Did you choose this life?

Inertia and choice. 

Know the difference? 

Because they can look surprisingly similar from the outside. 

You can spend years in a career you never really chose. You can live in a city you never really chose. 

You can even end up in a relationship with someone you never really chose. 

Not because you don’t like them. Not because anything is necessarily wrong. 

But because they were… there. 

You started dating. You had fun. You kept seeing each other. Months passed. Affection grew. Your lives became intertwined. 

And eventually, you’re together. 

But there may never have been a moment where you stopped and asked: If I were choosing my partner today, would I choose this person? 

Careers can happen the exact same way. 

You take a job because it’s a good opportunity. You get good at it. Being good at it creates another opportunity. Then a promotion. Then another company wants you. Then your salary goes up. Then you’ve built a reputation. 

And suddenly it’s been ten years. 

At no point did you necessarily choose the destination. You just kept choosing the next logical step. 

That’s inertia. 

And here’s what makes inertia so powerful: it doesn’t feel like you’re surrendering control. 

You’re making decisions the entire time. They’re just decisions based on where you already are rather than where you actually want to go. 

I’ve come to realize… that is how a surprising amount of the first half of my life happened. 

In my early 20s, I started doing marketing for DJ Shadow... because it was an opportunity that appeared. I was good at it. That led to working with more artists. Pretty Lights. Josh Wink. Others. 

Then we started a company. The company grew. We hired people. The clients got bigger. 

Eventually I was traveling around the world with Richie Hawtin and got thrust into techno at the highest level. 

And here’s the complicated part: it was awesome. 

I was in my 20s traveling the world with artists I respected, working inside music, building a successful company and getting experiences most people would kill for. 

Of course I kept going. Every individual decision made complete sense. 

But before any of that happened, I wanted to be a musician. 

I was a drummer. I wanted to create things. I wanted to perform. 

And every once in a while, underneath all the incredible things that were happening, I’d hear this little voice: “Yeah…but you’re not the one onstage.” 

That’s the strange thing about inertia. It doesn’t necessarily take you somewhere bad. Sometimes it takes you somewhere incredible. 

Just… not necessarily somewhere you chose. 

One opportunity led to another, which led to another, until the accumulation of all those perfectly reasonable decisions eventually became… my life. 

And I think that’s why this chapter feels so different. 

I’m turning 39 next month, and increasingly I’m trying to replace one question with another. 

For much of my life, consciously or unconsciously, the question was: What’s happening next? 

Now I’m trying to ask: What am I choosing? 

There’s a huge difference. 

“What’s happening next?” looks at the trajectory you’re already on and asks where it’s taking you. 

“What am I choosing?” forces you to decide whether you want to be on that trajectory at all. 

And lately, I’ve been trying to apply that everywhere. 

I chose to become an artist again. 

I chose to build a live electronic performance practice when there wasn’t an obvious career path waiting for me. 

I chose to create TAME THE MACHINE. 

I chose to create MAKĀN (you’ll know more about that on Friday if you follow RIŽIK). 

I chose to start MORE because I wanted a room in Los Angeles where this kind of electronic musicianship actually had a home. 

None of those things were the obvious next step. 

That’s actually the point. 

They weren’t next. I chose them. 

And maybe that’s one of the biggest lessons I’m taking into the next half of my life: Don’t confuse momentum with direction. 

So what’s the Zag? 

Every once in a while, interrupt the inertia. 

Take inventory of the parts of your life that have been moving forward simply because they’ve been moving forward. 

Your career. Your relationships. Where you live. The people you spend time with. The things you keep saying yes to. 

And ask yourself: 

If I weren’t already doing this, would I choose it today? If I weren’t already in this career, would I pursue it? If I met this person today, knowing what I know now, would I choose to build a life with them? If I weren’t already living here, would I move here? If this opportunity showed up today, would I actually want it… or does it just make sense because of everything I’ve already done? 

You don’t need to blow up your life every time the answer is no. 

But you should probably pay attention to the answer. 

Because inertia is powerful. 

Give it enough time and a temporary decision becomes a routine. A routine becomes an identity. An identity becomes a life. 

So occasionally, stop asking: 

What’s happening next? 

And ask: 

What am I CHOOSING next? 

Then... choose.