Are you a slave or a master?

I see all the slaves sitting in the “Pink Thinking Room,” as I like to call it. This is the quietest place in the gym and is also home to all the pink hydraulic circuit training equipment. The almost silent hiss of the hydraulics removes me from the jarring slamming of the heavy weights against each other in the main section of the gym.

There are ‌three types of people who frequent the Pink Thinking Room. People who are self conscious about their bodies and want to escape the merciless mirrors that line the walls of the main gym. Fitness trainers who need space to work with an individual client. Then there are the thinkers like me who want to lose themselves in their thoughts while controlling one of our largest natural tools, our bodies. We are free from the pulsating boom of the music of the main room. It is where I get some of my best ideas.

The quiet solitude of this section is also home to the slaves. This is a group of people who, despite their best intentions, have become enslaved by a device designed to serve us. You can find them perched on their chosen pink machine, with only their eyes and their fingers moving. Sometimes, a smile enters the picture, but their bodies remain in that slouch that only a cell phone can produce.

I know this pose. I have found myself trapped in its grip on many a writing day and the pain from the “Tech Neck” I get for days afterwards in the evidence that I, too, have become enslaved. 

I love my cell phone and there are apps I know I can not run my business without. I have even loaded Google Docs onto my phone, so that I can write or edit my books when my laptop offers its last electronic pulse to load-shedding. Then sometimes I can steal a few moments in a waiting room to work on a story or article. Although a careless fall or a menacing boot can destroy this little device in a moment, its remarkable power over our lives is clear. 

I would be lost if I didn’t have my cell phone. Not only in my business, but in a physical sense as I have no sense of direction on the roads and I failed map work at school. GPS had become my main navigating companion in the City of Johannesburg.

I like to believe that I am the master of this tool. But if I do not choose to act like a master, then I will always be a slave. I know I am not alone in this form of slavery. Global statistics show that the average person spends 3 hours and 15 minutes a day on their phones. In my book coaching, I do a 15 minute time test with my clients. On average, my clients write 300 words in 15 minutes. Which is about 1200 words in an hour. Imagine what they could do in a year. Yet, many have not yet learned to fight their impulses to reach for the phone.

Seeing these motionless slaves perched on the machines in the pink room reminds me of just how vulnerable we are. I use my smartwatch to tell the time or measure my performance. My cell phone does not serve me at the gym. It also does not serve me when I am writing. It has no place in helping me to manifest the future I see for my family. Yet, I too have fallen to the temptation of the lure of a cell phone.

We think of the slave and master relationship from a brutal historical viewpoint. In those times, the person who controlled the labour had the power. In our world, slavery erodes our lives in a more subtle way. Its grip is more seductive. In the world of knowledge workers, the person who controls the time has the power. In the world of knowledge workers, the person who produces those books, courses or talks without interruption can monetise the fastest. 

While we all work at our own pace, the question is, when you choose how to spend your time, are you the slave of the master?