Approach life’s distractions as wrong numbers

Most of us don’t respect our minds enough to know that almost everything is noise. Everything.

And as a result, we convince ourselves that every meaningless distraction is a red presidential phone in one of those cheesy disaster films.

We pressure ourselves to handle these seemingly emergency messaging coming from some unknown situation, as if the planet was on the brink of ruin and only we could save everybody.

But it’s just noise. All of it. Every bloody magnet for our attention does not deserve equal response. Or any response, for that matter.

Sprint recently conducted a survey finding that old fashion talking now accounts for less than half of the traffic on mobile networks.

Less than half.

Makes sense. Nobody uses their phone to talk on the phone anymore. It’s mostly about texting, apps and web browsing. This isn’t the nineties. Who still answers the phone? That cheery ringtone you hear is the sound of a squealing dinosaur.

This is precisely how we should approach life’s many distractions. They’re just wrong numbers. Prank phone calls. Spammy solicitors. Random callers we don’t know, like or trust.

And noise that we have zero obligation to response to.

Not out of some grandiose sense of importance, and not out of some codependent need of for approval from everybody.

There is no emergency here. Everyone will be fine. Not everything needs our personal stamp on it. The world will not fall apart.

Let that cursed phone ring, or better yet, turn the damn thing off, and get on with creating work you’re proud of.

What will be possible for you once you shed another layer of worldly distractions?