Tell yourself to shut up.

As I sit at home during the day, I tend to get upset with myself.

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Being unemployed and alone will have you analyzing every corner of your life to no end because there really isn’t a distraction telling you not to. 

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Sure you can watch TV and hang out with friends, but for the majority of your days you are faced with this uncomfortable truth of, what am I doing right now? With my life? What is everyone else doing? What SHOULD I be doing?

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I believe this comes naturally when people have nothing to really do throughout their days and the mind begins to wander.

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This pandora’s box level type of mindfuck makes me think of a few district thought rabbit holes.

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I get upset with myself because I think I’m a person who has big dreams. Meaning I have an abundance of ideas for things I want to pursue. Whether that be traveling, creative endeavors, or sometimes simply just getting off my ass and going to the gym that day.

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At the moment I feel so impassioned and ready to achieve anything I set my mind to, but about 30 minutes later I settle with watching a few Youtube videos and telling myself maybe tomorrow.

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This friction between what I think I want and what I actually do was cute at first, but now it’s starting to really piss me off. Why can’t I commit to any of the dreams and aspirations that I have? 

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And the current conclusion for this phenomenon I‘ve arrived at is many flavors of one thing.

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Fear.

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I think I let this stupid ass thing called fear run my life and I can’t do anything to stop it. It stops me from doing all of the things I want to do and keeps me from having a better life.

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Want to get a girlfriend and have connection with someone? Being open and vulnerable is scary and might not work out.

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Want to travel the world? It’s expensive and what if you get lost.

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Want to start writing about your vulnerable self reflections and post them on the internet? Well what if people just think you’re a little bitch?

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It’s like there’s two people inside of my brain at all times. One is an optimist who thinks the world is my oyster and I can accomplish anything I put my mind to. The other is a pessimistic little asshole who sees the negative in everything.

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I fight with this little man in my brain constantly all day long and he always convinces me to jump to his side of the fight and just admit that it’s too much work and it probably isn’t going to work out.

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These guys go at it constantly, and sometimes the optimist wins and gets to say fuck you to the pessimist. 

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But sometimes it’s a real 50/50 split. That’s where the third contender, Fear, rears his ugly head and big dick swings the argument into the path of, “Yeah you’re not doing that shit, sit your ass down, make a sandwich and stay home.”

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I think the only way I can silence this noise is to just tell them all to shut the fuck up, and take action. 

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Thinking is actually inversely productive to taking action. The more you think about something, over time you’re less likely to actually go ahead and do it. You’ve gone ahead and overthought every possible scenario and by this point you’re exhausted at even the thought of doing the thing you wanted to do all along.

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So you just tell yourself, nah, it’s probably not a good idea. 

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They say that “done is better than perfect.” Meaning it’s always better to have completed something than to have crafted and perfected it. This is a fool’s errand, because nothing will ever be perfect, perfectionism and procrastination are cousins and they’re both assholes.

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So the advice I’m going to give myself is, stop thinking so much. You wont get an award for it, in fact you wont get anything for it, and that’s why it’s stupid.

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Honestly, I think what it all boils down to is the lack of trust I have for myself. The trust that I can take a leap of faith and figure it out, and I can take criticism and failure, and grow from it. 

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So, Step 1. 

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Start writing and expressing my personal thoughts to others, in hopes that it offers something valuable to other people, as well as help understand myself in the process.

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Step 2.

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I’m not sure yet, I’m not going to think too much about it. I’ll just see what happens.