Most of us won’t even realise how not present we are with our lives. This takes time to even notice and be aware of in the first place, so it’s important to pay attention to what you’re doing and how you’re not present with your life and become more aware of it.
Quitting Social Media
As long as you are connected to the internet, the internet will find a way to ensnare you in some form or another.
- Some things, like YouTube and Reddit, you cannot let go of, but delete those that you cannot get rid of.
Content is Here to Stay
As long as we progress technologically in this information age, where content is king, we have to live with it
- Our duty to ourselves is to find the content that energizes us, content that we choose to consume, so we don’t fall into the infinity of the internet
- Make peace with how we will never experience all that is out there, and that’s okay
The Infinite Nature of the Internet
30,000 hours of newly uploaded content per hour on YouTube
- This literally means that you will never, ever, catch up with how much content there is out there
- There’s just so much out there and I constantly feel like I can’t keep up with the sheer amount of information that flows through our cultural fabric
Setting up limits
You know you are in a rut if you are on page 10 of the Reddit front page. Limit yourself to three pages, three videos, five videos, and a maximum of three pages a day.
Making Peace with Infinity
Work with what you want, not what the hours can give you
- You can’t control the hours of the day, but you can control what you consume
- The only thing you can change is how much time you sleep, and other things you do
Training your nervous system
We cannot expect ourselves to be able to resist triggers if we don’t train our nervous system to handle these triggers
- Try practicing temptation-resistance at the start of your day
- Hampton from Hybrid Calisthenics shared that he has a “temptation-abstain day” where he resists the impulse to do something that gives him pleasure
- This helps him feel like he has control
Step 1: Give up wanting it all
The first step is to acknowledge that you can never finish watching every video, TV show, movie, or reading every book you want
Step 2: Discern the Priorities
Be conscious of what you want to consume and don’t let content just be there
- Don’t let recommendations or autoplay decide what you’ll watch
- Make sure you’re taking intentional time to just browse before you click through to the next video
