My wife MJ is better than me at many things, but one of them, at least recently, is being able to study for long periods of time, in the same position, at the same table, looking at the same materials, for the better half of the day or all day. I'll call her at different times of the day, and it seems like she's always at home, with the same background (we do Google Facetime calls which are very immersive and allow me to feel close to her) and same music playing. It's a very important quality to have in today's day and age.
I, on the other hand, have lost my ability to concentrate. One of the only things I can do continuously is to play dodgeball: I put down my phone, don't look at it for at least an hour, and just enjoy the game and focusing on one activity. Otherwise, though, I'm a mess. From the moment I open my eyes to when I close them, there's just so much I try to pack into the day, and so many things I try to do that I get them crossed up and try to do too many things at once. The iPhone doesn't help; there's so many things I CAN do with just a tap of a button (or a few buttons and a swipe) that I barely get started on one task before moving on to the next. I often find myself unsatisfied with what I'm doing in the present moment and want to move on to the next activity, stimulating myself with the new information/ stimulus. It's toxic, and I look back at the end of the day and evaluate how much I've done: I've tried to do 20 different things, but none of them well, thus making it a less productive day than if I'd just focused on 2 or 3 things.
Last week's stock market didn't help. They say that the stock market goes up like an escalator (gradually) but goes down like an elevator (sudden spike down, free fall), and nothing personified that more than this week's selling, where 6 straight sessions including last Friday cancelled out 6 months of gains in the market. Basically, all the gains I had accumulated for 6 months (since October of last year) just went poof in a week, which feels a bit like someone taking the money I'd earned on a job for 6 months (it's not like that because the stock market is inherently risky, but psychologically I do feel similar to this). The market reacted strongly negatively to the latest coronavirus news (of it spreading to many other countries than just China, even the US is in the crosshairs), and the market quickly tanked, with the Dow futures already down 1000 points before the market even opened on Monday morning (not a good way to start the week, but it would only get worse). Every attempt by the market to rally back a bit was sold ruthlessly, and if anything the clawback rallies accelerated the selling as the sellers used the little burst of higher prices to sell off even faster. To make matters worse than just money, I was not productive at all the whole week, forcing myself to go into "save my portfolio mode" by waking up at 6:30AM PST before the market to try to "salvage" some money, only to find my best efforts were probably minimal, short of selling my whole portfolio. In short, I really don't think waking up early helps me save any, it just forces me to watch the next tick and wait anxiously for more information, making me get right into the jumpy attention-shifting mode all day. The dips in the market make me feel like I'm losing money all the time (which I kinda was) and for those 6.5 hours the market is open it's like torture, making myself check and check over and over again, switching my attention to what I was doing to market news. Not a healthy habit, but very typical of today's culture of short attention span.
Maybe in 20 years, similar to the tobacco industry, scientific research will find that smartphones and social media are detriments to the health of human beings, with long term damage done to the brain of not being able to concentrate, which could be worse than the cancer and other physical damage caused by cigarettes and nicotine. For me and the rest of my generation, we just have to moderate ourselves and self-regulate to reduce the distractions. I think one key thing is how you start the day: read a book, read a newspaper, allow your brain to get into a pattern of focusing on something and feed it healthy stuff, and stay off the smartphone for just a bit. And DON'T touch your smartphone while you're driving. I made a stock trade in the car and instantly regretted it. Whatever it is, it can wait! Put on the radio or a podcast that lasts the length of time you need to get to your destination. Driving can actually be a cure for short attention span!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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