Life doesn’t have to be complicated to be exceptional.
In fact, life usually tends to be better the simpler it is.
Time spent organizing details, switching between tasks, and feeling “busy” all provide a dopamine hit, a micro-rush of self-importance. But they don’t provide happiness, or even contentment. In fact, they do the opposite.
When it comes to enjoying life, these distractions are “death by a thousand cuts.”
These nuisances come in many forms, and the following list will not shock you. We have unrestricted access to tools that are intentionally designed to pull you out of the present moment, and cultivate dependence from you. The goal of their creators is not satisfaction or contentment, but dissatisfaction and anxiety.
That pervasive sense of anxiety, and the fleeting relief that comes from using your digital distraction tool of choice is no accident. It’s not a bug, it’s on purpose. Facebook, Amazon, Google, Netflix… the famously fast-growing and profitable FANG stocks that, no coincidence, have trounced the market from 2009-2021, have engineered their products to maximize “engagement” (ie, addiction).
Think back to the last time you had an argument with someone on Facebook. Didn’t that hostile interaction live in your head for hours, rent free? Was it all you could think about? Did it rankle every self-righteous, egoistic nerve in your body? Of course it did!
You can look at Facebook like like the world’s worst, gossipiest friend. It only wants to share the most negative, shocking, juiciest, offensive, and outlandish stuff with you. For social creatures like us humans, that information is like crack. It doesn’t care about your inner state. It just wants a reaction.
“Hey did you hear that your cousin doesn’t think evolution is real?”
“Hey, did you hear that your aunt is going to vote for that politician you hate?”
“Hey, check out this stupid-ass thing your high school friend said. Can you believe that? You should say something. I mean, you don’t want them to go through life misinformed do you?”
None of this architecture is your “fault” per se, but it’s still very much your problem.
Indulging your anxiety comes with a little dab of endorphins and fleeting relief, but it’s no way to live. In fact, the more you do it, the more miserable you’ll become. Here’s a brief list of ways to make yourself miserable.
- Check your email, especially when you’re away from your computer or in a space that doesn’t lend itself to a thoughtful response.
- Check your news notifications, whether through CNN, Twitter, or the local nightly news.
- Indulge often in social media. Have you heard it’s bad for you? Did you hear that on social media? Yeah, me too.
- Answering calls from unfamiliar numbers.
- Multi-tasking. Have you ever been on a phone call or zoom call and begun opening up separate tabs in the background? It’s so tempting, and so unrewarding. All you’re really trying to do is be distracted from the call, which, yes is probably moving at a too-slow pace through topics that aren’t relevant to you. But when you start splitting your attention, you only get more bored.
- Googling something “really quick.” Either it’s worth putting some actual thought and work into, or its not.
- Working when you aren’t “at work.” However you define your work space or “work mode,” it is immensely good to keep it in a confined space.
Did I just describe your morning/evening routine? Are you unhappy?
More importantly, are you ready to start living a better life?
Why You Haven’t Already Made A Change:
If you’re addicted to distraction, you may have something in common with every other addict on the planet: You aren’t okay with how you feel when you aren’t high.
That’s a brutal fact to come to terms with. The good news is, you aren’t alone.
Maybe you’re in pain. That’s understandable. I’m in pain too.
Maybe you’re afraid of what the future of your life holds. That’s okay too. I’m also afraid.
Maybe you don’t know exactly what you want, but you do know that you aren’t getting it. Me too.
Maybe your relationships aren’t as intimate and meaningful as you’d like. I’m right there with you.
All these feelings are really uncomfortable to sit with and examine. It’s no wonder that people turn to addiction to avoid dwelling on these unmet needs, especially when you it’s not obvious what else you could do that would make things better.
Sometimes, I’d rather be drunk than lonely. I’d rather be high than unfulfilled. I’d rather be infinitely distracted than recognize that the way I’m spending my time and energy might be totally out of alignment with who I want to be. I’d rather lay blame on everyone else than face the million ways that I’m failing myself personally.
None of this is healthy. Obviously. But still I find myself repeating the same, misery-inducing behaviors. Why?
Maybe it’s because creating a better life is difficult. It’s not easy or quick to change your way of living.
Perhaps this is why it’s so common for people to procrastinate on making these changes. Fundamentally they have to decide that they want something different from what they’ve been getting, and that getting “something different” is worth doing the work to get it. This takes time, energy, and willingness to let go of past patterns in your life.
