Less Thinking, More Observance

I keep saying I want to invent something.

Not in a casual, hobby way.

In a very specific, slightly feral way.

I want to make enough money from one good idea that I can stop negotiating my life in hours and deadlines and instead live off the investments it creates.

And every time I say that out loud, my brain immediately asks the worst possible follow-up question: okay, but what?

That’s usually where things stall.

I start waiting for inspiration. A lightning bolt. Some pristine idea that arrives fully formed and undeniable.

It never comes.

Instead, I get tired and assume I’m missing something obvious.

Lately I’ve been realizing that this might be the wrong way to look for it entirely.

I don’t think you find what to invent by thinking harder.

I think you find it by paying attention to different things.

Most inventions don’t start as “brilliant ideas.” They start as irritation. Repetitive annoyance. That quiet sigh you do when something is clunky but unavoidable.

The workaround you’ve normalized so thoroughly you forget it’s absurd.

So I’ve started watching for those moments. The things I complain about more than once. The systems that require rituals, spreadsheets, or mental gymnastics just to function. The places where smart people shrug and say, “Yeah, that’s just how it is.”

Those moments are clues.

I’m also learning to look for intensity, not universality. If everyone is mildly annoyed, it’s probably not it. But if a small group of people are deeply frustrated every single day and have no good alternative? That’s different. Pain that repeats becomes willingness to pay.

Another thing that’s helped is letting go of the idea that I need to invent something entirely new. Most useful inventions are just renovations. Taking something that works well in one context and applying it somewhere it weirdly doesn’t exist yet. A mismatch between what’s possible and what’s currently tolerated.

That’s not genius. That’s noticing.

To open my mind, I’ve had to change my inputs.

Less inspirational content, more boring reality. Industry forums. Complaint threads. Conversations with people who use terrible tools because no one ever bothered to make better ones.

The boring edges of work and life.

I’ve also had to separate idea generation from idea judgment.

This part is uncomfortable.

My brain really wants to evaluate everything immediately. Is this viable? Is this stupid? Is this already solved? But if I let that voice run the show, nothing new survives long enough to breathe.

So now I try to collect ideas without deciding what they are yet.

No pressure.
No verdicts.
Just notes.
Just noticing.

The question that keeps unlocking things for me is this: what do I understand deeply that most people don’t, simply because they haven’t lived my specific life? Not what I’m good at. Not what I wish I were good at. What I’ve learned the hard way. Through repetition. Through friction. Through identity and experience.

That’s where leverage hides.

I’m also reminding myself that early retirement doesn’t come from cleverness alone. It comes from usefulness plus distribution. The invention isn’t always the core thing. Sometimes it’s the interface. The delivery. The business model. The way it reaches people who are already looking for relief.

And maybe the most important shift is this: I don’t need the answer right now. I need a practice. A way of staying open, observant, and curious without demanding certainty too early.

I don’t need a lightning bolt.

I need permission to explore without immediately turning it into a referendum on my intelligence or worth.

If I keep paying attention to irritation, intensity, and mismatches between what exists and what could, something will eventually surface.

And when it does, I want to be ready.

Not by being brilliant, but by being awake.

For now, that’s enough.