The Noise of Novelty

Noise (technical): irregular fluctuations that accompany a transmitted electrical signal but are not part of it and tend to obscure it.

I spend too much time on the internet.

It bothers me because there are other things I could be doing. Reading a book or playing a story-length game instead of browsing endless articles. Working on my fantasy novel or a blog post instead of checking notifications and writing replies. Especially when I’m tired or depressed, it becomes so easy to sink into the mindless scrolling of feeds and Googling of curiosities. Just one more write-up, one more video, one more meme. Just one more time…

Welcome to the Age of the Smartphone, when everyone is constantly connected. When an endless repository of information is always at our fingertips. When our attention itself has become a commodity, a currency, and we have more ways to spend it than ever before. When it can feel like we’re drowning in data.

When we have to actively choose to disconnect.

Today I’m talking about noise. 

Rick Doble

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: modern technology is incredible. Via the internet, we can find facts within seconds. We can maintain relationships with loved ones a thousand kilometres away. And we have unending sources of entertainment, whether it’s YouTube, video games or social media. This is where the trouble starts. The internet is a supernormal stimulus: something which elicits responses far stronger than the stimuli for which our senses evolved.

Our internal wiring evolved over millions of years to equip us with the tools we needed to survive. In the old days, food was scarce, and so we developed a taste for precious sugar, fats and salt. Life was short and bloody; a sex drive was essential for the survival of the species. Exploring new environments and the opportunities they presented could mean the difference between life and death. So we developed a keen appreciation for novelty.

Human ingenuity has led us far from those hunter-gatherer days. But our brains have yet to catch up.

While modern advances have improved our lives to a remarkable degree, they’ve also opened a Pandora’s box of social issues and addictions which turn our own instincts against us. Junk food fills us with far more calories than we need. Porn sites offer the illusion of sexual intimacy. And the constant streams of information, the pings and clicks and little red dots, have become an accepted background noise in our day to day lives.

I’m writing this because the noise is getting to me.

To quote Mark Manson, smartphones are the new cigarettes. We pull them out whenever we have a spare moment, oblivious to the way they’re slowly eroding our attention. It’s the internet in the palm of your hand. And it’s stealing my time. I’ve gone through multiple iterations of this by now. I used to be posting pictures on Instagram, which turned into posting opinions on Reddit. Then I started following the news via Google feeds. Lately I’ve been watching more YouTube videos. Heck, I’m even checking Habitica more often now that I get the notifications on my phone.

I used to think it was limited to one specific application, but now I see that it’s the internet itself. Part of this is me, I know. I’m covering up the empty spaces in my life with webs of entertainment, filling in the silence with comforting noise.

But then again, it’s not just me. Internet addiction is a recognized phenomenon. And just like cigarettes, it’s all too easy to get a hit. I’m lucky I never started smoking; didn’t see the point. It was a waste of money, a danger to my health. But I can see that I’m simply hooked on different vices. Though I’m not about to throw my phone away, I do need to control the way I use it.

These days I find myself craving peace of mind. When I’m not overthinking things or mindlessly consuming content, tiring myself out with useless bits of information. I need the clarity of focus, instead of the endless roar of static.

And that means choosing what to filter out.

We like to believe we can have it all. But that simply isn’t true. Even before the internet, we could never hear every story, learn every skill, take in the entirety of human knowledge within our lifetime. It’s just not possible. And that’s a scary thought, that our lives are so brief, their meaning so fragile. Who will remember us after we’re gone? Will anyone care? Will we have left anything behind for future generations?

I don’t know. I just know that for our own good, we need limits. We must choose what books to read, what games to play, what work to perform and art to express. We have to decide who (or whether) we’ll marry, where we’ll live and what we’re going to do with the rest of our lives. We have to spend our time on the things that matter and have the strength to cut out anything that doesn’t. In a world filled with endless connections, we have to choose to disconnect. The bonds that remain are the ones that truly matter.

In a world of infinite noise, sometimes the most beautiful sound is silence. 

Book Review: Lord of Light

Right, so that last post was enough gloominess for the time being. I’ve got a brand spanking new laptop, which means no more excuses about abominable hardware. I need to get my writing going again. I’m starting here because in contrast to the sustained efforts of fiction writing, blogging comes easily to me. Who doesn’t want to share their thoughts and opinions with the world?

