[Flash] Do This to Do This (Advice from Actor Willem Dafoe)

“Don’t do this to get that. Do this to do this.” 

Unpacking it, he said life is unpredictable, and if you take out the unpredictability, you miss the beautiful moments.

In other words,

• Remarkable moments occur on the proverbial and literal stage.
• We miss those moments when we’re on one stage making plans to be on the next stage.

I’m guilty of ‘doing this to get that.’ The fear of wasting time torments me!

I feel a constant need to invest only in activities that promise to improve my productivity, my professional growth, or my health.

For example, to enhance my dog walks, I often wear a weighted vest, listen to a leadership book on Audible, while drinking 32 oz of supplemented water.

And I once rejoiced in learning the evidence-based, leadership-strengthening benefits of reading fiction. I subsequently devoted a Flash article to announce the finding, as if to officially grant myself permission to pick up a novel.

Why would I resist reading for the love of reading?

According to Ian Bogost, author of The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life, we have become decoupled from the world we live in, fueled largely by technology’s ability to help us maximize every moment rather than enjoy it.

Our optimization and efficiency culture causes us to believe that anything not focused on a future goal feels not worth doing.

Bogost reflects, “We got so busy planning for the future, trying to make our lives more purposeful or happier, we forgot how to be gratified.”

Bogost argues that, while our grand accomplishments generate our happiness and satisfaction, gratification comes to us in tiny connections to the world.

He holds, “And the lack of gratification has this effect of making us more distrustful, more suspicious of other people. Because we have less of those humanizing interactions.”

When we prioritize AI and technology over our connection to moments and to each other, we miss being holistically engaged with the world.

While I prefer the purposeful moments that Bogost laments, my dogs demonstrate gratification daily. (They scoff at future goals!)

So focused on optimizing my early morning walk last week, I almost missed the gorgeous fox poised like a lawn ornament in my neighbor’s yard.

Fortunately, my dogs, delighted by their discovery, barked me back to the moment. Do this to do this.  

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