I VALUE YOUR TIME TO READ THIS

November 2020 – Unseriously Sincere Ideas Write-Up #03

TODAY IS THE 26TH AND NOT THE 16TH.

Yoo-hoo, only me. Sorry, I know I’m late, but there was traffic on the way here. Traffic that came in the form of a fantastic two-week getaway with friends (see above pic). I had some serious road rage on the first two days of the trip. I was battling to get my newsletter over the finish line by its due date, but loads of fun kept getting in the way. I was on a rollercoaster of emotions, bouncing between the anxiety of my self-assigned deadline and the joy of being present and in the moment with my pals. To cut a boring story short, I reluctantly made the decision to let the newsletter go until after the holiday, and went on to enjoy my time immensely.

What an inspiration I am.

The theme of this month’s newsletter is priorities and values and time. But before I go on, I’d just like to thank the many of you who responded to my last newsletteralerting me to the fact that bias is not an adjective. It is a noun and I should have used biased as the adjective. Egg on my face! Amiright?!

Okay, now that the housekeeping is out of the way, let’s move from the introduction and into the first point so we don’t get too drunk on the welcoming drinks. 

1. PRIORITISE MORNING SEX

If my life was a mountain, I wouldn’t be on top of it but I might be curled up in a dome tent at base camp. If you’re not familiar with how climbing Mount Everest works, this means I haven’t reached the summit but I’m not bingeing on cereal every day either.

I’ve been doing some introspecting these last few weeks and have come to realise a little sumthin’ sumthin’ about prioritising; I’ve worked out that if you prioritise the right things you can be a lot more productive and if you prioritise the wrong things then you don’t have time for morning sex. When you prioritise the right things you feel as though your life is in order, when you priortise the wrong things, life feels out of control and you eat too much granola.

Priorities are funny little things that enhance your life when you choose favourites but are real little kafuffles when you treat them all like equals. If you like chocolate as much as you like strawberry and strawberry as much as you like grapefruit, then you try to eat them all at once and you don’t have a good time. Alas, you end up stressed and sad and craving another bowl of breakfast. 

The last 12 months I’ve had some issues juggling all the life goals I have. I want to have a family, I want to be a famous comedian, I want to write a book, learn Spanish, excel at my day job, retire to spend my millions of dollars cash on improving people’s lives. Among other things.

The issues that I’ve had are because I’ve been too multidirectional in my visions. The above goals don’t totally align and as a result they battle for my attention. It’s become particularly apparent since finding a very strong candidate to be my baby daddy. I’ve learnt that, for relationships to work, they need to be prioritised and treated like any other one of your life goals. They need time, attention and the key players should not be too distracted by bright lights and showbiz when they already have a lot of time-consuming hobbies and commitments.

And this is why I’d like to announce my early retirement from stand-up comedy. I’d invite you to my final show but it’s already happened and you’ve probably never heard of me anyway.

I’m making an effort to start properly prioritising what’s truly valuable. By prioritizing what’s truly valuable, you reduce the amount of stress that comes from too many flavours to choose from. By having less flavours to choose from, you increase focus and can enjoy one flavour at a time. And by focusing and enjoying one flavour at a time, you’ll suddenly find spare time for morning sex.

Success in any area of one’s life comes from an ability to prioritize, focus and sustain your attention toward one thing at a time. There are plenty of comedians who have written books, but you’ll be hard pressed to find one that wrote a book at the same time they built their career in comedy and learnt a second language. The career is usually built before the book is writt. The second language is probably just something they picked up from an exotic parent.

Every day we choose what we put our energy into because valuing things gives meaning to our lives. But valuing too many things at once means we are more likely to end up not valuing anything enough. We don’t get shit done and we don’t have a healthy sex life. So don’t be greedy.


2. WHERE YO’ VALUE AT?

It may or may not surprise you to hear that I work as a Social Media Expert for a living. 

I work for the New York Times Bestselling (self-help) author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck and Everything is Fucked: A Book About Hope. His name is Mark Manson. A great guy and a real torpedo of a wordsmith. My job is to manage his multiple social media platforms, entertaining and engaging his followers by injecting his wisdom into the world.

