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People often ask me whether I have a newsletter and up til now I’ve sheepishly replied ‘no but you can find me on LinkedIn’.
Rob Archer
8 June 2026
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There was one low point where I had a 2½ hour commute (each way) to an assignment where I didn’t know what I was doing, or care about the project, and I remember people were allowed to smoke at their desks so I came home reeking of cigarettes.
Anyway, 5 hours a day on a train is a lot of time in which to miserably stare out of a window.
But like all negative emotions, being miserable has a purpose.
***
My misery was giving me a clear signal that something had to change.
So as I sat on my long commute, with nothing to do, I started to plan stuff.
I took up running. (Not on the train, when I got off).
And then yoga.
Meditation.
I stopped eating bread. I took an 8-week Buddhism course.
And I started reading psychology books with cheesy titles, which I would try to hide so as to preserve my cool and debonair image on the 7:12am to Woking.
A lot of that stuff didn’t work (I never became a Buddhist, and I injured myself in yoga).
But slowly, out of my misery, came a plan.
The point of this story is not about that plan, though.
It is what would have happened during those commutes if I’d had a smartphone.
****
With a smartphone, I would have had the opportunity to distract myself with endless cycles of social media, staying connected with friends, or I could have pretended I was living a meaningful life by ‘liking’ a few political posts.
Or I could have played some of those addictive arcade-style games to take my mind off things.
In other words, I would have been able to distract myself from my misery; anaesthetising myself from the sting of having a job I hated.
The question is, would that have helped me?
Maybe the long commutes would have been more tolerable.
But overall, I think it would have kept me stuck for longer.
And if there is one thing I regret, it’s not making the changes I needed to make sooner.