Breaking Your Lifes Infinite Scroll

[Music]

one day

i woke up with this inspiring feeling

my life had become an infinite scroll

it was affecting my personal life it was

affecting my performance at work

and it was accelerating it was going out

of control

you know we were accomplishing a lot at

work but yet i felt

somewhat lonely i felt untethered

which was surprising because given all

the technology i was connecting with

more people than i’d ever done before

i was having trouble getting a good

night’s sleep

it was one thing after another life was

just whizzing past and covid

made it so much worse

i wonder how many of you feel like i

have felt

that life just became an infinite scroll

one thing after another in an

endless cycle initially i just shrugged

and said i was growing older

and time appears to move faster as you

grow older but then i stopped and i did

some research

and what i found shocked me when i

looked at some of the youngest

populations that we have are teenagers

they’ve seen a massive spike in anxiety

and in depression starting in 2012.

some of our leading colleges have seen

that over 50 percent of their student

body

is accessing mental health services

and by some measures over half of all

americans

are feeling somewhat lonely and

untethered so i had some very open

conversations with my teammates

and i found that they were feeling very

similarly

and i feel that this is an incredibly

important thing because it not only

impacts us in our personal lives

but it also impacts our professional

lives

and the reason is to ignite our

potential we need to reach in to that

that is our most precious

thing which is human creativity

but to access that human creativity we

need our whole selves

we need to be centered and to do this

we have to break our

our infinite strong so why do we

feel that our life is in an infinite

scroll

i believe it started quite simply and it

started

innocently with positive intent this

effortless

frictionless technology that burst on

the scene

that helped us become more productive

and kept us more entertained

but that exact same effortless

frictionless

technology has turned us into addicts

we have become addicted to our

infinite scroll and like

every habit-forming drug we can’t stop

and we need more of it

we are no longer in control of the

technology

it controls us

we must break this infinite scroll and

i’ve found we can do that by injecting

what i call

intentional friction into our lives

now no one likes friction but it’s not

all bad

we have to remember that the purpose of

life is not to be 100

efficient and productive but it is to be

effective it is to be fulfilled

you know if you transported someone from

over 100 years ago

to the present and they saw us on our

treadmills

running and working really hard but

getting nowhere they would think we all

crazy

and that’s because at that time we had

what i call natural friction

in our lives we had to walk everywhere

and we could keep our bodies physically

active

the piece of life was also forced to be

a little slower

and so we could absorb our experiences

exercise is the intentional friction to

keep our bodies healthy

i now believe that we need intentional

friction in our lives to nourish our

souls

now i have done three activities that

has helped me

reduce the hold of the infinite scroll

in my life

the first is provoke accountability by

that i mean

i have to provoke in myself with effort

to take accountability that

i was in this infinite scroll and a deep

desire to provoke the deep desire

to actually break out of it it required

deep

self-reflection and

i had to own the fact that i had become

addicted

to the infinite scroll and that

i needed to take an effort to break out

of it

my second activity is nourish yourself

you know life’s infinite scroll has

an effect of hollowing us out

our inner core and it’s one urgent thing

after another and we put ourselves

last that has to stop

we need to take the time we need to

inject some intentional friction

to rehydrate to nourish ourselves

and to be still i personally

take about 30 minutes every night before

going to sleep to meditate

and initially that was intentional

friction

but nowadays i kind of look forward to

it with a kind of

inner smile

the third activity is to befriend

others and i know it sounds simple but

what i did was i chose three people

one from my family a person i don’t

normally connect with

one from work and one from the community

and then i chopped out some

very dedicated time that i would meet up

with them and have discussions not about

work

not about tasks but about things that

were meaningful to us

deep relationships need some friction

they need some give and take

to really create those lasting

relationships

and a foundation of trust and i found

that

taking this effort has helped me

reignite

some of my deep relationships and really

helps us

nourish our souls i know what you’re

thinking

more activities i don’t have any time

for it but you know that’s the point

we need to take effort we need to inject

that friction

to be able to achieve our potential

and this reminds me of a poem

from ancient india you know it all

starts

with invoking in ourselves this deep

burning desire to change

and this poem is from over three

thousand years ago

in one of the ancient texts the briyan

yaka upanishad and it says

you are your deep

driving desire

as is your desire so is your will

as is your will so are your deeds

as are your deeds so is

your destiny so let us achieve our

destiny

let us break this infinite scroll

let’s inject some intentional friction

in our lives and let’s unleash our

creative

potential