Joshe

@trenton Just curious. If someone handed you over a gig that brings in $50k/yr, and you were plenty capable of handling it, would that change your entire outlook or would you still feel stuck?

Thanks @Indra Rachmaditya! I'm glad you liked it. Yes, I forgot all about that book. Seems like I read it about 10 years ago.

Yes, but environment still isn’t sufficient. Distraction and submersion into something else is far superior. Willpower is fleeting and it’s not always available. All it takes is one very unstable day and willpower is nowhere to be found. When the system is stressed, that’s when it wants the addiction the most. So I think the best way out of addiction is energy management, good sleep, get enough vitamin d and magnesium, set environment up to make access to the addiction difficult to reach, and either dive into something deep and/or distract yourself with something for long enough that the addiction loses its power. A hobby or even TV shows can distract. You’ve gotta go through the initial acclimation phase - where the addiction is strongest - then you enter into maintenance where it is a background hum but not as strong. If you make it through acclimation, backsliding usually occurs when energy is chaotic, so energy management becomes crucial. In the interim, be reinforcing ideas that the addiction is not what you want and that it’s harmful. It’s always a messy process and most attempts fail at first but as long as you keep at it, you’ll overcome.

You're right. Sorry about that. My intention was to sketch out how the position might arise. It was my best guess. Feed me data and I'll update. lol

Lol. You tryna pull rank on me bro? Leo rubbing off on you? 😂 Does "additional context" = your pre-existing lens? Here's my read: I think you successfully operationalized courage, Kaizen, tiny actions, mindset shifts, etc., and after ample effort, they worked for you, so you concluded they're universal tools. But they worked because you had the base and circumstances. The tools didn't create your stability, they optimized it. Now, you're trying to give OP optimization tools when they need foundation tools. And when the tools don't fit, you don't question the tools, you question OP (maybe it's chemical, maybe they need a professional). The tools can't be the problem, right? And external reality can't be the problem, right? It MUST BE internal, and if it can't be overcame internally, it must need a professional. If you've never been trapped in serious survival mode, it's hard to grasp how much it dominates your experience. It's not just a stressor, it's THE stressor that makes everything else much harder. The solution is to fix it, not optimize around it. We've had a good joust. Time to pop a bottle and watch some fireworks. Happy New Year! 😁

Clinical support can be useful. But OP's distress appears to map cleanly onto their environment. Not that mental health should be ignored, just that fixing structure appears to be the lowest hanging fruit with the highest potential leverage. It's possible this alone solves the current problems.

That's interesting. Did you believe this before 5meo? I've never done 5meo, so not sure what all it reveals, but I'm not sure how you get to "highest state of consciousness is what happens after death". Why must it be the highest state? Why can't it just be an unknowable transition? Also, does that "highest state" persist forever until it decides it wants another dream? If so, interesting implications here. I'm having a hard time making sense of it but without 5meo experience, maybe I can't.

Yeah, and the cruel irony of it is repeated effort without relief teaches the nervous system effort is dangerous because it leads to dissapointment and depletion. So over time, the brain learns avoidance. The biggest lie of self-help: that internal work is sufficient to change external circumstances. Self-help says: fix the inside and the outside will follow. Reality says: secure the outside first, and the inside will calm down on its own.

@Natasha Tori Maru If this were an inertia problem, how do you explain all the action OP is already taking? Going to work, making spreadsheets, taking courses, and they seem like the type that's already brushing their teeth and taking showers. lol. So, if behavioral inertia isn't the sticking point, what is? Gotta be something else, right? You seem to be resisting the chronic threat part. It's possible to be under so much ongoing threat and anxiety that the only thing that matters is knowing there's a path to safety, and the system can't truly relax until it sees one. The thing is, no perspective shift or behavioral change on their own can solve the threat, and people under these conditions intuit this, which makes them panic even more. Real threats have to be addressed directly, not with some indirect mechanism that requires a major change that may or may not work. Anything else just makes it worse.

@Eskilon Good point! @blankisomeone That's all good to hear. Right track!

If they could solve the structural problems, they may not need anything like a therapist. They need practical, actionable advice to address the most pressing issues. I agree. I'm not anti-action. I'm anti-blind action. What specific action are you suggesting they take? Just something that makes them feel good? It's not that simple. They're already taking action. Going to work everyday, trying to figure out what their blocks are, buying self-help courses. They can't reframe these as positive because sometimes, your structure is so destabilizing that your nervous system won't allow it, literally. When living in precarity, small positive actions that don't address the structure doesn't build momentum. It builds false hope followed by deeper exhaustion when nothing changes. Small wins don't compound, they just delay the crash. I'm saying: act to change your situation. Not: act to change your perception. OP thinks they need to change their perception and everyone here has confirmed that, but it's the wrong order.

There's a level of inference required to see what is going on here. The inability to read between the lines is the whole problem with this thread. Most are responding to OP's language at face-value: lazy, easy, don't want to work hard, without modeling the internal state. "I want things to be easy" from someone in survival mode is a cry for relief, not a philosophical position about effort. OP isn't sitting comfortably in a stable position looking at life and wishing it were easy. There is massive structural instability. And they're being told their cry is a character flaw, and "just push past it", "you don't really want it", "you're a fool to want things to be easy", "just take action and things will get better". All well-meaning and potentially true and applicable from a stable position, but dangerous in this situation. Their latest post basically proves my entire position. It'd be nice if I wasn't the only voice of reason up in this motha fucka.

😂

Yes, that is your right. But my point is related. I processed your content but instead of engaging you there, I wanted to show you a potential structure so you can stop doing this to yourself. It's impossible to be at peace while being hyper-focused on enemies and threats. If/when you're ready to stop hurting yourself and others, come back to what I said - it could potentially be of some value if you want to explore it. We just want you to be at peace, that's all.