That’s enough mucking around in the preface. On to the review! 

I just finished reading Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, what George R. R. Martin called one of the five best SF novels ever written.  

Now, barring the good old Star Wars Expanded Universe books before Disney froze them in carbonite, I haven’t read a lot of classic sci-fi. Fantasy has always been my thing. But while Lord of Light is a sci-fi story, it’s also layered with fantasy elements and tropes to the point where the boundaries blur. To use the proper term, this is science fantasy.

The premise is this: humans have colonized an alien world completely, having conquered or destroyed the native denizens. They have achieved effective immortality through body-swapping, superhuman abilities born of mutation and enhanced with technology. Their power is, dare I say it, godlike.

Unfortunately, they don’t want to share.

The first colonists have set themselves up as gods and goddesses of Hindu mythology and rule the world through religion. In Heaven they live unending lives of hedonism while the world below churns through ages of feudal peasantry. The one soon to be titled Mahasamatman returns from the provinces and sees how his fellow First enforce their divinity, actively suppressing modern advances. Sam is one of the last proponents of Accelerationism, the belief that their technology should be shared with all. Thus he names himself the Buddha and begins a revolution.

How’s that for original.

I’ve yet to read any of Zelazny’s other work. But his writing here is excellent, though hardly straightforward. Much is spoken through metaphor or otherwise implied. Anachronisms abound, clashing with the more lyrical text in unexpected ways. From a device that sends high-frequency prayers into the atmosphere to a goddess describing her Palace of Kama (I don’t need to name the reference here, do I?) as a place of rest, pleasure, holiness and much of her revenue; the setting is unique, but it’s the quality of writing that kept me turning pages. That and the author’s sense of humour. I shan’t ruin any of the puns.

My only complaints are that the introduction of a new character all the way into the third act seems abrupt; and the ending feels rather like the book is walking off into the distance, leaving you behind. There is a very real sense that there are more stories out there, just waiting to be unearthed, if only there were more words on the page.

But I suppose that’s on par for a book that draws so much from myths and legends. Many times throughout his career, Zelazny was offered incentives to write a sequel. He refused them all. He’d told the story he wanted to tell.

Lord of Light is unlike anything else I’ve ever read. It weaves a fantastical, high-tech tale of rebellion, reincarnation and warring gods who aren’t really gods. It’s also colourful, confusing and occasionally hilarious. 

What else can I say? The book is great. Go read it.

A Circle Has No Beginning

"Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?" 

"I think the answer is that a circle has no beginning."

- J.K Rowling 

It’s a warm night in July, and I’m sitting here wondering where half the year went.

All right, that’s not true. I know exactly where it went. These past few months have been caught up in a swirl of new responsibilities at work, family issues, depression and anxiety and too many video games.

Last year was about change for the better. My mother was going through chemotherapy, and it was going well. I was quitting my addictions, embracing my goals, improving myself as a person. I felt like I was moving forwards.

This year my mother’s cancer is coming back, and it’s officially stage four. I don’t feel that different anymore. It all seems like more of the same. Too easily I find myself slipping back into old patterns of behaviour, procrastination and avoidance of painful emotions. This is where the true challenge lies. What do you do when you start sliding downwards? Hope is easy in the beginning, but how do you sustain it?

Today I’m talking about circles.

Someone I know from work died the other day. I knew him for years. We saw each other around most days, made small talk, arrived and left together. The same patterns playing out until you could almost believe they’d last forever. Until they don’t. One day the cycle stopped.

We all have to face death sooner or later. Just like in The Lion King, Simba in the gorge trying to comprehend that his father was never coming back, we too are forced to recognize that the circle of life embraces us all. A circle has neither beginning nor end, but it does end for everyone. Someday it will end for us.

This is natural. Everything ends. Careers, relationships, journeys. Dreams. We get sick of the work we’re doing; we drift apart from the people we’ve loved; we take the final step of the adventure. We lose sight of our dreams. They get buried under clouds of anxiety, mountains of responsibility, the darkness of depression. They get worn down by the constant grinding of routine. And so we fall back into the same patterns as before. The same fantasies that make us feel better. Because we haven’t really changed, have we? We still have the same feelings, the same flaws. We’re still the same people in the end.

