The Campbell Academy Blog (48)

How it draws you in

I almost always walk the dogs on a Saturday morning between about 7.30 and 8.15, and at that time, I usually find myself walking across the field behind the leisure centre adjacent to our house.

There's a guy on there now in the mornings called Max. He's a PT instructor who runs an outdoor PT scheme where people lump tyres around and kettlebells and do all sorts of outdoor exercises, whether raining or snowing, or blowing a gale.

He sets up at about 7.30 in the morning.

I met him months ago one Saturday morning and stopped to say hello.

He also owns a recruitment firm that he's set up in education, which is doing really well, so he does his work week 9 to 5 in that building a business and then does the PT scheme outside of that and on Saturdays.

He's a hard-working guy, really smiley and full of life, really alive and bright.

The thing is that on the dog walk, I could just put my headphones in and listen to something or talk to someone on the phone or just keep my head down and not want to speak to anyone else.

That's how the phone draws me in.

It draws me in all the time, giving me an excuse to be on it when, in fact, when I'm not on it and I lift my head, there is so much more to see.

Getting to know Max (only very little; we're not friends) is a joy, and bumping into him on a Saturday morning when he asks me how I'm doing, and I ask him how he's doing. We share what's happened in our week, just for a few minutes and then go on our way. It is a wonderful thing, but it's a beautiful thing that gets stolen away by the electronic.

I continue to watch as we devastate the psychological wellness of our younger generations by just feeding them access to the Metaverse without any worry about the consequences of what it's doing.

These guys feel like they have to have a laminate now moving forward.

They have to have a scheme that takes them from here to there in an exactly predictable way, giving them the outcome they want, and then they will be happy.

They postpone gratification and happiness in pursuing a road map, which will take them nowhere.

It's an absolutely false premise.