The following is a well-known metaphor for our precious time and where it goes.
An Empty Jar represents our life.
Rocks represent the things we care about most.
Sand represents unimportant things that rob our time.
The photo contrasts two lives:
On the left, there’s no room for rocks, because sand has used all the space.
On the right, rocks were prioritized, and the sand fills in around them.
The lesson is simple: decide which rocks matter, and prioritize them, otherwise sand will eat the space.
That’s the gist of the metaphor. Below we explore some nuances…
Unlimited Sand
Today’s world is more distracting than yesterday’s. The same will be true tomorrow. Back in 1996, David Foster Wallace famously captured this trend in his novel “Infinite Jest” – society invented a movie that was SO entertaining, people literally watched until they died.
Long before Wallace, poets and writers have warned about our compulsive distractibility for millennia. We live in a time when our attention is maximally exploited with technology, typically for profit, or power, or both.
Suffice to say, sand is everywhere, and it takes discipline to defend against it. Think: devices, apps, social media feeds, scrolling, 24/7 news, and on and on.
Total abstinence isn’t viable for most of us – we need some of these things. But how much do we REALLY need to support what we care about? For that matter, what do we even care about?
What Rocks?
What rocks matter most?
Maybe we don’t know.
What if we start by looking at what we have?
Imagine taking 10 minutes before bed, and taking an inventory of all the things you did during the day, and all the things you were worrying about. What was your energy going towards? Was it supporting the life you want or taking you further away? Imagine repeating this exercise for a few weeks and tracking what you find.
What rocks would you see? What sand would you see?
Even if we aren’t sure what matters most, we can start by seeing what our jar looks today, and deciding if we like what we see.
When we were kids, our environment (family, friends, culture, etc) handed us a bunch of rocks, and we were too young and naive to ask: do these rocks really matter? are they even true?
A privilege of adulthood is taking a fresh look.
Maybe the rocks we’re devoted to are ironically causing us pain.
Maybe we have too many rocks, and we are simply spread too thin.
Maybe we are too worried about rocks!
By paying some attention to this, we give ourselves perspective to choose more deliberately.
No Rocks?
How about no rocks?
Taking a hint from all the great transcendentalists and minimalists, in terms of rocks, less often seems like more.
Think about it: What rocks are absolutely essential for life? Food, shelter…
Beyond that, what do we really need?
What is happiness? Is it possible happiness comes from within and not outside?
Perhaps there is solace to be found in as few rocks as possible.
Perhaps, as the author Pico Iyer suggests, we can find joy in nothing.
Perhaps “nothing” is a special rock we can come to care about.
There is a difference between intentionally doing nothing – meditative or reflective – vs being mindlessly distracted, which is just more sand.
From this perspective of baseline contentment, any other rocks we DO prioritize are almost purely bonus, and not what we depend upon to be happy.
Life Is Short
Below is an infographic created by Tim Urban.
Each tiny box represents one week of our life.
Each of us can locate our positions in this chart and reflect.
Endless Distraction vs. Existential FOMO
Considering everything above, we find a pair of opposing risks:
On one end, we might spend our entire lives distracted. This won’t literally kill us, as it does in Infinite Jest, but something inside us might die anyway – our potential – our peace of mind – our clarity.
On the other end, we might spend our lives too obsessed with rocks – a perpetual fear about not satisfying some urge before we die. We might want legacy. We might want accomplishments, experiences, status, love, family, wealth, and so on. We might want some very specific problem resolved. We might attach our happiness to these things, but the goalpost seems forever out of reach.
The sweet spot seems somewhere in the middle…
Choose rocks wisely, let some go.
Find contentment in the present.
Be vigilant of sand.