Choose better inputs

In sex, pastries, and life

Your Five-Year Plan is a newsletter about embracing life’s profound uncertainty.

Maybe your own plans went up in flames; maybe you’re considering a big, scary leap. This is your trusty companion while you’re writing the next life chapter.

Welcome to the conversation—and to the adventure that unfolds when your plans go sideways. This is letter #39. ✨

Choose better inputs

Nourishing decadence, captured on Kodak Portra 400 film

If you’ve glanced through a magazine or newspaper lately, you’ve probably heard the ubiquitous fretting that nobody wants to have sex anymore.

In their book Magnificent Sex: Lessons from Extraordinary Lovers, Peggy Kleinplatz, Ph.D. and A. Dana Ménard, Ph.D. address this concern with provocative, perspective-shifting questions—ones that challenge our collective anxiety about the “crisis of desire” and turn our attention toward something related but distinct: pleasure.

“Our [research] findings suggest that we should consider…the quality of the sexual encounter,” they write. “Is the quality of the sex satisfactory to each partner? Is the type of sex they engage in mutually fulfilling? Was it arousing? Was it intimate? Was it erotic?”

Their last question cuts to the quick. “In short,” they ask, “was it sex worth wanting?”

You always remember your first. And by “your first,” of course, I mean your first kouign-amann: that tangle of croissant dough encrusted in sugar, then baked until the edges caramelize into a buttery, crackly crunch.

I had mine at Bad Wolf Coffee in Chicago, which I used to visit most Wednesday mornings. Instead of rushing through my full commute, I disembarked after two El stops to visit the tiny storefront tucked under the tracks.

There might’ve been just one person in line ahead of me, but the wait could stretch upward of five minutes. That’s because owner, barista, and pastry chef Jonathan Ory appeared to also be Bad Wolf’s sole employee, and he liked to chat while he pulled espresso.

While I waited, I weighed my pastry selection. There were only a few rotating options, but each was the Platonic ideal of its kind. If Jonathan hadn’t made kouign-amann that morning, I’d probably buy the blueberry bar instead, its jammy filling sandwiched between oat-crust foundation and tender crumb topping.

Other weekdays, I ate microwaved Quaker oatmeal standing up as I poured coffee into a thermos. But each blissful Wednesday, I chose a better breakfast input.

This is, ostensibly, a publication about uncertainty. So you might be wondering: why am I writing about sex and pastries?

Hear me out.

When we begin to accept, then actually embrace, the future’s inherent uncertainty, we start moving away from our previous, futile attempts at controlling life outcomes. Often, though, that leaves us feeling a bit…lost. What do we move toward in the absence of that impulse?

As Katherine Morgan Schafler says in The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control, we move away from attempts at “superficial control” and toward our own “authentic power.”

We may not have control over our life’s outcomes, but we do have power over many of its inputs. And we exercise that power by choosing better inputs, whether that’s in our sex lives, our Wednesday pastry selection, or…just about anywhere else.

Choosing doesn’t imply a one-and-done mindset shift; it’s an active verb, a self-advocacy skill we’ll be practicing forever.

When I head out for a run, my first impulse is always the path of least resistance: a loop around the sidewalks of my lovely, boring neighborhood. Yes, even though a nine-minute drive will land me in the center of an urban park spanning more than 700 acres, whose old-growth forests are nestled beside oceanfront beaches and ribboned by a network of well-marked trails.

Despite this mind-boggling privilege, I will always have to convince myself to choose the better input, because the path of least resistance is, by definition, the easier one.

Begrudgingly, I’ve accepted that choosing the better input over the easier one will always require effort—as will wading through the input tsunami that sweeps in each day.

I will continue unsubscribing from unsolicited marketing emails only to receive more in their wake. Advertisers will keep pushing their products. My inbox will swell with other people’s priorities. And social media companies will invent more hellscapes in app form for me and all my closest acquaintances.

And yet, as stressful as Input Overwhelm is, you and I both have agency. We’re the gatekeepers here. We have authentic power to choose what we let in.

So let’s talk about what it means to choose better.

On its face, choosing better seems self-explanatory, right? When it comes to sensory delight, pastries will always trump rolled oats.

But following that logic to its end would have us all subsisting on expensive, sugary treats, creating budgetary and dietary nightmares in which any special thing’s specialness gets lost to the daily monotony of routine.

The better input isn’t necessarily the highest-quality, most decadent choice—or the most virtuous one.

Let’s not mistake better inputs for perfect inputs, fancier inputs, or more complicated inputs, either. Often, the best input is simple and unsexy, like peeling yourself from the ergonomic chair for a five-minute walk around the block.

“Better inputs” might mean “inputs that match the context.” You might love craft beer, but Pabst Blue Ribbon might be the ideal input for a baseball game or dive bar.

