Note: This is essay 3 of 4 for the BanklessDAO Writers Cohort. This draft is a step in a process intended for gathering feedback and not intended to stand alone as a published work.

In slowing down my life in recent years I have come to treasure the experience of moving at a pace that feels more akin to the speed of my soul than the speed of a hurried world. Extreme as this may sound, I think I’d be more inclined to leave this world than revert back to a life possessed by its frantic cadences. Fortunate as I am to be finding my rhythms in the right lane, I am also asking the question of how best to advocate for it.

Beginning with my writing I would like to play some part in helping to pave the way for more people to spend more time here. I regard this as a key to both individual well being as well as to how we, as members of the human family, treat one another. But where will we find the time? Well, perhaps contrary to conventional wisdom, I believe workplaces themselves, or perhaps better termed “work spaces”, present some of the best opportunities for right lane build out. Or, in Web3 speak, right lane BUIDLing, if you please.

Obstacles are the Way

Before unpacking the opportunity it is worth considering the obstacles. Trusting there are many I have not considered, there are two that stand out as prominent. First, irrespective of related stress and warning signals, the rewards of left lane life are addicting. Drive faster. Work harder. Make more. Get that dopamine firing. Among many in this crowd, time is denominated in dollars. Time not spent DOing work directly tied to making more is often viewed as time wasted.

A second obstacle I perceive, one very related to the first, is that the right lane has an image problem. Among many people “succeeding” in the left lane, the right lane is viewed as the domain of weaker, softer, needier humans presiding over a culture that is anathema to the drivers of bigger, faster cars. As the prevailing, left-lane narrative goes, the only reason to be in the right lane is to recover from a breakdown. “Hard workers” who care about their careers are better off not being spotted there.

These obstacles are real. In saying so, however, I am reminded of the title of a life-changing book, “The Obstacle is the Way”, by Ryan Holiday. If, in this case, these obstacles may be considered together to comprise a narrative, the way to address it is not to argue but to tell a new, different story about why the right lane is worth traveling in. If, as one example of its image problem, the right lane is looked down upon by big thinkers as the lane for “feelers”, let’s draw from the recent discoveries of science to re-cast the slow lane as the one in which our best, brightest, and most creative thinking is done.

No kidding. As an example, consider the work of Dr. David Rock, Co-founder & CEO of the NeuroLeadership Institute. The header for the institute’s website reads:

We Make Organizations More Human Through Science

In a recent appearance on the Brave New Work podcast “How to Think Well at Work” (episode 143), Dr. Rock offered:

“Most of the technology world is pushing very hard to have you never reflect, to never have a quiet moment….And the brain needs down time. It needs time where nothing’s happening, where you’re not being goal focused. And you’re not processing any external stimuli. And it’s really important for our mental health, in every sense of the word, to have that down time and that’s where the insights come from….switch off the connections to the outside world. And switch on the connections to the inside world for as long as you can…..and you’ll find you have dramatically more creative breakthroughs.”*

David’s quote is but one of many I could offer here that are pointing to the same phenomenon. Growing the time and space for people to slow down their bodies and their minds, both alone and together, is actually a key to unlocking human potential. Hold this in mind as we delve further into THE question of why the right lane is worth traveling in.

Time to Flourish

In Week 2’s “Road Worthy Analogy” I offered my perspective that “now is a time for this revolution to begin pointing with greater clarity toward the results it intends to produce and framing the conversations for how to get there”.

Yes, let’s talk about these results, this destination if you will. This destination is not that of a physical location, but rather a quality of experience. For this we need language that is descriptive of something that most will agree is worth working toward. For a long time I just assumed the best word for this was “happiness”, a concept that, as an American, seems nearly baked in as a common aspiration. The word, after all, is enshrined in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Of its appearance there, Wikipedia offers:

"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence. The phrase gives three examples of the unalienable rights which the Declaration says have been given to all humans by their Creator, and which governments are created to protect. Like the other principles in the Declaration of Independence, this phrase is not legally binding, but has been widely referenced and seen as an inspiration for the basis of government.”

More recently, because of the frequency with which the word has been showing up, as well as the quality of research on the subject, I favor the word “flourish”.

flour·ish
1.(of a person, animal, or other living organism) grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly favorable environment.

I do so in large part due to the compelling work of researcher Martin E.P. Seligman, regarded by many as the father of contemporary positive psychology. His book, “Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well Being” details his journey to grok the keys to human well being. Noteworthy to me, his 2011 publication of “Flourish” is presented as an evolution of the thought and research presented in his earlier work “Authentic Happiness”, published in 2002. By his own accounts he tried on the happiness hypothesis, dug deeper, and discovered Flourish to be a better way.

Seligman writes, “I used to think that the topic of positive psychology was happiness, that the gold standard for measuring happiness was life satisfaction, and that the goal of positive psychology was to increase life satisfaction. I now think that the topic of positive psychology is well-being, that the gold standard for measuring well-being is flourishing, and that the goal of positive psychology is to increase flourishing. This theory, which I call well-being theory, is very different from authentic happiness theory, and the difference requires explanation” (“Flourish”, Martin Seligman, pg. 13)

While this explanation is beyond the purview of this paper, the essence of the theory is this. Well-being has five measurable elements (PERMA) that count toward it:

• Positive emotion

• Engagement

• Positive Relationships

• Meaning

• Achievement

Going on to describe his moonshot idea of adopting “Flourishing” as a measurement of a nation’s well being, Seligman asserts, “As our ability to measure positive emotion, engagement, meaning, accomplishment, and positive relations improves, we can ask with rigor how many people in a nation, in a city, or in a corporation are flourishing. We can ask with rigor when in her lifetime an individual is flourishing. We can ask with rigor if a charity is increasing the flourishing of its beneficiaries. We can ask with rigor if our school systems are helping our children flourish.” (“Flourish”, pg. 28)

And we can ask with rigor if DAOs are flourishing. And if we can know if DAOs and other Web3 constructs are flourishing, we will have the means to assess progress toward ecosystem aspirations. And as we learn more about the role of right-lane travel in getting us to this destination, we will be better prepared to answer the question of why more people, in DAOs and beyond, will be better off for spending more time there.