One Honest Reason Why Your Life Is So Boring
Before I set my foot on the self-development journey, I’m like most people. Sleeping late and waking up late, being on social media for an ungodly number of hours, playing video games, watching Netflix and YouTube, never exercising, and having low motivation. After years of doing the same thing, every time I wake up, I feel like it’s just another boring day.
I saw a lot of tweets from people around my age saying they are bored. Their life is boring and I thought it was normal and it’s a part of growing up. Dumb me. One of the reasons I stay away from Twitter is they can unconsciously influence your thinking. If it’s a good one, that’s great but from my experience, the bad outweighs the good.
After watching a video from Hamza last night (link at the end of this post), I finally know why my life is boring and why I feel sooo weak a failure, and pathetic. Sometimes depressed. You must have felt like that too, I know.
It’s actually because of the things I did like social media, Netflix, porn, video games, and so on. My life is boring because it’s full of the “fun and entertainment” stuff that normal people do.
The reason for that is because they are instant gratification activities. It’s instant, easy and comfortable. You don’t have to use your brainpower too much and there is no resistance for you to have “fun”. They say comfort kills a man, it’s true. It kills your happiness and fulfillment in the long run.
The more nonsense and unbeneficial content you pay attention to,
the more Netflix you watch, the more video games you play, the more junk food you eat, the more porn you indulge, the more weed you smoke, the more your life gets boring and miserable.
These activities only give you the “happiness”, “fun” and “enjoyment” only when you are locked in it. As soon as you finish the game, that episode, scrolling till the bottom, jerking off, and so on, you are left with the reality. And reality gets slightly worse the more you do those activities.
I strongly believe on you are what you consume, or you are what you pay attention to. It can be food, content or the people you choose to be close with.
“Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.” — Jose Ortega y Gasset
Your life gets boring because you don’t challenge yourself. You are also addicted to comfort and staying in your bubble.
Compare these two scenarios:
Scenario A
I spend 20 days out of 30 days in a month playing video games for hours to rank up and watch 5 episodes on Netflix or HBO Go every day.
Do you think I’ll look back at the end of the month and say “Wow, I’m so proud of myself and the time I wasted to reach 100 hours of Valorant and finish 2 seasons of Euphoria?” Obviously not.
Scenario B
I spend 20 days in a month reading a chapter of a book, running 1km and gradually increasing the distance, and only 1 hour of phone screen time. At the end of the month, I managed to increase my deep work and focus, complete two books, and run 4km. Do you think I’ll look back and be happy?
Of course, I conquered the month, managed to achieve my goal, and will feel so satisfied with the hard work I did. I practice delayed gratification which means sacrificing my comfort daily for long-term satisfaction. I know I’m getting slightly better from the other guys similar to me last month that are still jerking off twice daily to this day.
Which scenario, which part of me do you think is more attractive from my crush’s eyes or anyone from the opposite sex? If you’re a woman reading this, this can be an insight for you to choose your partner properly or just assume I’m a woman too. I’m not asking you to do self-improvement to fish for compliments. This is just to highlight which is good and bad.
Most importantly, will your future self be proud of you for finishing two shows in a month? Will your future self be happy for you for wasting hundreds of hours on video games, Netflix, social media or weed when you have the time and choice to do something better like reading or sleeping early? You already know the answer.
You don’t have to start with big and hard challenges. If you can’t even run for 1km, try 500m first. If you fap 10 times a week, reduce it to 5. If you’re always on your phone for 5 hours, reduce it to 4. But don’t stay at the same place for a long time. Try to be better 1 percent every single day because as James Clear said in his book, Atomic Habits:
1% worse every day for one year. 0.99^365 = 00.03
1% better every day for one year. 1.01^365 = 37.78
Small bad habits repeated every single day will make you worse and worse. Small good habits repeated every single day will make you better and better. Small wins lead to bigger wins. Just like a spark that can spread and grow to burn the entire forest into ashes.
One more thing, if you want to be successful and improve in your life. Remember this:
Success is the product of daily habits. — James Clear
If you like this post, share this to your friend that needs it or on your story. You might change someone’s life :)
This post is inspired by this video.
Sincerely,
Danish Fikri
If you would like to receive my Medium story in your email, subscribe here.
If you think I can help you write for your business, speak to me at [email protected]
