I get the feeling this is going to take me a long time to write. This topic has been bouncing around in my brain box since before my last post, and that was six or seven months ago. It came to head in the last two weeks and I can't ignore my desire to put words on the digital page anymore.
Two weeks ago I was listening to a string of different podcasts that all seemed interconnected. I should have taken better notes, but one was from the Chris Spangle Show and at least one I'm pretty sure was a Jordan Harbinger Show. There were more. I can't remember them all and I didn't note them.
Last time I talked about spheres of influence and how I've been trying to only work within my own sphere and stop giving excess time and attention to what's outside that sphere. That topic came up again on Chris's show as he talked about how he's stepping back from politics and working on himself. He's recognized that change is personal and that he has no expectation of changing national politics anytime soon. I mentioned in my last post that this kind of thing was reaching a saturation point. It's heartwarming, but coupled with the other shows I listened to it led me down some other paths.
There was a show about reality. I'm pretty sure it was Jordan Harbinger. Anyhow, the point is that reality is a lot more subjective than most of us understand. To the point that in a lot of instances, one's expectation of reality is reality. You can literally think specific realities into existence. So this got me down a rabbit hole, and maybe the whole sphere of influence saturation point thing is just that I'm focusing on it, so I'm seeing it more, and all the platforms I interact with serve me up what I want to see based on the algorithms they run on so if I keep clicking those things I get more and more of them.
I'll be honest by the end I was less warm of heart.
Then there was another show about attention and respect, which I listened to because I'm always trying to improve as a father, husband, and manager. Man, this show was not really about any of that. This was another Harbinger I think, and the point of the show is that we've completely screwed our attention spans. The average person has an attention span of like 3 minutes now. We have been so trained by our jobs and devices to expect interruption that if we don't get interrupted, we'll interrupt ourselves. Like, it's been three minutes and even though my phone didn't go off I feel the urge to stop what I'm doing and check my email or pop over to some social media site and see if I have any notifications.
This hit me deep. I've done a lot to try to mitigate this. I've removed all social apps from my phone. I set up a difficult two factor authentication that makes it a pain to log into those social apps on the web and thus discourages me from doing so. I turned off notifications from basically everything except text messages. Even my work phone is locked down so the only notifications I get are instant messages and texts. Yet I still find myself pulling out one of those phones when my computer is taking longer than 5 seconds to load something, or when I'm standing in line at the grocery store for more than 30 seconds, or for no reason because I just remembered it was in my pocket.
I have trouble reading. Last year I finished two books. I can't even watch a TV show without pulling out my phone. I've had to set boundaries at home where I set my phone in my bedroom and close the door when I'm spending time with my kids because I found myself pulling out my phone when I was supposed to be paying attention to my kids. It's nuts and I hate myself a little because of it.
I'm not going to be able to say everything I wanted on this post; it's getting pretty long. I'll try to come back soon as I still have more to get out. I'll finish with this: I've been taking "phone free days" on the weekends when I have the luxury, and boy howdy has that been nice. The last few Saturdays I didn't go anywhere and I was able to lock my phones in my room and just enjoy my time without them. I finished a book (which I so badly want to talk about but I think that's going to be a whole post unto itself), and I play so much better with the boys when the phone is locked away. It's insane to think about the fact that I have to be so deliberate about locking down the phones, but I guess it's come to this. Even now, I've only been able to spend this time writing because the phones are upstairs somewhere.
Well, I hope this was an enjoyable insight into my brain box. Like I said, with luck more to come in the not too distant future.
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