion of modern work. It was rewarding, even exciting at times, but gradually it began to feel like I was running inside a well-built system without ever questioning why it had to run this fast. The idea of stopping felt unnecessary, almost dangerous.

So now, I have decided to take 180 days off. Not to escape work, but to understand my relationship with it.

Around this time, I revisited a lecture by Professor Ben Polak at Yale. He was explaining the Prisoner’s Dilemma, a concept in game theory that shows how rational people, acting in their own best interest, can end up collectively worse off. He summed it up simply: rational is not equal to optimal.

The same logic applies to how we work and live. We all pick what seems rational: stability, growth, compounding, and together we create a culture that’s tired, anxious, and quietly unfulfilled.

We’ve built an economy around being right. Choosing the right degree, the right company, the right habits, the right routines. But the right thing isn’t always the optimal thing.