To Choose Something Is to Give Up Something [Essentialism #QuoteNote80]

Here is the quote I would like to introduce this time!!

Choosing something means simultaneously abandoning other options, and this suggests that it is important to understand the meaning behind that choice. This can be said to succinctly express the essence of a 'trade-off'.

Trade-off refers to a relationship that cannot coexist. It means that 'if you choose one side, you lose the other.' In other words, it refers to a relationship where 'to achieve one thing, you must sacrifice the other.'

The person who said it

Greg McKeown is an author, speaker, and business strategy consultant from London, England. He currently lives in California with his wife and four children.

He has been selected as a 'Young Global Leader' by the World Economic Forum and has lectured at over 500 companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Nike. His podcast, 'The Greg McKeown Podcast,' is among the top five most popular in the self-improvement category. His books and work have been featured in many major media outlets, including The New York Times and Harvard Business Review.

A leading expert on Essentialism

In his books and lectures, he advocates for Essentialism, a way of thinking about living with less but better. This is the idea of focusing time, energy, and effort on the most important goals by identifying what is essential and eliminating everything else that is unnecessary.

Education

After earning a bachelor's degree in communications and journalism from Brigham Young University, he obtained an MBA from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. He also earned a certificate in global leadership and public policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is currently conducting doctoral research at the University of Cambridge.

Career

In his career, he serves as the CEO of McKeown, Inc., a leadership and strategy design agency that bears his name. Previously, he was part of the Global Leadership Practice at Heidrick & Struggles, a global leadership consulting firm. He also has experience as an instructor at Stanford University's d.school.

'To choose something is to give up something'

The phrase 'To choose something is to give up something' that I am introducing this time is a quote that succinctly expresses the essence of a 'trade-off'.

People always have 'differences' such as their innate abilities, physical characteristics, the environment in which they were raised, and their past experiences. However, the only thing that never changes is the fact that everyone is given the same 'time': 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

Whether it is a hobby, reviewing lifestyle habits, developing skills, or work, when people try to start something new, many first think about 'adding' something to their current life. However, if you really want to start something new and master it, the first thing you should think about is 'what should I subtract' from your current life.

This is because while time is given equally to everyone, it is also equally 'finite' for everyone. No matter how talented you are or how wealthy you are, time ticks away moment by moment.

Trade-off refers to a relationship that cannot coexist. It means that 'if you choose one side, you lose the other.'If you want to gain something, you must first give something up.

The story of how I reclaimed my life by quitting coffee

As of 2025, I am in my late thirties, barely hanging on to my thirties, but from two years ago until the end of last year, I was plagued by unexplained fatigue around the clock.

No matter how much I slept, I was sleepy, and on my commute, if I could get a seat, I would fall asleep immediately both on the way there and on the way back. There were many times when I felt like I was going to fall asleep even while standing on the train.

Regarding the work I had to do, my concentration would not last at all, and I spent my days just barely managing to finish the tasks that absolutely could not be dropped. I managed to continue my weekly hobby of swimming, but both my work and personal life were just routines I was barely getting through, and I had almost no vitality to try anything new.

It felt as if a translucent plastic sheet had been placed over my vision and brain, or as if I were keeping my eyes open while underwater—transparent but murky.

In fact, I was troubled by daily headaches, a constant sense of heartburn, a feeling of restlessness, and occasionally, I was also plagued by unexplained heart palpitations.

While half-resigned, thinking, 'Is it because of my age...?', I was also driven by anxiety, wondering what the rest of my life would be like if I didn't have this much energy before turning forty. And in my heart, I intuitively felt that it wasn't my age, but rather some kind of disorder in my body or mind, as I knew many people much older than me who were still active and energetic.

To overcome my poor health, I first thought about what I could 'add.' Meditation, eating more dietary fiber, trying to increase my exercise time... I tried everything that seemed good for my body, but the effects were mediocre.

That was when

I encountered this phrase, and the sudden realization became the catalyst for a turn for the better.

I had been thinking only about 'what I should add' to overcome my poor physical condition, but I gained the idea of trying to think about 'what I should stop' instead.

Since I was already doing a certain amount of exercise every day, I narrowed my target down to my eating habits.

