Inspiration: Other Happy Humans

Nov. 12

As we started embarking on this journey to the next stage of enlightenment, it made sense to do some research. I wanted to get a sense of whose footsteps we were following and what their approach was. It turns out we’re in good company and far from alone in this journey.

As I looked around for inspiration, I found an episode of Cal Newport’s podcast Deep Questions that outlines a fantastic framework for thinking about living a Deep Life. For those of you that aren’t as familiar with Cal Newport’s work, he is an expert on productivity and finding focus in our increasingly distracted world. In particular, I’ve found his book Deep Work amazingly insightful and actionable to get into flow. In this specific podcast episode, he turns to observations he’s made about those who have transitioned from an unfulfilling career to a life of meaning. Colour me intrigued!

Newport’s framework is a loose recipe for a deep life -- a life full of joy, fulfilment, freedom, and purpose. This recipe is a mix of buckets that need to be filled, and all of them are important. However, every individual will have an optimal mix of how full each bucket is, or which ones are more of a focus for sustaining a deep life. In today’s post I’d love to introduce these buckets and in future posts I’d love to do a deeper dive into each one.

Cal Newport’s Buckets for a Deep Life

Escape

Tell me if this sounds familiar :) You’re at a point where you realize you’re living a life that is leading you, and not the other way around. And oftentimes it’s misaligned with your values and distracting you from the things that really matter. Well maybe it’s time to show that old life up and do a 180 pivot to something completely different! Newport’s actually observed this and we’re hardly alone in doing this.

First comes observation and recognition: a tacit acknowledgement that things are way out of whack and not remotely fulfilling. For example, your work-life is way out of balance and you’re burnt out, or that the commute is slowly grinding you down day after day. The second part that follows is a radical transformation: quitting that high finance job to open that espresso food cart, going from full-time to 1 day a week of part-time, or even moving from the big stressful city to build out that hobby farm in the sticks. In many of these cases there is a huge shift from stress, anxiety, and rushing between commitments to downshifting into a slower, more thoughtful existence.

As you can see from our writing, we’ve very recently taken the first steps down this path, taking a break from our stressful corporate lives in order to explore something hopefully very much on the opposite side of the spectrum. It’ll take a bit of time to get used to saying it, but I’ve escaped.

Mastery

Mastery is the next bucket, and it speaks to a person choosing a skill or area to explore and get better in. It’s about learning to appreciate craft and the journey that is embarked upon to master it. It’s about intentionally producing, as opposed to mindlessly consuming. There’s a strong element of freedom in owning your destiny and not submitting to the whims of another.

I feel like this one shows up more naturally as many of us have hobbies we want to pursue when we have more time to -- it might be woodworking, gardening, golfing, or tennis. And given more time we would pick those up more meaningfully. You may not get to the oft-quoted 10000 hour mark required to completely master a skill, but in general the more time you devote to something, the more about the domain you will internalize and it’s hard to imagine that your capability won’t do anything but increase. And coupled with the previous bucket of Escape, there should be plenty of time to devote to this newly budding skill.

So what’s mine? As I alluded to in my previous post, right now it’s the art of writing! I’m nowhere near mastering this domain as I know I’m new to it. I love the freedom of choosing when I write and what I write about -- it’s a far cry from someone telling me what strategic objective I should be chasing, or what quarterly plan to execute on. I’m enjoying being a beginner again, and I am loving those moments when something is finally starting to click. I still may not know why, but that’s how early I am on that path to master the written word.

Discipline

Discipline is a bucket that builds on Escape and Mastery. Newport observed that once someone had abandoned their old routines, new ones emerged to replace them. It’s tempting to think that once you don’t need to wake up for the 9-5 grind, you can routinely binge watch HBO late into the night and sleep in until noon the next morning to make up for it. And for sure you can indulge in this lifestyle, but Newport noticed deep lifers embracing even more extreme discipline and routine than they ever had in their corporate lives. This makes sense once Mastery comes bursting onto the scene. It seems as if the next step is building the Discipline to start on the path to Mastery. Think 5AM Club, or those that commit to finally training for a marathon, or doggedly learning Mandarin well enough to slow travel through rural China.

I’m still trying to build my own discipline so I’d say I haven’t tackled this bucket as meaningfully as the others yet. But I’ve definitely started building in small changes into my routine: focusing on consistently improving my sleep quantity and quality; making time for exercise; drinking less alcohol and using my newfound time to craft healthy home cooked meals more often. For our writing project, we’ve found a good rhythm getting our posts done within a week while brainstorming ideas for future posts. I’ve found a nighttime schedule for writing when my brain’s creative faculties feel the most engaged. Much more to come in this bucket.

Service

The bucket of Service is all about giving back, but with a focus on building and strengthening your connection with others. This can for sure encompass volunteer work, and we do hear many stories of people making a big life change to spend their remaining years giving back by helping nonprofits and charities out. Newport does suggest that those who have found the deep life can sometimes find this focus on those already close to them. So instead of helping a charity one might find more effect focusing on reconnecting with valued friends or even doubling down on being a bigger part of their childrens’ lives.

This one really is extremely important to me, and one of the biggest factors in my decision to make a big change in my life. In the last little while I’ve been able to be much more involved in my kids day-to-day lives and be really present when I’m with them. I’ve also spent more time with friends than I have in a long time (including working on this blog!) Longer term, my ultimate goal is to continue strengthening these relationships while using my skills to help solve some of the massive problems we’re facing as a society such as climate change, poverty, and inequality.

Appreciation

This bucket is about enjoying things in a really deep way. To counter the life of constant superficial distractions with the opposite -- being able to focus, go deep, and appreciate the quality and effort in things. I see this as fairly intertwined with Mastery, but perhaps the difference lies in enjoying the Mastery of others instead of creating your own. An illustrative example Newport suggests is literature: one might finally have the chance to start collecting classic 20th century works and be able to spend time deeply understanding them. Another example might be one I am thinking of pursuing: we used to be film buffs but the craziness of my former life definitely put the damper on being able to go to film festivals and indie theatres like we used to. With a bit more time on my hands, this is an interest I’d love to be able to pick up again and I’m already pouring over recent film festival screenings to pick out films I had missed out on by some of my favourite directors and writers.

Awe

The last bucket Newport details is Awe, and this revolves around the ability for us to understand that we are part of something bigger than just ourselves. That we’re all a part of a grander scheme. This really harmonizes with the Service bucket as people discover and understand their own impact within that grander scheme. Newport suggests some use religious or spiritual practices to fill this bucket.

This element is not as strong for me, or at least not yet. I have dabbled in meditation as a spiritual practice, but I have a long way to go on that journey (Mastery perhaps?) before I understand how my mindset may shift.

Your Own Recipe

Ultimately, everyone will have their own mix. And my belief is that these may shift as you go down the path to find your own deep life recipe. Newport suggests that everyone will have a mix of these but usually only a few of them show up really strongly. For me as I start on this journey, my recipe currently revolves around Escape, Service and Mastery, with a helping of Discipline and a dab of Appreciation. In a future post I’ll add more detail to how I’m trying to fill these buckets. In the meantime, I’d love to hear what you think your deep life recipe is?