You know, people get into all sorts of habits, right? Sometimes you find yourself just going through motions, consuming stuff, and you gotta stop and ask, what’s the point? What am I trying to achieve, or escape, or understand by doing this?
For me, it kinda hit home a while back. I was in a weird spot. Felt like I was just drifting, you know? My days didn’t have much structure. I’d just… scroll, click, watch. Not really engaging, just… passing time. It wasn’t about any one particular thing, more like a general pattern of zoning out. Looking back, it was a real time sink, a way to not deal with other stuff, I guess.
My Journey Through the Fog
So, my ‘practice,’ if you can call it that, started pretty unconsciously. I’d tell myself, “Just a little bit more, just to unwind,” or “just to see what’s out there.” But ‘a little bit’ always turned into a lot more. It was like quicksand. The more I ‘watched’ – and again, this isn’t about one specific thing, but the whole pattern of passive consumption – the less I actually did.
I remember one week, I had a bunch of things I wanted to do. Important stuff, personal projects, things that would actually make me feel good. And by the end of the week, I’d barely touched any of it. Instead, I’d spent hours… well, you know. Just consuming. It was like I was watching my own life pass by from the sidelines, and for what? Just to say I’d seen it all?
The turning point wasn’t some big dramatic event. It was more like a slow burn of realizing, “Man, this isn’t it. This isn’t leading anywhere good.” I started to feel this gnawing emptiness after those long sessions of just… staring at screens. It was supposed to be a distraction, maybe even a weird form of ‘research’ into… I don’t know, whatever fleeting thing caught my eye. But it mostly just made me feel disconnected. I wasn’t getting anywhere I wanted to be.
Figuring Things Out
So, I decided I had to change things. My ‘practice’ then shifted. It became about:
- Observing my own triggers. When did I feel the urge to just zone out? Usually when I was stressed, or bored, or facing a tough task I wanted to avoid.
- Questioning the ‘to’. What was the actual goal of this consumption? If it was to relax, were there better ways? If it was to escape, what was I escaping from, and could I face it instead?
- Replacing the habit. This was the hard part. I started small. Tried to fill that time with something, anything, else. Reading a book (a physical one!), going for a walk, even just doing chores. Anything to break the cycle.
It wasn’t easy. There were plenty of times I slipped back. Old habits die hard, they say. But I kept trying to be mindful about it. The goal wasn’t to be perfect, but to be more aware, more intentional with my time and energy. I had to learn how to redirect that initial impulse.
Now, things are different. I’m not saying I’m a productivity guru or anything. Far from it. But I’m much more conscious of how I spend my time. I learned that just ‘watching’ things unfold, whether it’s on a screen or in your own life without participating, doesn’t really lead to anything valuable. You have to engage, to create, to connect. That’s the real ‘to’ I was looking for, I think. That’s the practice that actually leads somewhere worthwhile.
