“My life feels like a
river that has overrun its banks -- oozing sideways in unmanageable and
unpredictable ways, rather than flowing steadily forward in a single
direction.”
I wrote that in my
journal a few years ago, and I found it recently while going through some boxes
in my garage. It seemed like I was writing it down as a way to force myself to
confront the issue, but I realized as soon as I read it that things haven’t
gotten any better. If anything, as the dad of three “tweenaged” daughters, it’s
gotten worse.
Busy. Scattered.
Messy. Fast. Unpredictable. Welcome to the warp-speed life of a modern
43-year-old husband, father, author, coach, friend, son, brother, man.
In many ways, life
today resembles the world of attention deficit disorder, or ADD. Think about
the energy, excitement and excess of life -- its quest for novelty and newness
-- its chaos and confusion. Consider the ever-increasing hurricane of data.
Life for many of us has become a constant state of adaptation, irreverence and
incoherence.
Our world has ADD.[1]
I understand that
Attention Deficit Disorder is a medical term, but I think it’s become an apt
metaphor for modern life, offering a model and a guide for what’s happening
today in a world where we are living a kind of life never lived before. There
was a time when the symptoms of ADD described a few folks, but now it seems to
describe everyone I know.
People with ADD rush
around a lot, getting very little done. They feel impatient and are easily
frustrated. They lose their train of thought. They get distracted by something new and shiny. They have so much energy they cannot contain themselves, but
they struggle to pay attention to one thing for more than a few minutes. They
have big ideas but can’t execute them. They have a hard time finishing what
they start. They multitask, but never actually accomplish anything. They make
impulsive and rash decisions because their brains are chronically overloaded
and overstimulated. They often end up feeling overwhelmed and powerless to
combat the piles of stuff accumulating around them. They resolve to do better
tomorrow. They are busy but unproductive -- which may be the most frustrating
feeling in all the world.
Now you tell me: does
that paragraph feel a little familiar? Anyone else feel like just getting
through the day is harder than riding a unicycle while juggling helium balloons
and eating a sandwich? And it only gets worse around this time of year!
You may be led to
believe that you have ADD now, but you may, in fact, merely have a severe case
of modern life. This may be why you feel too hurried to do what matters most,
why you can’t take time to stop and think.
It could be, however,
that the same techniques people use to manage ADD could help us understand how
to navigate our way through the world in which we live -- a world that
threatens to press us into a pattern of crazy busyness. It’s time to recapture
life, to take back the time seems to evaporate and regain the sense of control
you’ve inadvertently given away.
As strange as this
sounds, it is our desire for control that often causes us to lose it. By trying
to control as much of life as possible, you can make yourself crazy -- losing
control in the process. You can feel like a spoon surrounded by a circle of a
dozen powerful magnets. Pulled in every direction simultaneously, you go
nowhere but begin to vibrate faster and faster and faster until you begin to
spin aimlessly on your axis.
Some people are too
busy because they feel the need to respond to every magnet: keeping track of
too many things, processing too much information, responding to too many emails
and voicemails and texts and tweets and Facebook messages -- all out of a sense
that this is how we must live in order to keep up and maintain control.
But you’re not in
control; the magnets are. We no longer control our handheld electronic devices;
they control us. They chirp; we jump. Same with our material possessions, our
kids’ grades, even our toys. The laundry, the dry cleaning, the oil change, the
breaking news, the holiday shopping. Our vacations are not restful, and our
hobbies are not refreshing. We’ve all but given away our free time -- the time
that is supposed to be free. We have no time to do nothing, to breathe, to
pause, to reflect.
I’m not talking about
returning to the “good, old days” -- but we have to figure out how to keep
modern life from stealing from us what’s good and life-building.
Modern life gives us
the illusion that we can be everywhere and do everything. But, at some point in
time, we must accept the fact that we can’t track everything. We’ll never be
able to control every variable. It is foolish to even try. If we could summon
the strength to give up trying, then we could demagnetize the things around us
and stop vibrating and spinning in place.
When we stop trying
to control and react to everyone and everything, we regain the ability to focus
on the only thing we can truly control: ourselves. Then, and only then, can we
control enough of life to appreciate what we have. Then, and only then, can we
find joy and peace in spite of our circumstances.
More than 250 years
ago, Samuel Johnson spoke of “the stability of truth.” Counterintuitively, that
“stability” comes with the acceptance of instability -- when we acknowledge the
inevitability to change and learn to adapt to it by reclaiming control of
ourselves and our own emotional reactivity.
This is not simply
the wisdom of some long-forgotten sage. It is just common sense. Warren Buffett
knows how foolish it is to follow each stock he owns minute-by-minute. He makes
his picks, and then he waits. He relinquishes control of the day-to-day ups and
downs and lets the stock do the work. He gives control to the company he felt
good enough about to invest in it in the first place.
Consequently, Warren
Buffett has the bandwidth he needs to think clearly.
Of course, there are
many practical concerns that keep us busy. We’ve got kids to get to soccer
practice and dry cleaning to pick up and dinner to buy and prepare and eat and
clean up after. The bathroom doesn’t clean itself, nor does the lawn mow
itself. The car needs an oil change, and there’s that project at work. And
don’t forget about the office party next weekend.
But behind and
beneath many of these projects clamoring for our attention lies one, simple
fact that few of us care to admit: we stay busy so we can avoid looking into
the abyss.
Few of us are
comfortable enough to contemplate the contents of that long, dark corridor that
leads to the one thing that stares each of us in the face: our own mortality.
Sure, everyone once
in a while something happens that forces us to confront the inevitable reality
of death. Someone dies too young. A tornado touches down. A terrible choice
brings awful consequences. But most of the time we manage to avert our gaze
from all that unpleasantness by watching the new fall lineup on TV. We keep
busy with our fantasy football leagues and reality shows and anything else we
can think of to warm us with feelings of power, productivity and progress. We
feed the illusion that we can defeat death, that ultimate confounder of our
control. We stay busy to look away from loss, tragedy and pain.
But, in the end, you
know death is going to win. All the activity you generate can’t bring back one
person from the other side. This is perhaps the most difficult truth for modern
men and women to embrace. Acceptance -- not busyness -- brings us to a peaceful
place. When we accept our lack of absolute control, when we accept the
inevitability of our own mortality, when we acknowledge our place in the grand
scheme of things, we gain the fullest life possible and the amount of control
we were meant to have.
[1]
I am indebted to Dr. Edward M. Hallowell for this idea. I highly recommend his
book Crazy Busy (Ballentine Books,
2006).
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