But what does it mean to change? 

Mark Manson once said that it’s impossible to change yourself, and a waste of time to try. I love the guy, but when I read that last year, I was sure he was mistaken. I was a better person. I had changed myself.

Later I realized that he was right. I hadn’t changed who I was. I was simply doing different things and feeling better for doing them; getting high on my own self-improvement. Then I stopped feeling better and backslid into bad habits, until I could feel good about quitting them again. So the cycle goes.

That’s all it comes down to in the end: our behaviour. The self is an amorphous concept made up of race, religion, upbringing, emotion, mistakes we’ve made and lessons learned, the people we hate and those we love. Our identity is the sum of our entire lives, every choice we’ve ever made, distilled into who we are today. How are you going to change that?

The answer is, of course, you can’t. I understand that now. You will always be yourself. You can only make better choices, take better actions. The choice to consume less sugar. The choice to put the damn phone away and read a book instead. The choice to actually sit down and write all this out instead of telling yourself you’ll do it tomorrow.

I wanted to find some new insight here. But a lot of this is stuff I’ve said before. I don’t know how to stay hopeful, any more than I know how to predict the future. All I can do is what we’re all doing, one day at a time: stepping blindly into the unknown. Perhaps this is bravery? I don’t feel particularly brave.

We’re always moving forwards, whether we want to or not. There are things I take for granted now that seemed impossibly distant when I was younger. I’m sure that years from now, I’ll look back and feel the same about the problems of today, no matter how overwhelming they may seem.

The circle of life is always turning. We can accept that there are things we cannot change, but take control of what we can. Or we can deny them all, forever drifting through patterns of avoidance, complacency and distraction, until the day the cycle stops. Here’s the thing about circles: every ending is also a beginning. Every death is the start of a new phase of life. Loss is unavoidable, but the circle moves forwards nonetheless.

I guess all we can do is make the most of the time we have left. 

The Winds of Change

I can’t go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. 

– Lewis Carroll 

Change.

Our greatest hopes and deepest fears revolve around it. Finding love and losing a loved one. Achieving our dreams and watching them die. Rising to glory and falling from grace. In every life, both the storm and the soothing breeze are born from the winds of change.

When I was younger, my life was static, directionless. I was horribly afraid that this was the best it would get. This was all I would ever amount to: nothing much of anything. All those feelings I struggled to escape by losing myself in fantasies. When, I kept asking. I was alive, but when was I going to start living?

I look back fondly on that younger me now. If only he’d known.

Once again, we find ourselves at the beginning of a new year. I thought of listing out my various lessons learned in the old one for your edification and amusement. But nah, screw it. This time I’m doing something more holistic. As I look back over 2018, the year that was, I sense a common theme. A lot of boundaries broken and milestones achieved, but it was all the same, really. Isn’t that ironic?

For me, 2018 was about change.

Stuff happened in 2017. After an arduous two years, my uncle died of colon cancer, the first death in our family in over a decade. He had 62 years, and it struck me that that wasn’t very long at all. My first real relationship ended in a breakup. I’d finally found someone, and it didn’t work out. My mother was then diagnosed with the same cancer, requiring an emergency operation. I signed the form authorizing life-saving surgery and recognized that most painful of truths: our parents aren’t going to be around forever. The operation was a success, but complications led to a stay in the ICU. She almost died.

I suppose it was the perfect storm. I realized that in so many ways, I’d been wasting my life. Going into 2018, I had to start using it wisely. I had to become a better person.

First and foremost, I gained a newfound appreciation for my mother. Our history wasn’t the best. I’d long kept myself emotionally distant from her, wary of getting too close. But keeping track of blood tests and chemotherapy appointments, sleeping on hospital floors at her bedside, I realized that I had to let go of the past. To embrace her for who she was, not who I wished she could be. This was the time; someday soon, it would be too late. Even the thought of that kind of regret was haunting.

