Best version of oneself? Optimizing in life?

The above can't be answered. Yet this is something which thinkers and philosophers have tried to answer across eons and timelines. And honestly, I wonder if there’s ever been a single human being who hasn’t spent years tangled in its complexity. If one has a conversation about this with friends or in public - no party can defend its position. The conversation inevitably spirals into an askance, because the very nature of the question is circular.

Take Mike Tyson: He is a lot of things. Google him up and you will see all kinds of praises and abuses hurled at him. Yet he never seems to vanish from the public eye. He has a knack for coming back. Some might say, having a broken family life is no barter for the public eye. True.

The question here is, who am I to ask this question? Neither the regret nor the guilt which Tyson faces is quantifiable. A third person can never understand what he is going through; for Tyson alone is the man in the arena. If women, cocaine and drugs are making it easy for him - who am I to comment on the man in the arena. Are there lessons to be learnt there? Yes. Is he an archetype? Yes. Did he throw the toughest punches ever? Yes. Is he a cautionary tale? Yes. Am I in a position to comment about him? No.

Which brings me to this: some people just shouldn’t be judged. Now they say, passion is brilliant. Yes it is. I can attest to this because I am ambitious and passionate. But passion isn’t easy at all. It’s like cigarettes—yeah, it delivers nicotine, but it also wrecks you. Passion pushes you forward, but at the cost of empathy, or worse, sympathy. Imagine this: you get a text from a needy person for a job. The word to note here is needy not job. A passionate person won’t reply to the text. A good & helpful person will. Also a passionate person will not send a text like that if they know that their present situation is a construct of their skill set or the lack thereof.

“The higher man is distinguished from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune.” (The Will to Power, Friedrich Nietzsche)

There’s wisdom in that. A man can face adversity without losing his core, and maybe that’s the difference between passion-driven success and the ability to stay human or to be able to optimise for more stuff.

Kunal Shah talks about slow currencies of life. Although in the context which he speaks has got more to do with entrepreneurship yet it can be horizontally applied to different walks of life. There is a slight Nietzschean view to it to be honest. A passionate person is willing to put all the slow currencies of life at risk - why should Elon be worried about pissing off other people when he has got Mars to worry about? But ultimately, that’s a personal choice.

“The concept of greatness entails being noble, wanting to be by oneself, being able to be different, standing alone and having to live independently.” (Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche)

There is merit in the middle path/noble eightfold path(?????????????????) too - balancing family, kids, savings, and retirement etc. Honestly, I haven’t thought much about it. It’s not in my top three priorities right now. Maybe that’s just how I’m wired. If I don’t do what I’ve planned, I wouldn’t be able to raise a happy kid anyway. All the retirement corpus in the world isn’t going to make me content.

‘Finally—this is what is most terrible of all—the concept of the good man signifies that one sides with all that is weak, sick, failure, suffering of itself…the principle of selection is crossed—an ideal is fabricated from the contradiction against the proud and well-turned-out human being who says Yes, who is sure of the future, who guarantees the future—and he is now called evil.— And all this was believed, as morality!” (Ecce Homo, Friedrich Nietzsche)

Checking boxes, optimsing for more or morality and other associated words, in that sense, is often skewed.

Ultimately, the question of how to become the best version of oneself remains elusive, and perhaps it is not one that should/can be answered definitively. Passion and ambition, though powerful forces, carry both rewards and consequences. Just as Mike Tyson reflects both greatness and flaws, the path to personal success is often a balance of letting go and holding close.

Nietzsche offers a lens through which we can reconsider the concept of greatness, reminding us that true strength lies in our ability to face adversity without losing sight of who we are. Yet, it is also essential to recognize that the pursuit of passion can sometimes blind us to the needs of others, making empathy just as important as drive. The middle path—one of balance, empathy, and long-term thinking—may not appeal to me so much in this sense, but it is valid and often necessary for true fulfillment.

Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all formula for getting what you want out of your life. It is a personal journey, shaped by our unique values and circumstances, and only we can define what it means to be the best version of ourselves.

One should celebrate and not condemn the kind of folks who exist! And also let's not attempt to answer the question.