The Tab You Open When It Gets Quiet

I blocked Airbnb on all of my electronic devices a long time ago because for a long time, the subconscious voices in my head wanted me to run away from silence. and this experience for me tended to be a manifestation of the Sunday Scaries experience

For a long time in my life, and still today whenever it shows up, there are times when being completely in silence, like right now it’s Sunday and there’s like a palm tree swaying in the wind right now, it was sunny and beautiful, and I surfed and I talked with a friend at a cafe, and then I sat down with myself here in my home, and it was quiet, and it’s been quiet for a while.

and it was exactly this experience for a lot of my life that actually made me quite uneasy

because I mistook silence for stagnation. There’s this one really potent example actually, I was with a friend. I was probably eight or nine or 10 years old. I was pretty young with a friend. We were in Hawaii on– I was invited on their family vacation, and it was…

I remember it vividly. We were at the water park of the hotel next door, and we were wandering around, and then we went through the hotel, and we were just kind of exploring like 10-year-olds do. And it was just this perfectly relaxed Hawaiian middle of the day, beautiful, and it was just this beautiful Hawaiian blue sky day.

And I would imagine this is most people’s dream afternoon. But wandering around with nothing to do and nowhere to be, with not a cloud in the sky was the first memory I ever have of having that level of unease in my body. and I truly believe that it was a product of not my, like

And that is the first memory that I have of an experience where silence felt disturbing to me

And not only did the silence feel uneasy, it made me want to do other things. It made me, in order to handle those emotions, that level of that unease that comes with… And it’s funny when I say this out loud because it almost sounds not cringey, but as if I’m acting like I have like legitimate anxiety or something like that, Which I don’t.

It’s ju- I have

from my perspective, it’s actually a rather common experience. The feeling of unease when you have to just be there with your own thoughts and to see what you think about the situation you’re in, the life you’ve created, the actions you’ve taken, or just not even to think at all.

That feeling can be quite uneasy for people. And

And it’s one of the number one moments where later on in my life, I recognized a pattern of me going to digital distractions like Airbnb or YouTube or Instagram or all those kind of things instead of just being with myself. It was hard for me to sit in that space of just like a beautiful Sunday afternoon, as ridiculous as that may sound to someone

but one of the reasons why I found it actually quite difficult to recognize this pattern for myself was I’m a very, I’m a very adventurous person. And so actually for a lot of my life, I’ve gone on wonderful trips. I’ve had the fortune as a data science, as a consultant, as a business owner, these things have afforded me the opportunity to be flexible in my geography, and I’ve moved around quite a bit, moved every couple years, traveled a lot.

It’s been wonderful. However, it is easy to conflate an adventurous spirit with escapism, and it’s not one or the other. Sometimes it’s adventure and sometimes it’s escapism. Sometimes you’re avoiding, sometimes you’re enjoying. Sometimes you’re engaging, sometimes you’re avoiding.

for me, and just one specific example was this Airbnb loop, which came out when I had that stillness and that feeling of uncertainty about where I was or what I wanted to be doing or my direction or the actions I had taken the past week, if maybe I was uncomfortable with them or not proud of them or not proud of the productivity that I had.

A lot of these things would boil up in this sensation that I can only describe as like a jitteriness of my body. You know, you kind of feel it above your, your stomach, or for me, that’s where I feel it, or maybe in your back. I feel tension in my neck when I’m stressed.

moments that it would lead me to Airbnb to go search up my next adventure or or just adventures that I might never even have, places I might not even go. And I would convince myself that it was actually me planning for my next adventure, or even if subconsciously if I never said that.

But the reality is I was just using this exactly like I would be using a dating app if I was lonely or a– or Instagram if I felt isolated or whatever the– or bored, or whatever the emotional response was One of the funny things that I found, and I felt a bit bad about this for a while when it happened, was this didn’t just happen when I was at home, like on a quiet afternoon like I am right now.

But for example, I traveled for a year a couple years after college. I saved up money and I lived in my van for six or seven months of it, and then random hostels and other people’s homes for the remainder in Hawaii and Australia.

And even when I was there, for example, when I was in my, van on this adventure, by and large completely free, having so much fun, like genuine fun, not escaping. I wasn’t escaping at all. I was genuinely in it and engaging and reading, and I was on this… The, uh, the example I’m thinking about, I was on a hike called Cascade Head or, or God’s Thumb in Cascade Head, I believe, in kinda central Oregon on the coast, and I have this wonderful picture and memory of it.

