Conditional “best”
163/300. His food, your poison.
I recently stumbled on a video by Salem King where he explained why he had switched back to using wired earphones after spending time with wireless earbuds.
It caught my attention because I’d done the exact opposite.
I had reached a point where I was tired of buying wired earphones. It was always having a fault before 3 months. Infact, in less than three weeks. Either it go too tangled up, or wore out too quickly, or one earpiece stops working or all of it eventually stops working. So I decided I was done with them. Wireless earbuds became the obvious upgrade.
Then here was someone intentionally returning to the very thing I had happily left behind.
What came to mind immediately was an old saying. “One man’s food is another man’s poison.’
We are too eager to crown a winner. I’ve noticed that we like declaring things as "the best."
The best phone.
The best way to learn.
The best career.
The best productivity system.
The best relationship advice.
As if life were a competition where only one answer could exist. But the older I get, the more I realize that "best" is often a conversation about context.
Wireless earbuds are better until you forget to charge them. Wired earphones are worse until you need something that simply works every single time you plug it in.
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Neither person is wrong. They’re simply solving different problems.
We confuse preference with truth. We confuse lived experience with truth. This is something I think we all do.
We discover something that works for us, and without realizing it, we begin to believe it should work for everyone else. It’s either that or we use our hands and buy into what other people 'think' is good.
“My experience" quietly becomes "the correct experience." “Their experience subtly becomes a life guide.”
I’ve caught myself doing it and maybe you have too.
We encourage people to choose careers we enjoy. We criticize habits we don’t personally understand. because our own experience becomes the measuring stick for everyone else’s.
It’s why I think good and bad are subjective. Right and wrong are subjective too.
Life is more personal than we admit. The interesting thing is that two people can be looking for the same outcome and arrive at completely different solutions.
One person enjoys working from home. Another feels isolated and does their best work in an office.
One person thrives in a busy city. Another finds peace in a quiet town.
One person loves routines. Another feels trapped by them.
Who’s right? Maybe both.
The question is not always, “What’s the best?” but maybe, “Best for whom?”
Because your best may not be my best. One man’s food is really another man’s poison.
We would judge less if we remembered this. Not every decision needs to make sense to you. It only needs to make sense to the person living with its consequences.
The goal isn’t to find the universally best option. It’s to find the option that is best for you, while allowing others the freedom to do the same.
Because sometimes the thing you’ve happily left behind is exactly what someone else has been looking for all along… like my wired earphones.
