I’ve been writing in journals since I was 15 and have my entire life and reflections written in thousands of pages over the years. It’s been exactly a year since I left working and decided to go through some of the pages I had scribbled to review how much I have progressed in that time.
Back then I had created some pages each dedicated to a question that I responded to. The Questions are:
- What makes you most happy?
- What is your greatest fear?
- What trait in yourself do you most deplore?
- What trait do you deplore in others?
- What living person do you most admire?
- What is your current state of mind?
- What is your greatest extravagance?
- And many other questions.
There was one question which intrigued me the most because it’s the one thing I have felt “bad” or confused with myself for not doing in the last year which then ends up making me look bitter, angry or just plain ignorant or old fashioned. It’s not the case at all. In fact, all this time on my hands focused away from circular arguments on social media and having to be “seen” online has made my thinking crystal clear now. It feels like I know what I want MORE of in my life – and what I want to see LESS.
Well what do I consider as the most overrated virtue?
Keeping Current/Up To Date (in particular with Technological Change in our Lives)
Here’s what I wrote in my journal for this question.
Frankly, this used to be something I taught and presented at conferences for people to do for their own professional development and now see that depending on how you approach it, it is now overrated.
Why?We have all lost our way in this process.
The tech bros of Silion Valley made sure of that. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon for the next big thing. Look at what is happening with AI at the moment. They jumped on the AI bandwagon – the hype – for what? We saw it with the internet, with social media, with blockchain, with NFTs, with crypto, now AI. They’ll be others.
What I’m seeing is that where keeping up could have helped us learn, question, grow for our own personal development and good for society, environment and community, instead, we see the focus is for people to push their own profit-driven selfish agendas (suddenly everyone has AI in their LinkedIn profile, or calling themselves an AI expert) and these are the only messages we see – and then assume we too, must act this way too. We are continually pushed to consume or to be seen as “thought leaders” and celebrities and performers for our followers rather that question, explore, discover, create, challenge and build. Those who do the latter are discounted for their lack of vision, reach, followers, profile.
In that way, we have lost our way where we value those people who curate, hone and sprinkle their online profile with little lies rather than acknowledging and supporting those who actually do the work.
So now, keeping up is the most overrated virtue that results in NEVER going deep into yourself, asking yourself the hard questions about WHY you do the things you do. WHY you need to keep up. WHY you need this validation from others. It’s taking the time to reflect and learn about YOU and YOUR place in the world to change it for the better. Keeping up with constant technological change in our work serves us in one way – it makes us lackeys. You’re always at the surface where you feel empty, exhausted, tired, isolated, paranoid and feeling like you’ve not achieved anything because you’re simply not allowed to actually finish anything as everything is constantly moving.
Your hard work to keep up is – and will never be enough in this world that we have created. There’s always something more. Something else. Something new. Something you’re already behind in where others make you aware this is so.
No thanks. All of society seems this way to me now. I hate it.I want nothing to do with it.I want to be a LUDDITE.
What I have learned is that there is a different way. I can do the opposite of what I feel the world is doing now and still feel good about it. I may feel that I’m out of touch, or that I’m not ahead, or that I’m not enough but in all honesty, keeping up resulted in losing touch with my true self. To learn that it is OK not to be in the race all the time and keep up the persona.
The real lesson out of it all was that: I had to let it all go to find ME – and that’s what I believe that many people who are desperately trying to keep up their persona online in their manic state are trying to avoid. It’s all about validation from others.
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