I'm paid for breathing

I'm happily unemployed in Jerusalem. Even if I don't find a job till mid summer next year I will get paid. Not enough to save for a rainy day but enough to live. I'm literally paid for breathing now. Today was the first day in a longest time when I woke up and didn't have an urgent task lined up. And it brought me back to a project / idea that I was trying to lift from many corners for awhile but could not move an inch. Probably it was too heavy for me. 

In the past I called it 'little sister' (as an opposite to 'big brother'). But now I'll try to define it again in terms of scopes, ranges, deltas and optimizations. But before the definition here is the idea in a nutshell.

Software is helping businesses to eat the world. Software is helping businesses to be better. Software is not helping people to do better.

If you look at the world of big business you will see plenty of structures and processes measuring, managing, questioning and zooming into the business as a whole as well as many parts of it. Businesses have to be crystal clear about what they are because they don't really exist. Compared to people businesses are fairly straight forward. People are very complex. They have wants and needs, body and soul, moods, sense of humor, smell under their armpits and spark in their eyes. 

People are given so much! People now are almost paid to breathe. People are almost guaranteed to get through the day and have a little something to eat, a bit of clothes to keep them warm, things to do, other people to talk to, ideas and ideals to connect with. And obviously air, water, food for thought. People should be happy, healthy, busy doing great things, learning and teaching, smiling enjoying the best of everything. 

And yet too often we find ourselves sad, depressed, unfocused, addicted to stupid things, unable to get out of bed, unable to change seemingly uncomplicated and achievable aspects of our lives. Why is it? 

I think it's partially my fault. You see, I make software for a living. When I have a job businesses pay me to build software tools that help them stay in business. My software doesn't directly make money for the businesses but rather helps the owners to measure, manage, analyze many aspects of the business and the market and ultimately make more money. 

What if I was doing the same for people and not for businesses? What if the software tools I produce were helping people to find their product-market fit, build their minimum viable product, measure and improve indicators of their day, focus on what's important, feel happy, engaged, connected? Even a crappy product that helps people to be better people instead of helping businesses to be better businesses could do so much good! 

So since I'm already paid for breathing and I'm more or less taken care of till mid summer next year I will try to fix the imbalance in my software output. I'll try to make something for people for a change. 

Thank you for reading so far. I have a question for you: if you were to imagine an app that will help you to be better, to do better, to feel better what would this app do? I have something in mind but I want to know what you think. Thank you in advance for leaving a comment.