Second, I’d long indulged in a certain bad habit from my youth. One of many forms of escapism, like my books and video games and fantasies. All attempts to avoid a reality I wasn’t happy with. But coupled with the internet, this vice was particularly harmful (and sadly common, even touted as ‘normal’). Reluctantly, I accepted that I was addicted.1 I’d made scattered attempts to quit over the years. Now I joined a recovery-based forum and started implementing what it would take to stay clean. 

And third, I realized that I had to start taking my writing seriously. I’ve talked a lot about dreaming of becoming an author, but a dream without effort is just a wish. Was I putting in the work, actually writing my novel on a consistent basis? No, I was not. I’d already dabbled in Habitica for self-improvement. Now I joined a writing guild and began keeping myself accountable through the community. 

Meanwhile, the world was changing too. On May 9th, in a shocking upset, Malaysia’s ruling regime was voted out for the first time in the country’s history. Fed up of corruption and draconian authority, the people changed the government. And they did it peacefully, united despite underlying racial and religious tensions. I played no part, but I’m still proud of that. I’m proud that this country is my home. On a smaller scale, my workplace underwent some much-needed, ongoing renovations, with an increased focus on animal welfare. My schedule was also reshuffled to some extent; suddenly I was busier than ever. But I digress.

By the middle of the year, my mother’s cancer markers were going down. The chemo was working. I’d been clean for months and found my whole mindset changing. Confidence and social skills were so much easier without guilt. For so long, I’d believed that my vices were things I couldn’t live without – and now I was proving to myself that I didn’t need them.  

I’d also quit Instagram earlier in the year, realizing that social media was just one more time sink on the internet. (It’s a good thing I never got on Facebook.) To my surprise, I even found myself losing interest in video games. I still loved them, but felt no desire to play for hours on end. I’d taken up meditation, was spending more time making artwork, began learning Japanese as a third language and had gotten back to playing the piano. And of course, I was writing. There were better things to do.

I was starting to appreciate real life over the one found in fantasies.

My mother finished her chemo in July, with excellent results. The cancer was in remission. Words can't describe my gratitude for that. But I was also finding the writing frustrating, getting bogged down in the second act. And the high of staying clean was fading fast. This was the new status quo, after all. The novelty had worn itself out, and my motivation faltered.

I’d been driven by the thought of becoming a better man. But I started to wonder: had I really changed? Wasn’t I the same person, with the same flaws?

So I slid back into my old habits. The next few months were a struggle to stay clean again.

I wasn’t exactly moving on in the romance department, either. Even post-breakup, I still clung to my old relationship like a security blanket. We consoled each other that we could still be friends. And we are. I’m forever grateful to her, and still am. But I was afraid to let go, even though the core problems persisted, and my own feelings were increasingly ambivalent.

Sometimes we have to learn the same lessons over and over again.

If the first half of the year gave me the drive to improve myself, the second half taught me something equally important: self-acceptance. We’re all human. Sometimes we screw up. I struggled, failed, went back to the same cycles. And that was fine.

You see, I realized that I’d been approaching this the wrong way. As Mark Manson put it, trying to change ourselves is a waste of time. What matters is our actions, how we behave. We all struggle sometimes. But as a wise old wizard as flawed as any of us once said, it is our choices that make us who we are.2

I am a better person now – because I choose to be.

Which brings me to today.

A few weeks ago, three years after I wrote that first chapter in a blaze of inspiration, I finished the first draft of Wraithblade. There’s still much to be done, but this was the first year ever that I sat down and put in sustained effort towards writing a book. I made more progress than in the previous two years combined. Discipline and accountability make a difference.

I met someone new in December, who showed up in my life out of nowhere. Compared to before, it’s a different story in every way. I appreciate that. Funny how someone can make you rethink everything you thought you knew about relationships; it doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes people just click.

My mother is still with us. I’m still putting my thoughts into words, drawing order out of chaos. And I’m nearly a month clean, which is better than nothing.

There is a Buddhist saying that my father told me. ‘Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.’ I’m certainly not enlightened, but it is apt. In many ways, I’m living the same life as before: working during the day and writing at night and spending too much time on my phone (the struggle is real). But now I enjoy it all more. I’m committed to living in the moment, instead of wasting time picking over the past or worrying about visions of the future. Life is here and now.

