Defeating short term gratification

Pin said:
One of the things I remembered is that for the largest wins to be achieved, we've got to win small and fail small. Once you've failed enough and start to win, you just keep winning and winning and winning until you beat failure to death.

And that's what a date with me is like, being beat to death.
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Pin, life isn't a strategy game. Yes, I'm using you as flodder.

slant said:
Yeah I'm still struggling with phone addiction because it's a social thing for me. I was able to quit for a couple of days but it gradually wedged it's way back. It's frustrating.
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Go on. Is it social appreciation or is it social confirmation?
 
dragulagu said:
Pin, life isn't a strategy game. Yes, I'm using you as flodder.


Go on. Is it social appreciation or is it social confirmation?
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A mixture. I want to make sure the people I care about are doing okay. We share ideas and feelings. I get inspired by conversations and sometimes my perspective changes.
 
Mart said:
Okay - so you have not done much partying in your now 20s at all ? Are you a T-Total woman ?
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Nope. I just don't enjoy partying. I get like an instant hangover after my first drink, body aches, it's awful. Even if I hydrate makes no difference. I used to use a lot of pot but that was just to escape my life and I once stopped doing it cold turkey after a friend asked me why I did it so much and I couldn't explain. Since then I rarely indulge in it because I've realized it makes me extremely paranoid and unproductive

I do enjoy psychadelics, but I wouldn't call that partying, and I haven't touched any since I took DMT
 
slant said:
Yeah I'm still struggling with phone addiction because it's a social thing for me. I was able to quit for a couple of days but it gradually wedged it's way back. It's frustrating.
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Wyote said:
I think this is relevant @slant and it's a dude I followed cuz of something @ruji shared a while back.
You can skip to about 12min for the specifics, though the intro is pretty funny.
I think you might be at a point now where you could re-introduce some things in safer ways.
It's not about ridding yourself entirely, it's about having some semblance of control over the things you engage in.
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I love his "YouTube's #1 most woke empty house billionaire trillionaire business advice guy" self claim intro comically interrupted by 80s music, hardcore metal outro, and solid life/business advice.
 
slant said:
The past year or so of my life has been dedicated to changing the way I live, habits and such, in order to have a better one.

Short term gratification is essentially the root of all of my problems. I had pinpointed it on escapism, but escapism is just an aspect of short term gratifications allure.

I think the desire for short term gratification is a human problem, not a "me" problem. Genetics, brain development ( whether you've got a fully developed brain or not) all play their role.

I find we live in a society that in many ways is set up to foster the tendency for short term gratification in humans.

No one thing is "bad", it is merely how it is used. I think of the inherently biochemically addictive aspects of

Video games
Cell phones
Television and streaming services

These are high reward activities that require little effort.

Less stimulating activities that I struggle with:

Eating (the desire to control Emotional state with or without food)
Consumerism ( buy what you don't need to make you happy in the moment)

We have a limited amount of willpower, so trying to eliminate and change everything at once is ineffective. You have to replace bad habits with good habits.

Yet sometimes it feels impossible to eliminate short term gratification from my life, and perhaps there should be some short term gratification, but the main question is:

How do you solidify long term gratification and prioritize that which will result in it?

Thoughts welcome
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I don't think you should eliminate short-term gratification from your life. That's basically impossible and in any case you need some even as you try to focus on more long-term goals. I think the smartest thing you can do is try to integrate the short-term gratification within the bigger picture of the long-term goal you are trying to achieve.

The big question is: what is your long-term goal? Have you defined it?

This is really where you have to start, I think. Defining your long-term goal. And this shouldn't be decided upon on the basis of guilt at not having a long-term goal. It should be something you really want to commit to. Something such that, whenever you think about it, you may not experience the intense but short sense of gratification that a fun game or show can provide, but which nevertheless satisfies you at a lower level of intensity, in a consistent way.

Once that long-term goal is defined, you can begin to re-interpret the short-term gratifications in two main ways. Essentially you're giving a meaning to them, so that you no longer feel bad about them; they are now activities which serve a meaningful function. The first function is that of a reward for dedicating yourself to the long-term goal. The second function is that of a necessary break from the mental strain that comes with dedicating yourself to the long-term goal. I find that playing video games can be a wonderful way of relaxing the mind and resetting it.

So the idea is not to get rid of leisure activities but re-purposing them in such a way as to make them meaningful within a larger vision.
 
slant said:
I've always had one or two friends as a teen. Currently, I have a wider network of close high quality friends than I've ever had in my life
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So whats the short term gratification tonight? We are having some Mushroom tea.

Ctrl,Alt,Delete ! :tonguewink:
 
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