The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do
I honestly find that the difficulty is <i>maintaining</i> good thought patterns. For instance, on Mondays, I&#x27;m often hungover and on a comedown. Life feels terrible, I&#x27;m unproductive at work, my self-esteem is shot, I basically hate myself. I vow to change everything, go to the gym, to give up drugs and cut down on booze. Awesome. By Wednesday I&#x27;m starting to feel positive - I feel better in myself, things are going well, I&#x27;m productive again and my self-esteem is returning.<p>By Friday, I feel so great, that the emotional memory of how I felt on Monday is all but entirely faded. What was I so worried about? I&#x27;ve had (basically) a great week, and the weekend is upon me - my phone is going off because people want to go do things and get smashed and spend a load of money listening to wicked music in fun, grotty venues and once that starts, I feel lifted and amazing, the party is great! I&#x27;m meeting people, chatting shit, I don&#x27;t want to stop. Afterparty? Hell yes! Afterparties are for the cool kids and going to them makes me a cool kid!<p>Then all of a sudden it&#x27;s 11AM on a Sunday. You&#x27;ve either passed out or all of the substances have worn off, you lug yourself back home, having possibly succeeded at what your altered brain set out to achieve, but have frankly forgotten most of it. You either go to bed Sunday, or get pissed with the people who can&#x27;t face the idea of returning to normality. Either way, in the case of the former you can&#x27;t sleep, and in the case of the latter you pass out and wake up on Monday feeling so terrible that Monday is a write off. You are full of self-loathing and duck your boss&#x27;s calls, then the coworkers your boss thinks you might just be able to handle&#x27;s calls, then you either somehow manage to get into work to be yelled at at 2PM or you just pass out again, wake up at 4, and then have some dazed sort of day and catch some crappy sleep and possibly salvage Tuesday.<p>So that was an extreme example (the life I&#x27;m trying to change, funnily enough), but the point was that it&#x27;s really really difficult to change in any long term meaningful sense when your mind is so ready to forget the reasons you&#x27;re trying to do well. I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s something as specific as <i>alcoholism</i> or <i>drug addiction</i>, as it&#x27;s a much more broad thing - booze and drugs feel more like a symptom of a certain mindset, as opposed to the things that cause it - I can quite happily (and have, many times) say no to drugs, and I&#x27;ve had liquor on my side for months without touching it (and I can also happily have a few beers without going nuts, too). Perhaps it&#x27;s a symptom of ADHD, perhaps it&#x27;s a crippling poor impulse control and lack of self-discipline, perhaps I&#x27;m a product of my environment (I live in Brighton which is mental as it is, and my main friendship groups tend to hit things <i>hard</i>) I&#x27;m not sure.<p>I&#x27;m just going to keep trying. Each time it gets a little better, despite fluctuating, and each time I get a bit more mature. Just have to hope I nail it before I end up homeless or dead.