What if we started seeing our lives the way a surgeon sees an operating room?
Not as something casual. Not as something to improvise. But as something precise, deliberate, and deeply consequential. Every cut matters. Every decision carries weight. There is no room for distraction, no space for autopilot. Because what’s at stake isn’t abstract—it’s your life.
That’s why the phrase “radical surgeons of our own lives” wouldn’t leave my head after reading Play It as It Lays. Joan Didion wrote it in 1970 as a way of advocating for something that sounds simple, almost obvious: that we are responsible for authoring our own narratives. That we have agency. That we can choose.
And yes—that idea still holds.
We are living in attention-seeking times, where everything is designed to pull us away from ourselves. And it works. Hours pass, days blur, weeks disappear. Our time slips through our hands so quietly that we barely notice—until we do. Until something in us pauses and asks: Where is all of this going?
If you zoom out, the numbers alone are enough to shake you. The average person spends about five hours a day on their phone. That’s like watching a full-length movie every single day. Over a lifetime, that adds up to somewhere between 10 and 17 years—sometimes even 20. Twenty years spent scrolling, consuming, reacting. Twenty years mostly filled with things we won’t even remember the next day.
Now add another 25 years of sleep.
And suddenly, the time you actually have to live consciously—to love, to build, to discover who you are—feels far more limited than you thought.
This is where the idea of becoming radical surgeons of our own lives comes in.
Because yes, we need to be radical. Not reckless, but intentional. Brave enough to examine what’s actually adding value to our lives and what’s quietly draining it. And that goes beyond just technology.
It’s the friendships that leave you feeling smaller instead of supported.
The subtle jealousy that disguises itself as humor.
The people who don’t celebrate your growth because it confronts their own stagnation.
The family dynamics you’ve normalized, even when they exhaust you.
But let’s be clear—this is not about cutting people off at the slightest inconvenience. If you try to eliminate everything that doesn’t “add” value to your life, you’ll end up isolated, and that’s not the point. Life isn’t a clean, perfect equation.
What this is about is awareness.
It’s about not moving through your life on autopilot. Not accepting every dynamic, every habit, every distraction as inevitable. It’s about asking yourself—honestly—Does this belong in my life the way it currently exists?
A good surgeon doesn’t remove everything. They assess. They understand. They act with intention. Sometimes they cut. Sometimes they repair. Sometimes they simply monitor—but they are always conscious of what they’re doing and why.
We need that same level of consciousness.
Because the truth is, your life is being shaped right now by what you tolerate, what you consume, and what you give your time to. And time is not something we have in excess—it’s something we are constantly spending.
So maybe the question isn’t just, What do I want in my life?
Maybe the real question is: What am I willing to keep operating on, adjusting, and protecting—again and again—so that my life actually reflects it?
Because no one else is stepping into that operating room for you.
Julian Wasser; ‘Joan Didion at home with her Corvette Stingray, Hollywood, California‘, 1968