I’m not a kid anymore, and that’s okay. It’s time to embrace being a man. I am proud of all I accomplished in 2018. I still have my demons, just like everyone else. I’ve just gotten better at fighting them.

Here’s to turning the page to the next chapter of our lives.

Keep moving forwards, everyone. Have a great 2019. 

1 - That post wasn't really about video games.

2 - Or as another wise old wizard said, all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. Bonus points if you can name both.

PUBG Mobile - Who Wants Chicken Dinner

You know what, I haven’t written something fun in a while. The self-improvement stuff is all well and good, but let’s not take life too seriously, huh? Because life is serious enough as it is without us helping it along. Take that, life. In your face.

Today let’s talk about video games!

So I’m purely a mobile gamer now. The PS4 has languished, untouched for months. Poor baby. I’ll get back to it eventually; I’m looking at you, Kingdom Hearts III. But for all of this year, I’ve been portable.

Mobile games are often disparaged as ‘casual’, mindless brain candy beside the more in-depth entries on console and PC. Yet the mobile gaming market has grown exponentially over the last few years, with more and more quality titles standing out from the digital unwashed masses. And now a juggernaut has arisen, taking on smartphone gaming with frying pans and bolt-action sniper rifles.

Today I’m talking about PUBG Mobile. 

The original PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds exploded onto computers last year, and was so popular it spawned an entirely new genre: the battle royale. The premise is simple. A hundred players parachute onto a sprawling map where you must run, hide, and kill each other off. Jungle, desert and European landscapes are realistically rendered, eerily silent except for footsteps, gunshots and moving vehicles. Playing with headphones is recommended. You’ll want to hear them coming. An encircling electrical storm forces you into increasingly small plots of land. If the other players don’t kill you, the storm will. The last one standing wins the coveted Chicken Dinner.

Think the Hunger Games with military-grade weapons, where you have to worry about different ammo types, bullet drop and people sniping you from 100 meters away.

It’s awesome.

A breath of fresh air.

PUBG’s addictiveness comes from two factors. First, you’ll be playing with friends and fighting real enemies. You can play solo, in pairs, or in a squad of four. Voice chat is built in, and communication and teamwork are essential. It’s entirely possible to carry on a conversation while roaming around looking for people to kill. The convenience and social aspects cannot be overstated. Once a group of friends had to go a cybercafé to get this kind of action. Now they just pull out their phones – even if they’re a thousand miles away. 

Bonding time.

Second is the emergent gameplay. Bounded by design and technical constraints, most video games funnel you from one level to the next. There is nothing wrong with this. In recent years, however, wide-open sandboxes have become the norm, in which you have the freedom to play however you want. The gameplay emerges from your actions, and those of others. In one match, you might drop into Pochinki for some frantic house-to-house gun battles. In the next, you might wander the hillsides and only meet five people. You’re constantly writing your own story. Every choice you make matters; any mistake could get you killed. That’s pretty intense, and makes victory all the more thrilling. 

The night is dark and full of snipers.

And it is entirely, one-hundred percent free.

Oh, there’s plenty of monetization. Cosmetic upgrades like new outfits and weapon skins are always purchasable. The controversial loot crates are here in plenty, in which you buy the chance to get a cool new serial killer mask or hot pink submachine gun. There’s a season pass system called the Royale Pass, in which you pay to unlock a higher tier of achievable rewards for the current three-month season. The game also doles out crates and costumes for improving your rank or hitting various achievements. Just a taste to keep you coming back for more. 

Aren't we stylish.

But none of this has any effect on the gameplay. The guy in the stylized helmet is still screwed if he can’t aim, or doesn’t use cover effectively. The game is free to play, and you win by playing well. It’s that simple.

This is the future of gaming, right now. If you’d told me this kind of massive, precision-based experience was possible on a phone, I’m not sure I would have believed you. But through well-thought-out design, it does work. It works incredibly well.

PUBG is unflinchingly difficult. You will get shot in the head by some dude hiding in the grass across the river. You will get into firefights and lose; you’ll be winning, only to get taken out by a well-thrown grenade. And you will also survive, thrive and fight your way to victory.

So what are you waiting for? 

See you on the battlegrounds.

