The Very Important, Slightly Pathetic Art of Having a Life Rewired(Or: How to Avoid Doomscrolling by Reading Someone Else’s Existential Crisis Instead)

It all started with an innocent question from a friend.

“What exactly is A Life Rewired for?” they asked, with the same suspicion you might reserve for someone who claims to enjoy decaf coffee.

And that, is where it all unravelled. Because how do you explain that this blog is both a heartfelt experiment in self-improvement and a socially acceptable way of wasting time that doesn’t involve rage-commenting under a post about upside down Union Flag’s under the guise of patriotism?

So, I did what any sane person would do: I made something up.

I said, “It’s a blog that helps people reconnect with life, humour, and themselves.”

Which sounds noble until you realise it’s just me trying to save a few souls (me included) from the industrial-grade sewage pipe of modern distraction that is social media.

A Life Rewired, in essence, is your emergency exit from the algorithm. A digital decoy. A mischievous little patch of internet that distracts you from your distractions — like handing a toddler a shiny spoon while quietly removing the steak knife.

Let’s be honest: the average person’s thumb now has more mileage than a 1998 Toyota Corolla.

We scroll while eating. We scroll while walking. We scroll in bed, in meetings, and on the toilet — which, statistically, is the closest modern society comes to communal meditation.

We are all, at this point, one minor firmware update away from evolving an opposable USB-C port.

But we don’t stop. Because scrolling offers that sweet, sweet dopamine drizzle — like a slot machine, but instead of coins, you win photos of strangers’ brunches and videos of otters doing surprisingly emotional things.

The algorithm, of course, knows this. It has learned your weaknesses. It knows exactly when to send you a video of a dog wearing socks just to stop you from closing the app.

And so we stay there, paralysed in a hypnotic trance, hoping that this next swipe will finally reveal the meaning of life, or at least a relatable meme.

Spoiler: it never does.

That’s where A Life Rewired steps in.

A Life Rewired is not a productivity blog. If anything, it’s the anti-productivity blog — a sanctuary for those who have realised that “crushing it” is just burnout with better lighting.

It’s a corner of the internet that says, “You don’t need to optimise your morning routine. You just need to stop doomscrolling and laugh at yourself for a bit.”

It’s the digital equivalent of that friend who shows up uninvited with biscuits and gossip and somehow makes you feel both seen and slightly scolded.

Reading it doesn’t fix your life. It just pauses the chaos long enough for you to realise that your chaos is, in fact, hilariously universal.

You are not the only one who’s accidentally replied “Love you too” to a work email. You are not alone in pretending to read “important articles” when you’re Googling “Can you microwave a croissant?” You are part of a vast, chaotic, tea-drinking tribe of people trying very hard to hold it all together while forgetting where they put their glasses (which are, invariably, on their head).

That’s what A Life Rewired is for.

It’s eight minutes of comic therapy disguised as literature. A half-serious, half-sarcastic intervention for the perpetually distracted.

Think of it as your brain’s designated driver — the one that looks you in the eye and says, “Mate, put the phone down. You’ve liked the same reel three times.”

Now, I know what you’re thinking.
“But Barry, surely reading a blog is also screen time?”

Correct. You’ve spotted the paradox.

However — and this is where the intellectual acrobatics come in — reading this kind of nonsense is good screen time.

It’s like comparing a salad to a kebab. Technically they both involve chewing, but one will let you see your toes again by Christmas.

A Life Rewired doesn’t trap you in an algorithm. It just gives you a brief layover in wit before you re-enter the chaos slightly more self-aware — like Odysseus, if he’d taken a gap year and started a Substack.

Our unofficial motto is:

“You can’t delete social media, but you can at least make it jealous.”

Somewhere between the endless productivity hacks and the influencer morning routines (you know the ones — filmed at 5:45 a.m. by someone who’s probably already on their third smoothie and fourth divorce), we forgot how to simply notice life.

A Life Rewired is here to bring that back.

It’s about noticing the ridiculous little details — the way your kettle sounds like it’s trying to contact the afterlife, or how every Team’s meeting begins with that one person who still hasn’t forgets the unmute button consistently since 2020.

It’s a celebration of imperfection. Because frankly, nobody normal has their life together — we’re all just running elaborate cover stories.

One of life’s great myths is that everyone else is sorted.
They’re not. They’re watching YouTube for advice on “how to fold a fitted sheet” at midnight and calling it self-care.

Laughter, it turns out, is an underrated act of rebellion.

It’s how we short-circuit the nonsense. It’s how we momentarily rise above the noise of people yelling into their digital voids about how to be better humans while quietly losing the will to live.

When you laugh at the absurdity of it all — at yourself, your routines, your bad habits, your tragically misspelled text messages — you reclaim a little piece of your sanity.

A Life Rewired wants you to do exactly that.

It’s a warm handshake and a raised eyebrow in the middle of the modern circus. It’s a reminder that humour and humanity are, in fact, the same thing — both beautifully unfiltered and mildly inappropriate at times.

So, the next time someone asks you what A Life Rewired is for, tell them this:

It’s for everyone who’s ever tried to meditate but fell asleep.
It’s for those who think “digital detox” sounds like something your phone does automatically while you’re watching Strictly Come Dancing.
It’s for anyone who’s read six self-help books and still can’t find their charger.

It’s not about fixing yourself. It’s about laughing yourself back into perspective.

Because sometimes the only thing standing between you and a breakdown is a perfectly timed joke about how completely unqualified we all are to be adults.

If you’ve made it this far — congratulations. You’ve just gone ten full minutes without checking your notifications.

That’s more mindfulness than a thousand guided breathing apps combined.

So close this tab. Stretch. Make a cup of tea. Go outside and stare at something that isn’t backlit.

You’ve just successfully dodged the algorithm for a few glorious moments.

And that, my friend, is what A Life Rewired is for.