Page 90 of Ideal Life

“It’s that I don’t have to do everything right the first time. I was really inspired by how you and Libby came up with a way to rethink Ideal Life and your own careers. I mean, my revelation was smaller; I’d totally screwed up a date with a woman that I really liked. But then I got a second chance by simply apologizing. And now we’re together.”

“Wow,” Talia said. “That’s wonderful—congratulations!”

After that talk, it was very apparent that Erin had begun re-centering herself. She even started coming into the office at a normal hour, rather than way before anyone else. It was a great first step.

So now it was Talia’s turn.

On Sunday, she drove out to the coast. She hadn’t spoken to Sam since the Summer Million tournament last weekend and didn’t know if he’d be willing to see her after how she’d betrayed their friendship, but she had to try. Because it turned out that mentoring was a two-way street, and she had learned something from her own intern—sometimes, you can get a redo in life just by communicating better. No watch needed.

Talia hoped that a peace offering from Taco Bell for Sunday Lunch would be a start.

Weekend traffic to the beach during summer was a bit of a bear, though, so Talia had plenty of time to think while she inched along Highway 92, and right now, she was pondering something Libby had said: You’ve always had such a good heart, on top of being smart. If there is anyone who can actually make a positive difference in this crazy world, it’s you.

But had Talia achieved that? Or had Ideal Life started veering off course, caught up in the momentum of its own success? Her initial concept for Ideal Life had sprouted from good intentions, but Talia hadn’t paused since then to ask herself whether it was still achieving what she wanted—to improve other people’s lives, not make them worse.

She could see now that too much focus on self-improvement could sometimes grow into a burden rather than a boon. People weren’t video game characters who constantly and eternally had to level up.

Sam had tried to warn her that she was stuck in a cycle like that, never able to be happy with how her past had unfurled or always apprehensive about how she would act in the future. There had been no space for Talia to be just Talia. To let life simply be what it was going to be.

So maybe Ideal Life, the company, needed to shift gears to match this revelation.

Big Tech and Silicon Valley were sometimes painted as soulless capitalistic machines. But Talia knew there were a lot of wonderful, truly morally upstanding individuals who worked here. Like in any field, though, it took effort to remain dedicated to being good. And Talia wanted to be that person, the woman that her sister believed she could be.

What if, instead of trying to “improve” ourselves, we use Ideal Life to help map and reinforce existing positive neural pathways? she thought as she reached the end of Highway 92. The beach opened up in front of her, and she turned onto Highway 1 to head up the coast to Taco Bell.

When Talia was a doctoral student, she had read a study about the amygdalas of young people and elderly people. Those who were young focused on both the good and the bad, but the older study participants had trained their brains to focus on the positive aspects of their lives and memories, and they reported higher levels of satisfaction and happiness than the younger participants. It was scientific verification that what you pay attention to creates the world you live in.

Ideal Life could encourage that for more people—it could help identify the moments when people felt content or happy, when they were satisfied with who they were or enjoying what they were doing. No need to think about what else they should be doing or needed to be.

You are already enough.

Talia smiled.

At Taco Bell, Talia asked the cashier to push three random buttons for Sam’s order, in hopes that he’d be amused by the surprise. But then, before she was about to recite her own order of the same soft taco, nachos, and cinnamon twists that she’d gotten for Sunday Lunch over the course of the last fifteen years, she hesitated.

This had been her go-to meal because she knew it was optimized. But today, she wanted to loosen the tight hold she’d tried to keep on every aspect of her life.

“Push three more random buttons, please,” she said to the cashier. “I’ll eat whatever comes up.”

At Lighthouse Books, Kenneth told her that Sam wasn’t in, that he’d gone to the beach.

“Do you know which beach?” The coast stretched on for ages.

Kenneth shook his head. “Sorry… He just said he wanted some peace and quiet where there were no other people.”

“Ah… then I think I might know where he is.”

Talia

She wedged herself into the narrow crevice in the cliffs, scooting herself deeper into the rock.

A couple of meters in, the space angled right and opened up into a small cave. Sam sat on the far side, reading, his back propped against the wall with a blanket as a pillow.

Talia’s chest clenched, and she hovered in the entrance. Would he want to see her?

“Hey,” she said quietly.

Sam looked up at her.