What We Leave Behind

No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.

                                                                            - Terry Pratchett

The other day, someone from work committed suicide.

I didn’t know her well. We were from different departments, moved in different circles. The gaps between meetings stretched to weeks, if not months. A lot of the time, we only passed each other in the hall with a smile and a simple hello. Yet the workplace is also a community, a lattice of human beings tied to this place and time, these efforts and environment. You expect people to leave. It’s only natural. Colleagues resign, older folk retire, friends move on to greener pastures.

But this was different. This time, someone died.

It’s said that change and death are the only constants. But sometimes it may seem that one can only be achieved with the other. Over the last few days, I’ve heard tales of depression, stress, what must have felt like inescapable problems. For what else is suicide but a desperate attempt to escape? The tragedy is when someone succeeds.

I do understand. I considered killing myself too once upon a time, when I was much too young to be thinking about such things. I felt like life would never get better. But I decided, no. As long as I was alive, there was a chance for things to improve. Once I was dead, it would all be over. So I made the choice to hold on.

And looking back, a lot of the choices I’ve made since then, the bad habits I picked up and the addictions I still struggle with, were exactly that. I was finding ways to hold on. To avoid my problems, and escape my demons.

But I’ve spent enough years running. Holding on isn’t enough anymore. This year, I’m looking my demons in the eye.

Nowadays, I’m busier than ever. I’m doing more at work than I once did. I’m learning Japanese, colouring intricate patterns, making a concerted effort to finally write my fantasy story. I’m reading good books and dropping those that aren’t so good, because let’s face it, ain’t nobody got time for that. I’m playing video games, drawn to the experiences they offer, plucking up new ones like a magpie and then lamenting that I have too many games, the ultimate first-world problem.

All these disparate activities. But they all have one goal, in the end. The same goal we all have: to defeat death.

That is to say, to do things that matter. To have meaningful experiences. To do meaningful things. To somehow know that my life has purpose, that these years were not wasted. To leave behind something that will live on. Is this not one of the core drivers of human history? Dynasties have been built, riches amassed, kingdoms founded and conquered. Empires rise and fall and for what, if not the desperate desire to matter? To know that the world has been changed, even a little bit, by our presence.

Are they worth it, these things I’m doing? The way I’m living now? I wish I knew. I don’t think anyone does. We’re all just doing the best we can.

I didn’t know her well. I didn’t know her hopes and dreams, or the darkness she must have gone through. But I did meet the couple in the ICU who talked about how her life had crossed paths with theirs. Who looked over and said quietly, she was a good person. I’ve read the tributes, the remembrances. I’ve seen a tiny piece of what she left behind.

Maybe this is how we defeat death; in the hearts and minds of those we touched along the way. Maybe, despite the tragedy of how she chose to go, she’s no longer bound by pain. Maybe some part of her is free. I hope that’s true. I really do.

Because now the book closes, with so many pages still unwritten. The rest will forever be blank, cut off before their time.

Now her story has come to an end.

  

Five Ways to Know You’re Growing Up

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

- Leo Tolstoy

If you could travel back ten years into the past and meet your younger self, what would you tell them?

Time has a funny way of speeding up as we get older. When we’re young the years crawl like the infants we are, in terms of experience. They start picking up speed as we enter adolescence; time learns to walk. By our twenties, the years are taking long, manly (or womanly) strides into adulthood. We look back in vain at childhoods tinted with nostalgia; we see children shooting up like bean sprouts. They grow up so fast! We exclaim. And to our eyes, they do. It didn’t feel that way when we were young, though.

Time has a way of changing things.

There are some lessons you can only learn with perspective. Success comes from failure, wisdom from ignorance. You have to do the wrong thing – sometimes for years – before you can understand what’s right. Last year was all about epiphanies. I learned and grew a lot.

So far, this year seems to be about putting those lessons into practice. To quote Bruce Lee, knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. We all start out as children in life, innocent and unschooled, tripping up and making mistakes that will later define us. We’re all young and stupid sometimes – until we learn.

Today I’m talking about five ways to know you’re growing up.

1. Becoming self-aware.

I suppose the simplest way to define this is being aware of your own bullshit.