Anything we post on social media reaches the eyeballs of millions of self-improving humans every month. They leave comments, share with their friends, debate and discuss his ideas with strangers. If they’re not doing this, I’m kinda failing at my job. But I’m not failing at my job, so I’m a social media expert!
 
However, if you were to look at my Comfort is for Wimps social media channels, most people would assume I suck at being a social media expert. I’m inconsistent. I’m scrappy. I pretend I’m cooler than I really am and my reluctance to use social media makes me rush it and say silly things. I have an unimpressive following and I pretty much treat my social media the same way I treated my dating the last five years.
 
It took me a little while to realise why my personal social media efforts stink like an old foot yet I seem to be able to comfortably make a living out of social media-ing. Ultimately it comes down to the lack of value I place on it, which is due to the lack of value I offer anyone else by using it.
 
I mean, I like to pretend that what I post on Instagram is important and worthy and used to fill awkward silences at dinner parties. I believe having this sort of confidence is what eventually tricks people into bringing your name up at dinner. But let’s be real. I haven’t invented a cool new way to save endangered elephants. I don’t live a far out fantastic lifestyle that people want to look at. I haven’t written a New York Times bestseller. Yet.
 
My social media efforts are futile because I don’t have something exceptional to offer an audience on Instagram. I basically have the wisdom of a baby giraffe. And nothing I post adds much value to anyone who doesn’t personally know me (unless I’m showing a bit of skin, apparently). Which is why I’d like to announce my retirement from self-promo on social media too. You know, just while I take the time to focus more on areas I do add value.
 
I believe you’re reading this because there’s an innate human curiosity to know other people’s thoughts, and I happen to be able to express mine in quite a succinct, unfiltered and digestible format. Here is where I feel I add some sort of value to people’s lives (Toot! That was my own horn). Even if only at baby giraffe level. 
 
This is a quote from an article Mark Manson wrote on creativity this week. It was nice to see that I was, you know, right about the value thing:
 
“Creativity is a delicate dance between novelty and value. For something to feel creative it must feel new but also useful in some way.”

The lesson in this point is to not to try to hatch chickens without any eggs. Don’t try to sell ice cream without any cones. Stop trying to eat from the tall trees if all you have is silly little baby giraffe legs. Take a step back, slow down. Buy some eggs. Grow your legs. Focus on where you are now more than where you want to be.

There’s a balancing act to building a bright future and we all fall a few times, so wear a harness.
 

3. SHUT UP. YOU’RE NOT THAT BUSY.

“I’m too busy! I don’t have time!” said the incorrect people.

Shut up. Yes, you do have time. There’s heaps of it. We all have time to do anything we want to do. I’d love to blame my lack of effort in managing my personal social media channels on a lack of time, but it would be utter rubbish. If I have time to binge watch Vikings or spend four hours on a psychedelic trip, I have time to plan and post a few pics and captions every now and then.

People consistently claim to want to make positive changes to their lives; exercise more, eat better, be less of an abusive asshole to your kids. But so often we blame our lack of action on lack of time. But it’s bullpoop.

If we want to do something, if we value something or someone enough, we make time. I value writing, so I make time for this newsletter (and will continue to do so). I value creativity and relaxation, so I regularly sit down and fiddle around with acrylic paints on a canvas. I spend like, 20% of my day in the kitchen cooking because I bloody love cooking. I value my relationship, so I consciously cut out time for it. I value my nephew, so he gets several hours of my time each week. I value feeling fit and healthy, so I spend time sleeping and working out. And I obviously value my job, so there’s a whole bunch of time given to that.

When we say we don’t have time, we are basically saying that we care, but maybe not enough. Like, I really want to learn Spanish, but I could easily allocate more time to it if it were a higher value. I’d love to read more, but it’s something I pretend to value more than I actually do.

Realistically, if we care about something enough, we can reorganize our lives to cater to it. And sometimes when we don’t, it’s because we’re too stuck in our comfort zones.  

That’s all from me today, over and out chicos.

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You can view other past write-ups about unseriously sincere ideas here.

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