Chukwudalu, Gary Vee stans, and my aversion to a life of 100% focus.

I fear that we young people have idolized intense focus at the expense of rest, family, love, and friendships.

Hi guys,

Hope you are doing well. I’m okay, Alhamdulillah.

The past two weeks have been relatively calm for me, and I’m genuinely grateful for it. Not that I have had nothing to do (I usually have a fairly busy calendar), but the activities on my to-do list were mostly things I had control over.

That call? Let’s move it to tomorrow. That event for next week? How does late April work? That project we wanted to do? Maybe it’s not so important after all. That run I was supposed to do this morning? Ah make I sleep back, e go be.

You know what I realized? Being busy is overrated.

Being able to take things a bit more slowly, taking walks I couldn’t previously find time for, watching five episodes of Drive To Survive in two days, and making noise about Top Gun in Malik's dm are things I have found to be of extreme importance.

Of course, none of these is sustainable in my current stage, and I can already feel the tempo of my life slowly returning to normal. But it has made me think a bit more actively about creating a future with some sort of balance.

With this background, you can probably tell that I am not super motivated to write right now. And more because of wanting to enjoy life in the slow lane than being too busy or tired.

There are one or two of my friends I owe a phone call. And then maybe I should do a run to a park not too far away and take a slow walk back. Maybe watch some random videos of F1. Maybe put some time into a corporate communications course I should have finished in December. Maybe slowly read some of those Stears articles I have been piling up. And round everything up with garri and chicken. That sounds like a calm Sunday to me.

Leggoo.

—————

Several months ago, my friend Chukwudalu (not real name) was going on and on about an American software company that completed its IPO not too long ago.

** side note: IPO = initial public offering, the process by which a company lists on a stock exchange and sells shares to the public. It is usually a sign that a company ‘has arrived’ and one of the ways for founders and investors to exit the startup process.

As far as he was concerned, this company was a solid buy.

It had a great team, A-list investors, huge government contracts, and had been operational for about 17 years. (I’m sure you tech x finance people know which company I’m talking about.)

But none of these reasons was why he thought this stock was the best thing since sliced bread. So why?

His reasoning was that their CEO was single and thus could give the company 100%. Not only was their billionaire chief executive unmarried, but he also had no known relationships in his 53 years on earth. He had publicly proclaimed that he spent all his time thinking about the company, except when “swimming, practicing Qigong, or during sexual activity.”

In Chukwudalu’s opinion, this was a sign of a ‘strong and dedicated leader’. I could not disagree more. You see, I believe the opposite. I think 100% focus on a goal (any goal) is a sign of weakness.

I fear that we young people have idolized intense focus at the expense of rest, family, love, friendships, and communities. We have built a generation of ‘Gary Vee stans’, believing that the path to success involves spending several years of life inside one restaurant (or library or office), and that the burnt friendships, missed opportunities, and available leisure time can be recouped after we are ‘successful’.

Gary Vee hard at work. Image from giphy

I dislike the idea of 100% focus for two reasons.

It's just not efficient

One, I just don’t find it the most efficient way to get anything done. Whether you are trying to get top grades in school or build an amazing company, living a life of 100% focus will likely do you more harm than good.

We need to take breaks and eat good food to function better. We need to have friends to bounce random ideas off. We need to have mentors to ask questions when we’re stuck.

An Engineer who has dinner regularly with an artist will likely build much more creative products than an Engineer that lives on his computer. A surgeon that reads romantic fiction will likely be much more empathetic in dealing with next-of-kins of ill patients than a surgeon with no such exposure.

All of these things - friendships, hobbies, holidays, and relationships might appear to be hindrances from achieving optimal focus on our goals. But my belief is that these ‘distractions’ provide the stability, perspective, and unique experiences that allow us to achieve much more than we can with a life of 100% focus.

Also, people that live a ‘100% focus’ life often times break down or burn out, ultimately losing all of the progress they have made, and falling behind their more ‘balanced’ peers.

It’s just not efficient.

It goes against the fitrah

According to Wikipedia, fitrah is an arabic word that means ‘original disposition’, ‘natural constitution’, or ‘innate nature’. Let us think of it as a default setting for all humans.

Even assuming a life of 100% focus was efficient (which it is not), the bigger challenge for me is that it is not in line with our fitrah as human beings. I just have a hard time believing that the CEO in question genuinely spends almost every living breath thinking about his company.

So could he be exaggerating (read: lying)? I don’t know.

What I do know is that our (high achievers especially) culture of full logic, zero emotions, and ‘hardguyrism’ have encouraged many people to believe or project these pretenses in public.

In private though, I tend to see a different story.

I know not a single young person who if given a choice, would choose a transactional ‘thank you sir’ relationship with their father over an ‘I love you too Dad’ relationship with their father.

I know not a single young person who would prefer to go through their whole life single and devoid of commitment vs being at some point in a doting and committed relationship.

I know not a single young person who would prefer to eat alone, live alone, work alone, travel alone, think alone, and laugh alone if they had the opportunity to go through at least some of these with a friend or friends they loved.

** side note: If you genuinely go against one or more of these trends, please dm me! I need to confirm that my circle of friends has not made me live in a bubble! :)

This is what I mean by fitrah.

There are certain needs, interests, emotions, and attributes that contribute to the genetic makeup of a human. And more times than not, a life of 100% focus is at odds with this idea.

So as you begin a new week, I hope you are intentional about ensuring your strivings for some level of success do not alienate you from living a life of balance.

—————

Breaking regular format to remind you to subscribe and share.

Merci beaucoup!

Hameed

** Jara content:

One day, the Churchill couple walked through a posh neighborhood in London. People greeted and exchanged words with the Prime Minister. A street sweeper, on the other hand, greeted Mrs. Churchill in particular, and the two stayed aside for a while in a familiar conversation.

Churchill then asked his wife what she had had to discuss with a street sweeper for so long. "Ah... he was in love with me a long time ago," she said. Churchill smiled and said, "You see, if you had married him, you would be the wife of a street sweeper today."

Mrs. Churchill looked at her husband in amazement and said the legendary words: "But no Darling, if I had married him, he would be Prime Minister today."

Have a great week. ✨