Let's say, for example, you use the macro function in Microsoft Word not to automatically format text, but to change every fiftieth and fifty-first word of all the Word documents on a hard drive to "peanut brittle." This is a hack. It doesn't have to be bad thing - running a diesel engine on used vegetable oil is also a hack.
Which brings me to the idea of the lifestyle hack.
Let's say hypothetically that I want to change my life. Now, I live the way I do for a reason - it may not be a very good reason, and I may not even be aware of it, but I've made choices to do things a certain way to fill some function that would be unfilled otherwise. If there wasn't a reason, I wouldn't be doing things this way.
I can think of two ways to change the way I live. The first is to change how I am. I could make a close examination of why I do different things and try to alter the way I think in order to change how I live.
Well, that's all well and good, but in practice it's rather a slow boat. Changing how I view the world takes concentration, clear thinking, prolonged desensitization to my brain's hangups and knee-jerk responses, and time. Lots and lots of time.
The second option is a lifestyle hack. Rather than changing the rules, why not figure out a way to use them to achieve the desired result? Instead of changing the way I think, why not change the way I frame a problem in order to change the way I behave?
I will give an example, but please bear with me as this starts to become a bit personal. Those bored by such matters can read this sweet little post in which people go "Gwaar!"
I've always had trouble looking for work because I hate asking people for help and I have a lot of trouble doing anything just for myself.
I've never had trouble doing work, especially in a structured environment like a film set or an office, but I've always had trouble asking people to give me a job.
Well, I should revise that - I've never had trouble doing work for other people. If a friend or a feature needs me to, say, paint an entire apartment, I'll pick up a roller and have the first coat up by the end of the day - but throw some plastic over the couch and stop living in white apartment purgatory? It always strikes me as too much work for too little benefit, especially when I could be spending my time watching Flight of the Conchords.
My latest idea is to think about looking for work not as something that's going to benefit me, but as something that will benefit my friends in the film business.
Right now, I can think of maybe five friends who are both capable of writing a really good feature film script and fool enough to think that I'd be able to produce it. In fact, I probably am capable of producing a feature, but at the moment I'm missing some crucial skills that I'll only really get once I work as an office PA for a couple of months.
My lifestyle hack, then, is to get myself to look for work not as a way to help myself but as a way to make sure I'll someday be able to help my under-resourced and misguided friends.
I come up with these ideas all the time, but they hardly ever end up working the way I want (remember no daytime t.v.? If you do, something is wrong with you.) I am in the mood to let you know.
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