How To Be So Productive Your Eyes Burst!
Who needs eyes when you can focus like this?
I am sick of life hacks.
I used to be obsessed with hacking myself into oblivion. Diving into one scientific study after another, trying one supplement, mind trick, entheogen after another.
And yes, I’ve heard you, it’s not about reading life hacks, it’s about applying them.
You’re right.
The problem I have is the obsession with productivity, focus, and efficiency in general.
Not only does it block out the other thoughts and inspirations waiting to be unleashed but it keeps us distracted as a society.
It’s been shown time and time again that creativity requires new experiences and R&R.
But even this is presented with the terrible lens of increasing inspiration (read marketable content), focus (ability to create content), and efficiency (speed in which content is made).
Others have shown how this obsession arises from our capitalist mindset and it’s not hard to link it back to the industrial revolution or even further back to Calvinism or Luther.
Blame it on the Dutch.
Back in the day showing too much wealth meant you were prideful.
A terrible sin.
On the flip side not being successful meant God wasn’t blessing you.
Which meant God didn’t like you.
(Read, you’re going to hell if you’re not successful.)
So merchants from the Netherlands had to try really hard to show off just right.
Not so much that it was a sin but enough that the neighbors knew they were headed to heaven.
Work hard, be successful, buy that tulip! Or, you know, bonnet and neck-fan . . . thing.
Either way, you knew you were blessed by God when your hard work and efficiency paid off with too much cloth and flowers.
Today we’re not exactly chasing salvation but without a doubt, we’re chasing something.
We want to be that mountain runner in the Unsplash photo. The woman on the beach with her drink and handstand. #detoxyoga #bottomlessmamosas.
We want to be the writer with an email list so large. . . so responsive, his publisher throws in a Tesla just to sell their book!
You know, those moments in life that really spark our synapses.
The people we’ll be when we’re finally efficient enough.
Some of my axioms. . . sorry, axons must be off, cause I’m tired of all that.
Beyond life hacking.
I find myself thinking about my 71-year-old client.
The one who wonders how she can get more done in her day not to lounge on a beach or make it to 10,000 followers but because she’s the only one left to do all that needs doing.
The woman who is caring for her older husband. The man she talks to at night and doesn’t know if he remembers the life they’ve built together.
The woman who feels alone as her friends and family pass away and her children try every life hack they know just to make some time to breathe.
The answer to my client’s plight won’t be found in the latest herb or amino acid chain. It won’t be magicked away by how she sets her calendar (though task lists have helped) or whose phone calls she ignores until 1 pm.
Yes, an increase in protein gave her more energy and focus. So did probiotics, and working on setting her priorities and saying no when things don’t align with them buys her some time.
But it’s not enough.
She’s not suffering from a lack of efficiency. The woman gets an amazing amount of work done in the day.
What she is suffering from are the miles that separate her and her children. The anonymity of her neighborhood. The lack of support and community her grandmother enjoyed when everyone came over to quilt on a Sunday or bring food for a funeral.
What she and so many people are suffering from are the breakdowns in community and the culture that places efficiency and production ahead of human connection.
Living people.
Being here in Bali, life is very different.
I haven’t heard a single person say they’re working to be more “efficient” or “focused.” They’re working to have more time with their families, to raise the finances they need for weddings, funerals, and daily offerings.
They’re working to maintain their connections to each other, their loved ones, nature, and their God/gods.
What results is a culture where no one is placed into a home when they’re “too old.” A culture where a child isn’t left alone to stare at a television screen because there aren’t enough people around to play and care.
Life isn’t perfect here. There are still struggles.
Before tourism, there were droughts, floods, earthquakes, fires, and plagues.
Those still happen. What is added to the equation is the endless hustle to raise more money for increased costs of living. All while running a business completely dependent on the whims and tides of the traveling world.
The perks are that some have gotten rich, many have phone screens to stare at, and for the most part, they have easier access to medicine. The same medicine they turn to when they break out in boils or rashes.
Boils and rashes caused by toxins and hormones in the food. They all know about it. They talk about it.
I’ve been told, “Bali eggs are fresh and hormone free, eat too many from the factories in Jakarta though and you get sick.”
Still, there are so many hungry tourists (read life hacked consumers with time enough to visit Bali) that not everyone can afford a Bali egg.
Did we mention these are thirsty tourists too?
There’s a drought here in the jungle. Not from lack of rain, but rather from the aquifers poured out over the edges of infinity pools.
Bali isn’t talking about “efficiency”. . . yet.
They’re still talking about family, friends, and God/gods, as the world changes around them.
But I’ve digressed from my original rant.
Continue original rant. . .
I’m tired of life hacks. Tired of efficiency. Tired of inspiration conjured simply to produce new content.
You could say I lost focus.
And this is the problem that occurs when we step out of our obsession with productive perfection.
When our perspective expands we begin to see the woman at home, speaking to her husband, feeling the connection of their shared memories thinning.
The memory is in her alone now. She feels she is alone now.
When we step out of our obsession with productivity and the dreams of what we’ll consume we just might see the kids, eyes glued to the television, top ramen in hand.
The ones whose parent’s haven’t mastered the trick of “efficiency” enough to pay the rent with two jobs. . . while making time to cook a healthy meal. . . time to see their children.
When we stop obsessing about the means to make our lives acceptable in the face of all we’re expected to produce, we may be confronted with the fact that the concrete of this tunnel’s vision is poured by the very system that makes our lives so unlivable.
Conclude rant.
I’m tired of talking about efficiency, focus, and marketable creativity.
I’d rather talk about breaking the expectations of a 9–5 work week while restructuring megacity warrens into family compounds.
How would we afford that?
Well, let’s start talking about billionaires and how. . . there shouldn’t be billionaires.
And I hear you when you say that living that close to your parents would be uncomfortable. Let’s talk about that experience rather than journaling our way to the perfect headline.
Let’s talk about how we heal the familial and social relationships that have become so strained in the last hundred years. The time in which we’ve never been more focused, efficient, productive, or materially rich.
Let’s talk about how hard you work and how even though you’re mentally exhausted your mind still runs at night. How no manner of life hacking is buying you a good night’s sleep.
I don’t know about you but I’m tired. Tired of the dreamless land where we work as hard as we can to steal away the things that give our dreams their depth and meaning.
Love and share.
I’m starting something new. Writing every day and putting my less than catchy thoughts on binary paper.
If you’d like to join along you can sign up for my email list here.
As a bonus, I included life hack gifts, a short guide to improving the basic components of your life and a hypnosis recording to boot. Get yourself healthy as you work to build community and change the world.
Not because some study says it’ll help you live longer. Rather, do it because it makes life worth living.