And I met these wonderful people, and they were 50 or 60 years older than me, and they talked about an adventure they went on and how they created some, and how some creation came out of their experience. I think it was in Mexico. And mine ended up being the book that I wrote called “Seeking Authenticity.”

and it was this wonderful journey that I was so privileged and grateful to be on. and then I found whatever Safeway parking lot that I was gonna stay in for the night. and I remember going onto Airbnb on my phone in a Safeway parking lot

And I remember

And then I remember going onto Airbnb in my van in whatever Safeway parking lot I was in, happy, but also avoiding. And it wasn’t Airbnb as far as where I was gonna go next. It was just disengaging. And there’s nothing wrong with decompressing and disengaging. what I’m really trying to say is identifying these moments where we’re engaging in a thing like Airbnb in order to disassociate from an emotion

and the reason I felt bad about that, not only because I recognized I was avoiding and not doing things I genuinely wanted to be doing in that moment, maybe meeting people, maybe exploring further, maybe reading, maybe building something, whatever I was gonna do next in that moment, I was avoiding.

And I felt bad about that, but then doubly on top of that, I felt bad because

because I was avoiding something that is so unique. I was on an adventure, and I was and I was avoiding the adventure that I was on and so passionate about. And so that ended up as this deep inner questioning of that experience. Or another one, actually far more recent.

Or another one which is far more recent, I spent three months in Pichilemu, which is a cool little surf town in Chile about four hours south of Santiago. And once again, it was a calm Tuesday afternoon, and this time I didn’t do it because I have stronger boundaries around these things and I recognize them.

But I just felt this urge, this sensation, this desire, like uncontrollable desire to go onto Airbnb. and once again, I know, I understand the ridiculousness of this thing. it’s not like I’m doing something horrific. I’m going onto a website to explore homes in other places.

I’m going onto a rental vacation website. But it doesn’t really matter how you avoid if you’re avoiding. so in this example, now similar thing, I’m sitting on the deck of this beach shack that I rented for $1,700 for the month overlooking Inferno, which is this incredible this incredible left-hand point break in this little bay right next to the Pichilemu, right outside of Pichilemu, I guess kind of technically in it

and there are these strong kinda side shore winds, and the sun is shining. The UV was 12, so I had to stay under the shade ’cause my gringo skin can’t handle that. But the sun is shining, and there’s salt spray in the air, and this just wave pool of a wave coming through, and it was beautiful.

And I was gonna hang out with some friends that I made later that day. I was gonna go to a yoga class because the friends I made Because one of the friends I made was a yoga teacher, and so there was this group of friends that So it’s just this beautiful experience, and all I could think about was leaving it

And all I could think about was leaving it Because it was silent, because it was quiet, because it wasn’t right, whatever right meant in that moment. Now, mind you, it was right. It was perfectly correct, as most things in our lives, as many situations in our lives actually are when we’re experiencing this feeling or sensation.

But in that moment, it felt incorrect. Maybe, maybe in that moment, something else was going on in my life, likely. Maybe in that moment, other things were going on in my life that were surfacing during a moment of silence. So even in this beautiful place that I had specifically and intentionally put myself in to surf and work really hard and speak Spanish and practice my Spanish, in the perfect moment, in the perfect presence, without any possible complaints that I could offer, I still unconsciously wanted to run away from that moment.

And that manifested for me in this desire to go on Airbnb. The reason why that doesn’t catch me anymore is because I collected that data. Over the course of many years now, I identified that is a way that I try to cope with that emotion, that specific emotion of… That specific emotion of silent afternoons with perfect blue skies and with perfect blue skies and wind rustling the trees.

That experience that it sounds like so many people just find so deeply pleasurable, and now I, I am far better at appreciating, but an experience that led me to want to run away

And for tho- and for those that say, “Oh, come on, it’s fun to look at Airbnb. It’s fun to imagine the travels that you’re gonna go on,” I agree. I agree completely, as long as that was the intent. if you are honest with yourself and you think, “This is fun in this moment,” then you’re doing it…

then perfect. But if in that moment you know, like back in your head, you’re not actually enjoying the experience, that’s the moment I’m talking about. and it’s uneasy. And it is an uneasy moment, and it can be, once again, doubly uneasy because it’s easy to beat yourself up when you actually have a moment of rest and you’re spending it doing something you didn’t really want to do.

