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As part of my current mental health recovery, I have decided to post things on the interwebz that I would normally find a little bit embarrassing or not want to talk about.
In that spirit, I often find myself posting regularly on facebook and then compulsively checking to see if anyone has replied. I do the same on TL on days where i'm in the house all day (about 80% of days).
This is undoubtedly strange behaviour, and probably an indicator of some self esteem problems/attention seeking. Its hard to stop this now, as i've been doing it for so long its a habit as well as a quirk.
Mindfulness meditation helps a bit, letting yourself know that you aren't controlled by your thoughts, but that you are in control of them, but it doesn't seem to last long and before I know it i'm doing it again.
Its a funny old brain.
Another thing that i'm guilty of is procrastination of the most simple/basic/quick tasks to the last possible point in time. I am currently living with my mum, and I wash up and do the housework every day. I don't mind doing this at all, she's letting me live here for free (temporarily) so its the least I could do. However, every single day, no matter what my intentions were, I leave it until she's just about to get home from work and then rush around trying to get it done.
There was a letter I was supposed to return to my psychologist. I had 28 days to return it. It would have taken me about 20 seconds to sort out. Instead I left it until it was too late. Surely that can't just be laziness. There wasn't even the tiniest amount of effort involved :/
I'll think of some more and post em up for your amusement soon.
  
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I've been where you are now. Get off the internet for some time.
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On June 18 2015 07:34 virpi wrote:
I've been where you are now. Get off the internet for some time.
I agree.
Unfortunately, a part of me wants to start justifying why I absolutely must be on the internet all day.
How utterly silly.
I think I need to start going for walks and leaving my phone at home.
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Ah... procrastination. I know all about it. I've read some articles on the internet saying it has deep psychological roots. Sometimes I wonder if I need therapy :S
Edit: English.
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On June 18 2015 07:49 Silvana wrote:
Ah... procrastination. I know all about it. I've read some articles on the internet saying it has deep psychological roots. Sometimes I wonder if I need therapy :S
Edit: English.
LOL i get the feeling that reading articles on the internet is part of the problem, not the solution 
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Dude, the internet is a great way to get stuff off your chest anonymously. Aside from the living at home thing, I feel your pain. I have a decent yet pretty shitty job, come home from work every day to smoke a bowl and finish most of a 12 pack, only to go back to work the next day. I can't even motivate myself to fold my clothes...there's a pile of clean clothes and a pile of dirty clothes in my bedroom. There are a lot of people who are just as bad off as you are if not worse. Good luck with everything, man.
EDIT: And if your psychiatrist gives you good info, honestly PM it to me. I haven't had any luck with that sort of thing...in the past I've been put on seratonin-conserving drugs, but it hasn't helped me one bit.
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On June 18 2015 09:47 mierin wrote: I can't even motivate myself to fold my clothes...there's a pile of clean clothes and a pile of dirty clothes in my bedroom.
i don't fold my clothes. i have a sock drawer and my socks go in there. i have an underwear drawer and i just throw my underwear in there.
all my business casual stuff which forms the majority of my wardrobe gets dry cleaned and is put on hangars for me.
all my gym clothes is clean but unfolded in a big drawer.
i guess i do take good care of my ties. however, i only wear a tie 2 or 3 times a month.
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I suffer greatly from procrastination. I've been able to solve it during a very intense period of my life, when I was doing my master's thesis. The fact that I had a "regular" schedule every day was the main contributing factor.
I suggest you make a list of a few things that you deem very important in your life. Some of the things that I'm working on for example include learning Korean, working on my English vocabulary, practicing guitar, lifting weights, playing brood war and just gaining knowledge of the area's that I'll hopefully do research in in the future.
Then try to force yourself to adhere to a schedule that you make. Let's say:
- Get up in the morning at 8 am and have a nice breakfast.
- Play guitar for 0.5-1h
- Do a chore
- Take a walk outside, listen to some music, enjoy nature
- Study something (language,...)
-...
But most importantly, don't overload yourself in the beginning. Start with some simple things and gradually try to be more productive every day. If you are able be productive in regards to things you like doing, it will carry over to other aspects of your life.
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Dude, whenever I post stuff on the internet, I'll keep refreshing that page throughout the day lol
That's probably why I force myself not to post too much
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Doesn't sound like anything you are doing is really that bad and is pretty normal.
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On June 18 2015 10:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
i guess i do take good care of my ties. however, i only wear a tie 2 or 3 times a month.
This made me LOL!
I'm not sure why :D
On June 18 2015 13:27 puppykiller wrote:
Doesn't sound like anything you are doing is really that bad and is pretty normal.
