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The jump between the second panel and the third holds the entire secret. The correct question is asked (why am I not?), and then artfully avoided by an associative switch to self judgement. There is some reason you’re not doing them, and but it’s hiding. https://t.co/FONX59MxOq
If you could but stay with the question you’ve already asked for even thirty seconds, much might become clear. This is the Chinese finger trap of Trying. You are Trying to act, and thus not acting. You are Trying to be more productive, and thus not producing.
The reason for the immediate jump to self judgement in panel three is that it feels like Trying To Do Better. Noticing the actual reason does not involve anger or hate towards yourself and is unsatisfying, you don’t get that delicious moment of knowing for sure you’re a fuckup.
@eshear TLP has a great article about this https://t.co/msP7YnhK1O https://t.co/MIGTKNmuAB
@eshear Figuring out why you feel this way is helpful but not as helpful as one would like to actually put into practice to affect any real productivity in the immediate. Focus and flow state can be fostered but it’s a lifelong practice. https://t.co/jdIpRGZ8rk
@eshear What if the answer (as very often in these cases) is anxiety and/or ADHD? How do you proceed? I mean, yeah, therapy and everything, but it's still a long, hard road without guaranteed success and without getting rid of these scenes depicted in the comic.
@mimrocker It’s almost always anxiety or fear at some level. Therapy can help sometimes. But truthfully, the goal isn’t to get rid of that process. It’s to occasionally notice when it’s happening. That noticing habit can be built in just a few weeks of effort and deepened in months.
At some point, I was approaching these types of scenarios using a sort of scientific method First I identified the problem Problem: I have gone to sleep at 4am today. Then I came up with a hypothesis for why it would be happening Hypothesis: sleep is boring and I don’t like being bored so I put it off Then I tried to come up with a solution Solution: listen to fun audiobooks in bed Then reiterate as needed It’s a good process and it helped me come up with some interesting solutions to various problems (I.e. meditating while balancing a bottle on my head to not fall asleep) But in the long run, it’s a mentally demanding process, especially when applied to many areas of life concurrently. As a result, I end up abandoning the practice over time Perhaps this problem is a good place to apply the same process
@eshear On the topic of "noticing the delta between thoughts" as a strategy to avoid this failure pattern, just the other day I came across this LW post: https://t.co/yQpfxeshI2