The Dangers of Seeking More

I’ve been trapped by our culture of constant stimulation. I’m terrified of missing out, not doing enough, not keeping up.  I always feel like I should be doing more. How can we combat the bombardment of new, exciting information and entertainment that is aimed at us.

Honesty and vulnerability

You may notice a slight change on the blog with this post. It’s time for me to open up. I’ve been really struggling with my mental health for the last year or so. Depression. Anxiety. Perfectionism. Anger. I’ve been inspired by some of the extremely honest content that Dallas Hartwig has written on his blog and also by my friend the Grumpy Young Bloke to talk about it in some posts on here.

2 Mindfulness practices

 

Mindfulness is still a concept which I wholeheartedly agree with and aspire to but struggle to implement. I often find my mind continuing to wander during activities and find it difficult to successfully meditate purely on my breathing. So I’m currently practicing two deliberate methods of creating mindfulness through activities rather than just plain meditation.

Sunk cost

I think the idea of sunk cost is a concept that we need to get comfortable with to benefit all aspects of our life. Sunk cost is generally defined along the lines of a cost which has already been incurred which cannot be recouped no matter what we do. Therefore we shouldn’t take the money which is already spent into account when deciding whether to spend more money or cut our losses. An example would be if we have spent £50 on 5 spins of the roulette wheel and lost every time. The wheel does not take the previous spins into account when it is next spun so we shouldn’t be influenced by the fact we have already spent £50 when deciding whether to spend another £10. That is a completely new and separate decision. It is often said that “there is no point in throwing good money after bad” but the concept applies to so much more than just money and we can be mindful of it to our advantage.

Slow living

I recently read In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore. I think that he’s spot on with his message of re-learning to slow down and appreciate life in a world dominated by the cult of speed. My challenge now is to implement his ideas in my daily life.

A cautionary tale of ‘busywork’

The following story is just one of a virtually infinite number of similar episodes in my life.

Disconnecting from hyper-connection

A while back I decided to re-activate my Facebook account and set-up a Twitter account. I installed the apps on my phone. I vowed to try and use social media in a positive way. I intended to embody an antidote to all the mundane, self-promoting, vanity material that exists. Well that didn’t work.