Life is full of suffering. Life is the struggle against oneself for the creation and transcendence of being into something greater. This is not easy and often involves doing things we don’t want to do because we want the end result. Many choose not to undertake the struggle and go nowhere. When you look around and see all the work ahead of you on your path it is easy to get overwhelmed and anxious. Often when this happens you will want to shut down and ignore the issues. People turn to all types of things to ignore their problems from watching tv and playing video games to drinking and drugs. The issue is that these methods of escapism are temporary and when we are down using them we have to hope that the issues are no worse then when we shut them off. It is so easy to say I’m going to ignore my problems for today because day to day even if we did all we could, we won’t see much change in our lives. It is the daily struggle over a long period of time that we see great changes in life.
Methods of escapism not only waste our time but also hijack how our dopamine receptors work in the brain which will end up making it feel even more difficult to do what we need to do. How can you fix this? For some getting off cold turkey may be the fastest route but that herculean effort often leads to a retracement into old patterns. We need to bargain with ourselves because we have different personality units that take hold at different periods. If this wasn’t the case then it would be simple to do what we should all the time. So we need to slowly back off of the destructive elements in our life and progressively add in more of the things we know we should do.
I used to eat lots of junk food and play video games for several hours a day because I hated my life and myself. I wouldn’t take control of my life because the day to day or even month to month changes were not very noticeable. I gave in to the “what’s the use” mindset and didn’t try. As a result things began to get worse and I felt worse. It took me feeling so terrible about myself to decide to change, my reasoning was that my life wasn’t worth living but I hadn’t really even tried. I know many people who are still in the boat I was in, some will not even acknowledge that they are at best going nowhere. I had to learn to be the constructive force in my life.
One of the things I feel is important to mention is that you don’t deserve praise for doing the minimum of what you should be doing. If you don’t offer praise to others around you when they behave in an uplifting and constructive way then you really shouldn’t expect it. You do deserve condemnation when you continue in your destructive behaviors. When you sit around and do nothing or drink and do drugs how could you expect anyone to be happy with your presence? I am not talking about taking a break at the end of a day I’m talking about using these vices to excess. If you sit around, create messes, and become a burden to those around you then you deserve to be treated as such. You should get your act together and you know it. The main reason people can’t stand those that behave in such a way is that they won’t even try. If they do anything it is the bare minimum and that’s it. If anyone tries to help all these people will do is complain and often get mad at those trying to help. Complaining about your problems in life is trying to explain how nothing is your fault because of something that happened to you before. These complaints may be valid, that is no excuse. Many people deal with horrible things that happened to them and find ways to live meaningful lives. The main thing we need to do is voluntarily face our problems, that is the only way to overcome them. We each know the burden we need to undertake in order to at least have something in life that would make the suffering worth it. Why not try? The worst case is scenario is that you try and fail, but at least you tried something. People usually learn and grow the most from failure. The thought of failing is scary, no one wants to fail however it is the prerequisite to success. There is a price to pay for everything in life but the price for doing nothing is everything. Everything you could do, be, or have will be lost if you do nothing. Being drunk or high all the time are nothing to be proud of, no one cares what shows you watch over and over, and video game achievements do not translate to the real world. Escapism is not the answer and robs you of your time, life, and enjoyment of accomplishments.
The best thing you could do is get away from time wasting habits and start undertaking struggles towards the worthy ideals in your life. Practicing this for a long enough period of time will reap results so great you will only regret not doing it sooner.
Amen!