Field Notes: XV
Selfishness And A Drink With A Friend
A Line to Live By
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Field Insight: Be Selfish and Become Authentic
Intro
How we spend our time is how we spend our energy, and how we spend our energy is how we spend our life.
One of the ultimate questions we can ask ourselves is “What do I want to do with my life?”
Before the age of constant media consumption, people used to spend a lot more time alone. The question of what to do with one’s life would be posed, pondered, and answered without much external influence.
This caused people to live authentic lives of their own choosing.
One Big Advertisement
Nowadays, it seems impossible to answer any of these questions without outside influence finding its way in. A recent article in The Vulture discusses the impact marketing companies are having on social media feeds. Through the use of tens of thousands of fake accounts owned by the marketing companies, customers can pay to have their message or product spread artificially under the guise of “real” people. It’s cheaper than TV or billboard ads, and creates the illusion of authenticity.
It’s not even as simple as somebody posting to promote their shampoo or their recipe. It can be thousands of artificial comments on a particular political post or posts taking a side on a celebrity feud. Sneaky stuff. The article estimates feeds today contain up to ninety-percent advertising in disguise. The point is, it’s hard to go anywhere without being told what or how to think.
A large part of finding purpose in life is exercising free will and traveling down your own unique path. The more influence we receive from the outside, especially from people who want us to buy their product or consume their content, the less ability we have to find our own way.
Obviously the media isn’t going anywhere, so how can we ensure that the decisions we make each day are for ourselves and in our own best-interest?
Selfishness for Authenticity
The antidote is not more media literacy. It is turning inward – making yourself the only audience that counts.
It’s time to get selfish.
Being selfish in the right way is the most effective route to becoming more of yourself. Becoming more of yourself is the best gift you can give yourself, your loved ones, and the world.
So what do we mean? Here is an exercise.
When you make decisions, make them as if nobody will ever see, hear, or know about your activity or the results. How you act and spend your time will only ever be between you and yourself. You can’t tell people what you’ve been up to, what you’ve accomplished, or your grand plans for the future.
How will this change the way you think and act?
You’ll spend a lot less time doing things because you think you “should” or because it’s the “right” thing to do. Your actions, your thoughts, and your beliefs will slowly but surely evolve to be fully yours. You’ll feel much more authentic and purposeful in your life, because you’ll default to only doing what you truly believe in.
The noise is here to stay, and there aren’t many places to hide. The best way to regain the authenticity and purpose in your life is to make sure that you’re the one calling the shots. So live your life as if there’s nobody watching and nobody to tell. Just you, yourself, and you. With ownership comes purpose and with purpose comes direction.
Rule From the Road:
Always say yes to a drink with a friend.
Scott Galloway, a professor at NYU, points to three converging trends: young people are drinking less, dating less, and socializing less — replaced across the board by screens.
His point is not that alcohol is healthy. It’s that young people have become so focused on optimization that we’ve started neglecting something even more important: social connection.
Alcohol has long been the social lubricant of society. It helps you relax, talk to strangers, ask the girl out, celebrate, and commiserate.
Young people have become obsessed with performance. And alcohol, they’ll tell you, is the enemy. It ruins sleep, slows recovery, damages metabolism, and lowers productivity.
We aren’t here to argue that these aren’t true – they are. But what gets less attention are the effects of isolation.
Loneliness, social isolation, anxiety, depression, and digital consumption are among the largest epidemics of our generation. We know the effects of alcohol on sleep. We spend less time discussing the effects of a shrinking social circle, a lack of community, fewer friendships, and fewer opportunities to connect with others.
Pull back from real connection long enough and the consequences follow: less confidence, smaller networks, delayed relationships, weaker communities.
A drink is not the point.
The point is that some opportunities only exist when you leave the house, sit across from another person, and spend a few hours together.
So when a friend calls and asks if you want to go have a beer, don’t think about your sleep score.
Think about your life score, and then say yes.
Something to Chew On
What is a desire of yours that’s fallen dormant due to the fear of outside perception?
Scott Galloway is the man. He just did a great pod with Huberman and talked a lot about the value gain in going to get a drink with friends for goodness sake.
Love this post. Social media is a scary landscape.