Monday Idling

I took a morning walk to a nearby Starbucks early Monday morning. Outside was a nice idyllic atmosphere; the sun gilded everything, a few cats were on the hunt, and there was little noise except the chirping of some birds.

There was a surprisingly tranquil vibe inside the Starbucks. Two men were quietly reading their books beside an artificial fireplace with no distractions on their tables. It seemed like a reminder of what used to be, the world before smartphones and white collar cubicle jobs. Or maybe it was a reminder of what Monday could potentially be: a world without hustle culture and the “quest for the best.” What a nice way to start a Monday, I thought. In fact if everyone started their Monday by reading in a coffee shop, I’d bet we’d have far fewer issues.

I sat, sipped an espresso, and reflected on my dreams the night before. All seemed still for awhile.

There was no stress in the coffee shop. Stress is very visible and its presence is like a powerful electromagnetic field; you just know when it’s in the air. It’s written on every line, on every face, of the hustlers and botherers of the world: those politicians, pushers, managers, and marketers who never seem to stop prescribing things for you. Yet chronic stress is prescribed in their anti-anxiety meds. Ironically, stress is the harbinger of death. Yet hustle culture says it’s okay to be chronically stressed, because you have to “work for performance.” The only way to espouse this message convincingly is to convince the employee that he or she may somehow live forever. This hoodwink comes in the form of false promises of “security” and “retirement packages.” Indeed, “life security” seems to be the modern world’s version of promises “eternity in heaven.”

No rush hour, no drive-through, no engorging crappy processed food on the way to the office, no 7 am emails. Yes, this Starbucks trip was a glimpse of a better world. Ironic that it occurred in a corporate chain, but still a nice experience.

I approve the routine of these two men who took the time to read their books on Monday morning.

I felt some of the fatigue in my own legs on the walk back. This fatigue was from the 30 miles of running I did over Saturday and Sunday, finally settling in.

The experience made me decide that after this marathon, I’ll do a lot of idling before starting my runs and bike rides again. As far as hustling goes… “I’d rather not.”

The Great Keynesian Error

In 1930, famous economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that we would eventually have a 15-hour work week. Technology would become so efficient at generating GDP and wealth, he believed, that we simply would no longer need to do much. Our machines would do most tasks for us.

What a horrible miscalculation that proved to be!

Fast forward to 2023. One recent study found that 41% of Americans in “white collar” professions reported feeling extreme stress and burnout.

It’s estimated that more than half of American workers do not have the time to take a proper lunch.

Another estimated 31% of American workers are working on weekends.

Americans are leaving millions of unused vacation hours behind every year.

Indeed, Americans self-report being overworked, overstressed, and underslept. And these are all contributors to obesity, anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular disease. A lack of sleep is believed to play an especially significant factor in cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.

There’s a recent award-winning film titled Everything Everwhere All At Once. I can’t help but think that this aptly describes the mindset of our modern hustle culture. “I have to do everything and be everywhere, all at once, in order to be successful.”

That is a chase that ends with a decrepit body, a cabinet of meds, and a retirement package to pay for your nurses during your final years spent in inertia.

True bravery means going against the grain. I don’t applaud those who “work overtime” for the sake of a good performance review. That’s just running with the herd. I respect the person willing to slow things down and prioritize himself or herself in spite of the nagging botherers of the world who call this “slacking.”

It seems too often, in my opinion, that the quest for self-optimization is a quest to be what is essentially a soulless machine. It is why we surround ourselves with increasingly more machines: we yearn to be them. The chase for the best nutritional supplements and skincare products, the constant seeking of better pay and better fitness via gyms and watches… one would think we’d have evolved into an entirely new species from all of this chasing. And yet we’re arguably less healthy than ever, thanks to this modern religion that is “hustle culture.”

Keynes was wrong primarily because he didn’t account for the human tendency to always want more. Coupled with the Protestant work ethic espoused by corporate white collar management, this means that self-improvement can only mean finding the capability of doing more in what little time you have. What place does self-satisfaction have in hustle culture? The answer is none.

The ultimate irony is that the more you try to do, the more life you lose. Time ironically slows dramatically, and therefore becomes more favorable, when every hour isn’t spent cranking out standard operating procedures while frantically checking emails. One of the worst sins of all is ubiquitous: coffee is slurped but not tasted.

In this quest for more, there is a nightmarish eternal ladder climb in which every attempt at the top rung finds one lower than he or she was at the start.

Get some good sleep and enjoy the taste of your coffee, I say.

Navigation

I was at the bus stop at North Hanley station, where I saw an older blind man navigate a narrow and inclined walkway. The walkway had a sharp 90 degree turn and cement sides. He had nothing but his cane for help.

Yet the blind man somehow managed to navigate this walkway unscathed. At the bottom of the walkway, a woman whom I assumed was his wife waited for him. They hugged, and she led him to their vehicle.

I thought in that moment that regardless of any hardships I’d faced before, they still pale in comparison to the battles that millions of others face. I also thought that life’s too short to engage in these sorts of battles alone.

