On Discomfort and Doing the Hard Thing
After 10 years of questioning everything I did and seeing it as some sort of fixed thing that I had no power of, I have finally started coming around to the idea that I am in control but I am also crap at knowing what the right thing to do is.
Long wait for a game to load? Check the phone. Travelling for work? Buy all the crap food and never sleep. Alone for some days? Chat online or try to organise a casual sex meet-up. In a relationship? Justify it to yourself.
Truthfully, I never considered the fact that my obsessions with checking Product Hunt, Hacker News or Reddit had any correlation to my need to look for casual sex or just to feel wanted/validated by someone; let alone my need to consume every piece of Haribo or MSG soaked Dominos slice ever created.
Today, it did. I woke up, sweating, after falling asleep at 5am and consuming almost 500g of Haribo 30 minutes before then. In a mess of hormones and emotions that have been expertly hidden for years, I had organised a rendezvous with a lady in a hotel the day before. As always, my conscience thankfully took hold and cancelled. Great, right? Good for me!
Wrong, on so many levels. Here are a few:
– I wasted this lady's time and potentially caused a loss of income
– I am in a relationship and this creates a whole mess of distrust
– I wasted money on a hotel local to me
– Getting to this stage often is not a victory, by any means
The sole positive is that sobering realisation of not wanting to do it then causes me (for a few hours) to have the feeling of getting my life into gear. It creates a focus and a will that is usually felt (and shortly lost thereafter) when watching an inspiring movie.
These same emotions that cause me to consume 60g of sugar are the very same that cause me to spend thousands of dollars on gadgets or apps I will never need.
This constant urge for more, that now is not enough is not treated by a quick fuck in a hotel, by someone whispering 'I love you' in your ear, or by a large dose of MSG. It is mine to own, to understand and to work on; something I have avoided for far too long.