Beyond the Job: Valuing Freedom

From productivity and distraction towards engagement and meaning

It’s Just a Job

My mom once gave me a simple piece of advice that I’ve repeated countless times to my employees: It’s just a job. It’s not the kind of thing you expect to hear from a manager. As a manager, it often feels like your role is to ensure your employees prioritize work above all else. And yes, I wanted my team to take pride in their work and feel a sense of ownership. But under stress, in a crisis, behind on a deliverable, or entangled in interpersonal conflict, that unexpected advice was often exactly what someone needed to hear.

Most people aren’t at their best under intense pressure. As leaders, we have to know when to release the valve. Encouraging a healthy detachment from professional identity isn’t just humane, it actually promotes clearer thinking and more deliberate problem-solving.

It’s just a job is a reminder to keep things in perspective. Too often, our sense of self-worth gets tangled up in our performance. This can drive excellence, but it also fuels shame, over-control, and burnout. When our ego is too tightly wrapped around our role, we struggle to accept criticism, admit missteps, or ask for help. One of the most valuable things a manager can offer is perspective.

It’s also a reminder to reflect on what’s truly important: our health, our relationships, our creative and spiritual lives. Even the best job rarely satisfies all these needs. In our productivity-obsessed culture, busyness becomes a stand-in for purpose. But work is often a socially acceptable distraction from the deeper work of living. A paycheck, even a passion, should never eclipse the time we spend with the people we love, or the time we owe ourselves for rest, reflection, and growth.

Learning to Fly

I’ve been guilty of this. I liked the structure of work. I liked the rewards, the recognition, the sense of direction, even if it wasn’t quite my purpose. Though I cherished the balance my government job gave me, my life still mostly revolved around work. Now that I’m unemployed and the structures I built my identity around have dissolved, I’m facing the deeper questions: Without work, who am I? What is my role? What do I want? What matters?

Sometimes it feels like the ground has dropped from under me. I’m trying to learn to fly.

The biggest question one trying to learn how to fly faces is how to spend my time. I feel it more acutely than ever because now, that time is truly mine. Back when I worked full time, this question felt less urgent. I made time for my family, we had dinner every night together, but I couldn’t wait to tuck the kids in so I could veg out: a show, a video game, social media. I thought I was resting, but I was really chasing stimulation. I mistook distraction for relief.

Now, many of those habits feel like weeds in the garden I’m trying to cultivate. We live in an attention economy full of addictive diversions. To resist, I’m trying to create new disciplines, practices that help me focus on what matters. It’s not easy.

Work and Distraction in the Age of AI

In addition to reading, writing, and birdwatching, I’ve been exploring AI. It seems obvious to me that we are entering a new era of work. The productivity gains from AI are likely to be enormous, and they will transform our economy. But I’m not confident that this transformation will lead us into a healthier, post-work society. Especially in the U.S., the cult of productivity runs deep. And we seem allergic to channeling these gains into a stronger social safety net.

If AI does upend our economy, I fear we’ll simply swap a cult of productivity for a cult of distraction. That we’ll waste our freedom.

We’ve seen this movie before. During COVID, many of us gained unexpected time. No commutes. Fewer meetings. We experienced a glimpse of another life: more time with family, more rest, more possibility. Some of us dreamed of decentralized economies, remote work, living closer to nature. But there was a catch: isolation. We lost connection even as we gained time. And instead of using that moment to rethink our lives, we fell into the digital world. The same systems that freed our schedules robbed us of presence.

What could have been a societal shift became escapism.

I worry that this foreshadows what lies ahead. The AI era could give us a flood of free time and a flood of meaningless content. Without intention, we may drown in distraction.

Many still ignore AI. Some reject it outright. Others mock it as overhyped. I disagree. Regardless of how we feel about it, I believe AI, much like the printing press, the steam engine, and the internet, will change our work, our economy, and our society in profound ways. If we don’t engage, we cede the ground to those who will use it to consolidate wealth and power.

Freedom and Intention

To stay in balance, we must lean into the wave.

What does that mean? For me, it means cultivating a different kind of attention. I’m trying to focus more deeply. I’m trying to slowly replace the time I might otherwise spend in front of a screen with simple activities: reading, meditating, walking, exercising, cooking, paddleboarding. I’m reconnecting with people. I’m volunteering. And I’m learning to use AI not as a replacement for thought, but as a tool for reflection and growth.

We cannot afford to replace the cult of productivity with the cult of distraction. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as corporations have mastered attention capture, we’ve become more vulnerable to authoritarianism. The less grounded we are, the easier we are to manipulate.

To withstand the coming waves, we must know our center: our values, our rhythms, our intentions. That’s the ballast that keeps us from capsizing.

Being more intentional about how we spend our time is one way we show that we value our freedom. If we don’t value it, we’ll waste it, and, ultimately, we might lose it.