February 23, 2025
A Whole New World
It feels like people are more frequently late for appointments than ever, that is if they haven’t already rescheduled the event for another time in the imaginary future. I’m not sure when this began occurring, probably when we could start jumping in on Zoom calls or complete an entire day’s work wearing (hopefully) pajama pants and our flannel house-slippers, smelling like…well, who cares? Accountability is still waning.
Once upon a time, a no call/no show could warrant a search and rescue team being deployed: “It’s not like Brenda to be late, here let’s call her neighbor to see if she can check in on her and get her husband Doug on the line, maybe he has some promising leads as to her whereabouts. Don’t worry guys, we’ll find her!”.
But since we now all have phones attached to us, we can show one another: “Look, she’s not answering any texts, but who does these days? Can we agree that we all just have too much going on right now. So we can just keep shooting for like, sometime next week”, where perhaps Brenda can Zoom in on a magic carpet made of flannel.
We used to have to consider the person with whom we were speaking when saying, “Yep, sounds good, I’ll see you Thursday at 3pm.” Yet, with the current luxury of having real time ability to communicate with one another, we’ve taken it for granted: “5 mins away”, then “just be another 10 minutes, ugh traffic”, and finally, “you know what, I’ve missed half of what’s going on there, can we just reschedule for next Thursday? No, you guys name the time, I’m easy.”
Fidgeting
We are keeping track of everything, including time, on these devices and they are doing an increasingly terrible job as our personal assistants. Given the amount of time we actually spend poking around in the digital realm, it seems that our commitments are more secured in technology than any of the people or information we’re storing in there instead of in our brains.
What is accessible at the touch of a button seems to have a higher gravitational pull than the physical act of showing up at a specific time, with the intention of being present in front of an actual human being. And since time is now under the control of our smartphones, we can absolve ourselves of any wrongdoing or responsibility. “This phone just won’t let me off the hook.”
This form of technology gives us something to be doing constantly, a fidget, while providing us with a self-fulfilling habit that starts to drain us of our sense of identity, with ease. As a result of being so disconnected from ourselves, we’re not so much connected with one another, as we are entangled.
In walking this observation down a bit further, we may begin to notice a recurring theme when it comes to explaining ourselves for these normalized social faux paus, which is: we’re busy. Being busy is the new sickness, that is what used to get us out of doing stuff we didn’t want to do. Now it’s far more convenient to behave like our shirt-tails are on fire 100% of the time than to feign a cough or get a doctor’s note in order to prove our affliction once in a while.
This way, if we’re always ‘sick’ then no one can bother us and we should be free to just calmly go about our business. But we don’t do this; instead, we are scrambling around like mad, entangling ourselves with everything we can get our hands on, which conveniently is right there: in our hands.
Imperfect Circles
Technology is not as much a culprit in this dizzying phenomenon, but more of a conduit that allows us to perpetuate the forces within our lives that keep us busy beyond belief. Through reading The Minimalists and through experience, I’ve grown to identify these particular forces as anchors.
An anchor may not seem like a pernicious metaphor to those who view it as a symbol of strength, safety, trust or stability. But aside from tattoos, jewelry or kitschy lakehouse fixtures, an anchor can take on an entirely different meaning when we look at it as something that is holding us down, preventing us from exploring and discovering things that are new; things that exist outside of our understanding that help us grow.
So what does an anchor have to do with us being so mind-numbingly busy, that the only realistic and conceivable idea of grabbing a cup of coffee is in a line with the motor running? Well, we can only swim around in circles when we’re tethered to a fixed point, which over time probably starts to look more like we’re flailing around in the water. So the reason us busy-bees look like we’re flailing around all the time is because: a) we are; and b) anchors were designed for boats and to keep them from moving.
Anchors can appear pretty much everywhere we look, in all shapes and sizes. One might feel its force amidst an important job that they absolutely hate or an invested relationship in which they’re totally stuck or even living by traditional standards that don’t seem to hold up. Or perhaps it’s our old baseball card collection or drawers full of DVD’s we haven’t watched in 10 years or clothing we haven’t worn in 10 years or the couch.
That last one is a big, little achor, because it pulls us in any moment we’re near it; but they all add up once we start to think about all of these things, big or small, that are holding us back, wasting our time or just imbedded in the sand, doing nothing but keeping us there.
Another Brick
Life is random. The weirdest things happen with the most unthinkable timing, but we should know by now that the harder we try to build something that is indestructible or life-proof, the more imminent its collapse seems. Storms come and storms go and we should always be prepared for them. But we should also consider the things we tie ourselves to and why, because some of them seem very small, but their collective weight adds up to more than enough force capable of keeping us still. Sometimes it’s even enough to pull us under.
The reason why most people are reluctant to take risks is because they don’t want to lose anything. We spend years building up material walls around ourselves to bring about a sense of inner comfort and accomplishment, without realizing the limitations that this can create. Ironically, by constructing these barriers to sculpt our own idea of how we should ‘look’ to this world, we end up suppressing a lifetime’s worth of who we ‘are’.
Whenever I find myself feeling stuck or disenchanted, I take a look at what and with whom I’m surrounding myself. If it’s something that I shrug off just a little too quickly so I can continue running down my list of possible anchors, there’s a pretty good chance that at least some of the problem falls within that area.
We’re all experts when it comes to justifying our own behaviors, at least to ourselves and in our own heads. And in doing so, we often neglect how a bad habit (yes, including the “use” of our phones) or relationship or a pile of junk in the garage impacts our daily lives. But simply recognizing something doesn’t make it go away: “oh man, am I the guy who’s always late or what? Haha!”.
It’s not a revelation to see the truth when it’s out in the open for everyone to gaze upon. But to take action against it is exactly what is required of us to free ourselves from the berth of monotony and unfulfillment. A lot of the time it’s just a matter of being able to say the word “No” and see it through. We all carry some version of personal baggage, so maybe we can ask ourselves, “How can I lighten my load?” and just start with a couple of the little things.