The definition of a better input might also shift gradually over time. When I started lifting weights, Instagram brought a world of strength-training education and inspiration to my fingertips. But now that I’ve got my routine and motivation on lock, the app is just a source of FOMO better absent from my phone.

Better inputs are specific to the individual: cocktail parties for extroverts, hot tea plus a book for the rest of us.

“Better inputs” might mean “more nourishing inputs”—ones that support your physical, emotional, and mental health.

In practice, “better inputs” probably means “fewer inputs.” As Leidy Klotz argues in Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less, improving the ratio of good to less-good inputs can mean adding quality ones, to be sure—but subtracting low-quality ones works just as well, if not better.

“Better inputs” might mean “better for,” not the implied comparison of “better than.” They’re inputs that are compatible and aligned with your priorities, not your neighbor’s.

“Better inputs” might mean “more joyful inputs,” as it did for me when I spent my holiday break sketching out next year’s travel, not fretting over New Year’s resolutions.

And finally, better inputs might require you to upend your assumptions.

The authors of Magnificent Sex argued that, counterintuitively, their research subjects’ definitions of “sex worth wanting”—across age, sexual orientation, relationship structure, and physical ability—had little to do with the mechanics of the act, or with orgasm scorekeeping. Their definitions revolved around presence, connection, intimacy, communication, authenticity, vulnerability, and a spirit of exploration: qualities available to all of us, in one form or another, should we choose to embrace them.

Let’s talk implications. So, we’ve chosen better inputs—but to what end, exactly?

✅ Better inputs are the ends, not just the means.

Better inputs are, generally speaking, more pleasurable ones, whether that pleasure is the “instant gratification” or “deeper satisfaction” kind. I hate to state the obvious, but in our productivity-is-king, always-be-closing, burnout-afflicted hustle culture, we all probably need this reminder: pleasure is good!

Better inputs are satiating. Have you ever noticed that, no matter how many just-this-side-of-stale cookies you eat from the Safeway bakery section, it never feels like enough? But it takes just one of the New York Times’ perfect chocolate-chip cookies, dough rested for 36 hours before baking, stuffed with layers of chocolate disks and topped with flaky salt.

It’s not about filling the belly but satisfying the brain.

✅ Better inputs stoke desire.

We’ve deadened our senses to desire—despite its deliciousness—through our collective tendencies toward frantic busyness, disconnection, and overconsumption of low-quality life inputs. So it’s no surprise that psychotherapist Esther Perel, who teaches us to want what we already have, has ascended to megastardom. (Folks, it’s not just her bewitching accent.)

Desire is delicious, but it’s also fuel; without it, we travel nowhere fast. As Jeannine Ouellette writes, “Our desires, examined and unexamined, propel us whether we know it or not.” She argues that we need desire for its navigational powers, too, as “the truth of our desires is our guiding star.”

Desire can arise spontaneously, but just as often, it emerges as a response to pleasure. Emily Nagoski has done the world a great service by popularizing this notion of responsive desire in a sexual context—and I believe the same phenomenon applies to the rest of our lives.

It’s common sense: when something is pleasurable, you want more of it.

Choosing enjoyable careers, workouts, relationships, and hobbies—this seems obvious, until you consider how often our choices are fueled by “shoulds” rather than healthy, constructive “wants”—leads to good vibes and the desire to engage again.

If you want to stoke a craving, choose better inputs.

✅ Better inputs usually lead to better outputs (even though we can’t predict or control them).

The inspiration for today’s letter comes from Sue Deagle, who wrote this about her 2024 hopes for The Luminist (“TL” below):

I am going to consume the most nourishing, invigorating, inspiring inputs to make the most nourishing, invigorating, inspiring TL outputs: 

I’m going to read books that may seem far afield of TL on the surface, but that speak to the human condition and deepen my understanding of it.

I’m going to have more conversations around loss, with loved ones and with strangers, taking in as many stories as I can from other people, so I can tell them to you. 

I’m going to consume art, music, theater, movies, exhibitions, and learn how to create better stories myself.

I’m going to engage as fully as I can with the “small” moments of life as an experiment, and report back to you about that as well.

Sue implies, astutely, that this isn’t an efficient or transactional process; it’s not X + Y = Z. She doesn’t pretend to know exactly what the outputs will be.

But she knows that “nourishing, invigorating, inspiring” inputs call forth outputs with the same qualities—a virtuous cycle that can’t help but flower into self-trust.

And she trusts herself enough to know that, as E.L. Doctorow said, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

💬 What do you think?

I’m curious to hear from you. Which of your own life inputs have you improved recently, and what impact did those changes have? Which inputs could use a bit more of your attention?

Had your own plan-in-flames experience? Taking a leap into the unknown? I’d love to hear more. Just hit “reply” to get in touch, or introduce yourself here.

Warmly,
Maddie