“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters.”
Epictetus, via Stillness is the Key (Page 31)
Beyond the Quote (100/365)
In a world of 24/7 news coverage across hundreds of thousands of news coverage sources, it’s impossible to consume everything that is being broadcasted—it’s never ending. And because it’s always a race between news coverage organizations to be the first to broadcast, so much of what’s shown is speculative, shallow, incomplete, and, well, excessive. If you always want to know everything that’s going on in the world at all times, then turn on the news and scroll through your never ending social media timelines for every waking minute of your day. The crazy part is that you will be able to do it.
If you keep looking for news, drama, gossip—you will find it. Because what you’re up against is a never ending tidal wave of urgent little blips of information from sources and people who are all competing for your attention. And while you’re busy spending all of your time trying to stay on top of it all, you’ll be burning what little time you have to get done any of your other matters—particularly, matters of importance.
If you’re always consuming the extraneous, when will you spend time producing what’s important? This is what Epictetus is speaking to in the quote above. If you wish to improve, you have to be willing to appear clueless or stupid in the world of news, gossip, and drama because you’ll need to block out your time and prioritize your effort accordingly on what’s most important—in a distraction free environment.
Enter Stephen Covey
If we’re going to manage our time effectively—again, our most precious resource—then we need to better understand how to properly prioritize all of our tasks and work so that we can stay on track and not succumb to meaningless, trivial matters. Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, helps us with this by sharing what he calls the Time Management Matrix. Each quadrant represents tasks according to their urgency and importance. Here’s how he describes them:
- Q-1: Quadrant of Necessity: These are the urgent and important tasks that should be getting top priority in your to-do list. These items might include things with impeding deadlines (that are important and have long-term consequences on your life), crisis and emergencies, immediate problems that need to be resolved, certain high priority e-mails, etc.
- Q-2: Quadrant of Quality and Personal Leadership: These are the non-urgent but important tasks that should be getting secondary priority in your to-do list. These items might include long-term systems building, relationship building, career building, personal development, healthy living strategies, etc.
- Q-3: Quadrant of Deception: These are the urgent but not important tasks that should be getting third priority in your to-do list. These items might include phone calls, texts, emails, minor requests as favors, etc.
- Q-4: Quadrant of Waste: These are the non-urgent and not important tasks that should be getting last priority in your to-do list. These items might include mindless TV/ web surfing/ chatting, reading/ entertaining gossip and drama, excessive gaming, idling, etc. This is the quadrant that is dangerously seductive.
Enter Socrates
Socrates, the great Greek philosopher, had a system that he referred to as The Three Filters Test that he used to better manage gossip and drama in his life. There is a story that beautifully depicts how Socrates might handle an exchange with someone who is about to share with him some urgent and juicy gossip. The story goes as follows:
Once, Socrates was stopped by an acquaintance as he passed through the markets. “I’ve something important to tell you,” he said. “It’s about your friend.” “That’s very kind of you,” Socrates said. “But, don’t tell me just yet. I run all information through the Three Filters Test to ascertain if I want to know it.” The man looked somewhat puzzled as Socrates continued, “First is the filter of truth. Whatever you want to tell me, have you seen or witnessed it first-hand?” “Umm…I actually heard it from someone,” the man said, “and, it is from a trusted source.” “Alright. But that does not pass my first test,” Socrates added, “since you don’t know whether it’s true.” “Second is the filter of goodness. Is that a good statement you want to make about my friend?” “Not really. That’s the reason I wanted—” Socrates interjected, “So, you want to tell me something bad about someone but don’t know if it’s true.” “The last is the filter of utility.” He continued, “Your statement about my friend, is that gonna be useful to me?” “Not really as such. I just wanted to share” “Well, if the information is not necessarily true, it is not good, and, it is of no use,” Socrates concluded, “please, I don’t want to know about it.”
Can You Handle Being Clueless or Looking Stupid?
I challenge you to reevaluate how important it is for you to be “highly informed” and “always in the know” about everyone and everything. If, upon some quality reflection, you realize that maybe you’ve been spending too much time on 24/7 news channels or never-ending timelines in search of the latest and most juicy gossip, then consider becoming the type of person who can be content (or at least more content) with being clueless and feeling stupid about extraneous matters.
Now, this is not to say that you should unplug from current affairs completely—that would simply be reckless. You have to have at least a foot in the door to know what’s happening in the world so that you can adjust your life as needed and act when you need to act. But, a foot in the door is really all you need. You don’t have to be all-in and you certainly don’t have to “Mr. Highly Informed” or “Miss Always In The Know.”
It consumes such a massive amount of time and energy and leaves you with little to none left. And how then are you going to do the more important work like cultivating your life’s work? Or reading high quality literature that will broaden your mind? Or experimenting in different areas of self-expression and production?
Now, more than ever, we need to take control of our time and discipline ourselves to spend it where it’s going to be most beneficial to us in the long-run. Otherwise, we’ll end up feeling clueless and stupid in the end when we look back on all of that spent time on extraneous, unimportant matters. Don’t let that be you.
Don't Let the Motivation Stop There...!
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