Protect what matters
Reactive Engineering isn't the way to build the life you want.
Why aren’t you living the life you want? I’ll take a guess that it’s the same as me:
You haven’t really pictured the life you want.
Creating that vision is hard.
Doing hard things takes focus.
Focus requires time and space.
Neither of which we can ever seem to create.
Because there are too many distractions.
And—most uncomfortable of all—life is, actually, just good enough.
What's held me back from greatness has been achieving good-enoughness. I have food, water, shelter, a partner I love, friends who nourish me, hobbies that challenge and excite me, and a career that more than pays the bills.
Maslow would be proud.
But I'll be honest—I want other things that bring me deeper fulfillment. With the time I have left on Earth, I want to spread the word of how broken our idea of friendship is—why it’s so hard to make new friends and keep old ones—and help others address the disconnection they feel in our current “hyperconnected” world. I want to build a business around these ideas and spread them far and wide.
And I know it'll take enormous time, effort, and energy.
Or, I could just book that wine weekend in Santa Barbara with my friends. That would be just good enough.
Fuck.
So let’s talk about the magic of reverse engineering.
We reverse-engineer all the time on a day-to-day basis, mostly in regards to deadlines. If you’ve got a flight at 6pm, you reverse engineer your day to get you there on time. “Flight’s at 6pm, need to be there at the airport 4:30pm, order my Uber at 3:30pm, need to be done packing by 3pm, head out to get lunch at noon,” etc. etc.
But instead of just focusing on a single trip to the airport, let’s reverse engineer life itself by asking this one elegantly challenging question:
What is my ideal Tuesday?
Close your eyes for 10 seconds and picture that Tuesday.
And if you can’t set aside 10 seconds—or set aside the defensive, “this is silly” ego voice in your head—then you might as well give up on all of this shit.
[10 second pause. Because you aren’t giving up on all of this shit.]
Now think about three specific things from that Tuesday vision:
What time did you wake up, and how did that feel?
What was the most meaningful part of your day?
What was completely absent that usually clutters your current Tuesdays?
These three answers become your decision filter. When someone invites you to that 11pm Tuesday night poker game, you check: does this get me closer to waking up at 7am feeling rested? When you're tempted to scroll TikTok at lunch, you ask: is this the meaningful activity I pictured, or the clutter I wanted to eliminate?
The point is most of us have never done this kind of intentional, life-design sort of exercise. Instead, we’re engineering on the fly, reacting to whatever life throws at us.
It’s the reverse of reverse engineering. I call it Reactive Engineering. It’s the default state most of us live in. Without a vision to work toward, we have no filter for decisions—everything that comes into our life feels equally valid, even the stuff that's obviously bad for us.
Doomscrolling for a few hours after work might leave us feeling depleted, antisocial, and restless as we try to get some sleep later that night. But why would we uninstall Instagram or TikTok if we can’t even picture the life we’re trying to build?
There’s no reason to, because there’s no vision to head toward. Doomscroll away. We’re reactive engineering.
Partying hard on Saturday night might fuck our Sunday up. But why would we say “no” to Tim’s birthday at GOATSACK—the hottest new bar in L.A. where you literally drink cocktails from the udders of a live goat—if we can’t even picture the life we’re trying to build?
There’s no reason to, because there’s no vision to head toward. The goat at the end of the bar is our Mezcal goat, so if you want something smoky, that’s the teat to suck.
Reverse engineering is how you avoid drift. Instead of reacting to whatever shows up, you start with a high-definition1 vision of the life you actually want—then work backwards to figure out what actions, habits, and choices will get you there.
And unless your ideal Tuesday is waking up and wanting to immediately be sucked into the psychological horror of the worst of what’s happening all over the world, I don’t think “scrolling social media” will be on your list.
The vision of your life becomes the filter for every decision you make.
It’s easier to say “no” to sucking a goat teat on Saturday if you know it’ll cost you a Sunday you need in order to prep for a potential life-changing meeting you have on Monday.
It’s easier to say “yes” to a meeting with someone you respect when you know you want to work in that same field.
And you know the specific company you want to work at.
And you know the specific role you’re hoping to land.
And you know three specific people that you’re hoping to get introduced to.
This isn’t manifestation. It’s creating clarity.
And clarity makes decisions easier.
So protect what matters.
What matters?
You.
Your time.
Time is the only truly finite resource in the universe. And the cruel twist? You don't even know how much of it you have. It's like having a bank account where you can't check the balance, and you just have to hope there's enough to retire. But at any moment, you overdraft.
And you're dead.
So what the fuck are you waiting for? Keep thinking about your ideal Tuesday—maybe write it out hour-by-hour, in excruciatingly vivid detail. Then, for the next seven days, before making any significant decision—what to watch, where to go, how to spend your evening—ask yourself: “Does this move me toward or away from that Tuesday?”
Or you can just keep doing what you’ve been doing.
It’s probably just good enough, anyway.
Just keep it at 24fps, please, none of this sports mode bullshit.
Incredibly inspiring as always Jess💙💙💙