That’s a bit like me, definitely like me for some specific tasks, but as a ratio it’s very similar to my attitude towards packing, doing homework/assignments, preparing for job interviews, preparing for any important impactful life moments except with the key difference being the label for the yellow section. For me in those scenarios, including packing, the yellow section represents time spent mentally avoiding the stress and anxiety that comes from mentally preparing for packing or anything else unpleasant by suddenly getting very interested in a random topic and reading all about it, or playing a specific videogame to absolutely ridiculous excess, or watching every episode of a long running series from at least 20 years ago, if I have it available I’m also doing most of these other tasks with a lot of weed.
It’s especially shitty because to the outsider, this looks like laziness, and that’s not wrong, I mean it’s much easier and more pleasurable to do that stuff than the hard thing you should be doing, but I’m not really enjoying that stuff because I’m doing it hard. It might sound impossible to watch a TV series hard, but doing anything in this state is a heart racing extreme form of mental concentration to absolutely fully and completely consume my mind with anything except the source of stress. So it looks like I’m watching TV and laughing at the jokes and I am, but I’m also simultaneously really stressed and tired from expending so much mental energy in to blocking everything else out. Truly a fantastic skill since I’m able to achieve precisely nothing, still get really tired, look like I didn’t do anything that would break a sweat at all and still feel like shit and be completely stressed by the end which itself will usually serve as a reminder of how little progress has been made towards the thing I was trying to avoid thinking about which induces a lot of anxiety and self loathing that needs to be fixed by even more intense even harder doing of anything else.
I appreciate your honesty, I can relate b/c I’ve been there at points in my life too, including the weed. three things helped me kick/reduce all those habits:
stop expecting perfection from myself by giving myself lots of internal validation every day & replacing self-loathing thoughts with gratitude
break apart overwhelming tasks into stupidly small tasks like “write the first word of the first paragraph, then the next word, etc”
be my own parent & stop using weed, other substances and addictions like videogames to distract from the present by deciding to take short breaks (e.g. 1 day/1 week/1 month) & telling myself I’ll keep going if I feel good after
I can recommend a book called Don’t Believe Everything You Think, it’s a short & easy read that reminds you why it’s good to be in the present & that all the answers you need are already within you if you’re honest enough with yourself to ask & answer those questions. good luck!
That’s a bit like me, definitely like me for some specific tasks, but as a ratio it’s very similar to my attitude towards packing, doing homework/assignments, preparing for job interviews, preparing for any important impactful life moments except with the key difference being the label for the yellow section. For me in those scenarios, including packing, the yellow section represents time spent mentally avoiding the stress and anxiety that comes from mentally preparing for packing or anything else unpleasant by suddenly getting very interested in a random topic and reading all about it, or playing a specific videogame to absolutely ridiculous excess, or watching every episode of a long running series from at least 20 years ago, if I have it available I’m also doing most of these other tasks with a lot of weed.
It’s especially shitty because to the outsider, this looks like laziness, and that’s not wrong, I mean it’s much easier and more pleasurable to do that stuff than the hard thing you should be doing, but I’m not really enjoying that stuff because I’m doing it hard. It might sound impossible to watch a TV series hard, but doing anything in this state is a heart racing extreme form of mental concentration to absolutely fully and completely consume my mind with anything except the source of stress. So it looks like I’m watching TV and laughing at the jokes and I am, but I’m also simultaneously really stressed and tired from expending so much mental energy in to blocking everything else out. Truly a fantastic skill since I’m able to achieve precisely nothing, still get really tired, look like I didn’t do anything that would break a sweat at all and still feel like shit and be completely stressed by the end which itself will usually serve as a reminder of how little progress has been made towards the thing I was trying to avoid thinking about which induces a lot of anxiety and self loathing that needs to be fixed by even more intense even harder doing of anything else.
I appreciate your honesty, I can relate b/c I’ve been there at points in my life too, including the weed. three things helped me kick/reduce all those habits:
I can recommend a book called Don’t Believe Everything You Think, it’s a short & easy read that reminds you why it’s good to be in the present & that all the answers you need are already within you if you’re honest enough with yourself to ask & answer those questions. good luck!