We Weren't Designed For This

Slowing Down In A Speeding Up World

I don’t think I’ve spoken to anyone recently who isn’t tired, drained or fed up. The more people I speak with, the more I’m convinced that we were never designed for this pace of life we have inherited, a life that is non-stop, fast paced, intense and leaves you constantly switched on with never ending to-do lists. It shouldn’t surprise us that burnout is on the rise, that people are drained from this constant rushing around and at the same time achieving little to nothing. What worries me most is that many don’t even notice it anymore, they are simply going through the motions and living on autopilot every single day without stopping to question it.

The Cubicle Is Part Of The Problem

Something I have noticed is that people aren’t necessarily fed up with the work they do, they’re fed up with the environment they’re forced to do it in. Which is an important distinction to make, I don’t want to help someone change how they earn a living only to discover that they actually enjoyed what they do.

The corporate cubicle is dehumanising in a way that’s hard to articulate until you step back and look at it honestly. You’re told when to arrive, when to leave, when to eat, when you can go to the toilet and how to dress, and your performance is measured against targets that look reasonable on paper but rarely are in practice. I worked somewhere once where the expectation was a 90% chargeable time rate, which leaves 10% for emails, meetings, training, admin, and anything else that got dropped on your desk without warning. A pilot told me something similar, his performance was partly measured on fuel burn, meaning carrying less fuel scored better. It tells you everything about how these systems work, you can be awesome at your job, you can be the best pilot in the company, but performance indicators often don’t reflect that.

Creativity needs breathing room and autonomy, the cubicle offers neither and kills both, whilst at the same time sucking out your soul like a dementor from Harry Potter. Cal Newport talks about deep work requiring conditions that most offices seem to be specifically designed to destroy. The saddest part is that people adapted, worked harder and exhaustion became the norm. They stop expecting more, and slowly start to resent the work they once enjoyed, instead of creating something meaningful it becomes about ticking boxes and surviving the week.

Personal Life Isn’t Much Better

Work is only part of the problem, that same relentless pace also flows into our personal life whether we want it to or not. People assume that if they could just fix the job, everything else would fall into place, it doesn’t.

Outside of the work place people are still rushing, balancing a personal life of chaos and stress, school runs, clubs, parties, weekends packed with obligations that somehow became non-negotiable. And if you don’t have kids, you’ll still find yourself pulled into events, plans, and commitments that quietly fill every gap in your spare time. Nobody chose all of this consciously, it just accumulated slowly without you realising. Guilt and the inability to say no allowed it to compound, until your personal life started to feel like a second job, just as draining and just as contained as the first.

Greg McKeown nailed it in Essentialism, “if you don’t prioritise your life, someone else will”. Most people’s time is being quietly scheduled by everyone around them, and they’re too exhausted to push back.

We Never Designed This Life, It Designed Us

That’s the part nobody really talks about, and it’s worth slowing down because it’s important.

Nobody sat down and consciously chose this pace, it crept in gradually, quietly, and most of us didn’t notice until we were already deep in it. Think about how it happens; you’re told to work hard, get good grades, go to university, get a good job which comes with expectations. You must arrive on time and clock in, hit your targets, be seen to be busy. and then you can get the promotion. By societal standards it’s going well, so you inflate your lifestyle, get the nice car on finance, buy the house and get a mortgage because that’s the next logical step.

We inherited a script and followed it without reading the small print, the pace wasn’t something we chose, it was something we absorbed from culture, comparison and from the expectations of people around us who were also just following the same script. And here’s the uncomfortable part, most of us are still following it, too tired and too busy to stop and question it.

I’ve written before about discipline and systems and building good habits, and all of that still matters, but discipline without direction is just exhaustion with good intentions. You can be incredibly productive and still feel completely empty, because you were running hard towards a destination you never actually chose.

Many people spend the best part of thirty years climbing a ladder, giving everything to it, and eventually get to the top, only to realise it was leaning against the wrong wall the entire time. That's not failure or lack of effort, they worked hard, they showed up, they did everything right. The problem was that nobody ever stopped them early enough to ask whose wall it was, or whether they actually wanted to climb it in the first place. Is this the life I designed, or the one that just happened to me?

A Few Honest Ideas

This isn’t about completely changing everything in your life overnight, instead it’s about small, deliberate changes that compound overtime, just like habits do.

If remote or flexible working is an option then it’s worth having that conversation with your employer. I know that’s not possible for everyone, it isn’t for me right now either, but you might be surprised what’s negotiable when you actually ask. Even if it’s only a couple of days a week working remotely, those days away from the office can shift the energy and make a difference.

Regardless of where you work it’s important to think about the environment itself. What kind of space actually helps you think clearly and feel good? Calm and minimal, or a bit of warmth and personality? If you want to feel like you’re working somewhere that energises you, create that at home or in your cubical. It sounds small but it genuinely changes how you show up, so don’t underestimate your surroundings and how they can have an impact on your mental wellbeing.

These are temporary solutions for surviving, for me the longer term answer is a lifestyle business, something built around freedom and intention rather than a salary and someone else’s timetable. That’s not where everyone is right now, and that’s fine, but it’s worth knowing the option exists, because most people were never told it did. Me included, because when I first heard the term digital nomad I couldn’t help but consume content about it because it seemed a fantasy, yet I found those people were living life, not surviving.

On the kids front one or two clubs is more than enough, they don’t need to be busy every night of the week, they need space to be bored, to play, to slow down too. We home school, which isn’t without its challenges, but it removes a lot of the rigid timetable, the stressful commutes or the homework that even you look at and wonder what on earth they are on about. World schooling is growing for good reason, kids aren’t designed to sit still in a box all day, and if we’re honest, that’s exactly the training ground for the cubicle we’re trying to escape. You don’t have to go that route, but don’t be afraid to go against the grain and design something that actually works for your family.

Protect your evenings and weekends with the same energy you’d protect your work calendar. If you wouldn’t let someone randomly schedule your Tuesday afternoon, why is Saturday morning fair game? Master the art of saying no, a polite and firm no is one of the most powerful tools you can have, without it, everyone else decides your priorities for you.

Many struggle to say no, yet whenever you say yes to one thing you are inevitably saying no to something else, which is normally your desired lifestyle and what matters to you.

So, Here’s The Question

What’s one thing in your week that you never actually chose, it just appeared, made itself at home and never left?

When did you last sit down and design your day, rather than just survive it?

Start there.