The Privilege of Picking Problems

The Privilege of Picking Problems A close friend recently told me his dad believed you can never get the perfect amount of mustard on your pretzel. It is always too much or too little. I thought this was a stupid joke until I reached the part of life where I get to pick the mustard. It turns out picking is harder than complaining. For most of us in our lives, the next step is obvious enough to mistake for destiny. High school. College. Job. Promotion. Better job. Harder problems. Better title. The rails are not always pleasant, but they are rails. You can complain about the train while still being grateful that someone else had laid the track. Then one day the rails end and people call it freedom. Freedom sounds great until you realize it means you have to choose your own constraints. If you have spent your life optimizing, this is where the real problem starts. You have to pick the objective function yourself. No rubric. No institution. No clean next step. Just you, your weird little…