Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

~ Live & Learn

rested-balance-work-carl-richards

Carl Richards, excerpts from Let 2017 Be the Year of Working Hard and Resting Hard (NY Times, Dec 19, 2016):

I’m tired — really tired — and I’m tired of being tired. In fact, it feels like I’ve been tired ever since I read Andrew Grove’s book “Only the Paranoid Survive” a decade and a half ago. That book was the beginning of a sea change in my thinking about work, business, hustling and survival itself — so much so that I’ve been working like a fanatic ever since.

Up at 5 in the morning? Tried it! Daily workouts? Yep. Paleo, bulletproof, gluten-free, cold showers? Check. Build a business, start a side hustle, dominate Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? Yeah, all that too! Make my family a priority? Of course. Serve in my community? Definitely. For 5,478 days, I’ve been hitting repeat, and it’s killing me.

I know I’m not alone. The last 10 years have felt like the #CrushIt decade. Every time you turn around, somebody is crushing something. Gary Vaynerchuk wrote the book on it, and according to him, people “need to work harder. And faster. There’s really nothing else to it. I’m exhausted every day, but I’m making all sorts of things happen in my 18 hours.”…

So, there we have it. We can add “exhausted” to words like “cynical” and “busy” that we wear as badges of honor. As crazy as it all sounds, I have to admit to having believed it. A part of me in some dark corner of my mind whispers: “This is all true, Carl. If you don’t keep hustling, you’ll end up falling behind, and no one will listen to you. Ever. Again…

I hereby grant everyone the permission to declare the #CrushIt decade finished. January 2017 will be the official start of the “Work Hard, Rest Hard” decade. We are going to hustle, sure. But we’re also going to rest. In fact, we’re going to be as good at resting as we are at crushing things.

We’re going to become pros at turning off social media, getting great sleep, working less and living more.

We’re going to make being rested cool…Then, when people ask how you’re doing, you can say, “Sit down. Let’s talk about it for a minute, because I have time for you, my friend.”

At minimum, you should be able to answer, “Rested, and how are you?”…

29 thoughts on “Monday Morning Wake-Up Call”

  1. Good resolution for the New Year. But, when I worked and was raising my family I didn’t have time to write, computers were not available for home use back then. I used to jot down stories in a journal or notebook or on a piece of paper. When I retired, had an empty nest and owned a computer, I started writing when ever I felt like it. I joined social media, have a blog, a published book and take naps. I love that I have lived long enough to accomplish a passion that has dwelled inside of me for many years. I’m loving it. It’s not a chore it’s a dream come true. :o)

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    1. Patricia, I agree. There is so much offered by technology but it can be a walk on a knife’s edge. I thought this point of view by Cal Newport was excellent, a few excerpts below:

      On Digital Minimalism – Cal Newport:

      Start from first principles:

      Digital maximalists tend to accept any online activity that conceivably offers some value. As most such activities can offer you something (few people would write an app or launch a web site with no obvious purpose) this filter is essentially meaningless. A more productive approach is to start by identifying the principles that you as a human find most important — the foundation on which you hope to build a good life. Once identified, you can use these principles as a more effective filter by asking the following question of a given activity: will this add significant value to something I find to be significantly important to my life?

      The best is different than the rest.

      Assume a given online activity generates a positive response to the question from the preceding principle. This is not enough. You should then follow up by asking: is this activity “the best” way to add value to this area of my life? For a given core principle, there may be many activities that can offer some relevant value, but you should focus on finding the small number of activities that offer the most such value. The difference between the “best” and “good enough” in this context can be significant. For example, someone recently told me that she uses Twitter because she values being exposed to diverse news sources (she cited, in particular, how major newspapers were ignoring aspects of the Dakota pipeline protests). I don’t doubt that Twitter can help support this important principle of being informed, but is a Twitter feed really the best use of all the Internet has to offer to achieve this goal?

      Digital clutter is stressful.

      The traditional minimalists correctly noted that living among lots of physical clutter is stressful. The same is true of your online life. Incessant clicking and scrolling generates a background hum of anxiety. Drastically reducing the number of thing you do in your digital life can by itself have a significant calming impact. This value should not be underestimated.

      Attention is scarce and fragile.

      You have a finite amount of attention to expend each day. If aimed carefully, your attention can bring you great meaning and satisfaction. At the same time, however, hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested into companies whose sole purpose is to hijack as much of your attention as possible and push it toward targets optimized to create value for a small number of people in Northern California. This is scary and demands diligence on your part. As I’ve written before, this is my main concern with large attention economy conglomerates like Twitter and Facebook: it’s not that they’re worthless, but instead it’s the fact that they’re engineered to be as addictive as possible.

      Many of the best uses of the online world support better living offline.

      We’re not evolved for digital life, which is why binges of online activities often leave us in a confused state of strung out exhaustion. This explains why many of the highest return online activities are those that take advantage of the Internet to improve important aspects of your offline life. Digital networks, for example, can help you find or form a community that resonates with you, but the real value often comes when you put down your phone and go out and engage with this new community IRL.

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  8. With me, it’s complicated.
    My days can be unpredictably busy.
    And I do love the rush I get from those days. And the fact that I can still handle them, physically and on other levels.
    Those are the days when Esam Asks on his way home, “How was your day? What did you do?” My reply is, always “Not much.” Until few hours go by and my head and soul have settled from the hustle.

    Other days, close to 50%, I’m free. A day when all I have to do is translate a couple of pages, sell or purchase a Gemstone, read few pages and cook dinner.

    All in all it works out well for me and my sanity.
    Being around anyone who thrives on being busy messes with my balance.
    I can do busy, I’m not addicted to it.

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  9. @DavidKanigan I agree with you whole heartedly. I have accomplished a lot. As a result I have felt burntout the majority of the year. No longer do I feel guilty about not crushing it all of the time. Our bodies are not built to be turned on 24/7. We need the rest and relaxation. Hell, most of us have earned it. It is difficult to celebrate your efforts when you can barely think straight any longer. Now I am more productive…ironic.

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