How to Float to the Top

This is an article I published today in the Huffington Post.....

When I am at a party, the question I dislike the most is "What do you do?" I often challenge the other person by responding, "I live joyously and consciously. That is what I do." But the very idea of living joyously and consciously is hard to grasp, let alone sustain, amid the demands of a high-tech workplace.

I get at least 200 or 300 emails a day, each one a data fragment asking me to respond in some fashion. My grandfather, who was a rice farmer in a small village in India, probably had to respond to four or five pieces of communication a day. For him, once the sun went down and the cattle were back in the shed, the rhythm of life changed. Not in Silicon Valley, where I work -- the rhythm is 24/7. There is no dial to turn down and say, "I want a bit less of it." So you have to accept that these are the conditions you are choosing to have, and then ask, "In the midst of this, how can I be peaceful, happy and content?"

The fact is that technology is like fire. Ever since we've discovered fire and known how to harness it, we've found it exceptionally useful. You can cook your food with fire, you can melt and blow glass with it. But if you misuse it, you can burn yourself or raze an entire city to the ground. Technology is a powerful tool -- but whether you use the tool to be productive or destructive, to live with peace or chaos, is up to you......

for the rest of the article you can click here to go to Huffington Post