In the blind man’s walk from the metro station, I saw not only the value of companionship, but also the benefit of continuing on for someone else, and the potential added boost of motivation that provides. This sort of benefit clearly makes navigating something that would be seemingly impossible, possible.

Speaking of navigation, it’s common in the post-COVID era to see cars roar through red lights, swerve into oncoming traffic to bypass a slower car, or drive recklessly in various other ways. It’s easy to be upset by this sort of behavior, and indeed these sorts of drivers reek of anxiety and manic depression, which probably permeates to other drivers on the road.

However, the universe is playing a cruel joke on them. By attempting to cut corners, they save no time. They risk life and limb, sure, but they are still bound to a system of traffic flows and employment start times. They still sit in a car motionless, and they lose life from the anxiety of their haste. Their work begins and ends at the same hour, and the tasks completed will be the same. Worse yet, nothing kills a body quite like stress. Their intense accelerations further waste higher amounts of fuel, which they must pay.

They are not gaining time, they’re losing it.

They are still white rabbits in the end, rushing for a date, and still therefore slaves to the red queen.

One of the ultimately ironies in life is that those who rush tend to waste the largest amounts of life.

Managing Stress

I’m not an expert at managing stress, but I have picked up a few key habits over the years that have helped me maintain a decent equilibrium. In the current era of post-COVID work I’ve noted that many colleagues are constantly feeling extremely high amounts of stress. Some peers have told me that they are now pre-diabetic, and others have claimed that they feel constantly on edge, and that the feeling can be incapacitating. Sleep and exercise seem to have gone out the wayside. The trend is certainly troubling. This shift toward the “stressed and exhausted American” dominating the urban landscape has made me realize how vital it is to have stress-negating habits.

I believe managing stress effectively requires one to stray from the norm of Westernized work culture. What are the norms, and can some of them be prevented at all?

• Wake up early and check your phone immediately

• Rush to work via car, sit in traffic and a drive-through, and eat breakfast along the way

• Chug coffee to mitigate sleepiness

• Sit at the desk and stare at a blue screen

• Eat an unhealthy, oily and heavily processed lunch at the desk, and eat it quickly

• Drink an afternoon coffee to mitigate the post-lunch drowsiness

• Drive home and quickly eat a large dinner

• Plug eyes to phone screen, tablet, or tv screen while drinking alcohol in order to “wind down”

• Sleep with the phone next to your bed

When listed it seems obvious why people at work seem incredibly stressed. These habits are not only debilitating, they’re cancer-inducing, and the mental state of most employees is a key indicator of this. I don’t always do the opposite of all of these negative habits, but I do find myself straying from them as much as possible. Obviously the key is to do damn near the opposite of each bullet point listed above. Here’s my own “aim” for a norm:

• Wake up early (a necessity if working) but don’t check the phone. Exercise outside and let dawn be the first light that the eyes register. In a perfect world, we all sleep in at our leisure.

• Ride the bicycle to work if possible. If not, exercise before driving.

• Have one cup of pour-over coffee or tea before work (at most)

• Spend five minutes before logging into the PC either practicing deep breathing or meditating.

• Work with a standing desk, not a sitting desk (if you have a computer job)

• Take a five minute walk every hour, regardless of your Inbox (responsiveness be damned)

• Eat a healthy lunch (oatmeal or a salad), preferably outside and with people, not alone in a rat cage

• Drink water and electrolytes throughout the afternoon

• Ride the bicycle home from work

• Listen to calm music while making dinner

• Watch the sunset

• Read myself to sleep

There has been pressure, even in my own work culture, to trend towards the less healthy habits. For example, there is an option to work longer hours Monday through Thursday, and then to have Friday off. I opted out of this option due to the extensive time it tethers you to a computer screen on Monday through Thursday. I decided it’s better to have an extra hour for movement and “slow eating.”

The work environment is also typically rife with toxic foods. Potato chips, birthday cakes, candy bars, and hamburgers dominate the food scene. The post-COVID average weight gain shows it. To make matters worse, many employees now work virtually, and as a result move even less, while still eating a similarly terrible diet. One has to shield the eyes from the packaged stuff and opt for a salad or oatmeal.

After work, the phone screen provides a universe of dopamine. Avoiding this is difficult, and I still struggle with this one. But the phone interferes with sleep, so I try to unplug by 7 pm. Alcohol, likewise, destroys sleep. And a good night’s sleep, whether you believe it or not, is probably the best possible thing you can do for yourself.

I don’t always hit all of these habits; sometimes, adulting is tough and time is constrained. But I strive to make most of them routine. Addressing some of them has required some shifts in my own routine. For example, I enjoy metal music. However, it gives me too much adrenaline, and too much adrenaline places one in a constant state of “fight or flight”. I’ve had to switch my music a little. I still listen to some metal, but not as often as I used to.

If you find yourself in a constant state of work stress, you are not alone. By most metrics, the vast majority of employees are constantly stressed in America. I don’t recommend switching all of your habits at once—that might be overwhelming—but instead gradually addressing one habit at a time.

Let’s start with a good night’s sleep and add to that.