I recently found an old article I started back in 2016 called I Kind of Want a Standing Desk. I envisioned this piece at the same time I was knee deep in the drop-shipping store I cobbled together alongside my business partner to sell these marvelous ‘taller than average’ desks while he focused on fireplaces. We were generating wealth you see, and that’s how you do it; selling products you don’t own to people you don’t meet. Foolproof! Looking back, I’m very curious who might be thinking hard about buying things like these during Corona Season, but at the time I was pretty confident I had an incredible business idea on my hands. The pre-Trump world was fascinating (and frivolous).

Once I took a look at my old piece, I noticed that I hadn’t actually written a single word beyond the title. Not strange considering the challenges I was under during that time, but what really through me for a loop is wondering why I would ever want a standing desk in teh first place.

I often wonder if I want to work better, or if I want to work more comfortably.

“Working better” in the consumerist American sense means getting metrics for how time is spent and accumulating whatever products and devices you need to make those numbers go up. It’s becoming your own industrial manager albeit one that (hopefully) cares more about your safety and longevity. Next, it means buying the gear you need like an ergonomic chair, a better desk, a new mouse or tablet, a back brace, better shoes, et cetera. You do what you need to make the numbers improve.

“Working more comfortably” in the consumerist American sense means cutting out the metrics altogether. You just do the buying part on whatever you need to make your work world more comfortable. Naturally, the idea of greater comfort would come from whatever magazines you’ve read or talented salespeople you’ve bumped into. For instance, you could maybe work more comfortably on a beanbag chair with a video game controller in your hand. I know I do. That is probably because of my true goal is to not work.

I remember an old James Altucher article I read back when I thought a standing desk was a good idea as both an item to sell and an item to possess, in which stated that should stop multitasking in favor of the singletasking. The science says that doing more at once makes us worse at everything we do. However, the true revelation came from his heralding as heroes those who canzero-task. I agree… it’s the finest tasking of all. That James is a smart guy.

“Doing nothing” resonates so strongly with me because the world I’ve lived in is one in which much of what I do is in service to someone else. It’s what made me an ideal employee in previous industries like customer service, property management, and entertainment. With these gigs, most everything you do is something no one wants to do as people only call you when there is a problem they can’t or refuse to solve. With entertainment, you work the crowd with something they don’t even know they need and have to justify getting paid for it at all. While I do believe strongly in helping others, I also believe there’s a limited amount of happiness, self respect, or longevity whenever we are paid to do it. Because in these industries, our livelihood is tied to deal with people at their worst. At best it’s merely draining, but at worst it is completely demoralizing.

That’s is what being the owner of a standing desk is to me now. A way a magazine told me I could make work more “healthy” so that I can do more work only with less adverse effects on my body. At least until a year or two later when the next issues come out saying they were wrong about standing up all day we should spring for NASA’s new zero G workspace.

The desire to “work better” ends up becoming a terrible crutch I use to avoid working. I’d have yet another item to wait to receive, then as soon as I get it I would have yet another item to crave before beginning my work. So rather than the deserved zero-tasking that I crave, I instead end up left with more insecure multitasking. It keeps me me exponentially distracted by every other task I’ve let pile up and every secret being kept from every boss I’m avoiding. Standing desk? More like standing around. The greatest proof of this being one lonely article I started and never committed a single word to in 2015.