Last week was absolutely crazy – I want to say thank you, again.
Our grand total raised by a $15 eBook to combat prostate cancer was $837. So $1,674 with zerocancer.org’s match.
…and Monday of last week I thought that $150 was a stretch.
(I apologize for questioning your generosity – ha!)
From the absolute depths of my heart thank you. Your emails were kind, generous, thoughtful, and caring. Some of them legitimately brought me to tears. Others made me flip out in surprise.
It was – by far – the best thing I’ve ever done. Launching a product is a rush, but nothing has come close to that.
Without a doubt, we’ll do it again next year.
And now, onto something else unrelated and unexpected –
I’m quitting Twitter for December (at least)
A Taste of My Own Medicine
The details of why I’m going on at least a 31-day fast from Twitter don’t matter – so I’m going to spare any personal explanation other than to tell you that no, nothing is wrong. I’m also not shaming you for using Twitter (or social media). This is, as far as you care, a personal experiment.
It also means I would love your assistance in shaming me, if you would be so kind to pay attention and participate.
(I’m not kidding – I’m asking for my own medicine)
If you see me show up on Twitter in December – comment, like, post, or retweet anything – you have my permission, and I request that you chastise me for it. I unfortunately don’t control how rude you could be, but I do want you to call me out if I make a misstep.
Okay? Deal.
If it isn’t clear – this means if you @ me or DM me – I won’t see them until at least January. You also won’t hear from me at all if you’re not coming to my website or subscribed to my email list.
If you want to get in touch, you’ll have to email me.
You do what you will with all of that information.
Your Attention
While I’m not giving a reason for my personal choice of action explicitly – I do think that some generalities about it are worth commenting on.
Namely – talking about the currency of your attention and what you do with it.
A lot of you told me that you seriously resonated with my post last Wednesday (3 Career Lessons I Learned from my Father) – specifically the bullet point list at the bottom where I harped on wasting time over stupid things, relationships, and bad decisions.
I think if I had an in-person conversation with any of you and I said
“Your time and attention are your most valuable assets”
that you would nod along and agree. I would be quite surprised if you disagreed.
Additionally, if I described social media as a large time waster – I don’t think you’d disagree with that either.
But then we’d walk away from the conversation and within the next 5 minutes you would most certainly check your email, Facebook, or Twitter at least once. I have no doubt.
What that says to me is that logically you “get it” – but you’ve never actually internalized or personalized the information.
Let me add some context for you.
The vast majority if not all of you think you don’t make enough money.
(I’m sure there’s some hair splitting there where plenty of you make enough to be comfortable and fine – but I mean enough where you hardly even think about money)
There’s also a large chunk of you who think about money a lot because you don’t make enough. You wonder how you’re going to pay rent next month, you can’t buy certain things because of bills, you would jump on an audio career full time if only you had some money cushion in case things went wrong, etc.
So it’s a primary concern to plenty of you. If it’s not primary – you’re sure to focus on it at least a decent chunk of time each month to make sure bills are paid.
Here’s the crazy part –
At best, money is your third most valuable asset in life.
Everything’s Changed
When I was growing up, that previous statement wasn’t the case. Money was your second most valuable asset.
(You could say money-generating assets are more valuable than money – but again, hair splitting, so roll with me here please)
In my opinion – with modern television usage, that started to shift. When we got too many “good” entertainment options to choose from, people paid more and more attention to said easy entertainment options than they did to other endeavors.
Less sharing, communication, play, making things, interaction – more sedentary non-participatory entertainment.
Then the internet happened – and as wonderful as the internet is (and it is wonderful) – it has plenty of darkness along with the light.
What’s particularly insidious about some parts the internet is the illusions that it provides you.
In exchange for your attention and participation – for example – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. all offer “real time information, immediate interaction, and community with friends”
Every single one of you – me included – would nod along with that and agree. We’ve gotten news and world updates, had plenty of communication, and made actual friends due to these services.
At the same time – we also admit that what you see on social media is “a highlight reel” of someone’s life. As well, I personally believe that social media as a news source is just as bad as cable TV as a news source – almost none of it is actually real.
What’s crazy to me is how few of us realize something –
We can’t have it both ways.
Social media can’t both be a source of highly positive things and full of fabricated nonsense.
As we all know there are plenty of stories, studies, and books on how bad social media and poor internet usage is for your mental health.
In light of that, even worse is that none of us realize the shift that technology has subtly caused to our tangible and intangible systems of currency.
Time is certainly your most valuable life asset – you get an unknown finite amount at birth, and never get more.
Money is also a valuable asset and tangible – not having enough literally means you can’t participate in some aspects of life (frivolous or otherwise).
But attention is something that most of us haven’t even recognized as a currency until very recently, if you even have yet.
Your attention is closely tied to your time – you think of inattentive time as wasted, for example.
“Wasting time” used to be no big deal. You’d read a book, catch up with a friend, do something fun or physical, maybe even just be bored.
Then we started spending hours in front of a TV.
Now you can’t even stand in line for 60 seconds without pulling out your phone.
All of us have literally paid money for the opportunity to give our attention away.
No social media sites even charge you for the privilege because your attention is clearly worth more than any money they could ever pull from you personally.
(and then they convert your attention to dollars anyway)
None of us even thought about this before we signed up, bought an iPhone, and downloaded the apps.
The Trade
I’m probably not telling you anything mind blowing here that you don’t already know. But I think it’s important for you to consider what you’re trading.
Because you make excuses literally daily.
“I don’t have enough time to do the thing I think would be really cool to do.”
“I’m too tired to start this project that would be really awesome and get my foot in the door.”
“I’ll practice when I have more energy, tomorrow.”
When what do you do with that little amount of time or energy you’ve got left? You know – the amount you can’t use on your dream?
You scroll through your Facebook feed.
For like… the 15th time that day.
I wonder what the the vampire is that’s sucking out all that energy you used to have. Just your job? Really?
But how many new things did Facebook bring to your attention, anger you about (like, the news), make you envious of, etc. today?
Hmm…
If you had all of that time and energy back – what would you do?
Practice making new sounds?
Learn middleware or a game engine?
Make some music?
Cut that demo reel you’ve been meaning to do for 6 months?
Apply for jobs?
Go to the gym?
Spend time with your family?
Actually catch up with friends, play some games, read a book, whatever?
There are so many things you can do that are productive with your time – where today you’re spending it on the illusion of communication provided to you in the form of likes, comments, shares, and retweets.
Folks, you’re not actually doing anything when you hit one of those buttons. You poked something with your thumb that causes an opportunity chance that you’ll distract someone else – you don’t even know who it’ll explicitly go to.
It’s a bit insane when you actually think about it, right?
So I’m partially doing an experiment on myself to regain my own attention. I’ve got too many things I want to accomplish in 2019 that will need a lot focused time.
I highly suggest you just think about where your focused, attentive time is going.
Because I really want you to succeed with the things that you’ve always thought you couldn’t do.
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