Its not really that bad, I know that.
But looked at from the perspective of what we would describe as normal behaviour, it seems.... off kilter.
It could be extremely widespread behaviour for all i know, but its not really something that's talked about and i find it uncomfortable posting on the internet. I put it on facebook, for example, for all my friends to see and there was a mixed reaction from people saying "wow you're weird" to people giving me a rundown of why its an evolutionary trait based on our need to be understood, passed through the filter of the internet.
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Easy, become a billionaire. Problem solved!
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On June 18 2015 16:56 helpman177 wrote:
Easy, become a billionaire. Problem solved!
You really are the helpman!
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I'm not criticizing you for posting. What I am saying is that you might be naive to the fact that a lot of people have experiences like yours including myself. They are extremely common.
I've been living in a sort of similar way for the last 4 years except replace seeking Facebook validation to chasing Starcraft wins for validation. A lot of the time was spent in languor but honestly meditation/gym/being career focused/forming "positive habits" never helped me even a little bit and ultimately made things worse. What has worked best for me is cutting out all bullshit expectations. This includes expectations that I am supposed to be social/happy/productive/fulfilled/"moving in a 'good' direction" etc. All that shit serves to do is harass your sense of well being in an effort to motivate you to do a bunch of shit that you don't want to do anyway.
My only advise would be to not listen to anyone and to trust your own assessments of your status because what works for some won't work for others.
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On June 18 2015 18:45 puppykiller wrote:
I'm not criticizing you for posting. What I am saying is that you might be naive to the fact that a lot of people have experiences like yours including myself. They are extremely common.
I've been living in a sort of similar way for the last 4 years except replace seeking Facebook validation to chasing Starcraft wins for validation. A lot of the time was spent in languor but honestly meditation/gym/being career focused/forming "positive habits" never helped me even a little bit and ultimately made things worse. What has worked best for me is cutting out all bullshit expectations. This includes expectations that I am supposed to be social/happy/productive/fulfilled/"moving in a 'good' direction" etc. All that shit serves to do is harass your sense of well being in an effort to motivate you to do a bunch of shit that you don't want to do anyway.
My only advise would be to not listen to anyone and to trust your own assessments of your status because what works for some won't work for others.
Thanks for that, its similar to some of the advice i've been getting from professionals.
As an aside, i've found that meditation/exercise does actually help me alot, but everyone's different in this regard i think.
I think the temptation is to believe that happiness, or self acceptance comes from a source outside yourself, that you need to DO something to achieve it. On the face of it, that's obviously untrue, but often our behaviour doesn't quite bear that out. The meditation is helping me integrate this sort of thing into my daily life. But still, i refresh the bloody internet all the time lol
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Your right. I've spent a decent amount of time doing daily meditations but the reason I stop every time after a month or so is for me it ultimately just turns into another standard by which to judge myself by. That is to say I'll find myself judging myself throughout the day by how calm or present I am, how consistent I am at doing meditation daily rather than playing Starcraft, how well I am progressing in my journey towards being more accepting of situations, or worst of all, how good I am at not judging myself on things.
You get these highs during meditation and the veiled goal of the process is to be able to spend a lot of time in those mental head-spaces. But this adapts an expectation that that is where you should be (or that that is in some way desired). Then meditation writes into itself a catch-22 that desiring that head-space is counter productive to achieving it, ultimately making the process frustrating (though when you get frustrated you are told that it is you that is fucking up by getting frustrated rather than that the actual process of meditation is unnecessary and that the only reason it is as popular as it is is due to some guru's who are ridiculously bought in over-promoting it).
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On June 18 2015 09:47 mierin wrote:
Dude, the internet is a great way to get stuff off your chest anonymously. Aside from the living at home thing, I feel your pain. I have a decent yet pretty shitty job, come home from work every day to smoke a bowl and finish most of a 12 pack, only to go back to work the next day. I can't even motivate myself to fold my clothes...there's a pile of clean clothes and a pile of dirty clothes in my bedroom. There are a lot of people who are just as bad off as you are if not worse. Good luck with everything, man.
holy shit, this is exactly my life.
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Procrastination
Procrastination can be , at its deepeset most fundamental level , an expression of "death anxiety". That is the topic for another blog though... because its explanation is both meandering and detailed.
at more superficial levels its a great way to have an excuse in advance if you fail in some goal or activity. if u get started on something late you always have an excuse when the quality is low.
be willing to try your absolute best at something and still fail.
when Mike Tyson was at the peak of his career and absolutely destroying every opponent he always imagined losing and always imagined his opponent might defeat him.
if you get more comfortable with failure as a possibility i suspect ur problem with procrastination will diminish to some extent.
again,
be willing to try your absolute best at something and still fail.
