A Day Without Responsibility, Drudgery or Distraction?

Doesn’t that sound heavenly? And rare? An act of freedom?

Of course, I have to remember that most people, in most places and throughout history — especially women — have never had that luxury. And that I should be humbly grateful for the privilege I enjoy to actually have such a day at least once in a while.

But, that noted, I want to go back to myself. And recognize that, for much of my life, I’ve tended to be highly focused on duty, responsibility, solving problems, accomplishing goals, helping others, and taking care of all the things around me that need to be taken care of.

A Matter Of Innate Character?

If you identify with me on this, perhaps we are of kindred character.

Classic Type 1 in the Enneagram model (The Reformer), ENTJ in the Myers-Briggs typology (The Commander), an oldest child — and a daughter to boot! We can’t help being responsible all the time. It comes with the territory. It’s our glory and it’s our weakness.

I’ve lived this way in every environment I’ve known. Much of the time, it’s been highly rewarding.

But again and again, I come up against a wall.

All that energy, all that ambition to do the right thing, and to do it well, and all that joy in making things better around me . . . I can sometimes get overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of drudgery that goes into making things happen and getting things done.

When that happens, I tend to become a champion zombie!

Dragging through the day, pushing and pushing myself, but accomplishing little.

Staring helplessly at all my unfinished projects, endless to-do lists, follow-ups with other people I’ve let slide, stacks of disorganized papers on my desk, the growing pile of dirty dishes in my kitchen.

Unable to focus on any one thing. And feeling more listless, burdened and grumpy by the minute. Drowning in the frustration of “grown-up stuff” that isn’t being taken care of.

Definitely time for a restorative re-boot of “Karine the Machine” !

It’s Also The Times We Live In

Wait! Before you all start telling me to reform my character, to relax, to take it easy, to work less, to get in touch with my inner self, to practice meditation and to “be here now”. . . let’s get honest about how this isn’t all about personality and attitude!

It also has a lot to do with our increasingly distraction-driven age, and the pressure our modern life and communication technologies place on all of us to give away our attention.

On the macro level, it’s pretty alarming.

A fascinating article in the latest New Yorker titled “The Battle for Attention”, by Bay Area based writer Nathan Heller, reports that our human capacity for focused attention is dramatically on the wane.

There has been a huge decline in reading, math and science performance globally among 15-year olds in the past 10 years. ADHD diagnoses have tripled since 2010. The SAT exams have had to be shortened by 45 minutes, and many reading-comprehension packages cut down to 2–3 sentences. College professors report that many students find it hard to read whole books. Psychologists have found that our ability to maintain focus on one thing before switching to another has drastically decreased in the last two decades.

This is all closely connected to the perpetual “multitasking” to which most of us seem to have become addicted, as though it’s the necessary means to achieve the highest value of our times — productivity!

I’ve had occasion in the past to rail against multitasking — specifically the fact that it really doesn’t exist, but is instead a rapid-fire switching of attention from one thing to another. (Check out this video clip of me some time back pontificating about it to a group of Silicon Valley professionals of South Asian background!)

I’m as guilty of (or a victim of) the multitasking illusion as the next person. I’m especially vulnerable when I’m snowed under with too many responsibilities, too many drudgery tasks, and too many distractions coming at me.

Multitasking becomes a whole mode of being. It’s almost as if, when you’re already on overload, you perversely take on or let yourself be exposed to ever more attention-robbing stimuli. Each one takes you ever further from focused concentration.

It’s a kind of addiction.

Reinforced, of course, by the fact that so many others around you are in that same mode of being. And that we all encourage one another along by our collective touting of how wonderful it is to be constantly busy.

A Typical Day of RDD (Responsibility-Drudgery-Distraction)

Moving into true confessions here. Let me share with you an uncensored description of what a day is like for me when I’m caught up dawn-to-dusk in a heavy-duty RDD pattern.

Maybe (surely?) you will identify!

My iPhone gets turned on first thing in the morning, and the waiting text messages get responded to even before my first cup of tea.

Then, cup in hand, I head to my computer and check the incoming email. The first of many, many times I do that in the course of a day — to see what needs to be responded to, paid, unsnarled, or otherwise handled in order to keep the world functioning.

Then comes sitting down with my planner, mapping out all the tasks and to-dos of the day. Divided into 3 categories: Imperative, Important, Communications.

Prioritized in terms of urgency, all in the service of moving forward the agenda of getting “grown-up” responsibilities accomplished, and of dutifully plowing through all the drudgery items required to execute on just about anything.

Very impressive self-discipline, right? Well, yes, but guess what happens?

Given human nature, I start nibbling at the low-hanging fruit, especially the “Communications” (phone calls, emails, texts, online portal messages)— which are relatively easy to do, though by their very nature they are never really completed.

This lets me avoid for a while the next level — the “Important” tasks, all mostly pure RD (Responsibility-Drudgery). Household maintenance, food preparation, errands, shopping, garden care, dealing with other people’s needs and crises, solving technological problems(Grrr…), bureaucratic hassles. Not to speak of the financial management and legal matters that need to be responsibly attended to on a steady basis.