And then you can beat yourself up on the fact that you have the privilege to do this thing, and so you should be enjoying it, but now you don’t enjoy it because you should’ve been doing something… It’s right, this like crazy negative feedback loop

And that is how I would qualify the experience of running away, running away from the present moment, running away from peace or serenity or quiet. The same peace or serenity or quiet that we claim so deeply to want, and then when we get it, we escape it sometimes. And then when I got it, now once again in the past, I would feel like I have to run away from it.

And that would lead me into these behaviors, uh, Airbnb just being one kinda silly example

there’s nothing wrong with engaging in a behavior, and there’s nothing wrong with the thing that I had to come to terms with was was that that negative feedback loop that kept spiraling and then eventually beating me up and probably leading me down to some place where I would shame myself, even if just subconsciously,

the thing I had to realize and come to terms with was that there’s nothing wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with me for feeling a way. There’s nothing wrong with me for avoiding a wonderful moment. There’s nothing wrong with me for a resistance or an unease to engaging in and appreciating a wonderful quiet moment.

There’s nothing wrong with me for feeling uneasy or anxious ever. It’s just a product of a pattern and of my conditioning and of my biology in certain moments. Certain things trigger certain emotions in me. That also doesn’t mean that just because there’s nothing wrong with me for feeling a certain way or potentially engaging in these kind of behaviors in the past, like scrolling Airbnb instead of…

scrolling Airbnb instead of being present in the moment, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t change that behavior. and that is the reason why Airbnb is blocked, by and large, for most of the time on my electronics. Now, if I really wanna get to it, I can get to it.

I’m an engineer. Like most engineers, you put a VPN on my computer, I can get around it. We’re fine

The reason for that filter is not actually to cure the root cause. It is to offer a moment of resistance. It is to offer a moment that increases the space between trigger and reaction. And I want to have enough space that I can implement some tool, and that tool could be a reframe, that tool could be calling a friend, that tool could just be sitting with myself.

It depends on the level of unease or the emotion or whatever else is going on in my life or where I am. But if I have enough space, but if I have something that can invoke that space, and I have the right thing, and I have the right tools to put in that space, then by the time that I get to the reaction, which used to be waste a couple hours of my life scrolling Airbnb in a way that wasn’t productive or even enjoyable because I was actually resisting doing it because I know I didn’t want to be doing it in the first place.

Once again, it was not intentional. It was running away

I have given myself the gift of a high probability of moving through that experience and actually enjoying that moment. Especially when I started to catch myself in this moment. This might sound ridiculous, but I had to teach myself to slow down.

I had to teach myself to relax, to enjoy a quiet afternoon. It was very hard for me to do that for a long time. It still is actually quite hard for me to do that sometimes, to really just quiet down and try to not do things

and the reason I bring this up is ‘ cause it’s a silly example of something that sounds quite

is because it sounds like a silly example of something that sounds quite harmless, that is actually a self-defeating behavior. is actually a self-defeating procrastination behavior that prevents me from actually relaxing, from actually being present.

the point here isn’t to try to over-optimize all of life. The point is to enjoy it. And the more time that I spent resisting these things that came up with any coping mechanism, whether it’s scrolling my phone, whether it’s Airbnb, with any coping mechanism, is something that I want to reduce such that I spend more time here in the moment doing my thing.

Even if my thing in that moment is just being quiet, meditating or sitting, or watching a TV show if I if I intentionally choose to do that, or going to Airbnb and and looking for my next adventure if I choose to do that. But that’s the point, is it’s not about over-optimizing life.

It’s about having a say in how you spend it. and really, at the end of the day, that’s all it is. I don’t need the perfect life. But on a moment-to-moment basis, I would like to choose how I spend it And the more that I can support myself and positively reinforce behaviors that allow me to choose to engage in the present moment, whether it’s a positive or a negative present moment, just being there with it, the better of a life that I feel like I have

the better of a life I feel like I have. even if sometimes that means that I have to deal with

the experience, even if that means that sometimes I have to deal with that unease that is coming up that I was initially trying to avoid with. and I believe that if I do that, if I do reinforce those behaviors of being present in the moment even when it’s negative or uneasy, then in more of those moments when I’m on those hikes in random countrysides or, or in other countries watching surf breaks that I traveled, that I traveled across the world to watch, or in the surf, or on, or in the mountains, or in my work or whatever it is, that I will be there, ‘ cause that is all I get I’m Flint.

I’m Flint from iAlign. I’m Flint from iAlign. If you resonated with this, please like this video, follow and subscribe, and I hope you’re having a wonderful day.

Peace.