Generation ADHD

25 07 2008

Do you ever find yourself in one of those conversations where you wonder how you got through high school without a cell phone? Or how people were ever productive without email?

I was in a conversation that was heading that direction, but it took a turn. I found myself asking, “What would I do without the Internet? Could I make it through an entire day at work completely offline? How about a week? a month? And then I thought, “How did my grandparents work their entire careers without ever checking a score on espn.com, or catching up over IM, or taking a few minutes to watch someone get hurt really badly on YouTube?” Basically, how could you just…work?

That’s the thought that caught me off guard. I started feeling pretty flighty for how dependent I am on the Internet, and how weak my generation’s work ethic seems in comparison to our parents and grandparents. We’ve done some great things, no doubt, but could we survive 40 years of selling insurance to names in the White Pages? I don’t think I could.

I got my first email address when I was 18. First cell phone at 21. I stumbled into Napster at 22, first used instant messenger at around 23, joined my first social network and tinkered with day trading at about 24, started my first blog at 25, and discovered the wonders of RSS that same year. Sometime during all of that I created accounts on eBay, Amazon, Flickr, and started texting but I couldn’t say exactly when. Now a few years later on any given day I’m on several of the above plus Facebook apps, a couple forums, Techmeme, iTunes, and whatever beta signup Techcrunch is giving away that day. Thank goodness I’ve mostly avoided Twitter so far, but the iPhone app store has proven too much (if you like your job and want to keep it don’t download Enigmo).

What’s funny is I always have considered myself a hard worker. I even have this get-down-to-business quote by Lance Armstrong within arm reach of where I’m typing this post:

“Everybody wants to know what I’m on. What am I on? I’m on my bike bustin’ my ass six hours a day. What are you on?”

Ignore the fact that not too long ago I wrote a post on work. I’m nowhere near my Grandpa, a farmer in his 90’s who still pulls his boots on six days a week. And that worries me a bit.

The Times (UK) published an article that accuses pretty much all of us of chronic distraction. It says we have fallen slave to hundreds of daily interruptions - mostly perpetrated by the Internet - and that they’re slowly ruining us. Sounds a bit Chicken Little, but it obviously resonated enough to make me read it. OK I skimmed it. (3 chat windows open at the time, can’t keep people waiting.)

Taken to its logical conclusion, how does this end? It ends with my generations’ contribution to the world marginalized by millions of little ding! noises. Our media consumption habits are the dietary equivalent of cotton candy, yet we’re expected to solve some of the toughest problems our world has ever faced.

Has technology made us more efficient? Absolutely. But we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can equal our parents’ accomplishments without equaling their work ethic. At some point, we’ve all got to simply disconnect and get back to work (1). I’m not calling for an all out boycott of the web. I’m just saying that we all could stand to hit refresh a few less times each day, and set the bar a little higher on where we invest our attention. It’s not just required of us, we wouldn’t expect anything less of ourselves.
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(1) I see the irony in publishing this on a blog, but I don’t think blogs - good ones at least - are the culprit. (This does not apply to Perez Hilton.) Blogging is a great way to vet ideas, and “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” (Victor Hugo)


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Work vs Play

8 05 2008

I’m convinced that the reason many people are not succeeding at their current ambition is that they are playing instead of working. (1) There could be several paths to playing work rather than working on work, but the result is the same: well-intentioned people, most of whom are reasonably talented, who languish in vocations they ought to be succeeding in.

How can you tell if you’re working on work or just playing work? You probably already know. If it makes you just a little uncomfortable to read this, but a train wreck-esque fascination keeps your eyes moving across the screen, it’s a good sign you’re among the guilty. However, the fact that you’re reading – rather than avoiding – these words probably means you can get back to working without too much trouble. So, how?

Start by recognizing the symptoms. People who play work know what they would rather be doing, it’s just painful to get started. An obvious symptom of playing work is expecting it to be fun all the time. After all, it’s called work. That said, real work is fun – sometimes. Oft repeated quotes about “loving what you do” lead us to believe that there’s something wrong if we don’t laugh ourselves hoarse at the office (2). But that’s not the kind of fun intended. Fun happens, like when a milestone is reached or your hard work is recognized. Along the way, however, there are some necessary evils. Avoiding the distasteful parts makes it difficult, if not impossible, to experience the great parts.

