Removing friction is how rich people end up losing agency and human IQ It starts with Uber-everywhere, grocery delivery, all-inclusive holidays, then private driver, chef, assistant etc… without noticing you’re also removing exposure to reality I see this in London with young ambitious professionals aka HENRYs (High Earners Not Rich Yet) trying to remove every tiny friction from life so they can focus on work + gym + sleep + money, while forgetting that a lot of the “inefficient” shit they’re deleting (cooking, walking somewhere, random talks etc) is also just… being a human in your 20s/30s The thing is you’re not only saving time, you’re removing thousands of tiny reps of dealing with the world. Finding the place, fixing the booking, working out what to do when the train gets cancelled, asking someone for help, improvising because the plan is fucked. None of these makes you smarter on its own, but remove basically all of them for 10 years and I’d be surprised if it has zero effect. You can become incredibly high-agency at work while weirdly low-agency at normal life It’s why so many high-agency rich people are deliberately paying to add friction back into their lives (difficult travel, long treks, sailing, marathons, remote places, silent retreats, climbing mountains, etc). They’ve understood that once comfort is abundant, difficulty becomes scarce. The luxury good eventually becomes optional hardship. The distinction is agency. Being forced to walk 10km because your car broke down sucks. Choosing to hike 20km in Patagonia feels meaningful The way I think about it personally is just aggressively remove boring / repetitive friction, while keeping a decent amount of unpredictable friction. I’ll happily pay more for the direct flight, live centrally to kill a commute, outsource cleaning/admin, take the Uber if it genuinely saves 40 mins. A 15-min annoyance x300 a year is actually expensive. There is absolutely no hidden life lesson in doing your laundry for the 800th time or spending 2h getting somewhere you could reach in 30 mins Think the objective of wealth shouldn’t be zero friction, but simply choosing your friction. Basically removing all the boring shit so you can expose yourself to more of the interesting stuff