• Eating too much at dinner

• Drinking too much on nights when I have a drink

By improving these areas, the situation gradually improved. In exchange for 'health,' I gave up the pleasure of 'eating dinner until I was full' and the pleasure of 'drinking as much alcohol as I liked.' It was truly a trade-off.

However, although my physical condition improved slightly, it was still not perfect, and I intuitively knew there was room for improvement. So, the last thing I operated on was 'questioning my habit of drinking coffee'.

At the time, I was drinking 5 to 6 cups of coffee a day. Since I drank it black without adding anything, I shouldn't have been consuming too much sugar. It is a common theory that the caffeine in coffee takes 8 to 10 hours to leave the body, so it had become a habit for me to drink 5 to 6 cups between waking up in the morning and my lunch break.

The reason I started drinking so much coffee in the first place was the result of adopting a certain kind of 'health method.' Feeling fatigued from my daily work, and because I originally liked drinking coffee, there was a period when I gathered information only about the positive aspects of coffee.

Indeed, coffee has many benefits.

• First of all, I like the taste and aroma

• It has a high polyphenol content

• Increased concentration due to caffeine

These were the kinds of things I thought, but in reality, caffeine didn't actually increase my concentration; it was only after I quit coffee that I realized it had just been heightening my sensitivity to external stimuli.

I blindly focused only on the benefits of coffee, believing the information that it was fine to drink as much as I wanted as long as I stopped by my lunch break, and I just kept drinking it. I had no awareness of it at the time, but now I clearly understand that I had fallen into a coffee addiction. It was a dependency.

If I drank 5 or 6 cups of coffee just in the morning...

I would end up going to the bathroom many times due to its diuretic effect. There is information that coffee is good for internal organs (especially the liver and kidneys) in moderate amounts, but consuming it in large quantities forces those organs to work harder than necessary to process it, which can lead to fatigue accumulating from within the body.

Between muscle fatigue and internal organ fatigue, internal organ fatigue generally takes longer to recover from. Drinking 5 or 6 cups of coffee just in the morning means my internal organs were working continuously throughout the morning. Since recovery cannot keep up with the fatigue that accumulates daily, the fatigue inevitably continues to increase.

The 'lack of vitality' and 'overwhelming sense of fatigue' I felt in my late 30s were SOS signals from my internal organs, and while there must have been multiple factors, excessive coffee consumption seemed to account for a large part of the cause.

After I abruptly stopped drinking coffee in October 2024, my physical condition recovered remarkably.

By January 2025, three months after quitting coffee, I started learning Excel macros, which I had wanted to do for a long time, and by focusing on it for three months, I was able to acquire basic skills (mostly through morning activities and studying on the train during my commute).

After I finished the macro learning, I resumed updating this blog for the first time in several years. I set a goal of writing 100 articles for now, and although I am writing this in the early morning of June 2025, this is already my 80th article. Since I am writing at least one article a day, I feel that the goal is right in front of me.

Once I write 100 blog articles, I plan to slow down the pace and next practice the piano, which I have wanted to do for a long time. I am also interested in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

This might sound like bragging, but what I want to convey is the fact that 'by giving up a luxury item I quite liked, namely coffee, I was able to become healthy in both mind and body'.

Trade-off Let's review the definition of trade-off once more. A trade-off refers to a relationship where things cannot coexist. It means 'if you choose one, you lose the other.' If you want to gain something, you must first discard something.

In my case, to gain [a healthy body and mind], I discarded [the habit of drinking coffee, which I quite liked]... that is what it amounts to. A life without coffee is lonely, but a healthy body and mind are more important. I am satisfied with my choice.

By the way, of course, I avoid not only coffee but also energy drinks and snacks containing caffeine as much as possible.

Note: There are individual differences in the physical and mental effects of drinking coffee. Since I seem to have a constitution that is particularly susceptible to these effects, I don't think that just because you quit coffee, you will necessarily become as full of physical and mental vitality as I did...

If you search with keywords like 'quitting coffee' or 'quitting caffeine,' you can confirm that many people, both in Japan and abroad, are sharing information. It seems that quitting caffeine is recognized as a type of health method globally as well. Of course, there are individual differences.

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