Welcome to modern society – where possibilities are endless and yet mediocrity reigns. It’s a place of striking contrasts, paradoxes, and peculiar phenomena. To fully appreciate it, you will need a combination of cynicism, humility, and ambivalence. May this tribute help bring you all three.

1. Extend your mental capacity with phone applications

Download an app for improving your vocabulary which spits out synonyms for frequently used words – so you appear smarter in front of colleagues and friends. Also, an app which automatically corrects your grammar mistakes. Perfect substitutes for reading and learning.

Track your life’s KPIs by counting your steps, miles covered, books-read, sex partners. Cause otherwise how do you know you are making progress?

An app for your diet, sleep, pets, dating life, exercise, travelling, parking and songs you just heard, liked, but don’t know the name of.

If the whole app thing gets out of control, there is always an app to minimize your phone addiction by tracking your screen time and automatically shutting off the phone.

2. Forget about reading

Books are great but why bother reading? Download an audiobook and listen to it while on your way to work, shopping or in the midst of a fight with your boss.

Don’t waste your time by reading fiction or philosophy, you are an adult now. Put down that rusty copy of Oliver Twist or The Republic and pick-up something practical, something that will help you to get by in the real world – a self-help on how to become a caring husband, an involved citizen and an inspiring community leader.

At all costs avoid those scary solitary moments where you can’t help but face the scary and obscure void that is life.

Better yet, tune-in to the latest podcast on how to unlock your productivity and save time to fill in your life with more of the above.

3. Stay up to date and get up to speed

Have an opinion about everything, especially the current affairs. Stack it like ammunition before the next cocktail party – you never know when someone is going to ask you about the outlook of the global economy.

Always state your opinion without hesitation. Be loud and proud. If someone challenges your convictions, call out their personal misdeeds or inconsistencies from 30 years ago. Face a well-crafted, evidence-based argument by exclaiming that you too are a human-being and deserve to be heard.

Get an instant access to an exclusive coverage of current events – social, political, celebrity and inter-galactical – see how someone important reacted to someone dumb, how a bunch of citizens were outraged by a trending video created by a bot. Map out the entire landscape of our highly sophisticated society.

Don’t shy away from standing at the right side of history, you are just one hashtag away from preventing hunger in developing nations and helping victims of systemic injustice. Think local, act global.

In case you get hungover from all of the information you consumed in the past month, there is a hundred-hour podcast on spirituality featuring 11 ways to practice meditation to help you get in touch with your surroundings. Check out my website to get a promo-code within the next 51 hours.

4. Get lost in the exciting world of social media

Forget about tiring long-letters, unannounced drop bys at your friends’ house. Social networks connect people no matter where they are, no matter the time or circumstances, so everyone is always at your disposal and so you are at theirs.

Personalized content just for you at all times – so you don’t have to listen to boring conversations of your family members or follow news which weren’t tailored specifically for you ever again.

Boost your self-esteem by finding out what others thinks about you, your opinion or your future plans.

No longer any mystery surrounding your former high school friends and your ex-girlfriend – at a click of a button or a touch of a finger you will find out everything worth knowing about their lives.

Forget about fear and worrying – your relatives and friends can know exactly where you are, what you are doing and how you feel about it. Mark yourself safe after an earthquake, a terrorist attack or another dinner with your girlfriend’s parents.

5. Accumulate experiences

Life is not just about money or career – it’s about consuming every thrilling emotion, broadening your horizons and liberating yourself from traditional forms of living. Explore the globe, go bungee-jumping and yoga-snorkeling, lose yourself in a paramilitary organization and rediscover yourself in an ashram.

Experience to the extent that the sheer volume of experiences would leave no place for any genuine emotion and introspection.

Better yet, don’t just live for the experience itself, strive for the meta-experience of perceiving yourself from a distance, through the eyes of a million strangers. God, although we don’t believe in one, bless our modern age for giving us an inflated sense of self-importance and the tools to feed it.

Keywords: on-demand, exclusive, interdisciplinary, discover, vision, streamline, pro-active, digital nomad, make an impact, self-esteem, open-minded, high-tech low-life.

Photo by 霍天赐 from Pexels

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    Mykolas Steponavičius is a Master‘s student at the Sciences Po School of Public Affairs. He graduated with a BSc in Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics (PPLE) at the University of Amsterdam. In between studies, he has shortly worked as a policy analyst and as an assistant to a member of Lithuanian parliament. His interest include education and economic policy, as well as history and literature.

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