I’ll Be Tired When I Die - The Great Divide
The great rise of not giving a f*ck in personal development has been powerful and persistent. Fellow humans trying to throw others a life raft or give a good kick up the ass (depending on your view) is a teaching that goes way back in form of the old Buddhist principal ‘not too loose, not too tight’ in relation to ones posture and mind. It seems to be as contemporary as ever, with productivity porn and self help crowding our communication streams.
Today’s Elite
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett in her 2017 book, The Sum of Small Things, (nicely summarised here on Medium by Philonomist) makes an argument that Aspirational Class has eclipsed Lower, Middle and Upper Classes which mainly indicated by what you did for a living (see Leisure Class Theory for more). This new class put more value on experiences above material possessions but I would like to propose that we are entering a new time, if we need to give it a name, what about a time of ‘Personal Mastery’? What I am talking about is a group of individuals whose status is defined by the ability to bring themselves to do what they want…
This seems very mundane but lets take a minute to look at the careers market. As the market moves to more humanistic jobs, where our value is not as machines that require food and occasional rest but the empathy and creativity and support we can offer, our value in the market place is how we show up in life, I wonder how this could skew income and inequality.
Reminiscent of the Hunger Games where the rich take a tincture to vomit so they can keep indulging, here we enlist different approaches to help us make use of free time proper use of which would give us satisfaction, often it can deliver the life of our dreams. I have added a few popular voices from Ticktock on this topic throughout this article, I am fascinated about what our need for these messages says about humanity today.
# Living Your Best Life
Don’t get me wrong, this is not new. Before the industrial age and the turn of 20th century much of the progress in the arts and science was done by those who had the privilege of leisure time via birth to the right family. Not all of them spent their free time to add to humanities knowledge base. However our thirst for life and progress has not dulled, we still dream and thrive but as we have more options we seem to have less energy as a result.
For me, I can take time to practice a skill that will make us happy or we can eat a meal and drink that will make me groggy. I can take 15 minutes for a quick stretch routine which will make us feel confident throughout the day or spend 30 minutes scrolling Instagram looking for inspiration. These are two of my common downfalls, is it just me? Can you please leave a comment with yours so I feel less alone?
Can You Take Action?
Decision fatigue is real. Having so many options you are not sure which to take action on, is real. But ultimately, this is precisely the trap of our time. If you have the privilege to be reading for self development you do not have a reason to squander your potential. Your life force wants the satisfaction of taking action and the learning which is the reward. A feeling of progress = nectar of life.
I want to take a minute to say that rest and regeneration is crucial and it is not always good to push yourself further. But what we are talking about is about making the most out what is available to you including what precious energy you have.
Can You Be Consistent? / Consistently Resist the Dopamine?
Our primary brain tells us to do what feels good now, to stay in comfort mode, once you eat something with sugar you gut will send messages to your brain to have more of it, even if you didn’t taste that sugar. Dopamine always wants more dopamine, never less, always more. However good this feels, there is no long term satisfaction in this, only suffering.
If your goal is to fill your life with meaning, it is the ‘always feels good after’ option that Jay Shetty recommends. Listening to his examples it is easy to see how being able to make these choices more often gives better health, better parenting, better relationships, better self esteem — isn’t that what we dream of? All that with what in hindsight seems like minimal effort, much like giving a bit of your income to your pension the returns on your investment can add up.
If you had a bit more energy after work to do that extra thing, or to support your colleague in a time of need, or to come home in a good mood to your family, what if that is what they admired about you at your funeral when you go? What other opportunities you think might come your way when you live in this slightly altered way?
Budget Your Time
I have written on budgeting your money but why not budget your time it is just as precious if not more. That is all this productivity industry is about, but in a very basic way it is simply about being conscious of where it goes.
Try this quick exercise:
- Pick an age you might live to (don’t give this much thought, just pick one)
- Subtract your current age
- Times the resulting number by 52. This is the number of weeks you hope to have, if all goes well.
Somehow this makes any weekly routines less daunting for me, it is suddenly not an indefinite slog, just like a good scam(yes, I’ve written on password protection too), there is scarcity and only a limited time to invest!
This is an essay of an idealist who is not satisfied with above average. Surely, if we have that privilege to be currently living free from conflict and fear, we owe it to ourselves to look after ourselves…and maybe that means redefining what our treats are. Good morning.
