Don't you dare reach for your pocket, I told myself.

In fact, take that phone and go put it in another room.

Shut your internet off, set your devices to do not disturb and think.

Please, think.

You are losing yourself to distraction.

As Cal Newport puts it, you know, we're in a world that demands more thought, more deep work than ever before, while we all simultaneously become more and more incapable of that focus.

And to me, it feels like more than a chuckle at our outrageous screen time or a self-deprecating joke about how reliant we are on our phones.

The dopamine hit, you know, I think it's antithetical overall to what we need, to where we find our purpose, which is a dichotomy

that's frustratingly true with so many things, like that balance for me to have a digital

business that means so much to me that I'm so proud of, but also tiptoeing around that same

digital world like it's a hungry lion capable of devouring me. That's a real feeling. It's water

that's foundational for life, but in too large a quantity will kill. kill. It's the sun that, while integral and responsible for this planet as we know it,

also has no problem ending,

you know, anything that's too openly exposed to its rays, to its heat.

There's always a sweet spot between too much and not enough.

That happy medium, that intersection is why we're all here.

Because when I don't take time to deeply think, when I lose the big picture, I remain in a cycle of routine.

And sometimes that's great, right? Morning routine is great. I don't really have to think about it.

I'm programmed. Things like driving a car, as Duhigg explains in the power of habit,

your foot stepping on the gas. It's involuntary, and thank God for that.

But one must be able to step outside that loop and ask the big picture questions.

We have to make time to at least roughly chart the course. And it'll change.

...