Truth Bomb Tuesday: We used to crave stimulation. Now only the rich can get away from it.
I don’t know if you remember the early days when mobile phones first came out.
They were the ultimate status symbol – a military-grade transmitter the size of a house brick. Only the very rich had them.
But then they got smaller and smaller. And what started as a symbol of status became a symbol of a lack of wealth. If you were rich you had a phone you could slip in your pocket.
And the very rich? They didn’t have a phone at all. Their time was too precious to waste talking to plebs. That was their PA’s problem.
We’ve gone the same way with stimulation.
In the old days, life was probably very boring for most people.
You spent your days working and then spent your nights staring at walls, or maybe reading one of the three books you owned… again.
Only rich people owned personal libraries, and then record players when they came out, and then radios, and then televisions.
Stimulation and entertainment was only for the rich.
But times change. Technology changes.
Now everyone is only one click away from more entertainment than their great grandparents could ever imagine.
And now there’s so many shows to watch. So many things to read. So many social issues to stay on top of. So much celebrity goss.
It’s impossible to be bored.
And, in fact, I’d say the great majority of us are now massively over-stimulated. We don’t sleep well because we’re on our phones right up until bed time. We can’t relax because we’re lived streamed into every disaster on earth, all at once. Social media and our devices steal our time and give us anxiety in return.
We’re smothered with stimulation.
And the very rich?
Well, they have the luxury of just tapping out. 12-day mountain retreat. 7-day remote surf safari. One month digital detox.
It’s become the ultimate flex: unplugging.
Most of us can’t unplug. We’re tethered to the machine. Our boss needs us to be contactable. Everyone needs us to be contactable. We worry we’ll be replaced from everything if we become uncontactable.
But what we really crave? A break in contact with the outside world. Stillness. Quiet. Peace.
So what I want to say today is that it’s totally ok to own that.
I was doing some goal-setting with a student the other day and she just couldn’t land what she really wanted.
And she said to me, “You know what Dymphna, all I really want is a week in bed.”
And look that’s ok. That’s great. I actually can’t think of a better use of your money – a better reason to take charge of your financial future.
Rest (and boredom!) is a beautiful thing.
So own it. If that’s what you truly want, own it. Put it on your vision board.
You, your head gently on your pillow, completely unplugged from the world.
DB.