You're saying it's too risky to not take the big risk. lol. What if you shoot for the stars and fail spectacularly (as most do), have identity collapse, then become a failed artist, depressed in a closet with a gun in your mouth? Surely, there's a middle way.

One of these would suit you better than retail work. None of them are sexy, but they'd probably work wonders for your stabilization.

@blankisomeone You're not lazy. You deeply desire low stimulation and cognitive space and your current situation is a total mismatch for that. Forget the self-help stuff for now. Here's what I'd actually do: 1. Get brutally honest about your current situation on paper. Write down: What's your income? What are your expenses? How long can you survive if nothing changes? What skills do you have, even if they seem minor? What do you have access to (people, places, tools)? No judgments, just facts. You need to see the actual game board. 2. Identify what's structurally wrong with your current job. Is it the social demands? The physical environment? The pay? The hours? Lack of autonomy? Name it specifically. "I hate it" isn't good enough. "I'm introverted and customer interactions drain me to zero by noon" is. This tells you what to avoid next. 3. Look for adjacent moves, not dream jobs. You're not looking for your passion right now. You're looking for something less bad that buys you more stability. What jobs exist that avoid the things you identified in #2? What's one step sideways that would give you more breathing room? For me it was construction - not a dream, but a MUCH better fit. 4. Audit your network, even if you think you don't have one. Who do your parents know? Siblings? Old classmates? Anyone who works in a trade or runs a small business? You're not asking for a favor yet - you're just mapping who might know someone who might have a spot. My path opened because my dad ran into a guy at a convenience store. 5. Lower the bar for "safe enough." You don't need to solve your whole life right now. You need to find something that lets your nervous system calm down enough that you can think clearly and move. What's the minimum viable stability? A job that doesn't make you want to die? A living situation with slightly less chaos? Start there. 6. Stop consuming self-help content for a while. Seriously. It's making you feel like the problem is your mindset, which sends you into loops of self-blame. You need practical problem-solving, not more frameworks about beliefs, mindsets, and courage. All the self-help/mindset stuff has real value, but only once you have a stable base. It can't fix anything at this point. The goal right now isn't to find your purpose. It's to find enough safety that your brain and being can come back online. Everything else will naturally flow after that. Feel free to answer these questions here or in a DM and I'll try to be of some help if this path resonates with you.

I don't think this is landing. Behavioral and psychological interventions aren't sufficient to solve this. They are minor adjuncts at best. A personal story to illustrate: When I was about 19, I moved to Florida with my girlfriend and we were staying at my dad's - a precarious situation to say the least. Living on his house boat in a canal where the owners didn't even want the boat, an alcoholic girlfriend, and no vehicle to get around. But, I figured there was more opportunity in the Florida Keys than my small hometown (3k population). I had no skills so I got a job at the Albertsons grocery store in Key West. This was a horrible fit because I was very introverted and probably ASD Level 1, so the whole experience was very destabilizing. I did acclimate within about 2 weeks, but it was a horrible fit structurally. After about 6 weeks, my GF couldn't stand the precariousness and left to go back home, which was soul crushing, but I weathered the storm. She actually dropped me off at Albertsons on her way to the airport - I had to walk through those doors as she was leaving. After a few months of working at Albertsons full-time and only making about $400/wk, I just couldn't take stocking frozen food into the freezers anymore. I was suffering. Then, one day, I went out to eat my lunch and was thinking about how much I hated it all. I decided that I couldn't live like that anymore and I just straight up walked to the bus station and went home. The next day, my dad noticed I wasn't at work and asked me what I was doing. He teared up with fear when I told him I wasn't working at Albertsons anymore. He asked me "What are we going to do?" and I replied "I don't know". Later that week, he was at the convenience store and ran into an acquaintance (Bobby) who had a small construction business, and he asked him if he had a spot for me. He said yes and I started working construction. From the outside, it seemed like I was lazy because I quit my job, but I wasn't lazy at all. In fact, when I moved to construction, everyone was constantly impressed with my work ethic, so much that they felt lucky to have found me. I can't tell you how many times I heard people talking and saying things like "That Joshy is a good worker". When I looked "lazy", I was actually pathless and overloaded. When I had a trade, structure, and stability, suddenly I was the "hard-working guy". I lucked into a much better fit, and from there, had safety. Without that safety, I wouldn't be where I am now - working for myself, doing things I don't mind doing. Had my dad never ran into Bobby, I'd have been stuck with "I don't know" and no path. The same place OP is now. If you've never been stuck like this or have forgotten what it's like, suggesting "mindset shifts" is borderline gaslighting. Behavioral and psychological interventions are insufficient for solving structural misfit under survival threat. You don't self-help your way out of a burning building. Safety isn't a nice-to-have adjunct. It's the biological springboard. And what is safe for one person may not be for another.

My dad was always creating enemies. Always thinking someone was plotting against him. He built these stories in his head and turned people into enemies. He was constructing the entire thing. He thought people were sitting around thinking about him and how to get him. I always had to tell him, "dad, these people are not sitting around thinking about you. Do you really think they're sitting around in their favorite chair, spending their time thinking about how to fuck you over?" Over the years, he came to realize the absurdity of his enemy creation and is much more peaceful now that he doesn't do it anymore. You create enemies because you're getting something from it. It's about self-worth and emotional pain. There are certain insights or facts that you can use to show you the entire enemy creation thing you're doing doesn't make logical sense. You can deconstruct the entire thing relatively easily if you want to. Just ask.