11/05/2022
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There are dangers to impulsive pleasures. It can be a thrill to bet this months earnings in the hope of increasing them but that generally never works out well. There are joys to be had in staying up into the wee small hours and polishing off (more than) a few bottles but how much interest do we end up owing on our borrowed time?โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ
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Most of the time it's just not worth it.
These impulses that we give in to seem like our default mode, when we sit down to study we're gripped by our own little nagging addictions of more fun things we could be doing; checking our Instagram to see if our friends are having more fun than us or refreshing our feeds to see what hit of dopamine the gracious algorithm gods will gift to us.โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ
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We're spinning a bad gameshow wheel. We're constantly losing. These types of behaviours live within us, as do the tendencies for control. What matters is the behaviours and habits we spend time cultivating and paying attention to. Control and discipline are hard skills to learn and harder to stay consistent with.โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ
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Like most skills, once we master them to the point where they become our default mode we can start to take in the broader picture. Without these skills, we're only ever a bad decision away from our lives being slowly taken away by impulsivity one bad spin at a time. That said, anything in excess becomes its opposite.โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ
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What we generally see as meaning in life, relationships, friendships and memories can be missed because we felt that not waking up at 6am on Saturday was a nonnegotiable. Moderation is a stoic virtue and not often accredited to the Spock like persona that stoics have been caricatured as. We need to find the harmony to life. It's in discipline, control, moderation and adherence to bargaining with the future and delaying gratification.