Another neat trick to avoid real work is to wait for the silver bullet. This one’s especially tempting because you convince yourself that you’re actually making the right decision given the conditions. Not only does the part of your brain that seeks comfort get served, but your ego does as well. Better to listen to General Patton and get to work on a “good plan violently executed today.”

There are other sure signs of play. If you’re never criticized, corrected, opposed, held responsible, or possibly even ridiculed, you’re probably not doing real work, at least not the variety that has far reaching impact.

If you’re always doing what you want at the time, it’s probably not work.

If you’re not following some preconceived strategy, it’s probably not work.

If you aren’t seeking feedback, it’s probably not work.

Back to Work

Your particular brand of play may vary, but there’s a sure way to get back to work: don’t wait for a perfect plan. (3) Since the last time you worked, you’ve risked no failure on the sidelines. You’ve stayed safe. The siren song of the perfect plan falsely ensures success, while the ‘best you have’ route is, by definition, prone to failure. The fallacy, of course, is that the perfect plan is a myth, and its followers will wake up one day having sealed their failure. (4) On the other hand, “…the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” (5) Be dangerous.

That’s it really. No 12 steps, no Harvard-born frameworks, just an invitation to begin.

Begin now.

Begin to be dangerous.

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(1) Just to be clear, this doesn’t describe all unsuccessful people, only some, but there are a lot of them.
(2) For example, “Find your own play, your own self-renewing compulsion, and you will become the person you are meant to be.” - George Sheehan
(3) “In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” - Teddy Roosevelt
(4) “Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.” - Frank Tibolt
(5) From T.E. Lawrence. The full quote is, “All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to find that it was vanity; But the dreamers of day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible.”


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Become What You Love

1 05 2008

You’ve heard it before: “do what you love”. Steve Jobs told Stanford graduates that “the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” I’ve always been passionate about finding what I loved, having first heard the mantra from my grandpa. On that journey I’ve quit jobs, ended relationships, and sold enough of my belongings that what remained fit in the back of my car.

Important as it may be, I’ve found that finding what you love is more problematic than it sounds. As with dating, there are lots of signals that can be interpreted as love and not all of them are real. For example, I love triathlons; am I supposed to love work like I love triathlons? Expecting to feel runners’ high 40 hours a week seems excessive. There has to be some reasonable timeframe implied when asking, “What do I love to do?” And then there are the temptations of prestige, exhilarating risk, and wealth. Many careers are a path to all three, but are these things the root of passion for your work? Hardly. Even benefiting society can be an imperfect indicator of fulfillment. Sewage engineers, for example, help millions of people, but I don’t see them giving commencement addresses at Stanford.

As is often the case, it’s insightful to turn this problem on its head. Rather than ask, “What do I love to do?” ask, “What is it like when I don’t love what I do?” For most people this is easy. For me, I feel under-engaged, uncreative, and unfulfilled. Basically, I don’t like who I am when I’m not doing something I love, and there’s the key: “who I am”. It turns out that it’s not that finding what you love is hard, it’s that “What do I love to do?” is the wrong question. “Who do I want to become?” and it’s corresponding axiom, “Become what you love” are much more useful.

Seeking to become rather than to do leads to an entirely different set of goals, habits, and values. In our cocktail party culture, the question “So, what do you do?” is really a proxy for “Who are you?” since we so closely associate personal attributes with professional pursuits. Truly happy people have narrowed the gap between who they are and what they do, and they view these two questions interchangeably. They must, in order to set free their full creative capacity.

The question “Who do I want to become?” is remarkably simple to answer for most people: a creator, a healer, a leader. Many titles would fit under any given answer to the Become question, but the values that you surround yourself with in pursuit of becoming, say, a healer are identical for most people: compassion, understanding, service. Setting free the qualities that you feel lurking within yourself is what brings fulfillment – not titles or job descriptions. Once brought to the surface, your most desired attributes work in overdrive since they are so closely aligned with the person you want to become. It’s a creative and productive force that can be felt behind some of the world’s most accomplished, magnetic, and happy people. You can bet that these people have repeatedly made bold decisions to follow their own voice rather than accepted definitions of success.

And that’s the trick. Become what you love.


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