Random Stuff - Chapter 328

Let’s pretend you love Indian food. You love it more than your spouse and your kids. You love it so much you’d bathe in mango chutney if you could afford that much mango chutney.

Now, let’s say you go out to your favorite Indian spot and engorge yourself. We’re talking on the order of 4,000 to 5,000 calories in one sitting. Like Monty Python in “The Meaning of Life” type gluttony.

Now, imagine you roll yourself out of the restaurant, and then someone comes up and offers you some fresh samosas and chutney (or maybe a thin mint). How would you feel?

We’ve all been in that state where we overeat a food we like and then the mere thought of that food for the following week makes us nauseous and we question the meaning of our own existence.

But then, a week later, Indian food doesn’t sound so bad. And then about another week or two later, you’re all geared up to go back to your favorite Indian spot and stuff yourself blind all over again.

Your brain works the same way with productivity.

See, solving problems is like food for your mind. It makes your mind happy. It makes it feel important and worthy and capable—all things directly linked to happiness.

But solving problems is to your mind as food is to your stomach. It needs a variety of stimulation and too much of one kind will cause it to get sick and tired.

But what’s amazing is that this leisure time—this ability to distract one’s brain away from problem-solving and work, actually makes your brain far more effective upon returning to work.

I know, I know—it’s crazy, but weekends and vacation really do exist for a reason.

When I started my business in 2008, I was a bona fide work-a-holic. I was pulling 14-15 hour days and rarely taking days off. And although I traveled constantly, I rarely took “vacations” per se. It was more like, “hey, that beach looks like a really beautiful place to check my email for the next two hours.”

It wasn’t until I met my wife (who had a steady 9-5) that she put her (high-heeled) foot down and was like, “Hey f.u.c.knuts, put the laptop away and spend some time with me at the beach.”

I, of course, was horrified. It was like asking someone to leave the house without their right arm.

“But what about my emails?” I stammered.

I spent that first night in a fetal position, shaking. I had dreams where my website was hacked and my identity stolen and there was nothing I could do. I imagined the web servers spontaneously bursting into flames at the same time my bank accounts were being drained.

None of that happened, of course.

In fact, what happened was the complete opposite. Sitting there on that beach for five days, with no phone, no computer, no electronics – just me and a wonderful woman and my thoughts, I began to see my own work more clearly than I had ever seen it before. It was as if I had spent five years huddling over my business, scrutinizing and obsessing over every part and detail, and then hopping into a hot air balloon, and gliding so high above that I could see the whole thing with more perspective than I ever had before.

And it was on that beach that I came up with two ideas that would change my life.

The first was changing this website to markmanson.net (BRANDING!!! LEVERAGE POINTS!!!). Within six months, traffic increased 5-fold and my income 3-fold. The site would soon be read by millions of people, shared in over 100 countries, and get me published in some of the most prestigious publications around the world. And this would all happen while doing fewer hours of work than I had been doing before.

Whereas I had spent years trying to grow my website through sheer willpower and time commitment, it was by letting go of what was not working that my business took off without even needing me in it half the time.

The other idea I had on that beach was my book.