Fitness trackers! Efficiency compactors! Productivity maximizers! Optimization obsessives of all shape, gender and addiction level! I have some news: It’s not going to work.

You will never be efficient enough. You will never get everything done. You will never perform sufficient quantities of pull-ups to impress Jesus and you will never climb enough steps per day, perfect your sleep habits, eat just the right amount of carbs versus proteins, maximize your core workout regimen, pack a five day work-week into four. How silly you are! What’s more, you will die, miserable and largely unfulfilled, trying.

Do you know why? That’s easy: Because life is not a goal. All the masters, wise ones, Buddhas since just about forever agree: Life is many things, but one thing it is not is merely a set of challenges to be overcome, a series of bulls-t obstacles placed in your way by a bored, sadistic God, an endlessly scrolling To-Do list with a coffin at the end.

Are you disappointed? Life is not, in short, a competition; you versus me, you versus the urban jungle, you versus your body, your day, your kids, your task list, the planet, time itself – all of it an antagonistic, perhaps even violent dash to make sure you snare a pile of fool’s gold before someone else and oh, the shame, if/when you fail.