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I had a similar awakening moment about 5 years ago. Felt like I wasted my 20s on consuming content and only playing video games outside of work. I had a simila

I had a similar awakening moment about 5 years ago. Felt like I wasted my 20s on consuming content and only playing video games outside of work. I had a similar journey. I’m even writing a book on it. I have found that the one thing that has helped bring enlightenment to this problem is reading books and thinking each day on how to apply them or just simply observing those around me instead of being glued on a device. I’m a bit further in that journey than the author and there are some great premises out there about the damage tech and our fragmented attention causes to our lives. There are even great titles mentioned in this blog bringing awareness to them, but some of the more old and interesting perspectives are those of Thoreau(Walden) and Emerson(Self-Reliance). While there’s a number of titles talking about internet or tech addiction, all we're doing is pointing out a problem rather than taking actual steps to improve our character to rid ourselves of these things to begin with. This problem is only going to get harder for the individual, and it’s up to each one of us to battle our own battles. No amount of reform will solve it for us.

TheFreim 4y ago
> observing those around me Most days within the last few weeks I've been leaving my phone at home. Not having one on me makes me actually look around at my surroundings more. It takes a bit of getting used to but after a while it no longer feels bad during downtime, just normal.
TechBro8615 4y ago
> outside of work Why did you feel this pressure to meet some self-defined obligation outside of work? Were you missing something in the work itself that you felt you had to recover in the time outside of it? In my experience, if I feel the value of my work output itself is meaningful, then I don’t need to worry about what I’m doing outside of it. If you start a business or work for yourself, then your career goals “at work” and “outside of work” are equivalent, thus freeing that time “outside of work” for you to make progress toward non-career goals (or to simply relax and recover). I’ve always found discussion of side-project optimization to be silly, because it’s missing the forest for the trees. The optimization is to take the risk and work on it full time. If you want to maximize the meaningful activities you do in your life, then it makes sense to start with the category of activity you spend the highest percentage of time performing.
- thenerdhead 4y ago
  I don’t quite understand your comment, but my comment was just talking about how empty I found myself just stuck in a loop of attention grabbing activities outside of work. I believe all lives require work, but not all lives are fulfilled by certain kinds of work. Hitting OKRs or KPIs at work can be satisfying but ultimately mean nothing when you approach retirement age/wealth.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> I had a similar journey. I’m even writing a book on it. I'd be interested to hear more. Do ping me if you have time. > While there’s a number of titles talking about internet or tech addiction, all we're doing is pointing out a problem rather than taking actual steps to improve our character to rid ourselves of these things to begin with. This problem is only going to get harder for the individual, and it’s up to each one of us to battle our own battles. No amount of reform will solve it for us. You might be interested to read Digital Vegan [1]. The food metaphor goes quite a long way. I really see it as a public health issue. [1] https://digitalvegan.net https://digitalvegan.net (can send you a review copy of you like)
- thenerdhead 4y ago
  I love the metaphor. I especially love using the Michael Pollan quote of “If it’s a plant eat it, if it’s made in a plant, don’t” or similar. I think that can be applied to our use of technology and especially content/digital consumption. I’ll have to send you an email when I get back from vacation. Thanks for the kindness.

TheFreim 4y ago

> observing those around me Most days within the last few weeks I've been leaving my phone at home. Not having one on me makes me actually look around at my surroundings more. It takes a bit of getting used to but after a while it no longer feels bad during downtime, just normal.

TechBro8615 4y ago

> outside of work Why did you feel this pressure to meet some self-defined obligation outside of work? Were you missing something in the work itself that you felt you had to recover in the time outside of it? In my experience, if I feel the value of my work output itself is meaningful, then I don’t need to worry about what I’m doing outside of it. If you start a business or work for yourself, then your career goals “at work” and “outside of work” are equivalent, thus freeing that time “outside of work” for you to make progress toward non-career goals (or to simply relax and recover). I’ve always found discussion of side-project optimization to be silly, because it’s missing the forest for the trees. The optimization is to take the risk and work on it full time. If you want to maximize the meaningful activities you do in your life, then it makes sense to start with the category of activity you spend the highest percentage of time performing.

thenerdhead 4y ago
I don’t quite understand your comment, but my comment was just talking about how empty I found myself just stuck in a loop of attention grabbing activities outside of work. I believe all lives require work, but not all lives are fulfilled by certain kinds of work. Hitting OKRs or KPIs at work can be satisfying but ultimately mean nothing when you approach retirement age/wealth.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> I had a similar journey. I’m even writing a book on it. I'd be interested to hear more. Do ping me if you have time. > While there’s a number of titles talking about internet or tech addiction, all we're doing is pointing out a problem rather than taking actual steps to improve our character to rid ourselves of these things to begin with. This problem is only going to get harder for the individual, and it’s up to each one of us to battle our own battles. No amount of reform will solve it for us. You might be interested to read Digital Vegan [1]. The food metaphor goes quite a long way. I really see it as a public health issue. [1] https://digitalvegan.net https://digitalvegan.net (can send you a review copy of you like)

thenerdhead 4y ago
I love the metaphor. I especially love using the Michael Pollan quote of “If it’s a plant eat it, if it’s made in a plant, don’t” or similar. I think that can be applied to our use of technology and especially content/digital consumption. I’ll have to send you an email when I get back from vacation. Thanks for the kindness.