And I don’t even have kids! Or, at this point in my life, a full-time professional job!

The day rolls on, comes to an end, and guess which category has been largely untouched? Right, you got it! The “Imperative”! The major activities and projects that actually give meaning and direction to my life. Writing, reading, learning new things, thinking, music making, outdoor adventure, physical fitness, exploration, friendships, deep conversations, encounters with interesting people, smelling the proverbial roses, appreciating the wonder of life.

And the more I let myself get sucked into the RD items — especially the Communications — the more time they take, and the more I become tethered to my computer and iPhone, loath to even move my body any more than necessary. Eventually I get drowsy and have to go take a nap, even though I didn’t get up all that early and got plenty of sleep the previous night.

There goes all that great energy and drive to make an impact on the world around me!

This all gets further complicated by the fact that, being online to deal with so much of this RD stuff, I’m constantly tempted to to check tangential information on the web. This, of course, leads to surfing around aimlessly, looking at news and information about all sorts of things, and losing my physical vitality by staying motionless for too long.

I somehow imagine that I’m enriching my mind while, in fact, I’m just cluttering it with miscellaneous nuggets of information I don’t have time to absorb, let alone do anything about. Especially the always alarming political news, the dissections of the world’s myriad social-health-psychological-injustice problems, and the stream of trivia about popular culture and celebrities.

Tell me, honestly, aren’t many of you caught up in some version of this endless distraction cycle too?

What A Day Of Freedom Looks Like

A few days ago, I decided to just do things differently. To try, for a whole 24 hours, to “just say no”! To spend my time centrally on what thrills and pleases me most, and to take care of the rest in the interstices available.

What a difference that made!

Got up at 5 AM and went straight into three hours of solid, focused writing — with invigorating breaks every half hour for stretches. No phone, no texts, no emails — the world didn’t have to get hold of me. Tremendous feeling of peace, well-being and creative accomplishment.

Prepared my breakfast in a leisurely manner and ate while slowly reading a book I’m absorbed in these days — an intellectual biography of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. No radio on for news (in spite of the crisis in Gaza), no checking the stock market (in spite of it having been Apple earnings report day), no letting my mind wander to the latest Harry & Meghan or Taylor Swift news.

Took no more than one hour to do a brief one-time focused email check, write a few substantive letters to friends, quickly deal with an adequate number of RD items for the day, and to organize a list of tasks for the person who was coming for the morning to spell me off on the household work I so dread.

Followed that by jumping into to an entire hour of intense strength training exercises — and felt like a million dollars for having done it.

Decided to take myself out to lunch at a nearby fast-food fish restaurant, and sat there in the midst of the hubbub with my nose once again into that fascinating book about Nietzsche.

Next came a hike up into the hills behind my house for glorious afternoon enjoyment of the warm spring day and the views across the Bay. Returned home for a well-earned and luscious nap, before wandering out again for a while to interact with the friendly neighbor families in their front yards hanging out with their young kids.

After heating up the leftover fish lunch for dinner (reading my book again), spent a full three hours practicing for the choral music concert I would be performing in the following week. Headed to bed at 9 PM, fulfilled, and looking forward to a lovely, long sleep until the 5 AM alarm clock woke me up the following day.

A perfect day! Why should this be so rare?

A Modest Liberation Manifesto

Whatever our circumstances, can’t we all make some adjustments in our life patterns so as to have more days — or at least more time within our days — not dominated by the Responsibility-Drudgery-Distraction cycle?

Can’t we make even small changes to allow the most meaningful activities in our lives — whatever they may be — to take on a more central role for us, instead of sidelining them in relation to the never-ending RDDs of life?

Do the RDDs really have to take as much effort and time as they do? Do we really have to worry about them constantly, and let them (like housework) fill in all the space in our consciousness? Do we really have to spend precious conversation time with other people dissecting them and complaining about them? Do we really have to let them be center stage, while our abiding interests remain sidelined for “some day, when I have time”?

I know as well as the next person that there are times when “nose-to-the-grindstone” and “do-whatever-it-takes” is absolutely necessary. And there is a certain honor and satisfaction in that heroic stance.

But letting it become habitual, and letting your dreams and what gives you joy be chronically unattended, is a recipe for creeping life-weariness and and a hollow feeling on the inside.

I’m sure that, after experiencing my one glorious day of freedom, I will still easily fall back into my familiar RDD pattern.

That I will continue to take on more responsible commitments than I can realistically handle. That I will let myself drift through days exhaustedly dominated by unending dutiful to-dos. That it will always be hard to resist the siren call of the technology and information-age distractors that steal my attention.

But at least I know that it doesn’t have to be that way!

That it’s indeed possible to carve out a larger area of freedom for yourself every day. In myriad small ways (reducing the cyber-addiction and the constant availability for unnecessary communications) and through asserting (to yourself as well as others) your right to expend your energy on your true priorities.

People of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your RDD servitude!

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