I'm an escapist. Whether it's movies, youtube, video games, literally anything that is unproductive, I'll spend an inordinate time doing. Luckily, I don't drink or do any drugs, but I might as well since I'm pissing my life away. It is as if I'm stuck in neutral. However, I do make just enough money to get by.
The odd thing is that I can't pinpoint why I'm this way. It wasn't always like this. I guess reason doesn't matter at this point.
Anyway, I don't think my post adds anything useful to this discussion, but good luck.
> [...] I don't think my post adds anything useful to this discussion [...]
After talking to a friend of mine about his issue and how it reminded me of my own struggles, I tweeted the following:
> "I get stuck browsing reddit and I hate myself for it". Consider that the problem may not be reddit. The problem may be you hating yourself. [0]
Procrastination is often a lightning rod. Try working on the lightning part of it instead of blaming the rod that may actually be saving your life from spiralling further into darkness.
Say you are working on a project, but you can't seem to make progress. At some point, you tab over and read HN or reddit for a while.
Now you have two choices: A) Hate yourself for it. B) Not hate yourself for it.
Lightning struck - you were unable to continue working. There are a number of ways to deal with that, a number of lighting rods to take away the pain from the impact. Some work better than others. Some might even make more sense than others. Procrastinating may not make the most sense.
But the problem is not that you were procrastinating, the problem is that you couldn't continue to work. In procrastinating, you were coping. Your brain told you in rather strong terms: "This is currently not working out and there is no way this is going to get better if we continue staring at it. So let's do something else for a little while."
What you should not do is hate yourself for setting up a lightning rod. Because hating yourself does not increase your chances of being productive. Most of the time what it does is the exact opposite - you're simply increasing the pressure for the next time you get stuck on something. The higher the pressure, the higher the chance that you will grab a coping mechanism from the lower shelves of your arsenal.
It's a cycle of self loathing that only has one out: Stop punishing yourself for not succeeding and instead figure out ways to make it more likely to succeed. Hating yourself is easy, hating yourself for browsing reddit is particularly easy. What's hard is helping yourself to enjoy yourself.
Passion? I'm the same way. When I was a kid, coding 18 hours a day for weeks at a time wasn't a problem during summer vacations. Now, I have trouble with it. Full time job just DRAINS me, I don't want to do shit.
However, I discovered a passion. Illustration and UI/UX design for mobile. Every day after work I've been working an extra 8 hours because I found it so FUN.
So much so I have people working for me full time now and I'm quitting my job soon to follow my passion.
Maybe you haven't found your "calling" or something to get extraordinarily obsessed about?
Passiveness/lack of motivation could be a symptom of depression or anxiety. You should perhaps seek out a professional that could help you break out of your pattern before it get's worse.
Also, if you don't work out/exercise then I recommend that as well. You will feel better, fresher and have more energy.
I am in the same boat. It's actually really interesting, after some careful though, I've realized that I've cultivated a habit where I come home from work and watch TV while eating some dinner. Afterwards, I always plan on doing work.
The problem is, that habit of watching TV with dinner causes me to sit down and get sucked into my TV habit. For example, last night I decided to do that and ended up watching 3 episodes of random shows and then going to bed, instead of doing what I wanted to do.
When I eat dinner and listen to a podcast, I still have a bit of an urge to watch TV but I find it much easier to sit down and get to work afterwards.
Maybe you have this type of habit in your own life? Try thinking about what you do every day when you come home from work, and identify your 'triggers'. If it's like mine and you are watching TV while eating dinner, listen to/watch a podcast or TED talk instead. If you end up spending a ton of time on YouTube or Facebook, set up something like SelfControl (or the PC equivalent Cold Turkey) to make sure that you can't use those things during times that you have blocked off for work.
I had a similar problem and the only way I could get myself going was by getting a schedule and sticking to it. I only allow myself a certain amount of time a day to do the things I consider unproductive and thats it. Of course it's good to have balance and allow yourself time to just waste it can be become a problem and in my case it did.
Try starting small. At least an hour today of no wasting time on unproductive activities. Then increase gradually.
Might also be a good idea to add obstacles to these activities such as hiding the icon for your browser in five different folders before you can open it, deleting the facebook app on your smartphone, or even packing away you video game consoles. While a completely different theme, a book called the happiness advantage has a chapter on adding obstacles to nudge yourself in the right direction.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Happiness-Advantage-Principles-Per...
I have the exact same issue. No matter how much I want to achieve or how motivated I get myself it fades over night and I go back to watching TV and making enough to get by. I second the other commenters recommendation of exercise. The days when I force myself to do even a quick 15-30 minute workout as soon as I wake up, I find are significantly more productive.
That's interesting. I have totally lost that ability. Now when I am not working (aka I don't have a contract) and I'm not hanging out with someone, I just kind of sit at home and surf the web or do idle crap. Not escapism but not really constructive either.
I kind of obsess over some things (succulent plants, leather footwear recently) but that's the "most productive" my surfing entails. I feel like it's maybe my IT job, where I am idle all day and not challenged, that has trained me to do this sort of activity. I wish I could get a real job doing iOS development but until then I'm trying to fill my personal time with it.
It's even the case where the day is over and I realize I could have swept up my house or organized those papers or whatever. Kind of damning. But I think it's just that I bottom out sometimes after getting 5+ rejections from job applications.
I've TRIED escapism but for some reason I just can't suspend myself enough to get into it.
The odd thing is that I can't pinpoint why I'm this way. It wasn't always like this. I guess reason doesn't matter at this point.
Anyway, I don't think my post adds anything useful to this discussion, but good luck.