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The self-help slogan of the moment is 鈥減rotect your peace.鈥� As in set strict limits on other people鈥檚 demands on you and your time. This sounds great. But a paradox lurks in the insistent online and pop-psychology demands to cultivate such walled-in serenity. They鈥檙e hardly peaceful! The hyped-up, elbows-out cure feels like just another dose of the disease. You鈥檇 do far better to ignore dumb narcissistic TikTok videos altogether.

A more pressing issue, as you note, is the relentless ubiquity of comms-tech in our daily lives, including videos, calls, texts, emails, and everything else on your phone. Back in the landline day, you could be pretty certain that a ringing phone was someone you knew, actually wanting to talk, or else news that could not be ignored. If you left a message or sent a letter you didn鈥檛 鈥� because you couldn鈥檛 鈥� expect an instant reply.

Now the buzzing cellphone or pinging text is far more likely to be trivial or intrusive or both. Repeated message bubbles pile down the screen, scrolling out a crazy cartoon of demand. Are you there? Are you there? Are you there? You鈥檙e not alone in longing for the days when it was otherwise. The trouble is, we all want this to be a one-way street, tailored to our own standards of availability.

Protect your peace by all means. You are not a slave to your phone, or to other people. But don鈥檛 be an entitled jerk about it. The true wisdom in play here is old-fashioned: learn how to say no gracefully. Be clear and consistent about your availability. Maybe take that off-grid timeout you dream of. Will there be blowback? Only from blowhards. Let them fume.

I needed something printed but had run out of paper. I asked my neighbour if they could bring me a few sheets from their office. My roommate was aghast, accusing me of asking our mutual friend to steal from his work for me. Stealing? I thought that was an overreaction. What do you think?

When I started reading this query, I thought you meant a neighbour鈥檚 home office, not work as you make clear later. That probably speaks to the fluid nature of 鈥渙ffice鈥� as a concept in our post-pandemic world. Or else it says something about you and your neighbours. Honestly, I have no idea where, or indeed whether, some of my neighbours work.

So, for me the prospect of asking them for paper, or really anything except maybe a borrowed stepladder or shovel, is hard to fathom. Per old sit-com convention, next-door moms would routinely pop over to ask each other for a spare cup of sugar. That reference probably makes no sense to most people these days. So, you鈥檙e, what, baking a pie? And you鈥檝e run out of sugar? And you just assume that I, your likewise homebound neighbour, am standing in my kitchen, maybe also baking pies, with spare sugar handy supply?

Anyway, yes, your request technically entails stealing. Company-stocked office supplies are intended for employee use only, usually at work. Your neighbour should not be taking paper home even for their own personal printing jobs, let alone yours. Firms no doubt build in some margin for filched office supplies but taking them for private jobs is still wrong.

Do people do it anyway? Of course they do. Sometimes they feel entitled because of unfair work demands (the 鈥渂roken promises鈥� defence); or else they judge the thefts too petty to matter (the 鈥渏ust a pen鈥� defence). If you insist on conspiring to steal, at least be sane about it. A literal 鈥渇ew sheets鈥� is no big deal; a lifted ream might get your neighbour fired. As for the hours employers think everyone 鈥渟teals鈥� while working from home 鈥� well, that鈥檚 another column.