Life and work in the age of information

I should let you know that I am writing this on a day that I have marked as “Do nothing day” in my head. But who are we kidding I am definitely going to end up doing something and very likely very many things. It’s hard to do nothing these days. That is the price we pay for the speed of the digital age. And so we end up developing these mental tricks to find some sanity in a world that is ripe with information at every corner. There is always something to do. And if nothing there is a notification waiting for you.

Add to this the modern influencer culture, ready to hype up the smallest insignificant utterance by a random nobody to cataclysmic proportions.

“Oh my god! Do you know what this guy said?.” No, and I don’t care.

Everything has to be exciting or utterly devastating. Nothing is normal, nothing is fine and just OK. Everything has to be mind-blowing or traumatising. Because apparently nothing else is worth paying attention to. Somebody is getting cheated on or getting divorced. The leader of your country just said something crazy and the entire economy is going to crash. Oh and then there are wars going on in 5 different countries and you better be paying attention to every missile and drone launch. And while you are at it you better not say anything that might be even mildly offensive to any group of people. And if you do, that is another reel in the waiting.

We are human beings. There is only so much information we can digest. Lets take it easy shall we ?

It has come to a point where Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, has to tell people to put their phones down and go outside !

I think I understand Gen-Z a little bit better now. They are the only generation that grew up with smartphones. They have been tapping and swiping their whole life. And I think their refusal to work is a quiet psychological protest against the life they have been living. And it is a very welcome move that countries around the world are restricting smartphone access to kids. They should be able to grow up without giving their attention to every small thing that someone said or even worse being bullied or body shamed online before they have a strong innate identity.

And so it makes sense that work-life balance has become an integral part of the zeitgeist of our times. From the Gen-X believing in the importance of hard-work to the Gen-Z who are quiet quitting there are spectrum of perspectives on the topic. And part of the reason is that different generations experience the information fatigue differently.

But disentangling life and work is harder than you might think. What happens outside of work affects your job and your job itself is an integral part of your life. While we are all tempted to draw boundaries, I think a better approach is to understand their relationship.

Life happens everyday and all the time. And you have to live it right now because tomorrow it is lost. And unlike money you can’t save up and enjoy it later. Because later you are older and your life is different. The conundrum is even bigger for startup founders because they have quit their job and are actively spending their savings to build their company. So it might seem logical then for them to set their life aside for a while and then come back to it later. But this is an even bigger risk. Not only is your life less balanced right now, on the off chance your startup doesn’t work out you have also lost all those years you decided to just focus on work. And I am convinced that a startup can survive without a lot of things, but it can’t survive without inspiration. You need new ideas every single day and you have to mentally be in the state to have those ideas. And living your life is an important part of staying inspired.

I was building my company from Chennai for almost 2 years but I started to sense something was missing. No criticism on Chennai :), I had a very successful career there for almost a decade, but sometimes you need something new. So I have been experimenting with living in Bangalore for a couple of months now, living out of an Airbnb. There is something about this city and the sense of community people have here. I love the fact that I can walk on the road so much more because of the sidewalks everywhere. And the smallest cafes and restaurants are maintained incredibly well so there are just so many amazing options for eating out. And Sankey Tank is just so beautiful, I just want to live right beside it. So I have decided to stay and will be building Visual Book from here. Of course, I am going to miss Chennai, especially the cycling routes along ECR and the beaches, but I will be there from time to time anyway so it’s not like a permanent goodbye :)