Life as an NP Complete Problem

Life is an NP complete problem in terms of time. At each instance of time, you virtually have an infinite amount of paths you can take, each leading to a different 'node' or point of life. At most times, we make a greedy selection of path. We select the direction which seems to be most appealing at the time with the information we have. This seems to be the only way of making a sound judgement and selecting a direction to follow. How else can we make decisions? If we were a computer, then we can implement some sort of a recursive solution, where we take a path, and if it does not work out, we back track and take a different path from the same 'node'. But, of course this is not possible. We can't back track through time. Once we make a decision and choose a direction, we only have the current node to work with. This node leads to a different set of nodes that may or may not be the nodes that were previously visited.

Imagine if Life was like the Travelling salesman problem. If we were given these different instances of life and had to choose the most efficient path through them. Here, I am defining an efficient path as the path that has the least obstacles/pain and the most rewards/success. If we can somehow reduce the overall 'pain' factor by taking a small loss in the current selection, then we would be able to increase the overall 'success' (whatever that may be; Love, Money, Fame, Family, Respect). But how do we know which 'current loss' leads to 'overall success'? Through history, we know a few of these 'current loss' paths.

I suppose school can be one such path, which takes many years of one's life, where one is subjected to heavy mental tasks in order to gain something that will be useful in the future (eg. Career)

On a daily basis, one would choose to take the car instead of walking because it is faster, and requires less effort. While this has the least 'cost' in the short term, this may have a higher overall cost. Walking is better for health, good for the mind, one can do some productive thinking that may/may not lead to something productive (not to say that the same cannot be done in the car, but the probability is less)

One tackles NP complete problems through heuristics, which are not solutions, but a method of achieving the best possible result in the given time. These heuristics are formed through extensive experimentation with different scenarios. Is there a 'heuristic' that will allow you to take the right paths in life leading to overall success? This observer thinks that the 'heuristic' is spirituality and philosophy. If one thinks about life deep enough and tries to understand the purposes of the things he does (to a minute detail), then he can make the right decisions in life. In the above example, if one goes to school, not thinking about the end result, but going to school to learn for the sake of learning, then all decisions made during this point of time (i.e. school) will be the more favourable ones for overall success than the greedy method.

If one has appreciation for nature and what it has to offer, then one would choose walking over driving. This choice is made not greedily (to attain success in the end), but infact to enjoy the moment. If one realizes and appreciates the beauty of nature, then one would automatically make the right choice (assuming that walking is the right choice..)

So one heuristic to use for the best possible result in the given time would possibly be what the greats have said all through time. Stop and think about your journey, what have you done and why have you done them? Why do we do certain things a certain way, can they not be done in a better way? Where are we and what do we have to enjoy? What is in our mind and what is outside our mind?