Having to balance all of the things in our lives from family to work to health to finances is challenging. It can be unbearable to think about all the things that we aren't doing. A term that gets thrown around a lot is "self-care" these days. When stress feels like it's at an all-time high, most will say something to the effect of "you need some self-care."
I remember when my son was young, my wife and I desperate to get him to bed by 8pm so we could have a little time to ourselves to binge the latest season of whatever was just coming out. There was an immense stress produced by the desire for this adult time. This proverbial self-care.
I think a lot about this type of pressure. I wonder what our ancestors did for self-care. A time before there were multiple lifetimes of content to consume at our fingertips. A time when after the sun went down, there wasn't much to do at all. Maybe we'd sit around the fire with our village and tell stories. Maybe we wouldn't care much at all about what time the kids went to bed, they just fell asleep when they fell asleep. They'd wake when they woke. Outside of making sure we were provided for, there wouldn't have been these distractions pulling us away from things that were necessary to sustain life. You wouldn't feel the pressure of the new season of whatever because at some point, you'd heard all the stories and all the songs your world had to offer.
It got me thinking that there was once a time when there was nothing better to do than live your life.
I remember when my son was young, my wife and I desperate to get him to bed by 8pm so we could have a little time to ourselves to binge the latest season of whatever was just coming out. There was an immense stress produced by the desire for this adult time. This proverbial self-care.
I think a lot about this type of pressure. I wonder what our ancestors did for self-care. A time before there were multiple lifetimes of content to consume at our fingertips. A time when after the sun went down, there wasn't much to do at all. Maybe we'd sit around the fire with our village and tell stories. Maybe we wouldn't care much at all about what time the kids went to bed, they just fell asleep when they fell asleep. They'd wake when they woke. Outside of making sure we were provided for, there wouldn't have been these distractions pulling us away from things that were necessary to sustain life. You wouldn't feel the pressure of the new season of whatever because at some point, you'd heard all the stories and all the songs your world had to offer.
It got me thinking that there was once a time when there was nothing better to do than live your life.
I wonder how much of our self-care is really us just wanting to escape. That these digital marvels of ours have allowed us to achieve new levels of escape. So much so that when we say we need self-care, what we really mean is we need more of that drug called content. Maybe if there was less to do, we would be able to do more. To create rather than consume, only for the creators to end up right back here—with boundless creations to consume and not enough time to just live.
Best,
Michael Rispoli
Co-founder and CTO at Cause of a Kind
Best,
Michael Rispoli
Co-founder and CTO at Cause of a Kind