Growing up in a small town in Northern Germany, I remember boredom. I’ve never been that person that goes out meeting friends every day, so I ended up spending quite a lot of time at home. School had not been very challenging and besides playing football I didn’t have many hobbies. Even with a trampoline in our garden and my TV with the Nintendo Gamecube and Fifa 2007 in my room, I remember being bored [1].
Welcome to the age of abundance
Boredom, a feeling that I now believe I have not had in the past 5 years. Even now being locked-down in my apartment in Copenhagen, I have the privilege to feel busier than ever before. Our primary challenge today is living in an environment where we somehow want to push 35 hours of activities into a 24-hour day. To be able to do this, we multi-task. We listen to podcasts while we cook, we date (swipe) while we eat, we talk to a stranger on Instagram while meeting a friend in person. We have the iPad on the knees, the phone in the hand and Netflix in the background. We want everything and we want it right now. But the truth is that the overload of information is just too much [1].
An abundance of content is created. On average, we check our phones 96 times a day, that’s once every 10 minutes [2]!! Similarly interesting, we’re exposed to around 5000 ads each day [3] – but how many can you even remember? There are more social media posts, more photos of friends, more Netflix shows, more podcasts, more live streams, more songs, more websites, more blogs (including mine), more of everything. We have far too much stuff, seek too much information in far too little time.
Our biggest challenge isn’t boredom and scarcity of entertainment anymore. It is abundance in every way we can imagine. There are too many careers I could have, too many cities I could live in, too many trips I could take, too many girls I could date, endless things I could consume.
A focused mind is the most important skill in the age of abundance
So what do you need to make sense of all this? The most important skill living in the age of abundance is the ability to focus. By focusing, I mean the ability to ignore all the distractions from social media, the things you could do, the fear of what may happen in the future and instead focus on what really matters.
At this moment many are scared of what the future will bring. We’re afraid of getting sick and each day I see people on Linkedin posting about losing their jobs. Being able to focus means too keep calm and identify what is important right now, what you can do to improve the situation. We really don’t know what will happen, so it’s best to focus on what we can control. What is it that really matters to you, what is it now? This could be health, staying home and protecting yourself and your family. It could also be securing your financial situation, making yourself irreplaceable at work or starting your own business as a plan B.
But this does not only apply to our global Corona situation. Ask yourself in general: Where do you want to be in your life? How can you take action on it? What are the things and the people that are important to you? The individual focus could be anything one finds meaningful. However, this won’t be the search for fame, the lust for materials or the objectification of others.
Finally, here’s a liitle practice for you:
Focus on this place here, not other places.
Focus on one single individual at a time, not all others.
Focus on one single object at a time, not all other objects.
Jacob Nilius
[1] Inspired by Tom Goodwin, Digital Darwinism
[2] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/americans-check-their-phones-96-times-a-day-300962643.html
[3] https://medium.com/permissionio/the-crazed-battle-for-your-attention-7d207f31d688