Resolve to log out, slow down in 2022: Life Hacks by Charles Assisi

As always, at such reunions, we began to swap stories of our lives since the last time we met. As one friend put it, “School buddies are the only ones that don’t size each other up by their net worth.” He was right. This was a safe space and honest narratives emerged.

Some spoke of doing well professionally but suffering personal setbacks. Others had managed to nurture close families but were suffering professionally. Some were going through a mid-life crisis; others turned out to be harbouring deep despair.

A voice in the back of the mind wondered, whatever happened to us? We all started out assuming everyone would “succeed”.

I was reminded, once again, of the seminal essay by Clayton Christensen, tiled “How Will You Measure Your Life?” The legendary management teacher spent years studying the lives of his batch mates from Harvard Business School’s class of 1979. In this essay, first published in the Harvard Business Review in 2010, he wrote of how most had suffered significant failures, either professional or personal.

“I can guarantee you that not a single one of them graduated with the deliberate strategy of getting divorced and raising children who would become estranged from them,” Christensen wrote. “And yet a shocking number of them implemented that strategy. The reason? They didn’t keep the purpose of their lives front and centre as they decided how to spend their time, talents, and energy.”

Indeed! All of us set out determined (and equipped) to succeed. And yet, from time to time, we lose sight of exactly what “succeeding” means to us.

On thinking back on the reunion, another thing stood out. No one had appeared to be in a hurry. Everyone voluntarily disengaged from email, messaging apps, social media feeds and all else that comes with the always-on internet.

What compels so many tens of millions to check their devices constantly or post selfies of what they’re doing in real time? This is a theme that Nandan Nilekani and Tanuj Bhojwani examine in interesting depth in their new book, The Art of Bitfulness, due out this month. I was sent a preview copy, and it resonated.

This idea that we must be connected all the time and everywhere is an addiction, and most people’s relationship with technology has developed into a toxic one, with the craving to swipe much like the craving for cigarettes, Nilekani and Bhojwani point out in the book.

This toxicity comes partly from outdated work practices where people are expected to be connected all the time and everywhere, simply because our devices can connect us anytime, anywhere.

Does it need to be this way? What I experienced when with friends was a “state of flow”. One of my resolutions for the new year is to recreate such pockets of “flow” through 2022.

What do I hope to accomplish when in “flow”? One thing I’d like to do is expand the mind. Revisiting How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren, I came upon this passage that has strengthened this resolve: “By the time most people are thirty years old, their bodies are as good as they will ever be; in fact, many persons’ bodies have begun to deteriorate by that time. But there is no limit to the amount of growth and development that the mind can sustain. The mind does not stop growing at any particular age; only when the brain itself loses its vigour, in senescence, does the mind lose its power to increase in skill and understanding.”

To do what can elevate is another resolution for the year. A third is to meet with the group of school friends, once every quarter. One could add a fourth: to allow for no exceptions to the first three.

As Christensen put it: “…it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the times than it is to just hold to them 98% of the time”. He’s right.