There is no shortage of guidance from the greatest minds, like Buddha, Confucius, Gandhi, and 168 others, about being present, staying in the moment. When it comes to writing on this subject, I feel like Elizabeth Taylor’s eighth husband on their wedding night. I know what I am supposed to do, but I am at a loss as to how to make it any different. Nevertheless, given its importance, I, like Elizabeth’s groom, cannot deny you my effort.1
Wrong!
I enjoy reminiscing about walking with the penguins in Antarctica and the first time I held Little Ricky. I also eagerly anticipate snorkeling with the turtles in the Galapagos Islands next month and building sandcastles with my grandchildren in Florida this summer (and bragging about my enviable Instagram life).
The problem is not reflecting on cherished memories or dreaming of making new ones. In fact, looking forward to a vacation contributes to happiness and well-being. The issue arises when thoughts of the past and future preoccupy our minds, inhibiting gratitude for and enjoyment of today’s pleasures, even the “mundane” – sunshine, family dinners, and good health.
A Fool’s Errand
One way we seek to achieve presence is by creating time through increasing efficiency. We focus on completing tasks faster and using the newfound time to finally do the things we want.
We also have the hustle culture, where people boast about how much they do and how busy they are, and inform us that we all have the same 24 hours (as the single fitness influencer said to the working mom with three children).
Our self-worth begins to get tied to how we use our time. Have you noticed that the most common reply to “How are you doing?” is “I’m so busy.” “They” praise us for moving faster and faster. We idolize the influencer who is in the gym pumping iron by 5 am.
Calculators, fax machines, computers, smartphones, the internet, and AI are used to perform tasks more quickly. Yes, we are faster, but the crucial question is, “How much more free time did we gain?” The faster you send more AI-generated emails, the number and pace of responses increase. It is the concept of accelerated expectations: the more tasks you complete, the more tasks you end up with.
Consequences
Those obsessed with improving productivity experience the same futility as Sisyphus in Greek mythology, condemned forever to push a boulder up a mountain only to see it roll back down just before reaching the peak. We should know by now that more efficiency is not the magic elixir or the complete solution. Like money, it does not fix most problems, or we can never have enough.
Of course, I am not saying that switching from your abacus to a calculator was pointless. What I am suggesting is that you release the expectation that greater efficiency will give you more time to live in the present.
More concerning is that the blind pursuit of increased productivity hinders us from making decisions about what to do with our time. Why exclude anything if we can do everything by being more efficient? The indecision keeps us stuck in limbo, and ironically, the more we do, the more time we spend on less valuable things.
We see social media moguls with multiple income-stream lifestyles promoting the belief that they do all of them well by working smarter instead of harder. They keep their options open and operate several middling businesses rather than select one and dedicate the effort required to make it more successful than multiple pursuits combined. For every Richard Branson, there are a hundred Steven Jobs, Sara Blakelys, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerbergs, and Kendra Scotts.
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There is so much to say that I cannot do it all in the present moment. Tune in next week…
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1 Credit to Oliver Burkeman and his marvelous book, Four Thousand Weeks, which I read every year and inspired this series of messages.
