Distraction is for less focused and less ambitious people. We don't have to look at Einstein level genius. Take a look at the competitive programming the kids there solve puzzles at such speed who are grown in the era of all the distractions. If one can not be genius in this era, there is no way they could have been genius in the past. The other way is not true due to access to knowledge in the past is very much restricted to select few.
The only way to get the best salary for your current skill set is to change jobs every 3 years. There is no working around this unless you want to become manager and get away from coding as your primary job.
There is literally no working around to eating less for weight loss. Everything around weight loss like intermittent fasting, drinking coffee etc is to trick the brain to not feel hungry.
Asked the right question. We don't know what choices would have lead to global optimal point even at the end of life. It is possible there are multiple global optimal points. At least this serves as a motivation for anti aging.