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Delete facebook account. Quality of life will drastically improve. I did not delete mine but I log in for 2-3 times a week, sometimes less, just to see a few muay thai fights from a page I liked. And I don't care for the crap that friends post so I save a lot of time this way.
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as someone who grew up pretty spoiled and has had problems with procrastination and time management and goal orientation, i can attest that a big part of healing this kind of thing is finding fulfillment in daily tasks. i hope this doesn't sound like i'm just saying "step 1) fix yourself," but seriously, when you start looking at things like doing the dishes and keeping your living environment respectable (not perfectly prim and tidy, just respectable) it has a real effect on your self-esteem and self-worth.
what changed things for me was when i stopped thinking about it as "phew, i finally have that out of the way, now i can breathe and relax and play video games again" and started framing tasks themselves from start to finish as things that are literally constructive toward my emotional and mental health. because they are. i started looking down at the dishes or the folded laundry or the cleaned room as i was taking care of them and thinking about how good it was to have the privilege of owning nice things to take care of and how much less stressful it is to look at an area that's been taken care of. when i was done i took pride in what i had done and reminded myself that i'm just like anyone else, that my responsibilities are my own and that a decent and healthy person tends to himself, and moreover that if you want to be decent to others you have to start from a position of self-respect
i know that changing a deeply-rooted way of thinking is more complex than "instead of being bad, just think the good things and be good," but i thought it might help to mention that i've done it, it works and it's great. i still overcome this type of issue every single day with the same thought exercises. i've had people mock me to my face because i'm willing to do dishes in my house rather than trying to force my wife to do them, but i just shrug and tell people i'm proud of being willing and able to tend to my living space and clean up my own messes. it's a good quality to have and part of a solid perspective toward life
inspirational anecdotes about mike tyson and all that are good too (seriously, not trying to put down other people's comments), but sometimes you just have to look at your life for what it is and figure out how to take pride in it and enjoy it without trying to inflate everything into some grand gesture or journey. life will always be full of little things, and owning the little things is a lot more important than any dramatic concept of self transformation or heroism
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+ Show Spoiler +On June 19 2015 05:38 brickrd wrote:
as someone who grew up pretty spoiled and has had problems with procrastination and time management and goal orientation, i can attest that a big part of healing this kind of thing is finding fulfillment in daily tasks. i hope this doesn't sound like i'm just saying "step 1) fix yourself," but seriously, when you start looking at things like doing the dishes and keeping your living environment respectable (not perfectly prim and tidy, just respectable) it has a real effect on your self-esteem and self-worth.
what changed things for me was when i stopped thinking about it as "phew, i finally have that out of the way, now i can breathe and relax and play video games again" and started framing tasks themselves from start to finish as things that are literally constructive toward my emotional and mental health. because they are. i started looking down at the dishes or the folded laundry or the cleaned room as i was taking care of them and thinking about how good it was to have the privilege of owning nice things to take care of and how much less stressful it is to look at an area that's been taken care of. when i was done i took pride in what i had done and reminded myself that i'm just like anyone else, that my responsibilities are my own and that a decent and healthy person tends to himself, and moreover that if you want to be decent to others you have to start from a position of self-respect
i know that changing a deeply-rooted way of thinking is more complex than "instead of being bad, just think the good things and be good," but i thought it might help to mention that i've done it, it works and it's great. i still overcome this type of issue every single day with the same thought exercises. i've had people mock me to my face because i'm willing to do dishes in my house rather than trying to force my wife to do them, but i just shrug and tell people i'm proud of being willing and able to tend to my living space and clean up my own messes. it's a good quality to have and part of a solid perspective toward life
inspirational anecdotes about mike tyson and all that are good too (seriously, not trying to put down other people's comments), but sometimes you just have to look at your life for what it is and figure out how to take pride in it and enjoy it without trying to inflate everything into some grand gesture or journey. life will always be full of little things, and owning the little things is a lot more important than any dramatic concept of self transformation or heroism
Liked this a lot. Seems like great advice.
OP mentioned doing meditation? I also think that's a good idea. But your expectations for it should be reasonable: I think it's very valuable and I try to make a habit of it, but it won't cure the sick or feed the homeless. If you have other, underlying problems, meditation will equip you to deal with them, but it won't actually, in and of itself, solve your problems.
Not that OP said it would. I'm just throwing it out there.
EDIT:
To clarify, I mean: Don't let meditation be a form of procrastination.
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EPT
