You think distraction from your anxiety, failures, heartbreak, and general shitty thoughts will help them go away, but it’s doing the opposite. Distractions exacerbate your problems. Time is not your friend, attention is.
Recently, I started keeping a notebook next to me while I read and write. I find that when I’m working on something, I often lose focus, search the web, or watch videos. Now, when an idea pops into my head or I think of something I want to look up or do, I write it down and return to it after my work is done.
Since starting this habit, I’ve discovered how distracted I get and just how disjointed my thoughts are. Here’s an example of my thoughts from just 30 minutes of reading: String Theory, Challenge Yourself – A Void, Heisenberg Uncertainty, 700 = Biggest number?, Math – 50 coffee sample = lbs?, Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind.
While trying to read I thought of blog ideas, research in physics, math problems, and additional books to look up. This showed me just how easily your brain jumps around and seeks answers and closure.
When you have a problem – anxiety, recent failures, regrets, bad breakups, procrastination, whatever – distractions will not help you move past it. If you choose to read a book to distract yourself, your brain will take the words, make associations, apply them to your own life, and soon enough you’re 10 pages ahead but you don’t remember anything you read. You were too busy thinking about your issue.
It’s the same with TV, social media, overeating, videogames, and all your other distractions. None of these things help, they just make the problem worse. No matter what you’re doing, your brain will slowly drift off. Eventually, it returns to the original source that had you seeking the distraction.
The only way to overcome obstacles is to face them. Simply waiting around for time to fix them does nothing if you aren’t acting. You need to give your brain time and space to process without external interruptions. Give your brain the opportunity to think of the problem, focus on it, and slowly develop ways to overcome it.
It’s not fun to sit in these emotions and thoughts – that’s why we’d rather distract ourselves. It is, however, necessary to give obstacles our attention. Your brain is always going to find a way back to the original issue. Find a way to let it do so freely. Sit with your thoughts, talk to someone about them, do a Dopamine Fast, just don’t pick up another distraction.
December 2, 2022
