Would You Show Your Phone To Your Boss?

Another heuristic for life.

Would you live your life differently if everyone could see the contents of your phone?

There was a viral TikTok trend a couple years back:

A guy is doing dishes and receives a text message from another girl. His girlfriend tells him about the text and he tells her to unlock the phone and text back.

The idea was, this is how you knew if your boyfriend was faithful. If he told you not to look at the phone he was hiding something.

TikTok might have finally got something right.

I present to you the Lock Screen Razor.

Lock Screen Razor: Live your life as if everyone could bypass your Face ID.

Anyone who is doing something exceptionally nefarious in their life, a) isn’t reading this newsletter and b) isn’t going to adjust their habits anyways.

This idea is for the people that think, “I’m only gossiping a little.”

Or, “I’m only sending a couple emails that might be out of line.”

Or, “It’s just a couple sketchy Instagram likes.”

How many people in unhappy relationships are sending a couple Facebook messages to a coworker that are a little too flirty?

How many quiet quitters would be comfortable showing their phone to their boss?

The point I’m making here is not to morally grandstand on anyone. My point is, there is a straight line between you being subtly ashamed at yourself — even if unconsciously — and the areas of your life that you’re unhappy with.

It is hard to publicly live out your values while simultaneously ignoring them in private.

You’re not really doing anything bad you tell yourself, “it’s locked in my phone and no one will know.”

You’ll know.

This is a little bit like the shopping cart problem or the waiter heuristic.

You can tell everything you need to know about a person based on if they put their shopping cart back and how they treat a waiter.

Why does that stereotype work?

“The way we do anything is the way we do everything.” - Martha Beck

You won’t rectify your sins all at once. My hope is that you slowly chip away at all the holes in your private actions that don’t align with your values.

Not for the sake of others, but for yourself.

That’s how you become the person you’re proud to look at in the mirror.