Usually, it takes a lot of suffering to convince us that something isn’t working. And a long time to convince us that things aren’t going to change on their own for the better. Moreover, we have to be convinced that the pain of change is going to be worth the reduction in future suffering (which is also uncertain).
In other words, we have to hit bottom, a place where we recognize “there is almost certainly something I can do that would be better than this.” Some people bottom out sooner than others. People like myself, meanwhile, are so damn stubborn that they’ll stick it out through almost anything before they’ll be convinced that “more of the same” isn’t going to work.
If you’re anything like me, it takes a serious threat to your well being before you start taking change seriously. I’ve been through three major moments of change in my adult life, where the consequences to not changing were/are, respectively, suicide, going broke, and getting divorced. These are big consequences, but evidently I’m unwilling to re-evaluate my life until the universe whacks me in the head with a giant hammer labelled, “THIS IS NOT GOING WELL!”
I think I might be a slow learner.
But hey, if I can start making these changes, so can you. After all, I’m a person who is willing to endure months and years of misery and put everything good in my life at risk before I’ll even consider whether maybe, I might be doing life wrong.
So what does it look like to start doing life right?
Ultimately, I think it’s a return to simplicity, to simple pleasures. These are the small, consistent sources of joy that each of us can build into our lives. More often than not, these things are inexpensive and humble in nature. All it takes is paying attention.
Here are a few:
- Exercising consistently, especially recognizing when I have extra energy that needs an outlet
- Getting outside
- Cooking food
- Silence
- Time alone
- Reading
- Eating real food
- Practicing gratitude
- Writing
- Connecting with friends. Feeding friends.
- Sex
- Practicing a skill
- Going for a drive
- Grocery shopping
The thing that all of these activities have in common is that they take time. They feel inefficient, and their results are often fleeting. These aren’t things that you can do once and be done forever. These are things that you need to do over and over again, every day/week of your life until you die.
The other commonality is that to enjoy these things, to do them in a way that is worth doing, I have to be in the present moment. Maybe that’s the definition of something worth doing. “Anything that requires you to be present.”
You might have your own list of life-giving activities, but I bet that your list will share these two fundamental qualities. One, that they are not so much tasks as habits, and two, that you must do them in a distraction-free state.
Actually, maybe that tells you everything you need to know about how to be happy. Let everything you do, be done in a distraction-free state.
Giving Up What Isn’t Working
Improvement isn’t only about embracing what works. It is also letting go of the things that aren’t working, that are making you miserable over time (even when they feel good in the short term).
- Having the tv on in the background
- Actually, watching tv at all
- Looking at my phone a lot during the day
- Blaming other people for my problems
- Staying inside all day
- Constant stimulation (always having a podcast or audiobook playing)
- Checking email in bed
- Eating sugar
- Eating fast food
- Over-caffeinating
- Alcohol
- Screen time before bed
The weird thing with this second list, is that giving up many of these things might be considered a form of sacrifice. But what are you really giving up? Misery? Lingering discontent?
That’s odd, isn’t it? Usually we think of sacrifice as giving up a good thing now for a better thing later on. Working out at 5am to get a better body. Missing out on parties to study so that you make more money later on.
But in this case, we’re just letting go of a bad thing in exchange for something good. It’s possible to “sacrifice” all our negative thoughts and behaviors, our troubles, and our suffering, and receive bliss. A better way of being.
But this isn’t anything new. Think about Lent, the 40 days between Fat Tuesday and Easter Sunday. Usually people don’t give up healthy habits. Instead they give up vices like junk food, television, social media, cigarettes, refined sugar, alcohol, porn… Isn’t that interesting?
Which is weird, because in our culture the point of Lent is to acquaint yourself with the suffering of Christ, and through your suffering to become more Christ-like.
But Jesus doesn’t seem like a miserable, long-suffering figure to me. In fact, as the Portland preacher, John Mark Comer argues, Jesus really seems like a basically happy, relaxed guy(aside from maybe the last 3 days), who was good at life.
Same deal with Buddha, the Dalai Lama, Eckhart Tolle, Ram Das… all those enlightened people. They have this ever-present equanimity, lightness, and humor as they go through the world. They’re happy.
So really, the proper purpose of Lent (and of this category of sacrifice) is to suffer less, to let go of suffering and its causes. And presumably, to embrace more of those habits that promote contentment and joy.
What a good and simple way to do life!
Therefore, I encourage you to let go of the things that are making you miserable today.
Of these, I think the most prevalent source of misery is distraction. All it takes to have a better life is it let it go.
Life doesn’t have to be complicated to be exceptional.