August 19, 2008

The Difference Between Living Life And Not

Posted by Adam Singer in Inspiration

image credit: fort photo (via flickr)

Not everyone has passion. Not everyone is moved emotionally by what they do. And, that’s extremely unfortunate. But fortunately, you are not like everyone else.

The winning organizations in every industry are filled with passionate, vocal, active people (also, we have more fun doing what we do). To us, it isn’t even really ‘work’ in the sense that it flows naturally and feels more like creative freedom.

I think that truly passionate people are not understood by much of the world. I’ll give you one example: I don’t watch TV anymore. I tell people this, and it feels like many of them mentally file me in a category of being weird or socially deviant. Most people cannot fathom a world without television.

This is unfortunate, and altogether sad. We are at such an incredible turning point in society, and the world is changing for the better due to people with passion. Think about this:

From Clay Shirky:

If you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project–every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in–that represents something like the cumulation of 100 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin Wattenberg at IBM; it’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it’s the right order of magnitude, about 100 million hours of thought.

And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that’s 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television. Or put still another way, in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads. This is a pretty big surplus. People asking, “Where do they find the time?” when they’re looking at things like Wikipedia don’t understand how tiny that entire project is, as a carve-out of this asset that’s finally being dragged into what Tim calls an architecture of participation.

The world is shifting, and where before intellectuals used to be isolated and work on projects in a vacuum, now new social tools are allowing them to work together on deep projects that benefit everyone. Imagine, a group of complete strangers working together to create something incredible, inspiring and useful – all for free, and all due to pure internal motivation and desire to help the world.

Are you a part of a global project like Wikipedia? Or, global conversations about what you do professionally or are interested in personally? If not, you should be – the tools exist to interact with fantastic minds in our world, learn from them, and get better results and get inspiration for whatever you are doing.

Sorry if you’re a TV watcher, but if you watch even more than a tiny amount, it is a waste of life. I don’t mean to offend you, but really think about it: you are given a fleeting amount of time to physically exist on this planet and do something to change things for the better, and then you are gone. By watching TV for endless hours, you’re squandering life, the most previous gift there is.

image credit: hamed saber via flickr

By watching TV you make the ultimate sacrifice – you could be reading, writing, making art, or actually interacting with your friends, family and other professionals in your industry. Would you rather look back at a life spent passively absorbing nonsense, or one spent changing the world for the better and creating what inspires you. The choice is obvious.

I feel like most of you here don’t waste your life passively, so this post isn’t really for you. You’re already motivated and inspired. Forward this to a friend who isn’t.

Here’s what too many in society do:

  • Get up in the morning
  • Work, thinking inside the lines the entire day
  • Come home
  • Watch TV
  • Sleep

It is an altogether unremarkable existence. And, those people probably produce ultimately unremarkable results and lead average lives.

If you wake up in the morning and aren’t inspired every day to throw yourself into your work and life with 100% passion, you’re not living it. I don’t understand how someone can live even one day like this.

Perhaps they’re in the wrong field, or have lost that creative spark. But regardless, there is no other way for truly intelligent people to live other than taking an active, passionate role in life and pouring their soul into something that inspires them.

The planet is billions of years old, and your lifespan is merely a cosmic blink. There’s not a day to waste.

This was inspired by this post at Unconventional Thinking.

Related articles from The Future Buzz:

5 Simple Ways To Keep Your Mind Sharp

What You Do Defines Who You Are (And What You Get Out Of Life)

Turning Procrastination Into Motivation

Related articles from around the web

The 9 Step Television Diet (Think Simple Now)

8 Changes I Experienced After Giving Up TV (Steve Pavlina)

I Am Not Anti Television, I Just Don’t Watch It (Crucial Thought)

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16 comments so far

  1. 001 Alan

    I don’t entirely agree. TV can be very educating, inspiring, and informative. Not all TV shows are realtiy shows, Family Guy, or teen dramas.

    For example on Sunday I spent a good 3 hours watching Animal Planet HD. Touring the Galapogas islands and seeing the amazing creatures there might be something that I’ll never be able to experience, but through my HDTV, I am able to explore foreign and exciting places.

    I have also been watching the HBO mini-series Generation Kill, a story about the invasion of Iraq. It has really given me a realistic view of the war and not fluff pieces that you see in the news. It is gritty, dirty, and raw and an absolutely excellent piece of television.

    I wouldn’t condemn all TV because once in a while there comes a television piece that can do more than just entertain viewers. It can motivate and inspire, just like any piece of art, book, or music.

    August 19th, 2008
  2. 002 Adam Singer

    @Alan – agreed, animal planet and much of Discovery’s programming is actually quite good. Everything in moderation is fine, I am talking to people who spend excessive amounts of time in front of TV and people who don’t pursue any passions in life.

    Cheers,
    Adam

    August 19th, 2008
  3. 003 Alan

    I agree. I usually only watch a select number of TV shows like the Office, LOST, and How I Met Your Mother. And even new technology like Tivo has made it so I am not wasting as much time by not watching commercials. Man I love technology!

    August 19th, 2008
  4. 004 Yael Beeri

    I stopped watching TV years ago. I know I am missing out on the good stuff Alan is referring to but I made that decision in order not to be even on occasion tempted to just sit and stare at the screen (i still do it, but there is music playing all around me). Great post Adam. Will definitely forward. Thank you.

    August 19th, 2008
  5. 005 KristinCurrier

    I couldn’t agree more. What a wealth of wisdom I have found stumbling upon your site, Adam. I rarely watch TV, and in fact, for many years refused to even own one. This was during the “Friends” years. I have never watched “Friends”. This was absolutely incredible to some people. Yet, I know exactly who the “Friends” characters are, and the premise of the show. Why is that? Do I really want to spend much time following the lives of imaginary people I am going to assimilate from pop culture anyway?

    These days, my fiance and I do watch some TV, but it is in the form of quality movies from Netflix, news, History and Discovery Channels. However, if it weren’t for certain games (we are New England fans, he particularly avid!) the TV would become a fishtank with all the new technology available over the web nowadays.

    My fiance grew up in a household with very restricted television. PBS was virtually the only thing tolerated. This has made him a more thoughtful, creative individual who isn’t content with vapid entertainment. I am more content to listen to music and experience life rather than to sit passively.

    Another great article, thank you.

    February 3rd, 2009
  6. 006 Adam Singer

    @KristinCurrier – glad you found this useful, and thank you for reading.

    February 3rd, 2009
  7. 007 enm

    100% passion EVERYDAY? oh my, that must be exhausting. you take life pretty seriously, it seems. even though, passion or no passion, accomplished or not accomplished, in 100 years neither you nor i are gonna notice the difference. if people are happy where they are, and they are not hurting you, it is not for u or i to judge.

    May 23rd, 2009

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