Shortcuts
January 13th, 2023
It feels somber but pleasingly adult-like. Like I am a better person for making a conscious decision NOT to use a shortcut to achieve something, but by deciding to reach the destination step by step in a proper way — even, or especially when that will be a long and winding and bumpy and a hard road.
For most of my life, I lived and prospered by taking and using and finding and creating shortcuts. That was my main mode of doing things — expanding the minimum energy and skill to achieve what is needed. Or to do just enough that it would seem like it is done or taken care of or I am working hard on it. All the while looking for any shortcuts possible to make me look good and pretending that whatever I was doing was done well and was an accomplishment I could add to the fake persona and false self-esteem I had. I thought I was fooling everybody, but in reality, I was only fooling myself.
With all that I developed an extreme level of laziness. If doing something was hard, or if there wasn’t a way of finding or creating a shortcut to achieve the goal or make-believe in doing so — then it won't be worth doing at all. I would find countless excuses to explain why I would not do this or that, or why I would give up after a day or week on something. Sometimes I would actually believe these beliefs myself. All the excuses were just bald-faced lies. I just didn’t want to expend any energy or put in hard work (or even any work) to get to something. And the spiral of self-deceit continued.
And it is not easy to completely change something that was a part of my life for more than 35 years. I made changes to myself and my self-destructive behavior and I like the way I am now. Still, my mind occasionally reverts to all the tricks for an easy shot of hormonal happiness that comes from the dopamine surge that comes from getting something done (or pretending to do so) without any effort and with nobody knowing the truth. And even though the temptations are there for sure, I am able to see it as it is happening and stop myself from using a shortcut and still feel okay knowing that there is some hard work ahead.
I even have two examples of it from last week. First — I put a half-written post into ChatGPT (a fantastic tool by the way) and in return got a wonderfully written essay in my style and with the point I wanted to make. So easy, I thought — and was tempted to post it here as my work. And then I stopped myself from doing that. What would be the point of doing that and cheating myself? I love writing and want to continue doing that. And if I ever get tired of it — I will just stop. Second — after talking and hearing good things from people I know about psychiatric care and help, I made an appointment with a psychiatrist with the idea to get happy pills that would help me sleep better and feel more relaxed, and with less anxiety. And then I realized that even though I do suffer from occasional sleep problems and occasional crippling anxiety those things have minimal effect on the quality of my life. I still do and am fine, only occasionally I could do with feeling better but all that is something I can manage with just some work from myself which I wanted to avoid. Of course, that is still a good option if the problems will become constant and more severe. I canceled the appointment and instead I think about what I can do to change it and alleviate those infrequent problems.
I like my choices and decisions now. I like me making those decisions. I like the fact that I have choices and can make decisions. I don’t want to go back to the time when decisions were made for me by circumstances or my crippled mind. No more of that ever again.
