“Woof”, said my email subject on a Sunday night, sent to a handful of friends. “You are one of less than 10 people who are getting this email”.
I’ve been doing some thinking… I think that I’m quite disciplined in my nature, and I have seen some results of that. However, I still think that I’m not running -even nearly- at my optimal efficiency/productivity capacity. I want to change that, because you don’t know how much better your life can be if you live more by your values and avoid slipping here and there. Well, I want to find out.
The idea, simply put, was that I would send a weekly newsletter to about 10 of my close friends (my wolfpack) outlining reflections on my previous week, and goals for the upcoming one in terms of work, health, relationships, and knowledge/wisdom.
The goals of this were obviously selfish: I wanted my friends to keep me accountable, simply by being bcc’ed on my newsletter. They kept me accountable in my head because every day, I remembered the fact that I have to update them at the end of the week. I had to update them with my progress, successes, failures, and sins. That posed quite a bit of pressure that made me operate better throughout the week; they’re watching.
I realized this phenomenon in a simpler way: whenever I had guests over to my place, I would be a lot more organized and clean up regularly. When I didn’t have anyone entering my place, I would be not so organized.
I don’t remember how I got the idea, but it was definitely influenced by The Elephants which I’ve stumbled upon a couple of months prior.
I’ve done this for a total of about 52 week, with a break somewhere in between.
Looking back at it 3 years later, it was one of the best things I’ve ever done, and I want to go back to it. It made me the best version of myself. I was being watched by people I care about and don’t want to disappoint.
So here’s how it worked:
- Every Saturday night, I’d send out an email with these sections:
- Work
- Health & Mental Health
- Relationships
- Knowledge & Wisdom
- These were the areas in my life that I thought were most important and that I wanted to improve
- Every week, I’d write bullet points on how I’m doing in these areas (the good, the bad, the ugly)
- Every month or so, I’d set new goals for them (e.g. I’m not happy with physical health, I want to do run 3 times next week)
- It made it a bit more fun for me to share a music track and a wisdom quote in each email, and to send the greeting in a different language every week
I was doing a lot of self-exploring that year. I set out to build something new. I had tried, experimented, and failed. I was lucky enough that one of them worked, and worked better than expected. So now I have the journals of how I got to build that startup, which happens to employ about 500 people today.
Here’s my email the week of launch:
Of course, this was a good week 🙂
There were many weeks that were not so good (that period of my life was filled with existential angst).
And it should not be surprising that I’m not the first person to think of this, as many wiser heads than mine have lived before me. Here it is in the words of Seneca, 2,000 years ago:
“Do everything as if Epicurus were watching you.” There is no real doubt that it is good for one to have appointed a guardian over oneself, and to have someone whom you may look up to, someone whom you may regard as a witness of your thoughts. It is, indeed, nobler by far to live as you would live under the eyes of some good man, always at your side; but nevertheless I am content if you only act, in whatever you do, as you would act if anyone at all were looking on; because solitude prompts us to all kinds of evil. And when you have progressed so far that you have also respect for yourself, you may send away your attendant; but until then, set as a guard over yourself the authority of some man, whether your choice be the great Cato or Scipio, or Laelius, – or any man in whose presence even abandoned wretches would check their bad impulses. Meantime, you are engaged in making of yourself the sort of person in whose company you would not dare to sin. When this aim has been accomplished and you begin to hold yourself in some esteem, I shall gradually allow you to do what Epicurus, in another passage, suggests: “The time when you should most of all withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.”
You ought to make yourself of a different stamp from the multitude. Therefore, while it is not yet safe to withdraw into solitude, seek out certain individuals; for everyone is better off in the company of somebody or other, – no matter who, – than in his own company alone. “The time when you should most of all withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.” Yes, provided that you are a good, tranquil, and self-restrained man; otherwise, you had better withdraw into a crowd in order to get away from your self. Alone, you are too close to a rascal. Farewell.
Seneca, letter 25: on reformation
Who’s in your wolfpack? Let them keep you accountable. You’d achieve a lot more if you shared your goals and progress with them regularly.
6 Comments on “The Wolfpack”
Why do other people hold us accountable, and that it gets bad and bad becomes easier when you’re alone
aren’t we people ourselves?
What is it that changes when your alone – what wakes the evil in you that works specifically when you’re alone
Interesting questions
It could be as simple as this: being in a group makes you more consistent (you said you will do X yesterday. Did you?)
When you set goals (or antigoals) in your head, they evaporate. Willpower can help us commit to them, but we don’t want most things as badly as we say. Self-esteem and discipline could help too, but we’re not born with a tankful of those. One needs to build them (as Epicurus suggests)
The shame of not sticking to what you said in front of people you care about has a stronger influence, at least initially
I don’t know if evil is awaken when we’re alone, or put away when we’re in people’s company (I lean towards the latter)
I suppose we’re all subject to the 7 deadly sins (let’s assume for evolutionary reasons)
And at the same time we crave social belonging (and perhaps status)
Our sins feed our personal desires (hence we do them when we’re alone) but they ruin our position in our social groups (abstaining from them makes our position stronger)
Too deep – I don’t know if any of that made much sense
Thanks for your response, I do see the accountability part, although there’s a psychological theory that says that when you tell people about your plans, you get the dopamine of their excitement for you and their claps, and then you’re less likely to do it. Probably this theory needs further experimenting, because people will keep asking you about the plan..
About the alone part, what resonated with me is Seneca’s “for everyone is better off in the company of somebody or other, – no matter who, – than in his own company alone” part – why did it resonate with me? Because i comprehended the same thought in more than one book of ancient russian literature and it’s always been a question of mine. I don’t know what answer is but i have part of it.
From my experience, when you’re alone for too long, you lose your sense of humanity. You spend too much time inside your head running through ideas and problems all the time, thinking of imaginary scenarios, you lose that human touch to others, it’s no longer easy to understand how you feel, or how others feel, you’re completely alone, with no one, and it wouldn’t cross your mind to care about how you’re feeling when you’re completely alone for too long.
For that reason, it’s dangerous. That’s my observation, i still don’t know why you lose part of your human sense of others when you’re not with them.. it still does not click in my brain that we do not easily perceive ourselves as humans as we easily do perceive others.
Hey,
I don’t know if i can ask you to add me to your “wolfpack” mailing list haha 🙂
@Someone
About our evils (dark side) that awaken when we are alone, i think it is because humans need for the third person point of view . how do we feel that we do exist if not touched or judged or talked to?
We always judged ourselves and others being the third eye on ourselves and others.
It’s a triangle relationship between ourselves, existence, and our judged eye. if it’s broken you never know what might happen.
@hannani
This is interesting, never thought about it this way. I find it true within me, and it is related to ahmed’s main point in this post, as he’s referring to the importance of sharing because it holds you accountable. Their third eye keeps us aware of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it (the why part isn’t necessarily in everyone’s awareness)
Hence you’re better off around people than your own company, as you will lose this sense of accountability of leaning towards delivering the best part of you to the world, where your senses and empathy are awake and are seeing other humans’ struggles – you become more human.
It’s interesting..