All right, all right. The less pithy definition is knowing who you are as a person. Not just your likes and dislikes, but your knee-jerk reactions and emotional tendencies. Self-awareness is the capacity to look at yourself from the outside, flaws and all. To examine yourself from all angles. Invoking David Foster Wallace, to recognize the currents and eddies and blackest depths in our minds and know that this is water.1

Easier said than done. Our upbringing, our environment, our egos; all of these contribute to the way we see ourselves. All of these blur the face in the mirror, forming a mask that doesn’t always match reality. There’s a reason so many coming-of-age stories talk about ‘finding ourselves’. It’s because figuring this stuff out doesn’t just happen. It takes experience and effort. Often to discover who we are, we must first figure out who we’re not.

2. Learning the patterns of the past.

The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again, but expecting different results. I guess we’re all crazy, then.

One of the most crucial forms of self-awareness is examining the patterns in our lives. What have we been doing over and over, forever disappointed with the results, yet still expecting different outcomes? What are we constantly making excuses for? What do we secretly desire, but never seriously attempt?

What are we afraid to change?

A couple months ago, I got off Instagram. It was getting too addictive. But then I started spending too much time in internet forums on Reddit. I cut down on that, only to spend hours reading articles on Quora. A couple weeks ago, a personal problem was bothering me. I had some time off work, so I read a 500-page novel in two days. Because I could.

Do you see the pattern yet?

Books, television, video games, the internet.2 I’ve always been someone who’s found solace in his own mind, in ideas and stories and fantasies. But this can be taken to extremes. Far too often, I dive into other worlds to escape my own. One of the great truths of life is that avoiding your problems is easier than facing them. In today’s world of likes, virtual playgrounds and constant connectivity, where avoidance is as easy as pulling out your phone, this is more important to recognize than ever.

Because while we’re caught up in the same patterns, it is frighteningly easy for life to pass us by. Without even realizing it, we cage ourselves in comfort. You don’t want to look back one day and see that the door was always open.

We just need to have the courage to step outside. The courage to tell yourself, no more.

3. Gaining self-discipline.

The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment is a famous study on self-control. Back in the 60s, researchers gave children a choice between eating a marshmallow now, or getting two after a certain period of time. They then observed as their subjects grew into adults. The findings were clear: children who could resist temptation got better grades, ate better, behaved better, and were generally more successful.3

This makes sense. Quitting an addiction; studying longer; working on that personal project you keep putting off. These require persistence and consistency. They require discipline.

Mine is lopsided, you might say. I do well at upholding external obligations. For the sake of others, I have discipline. But when it comes to myself, I fall short. And that’s a problem. Because I’ve slowly come to see the value of self-control.

Like Steve Jobs said, we can only do a few things in our lives. (Yeah, I’ve got quotes for everything.) We only have so much time. And the difference between wasting that time on pleasant distractions and working towards your goals isn’t inspiration, because you won’t always be inspired. It’s not motivation, because you definitely won’t always be motivated.

It’s discipline. Making the effort, over and over, even when you don’t feel like it. This stuff isn’t cool or sexy or what have you. It takes courage. It takes dedication. And most of all, it takes the ability to manage yourself effectively. That, more than anything else, is the difference between success and failure.

The idea here isn’t just to break unhealthy patterns, but to build better ones.

4. Acquiring healthier habits.

How hard is it for you to brush your teeth?

Do you need to talk yourself into it every night? Lecture yourself about the benefits of dental hygiene, along with horror stories about gum infections and rotted teeth?

Of course not. Who does that? If you’re anything like me, you brush your teeth and barely even think about it. You don’t need to think about it. It’s a habit.

Good habits are the patterns in our lives done right. (And vice versa.) Although we perceive everything we do as consciously controlled, the reality is that our brains conserve processing power for important decisions. Everything else runs on autopilot. And that’s important. We think new behaviours will require major effort. And they will, until they become normal. Then you’ll barely even think about them. Acquiring better habits will literally change your life. 

But they’ll do it one step at a time. 

A common flaw in our efforts is thinking that change must be all or nothing. If we fail once, or twice, even a dozen times, we’re doomed. This is absolutely false. Personal growth is a process. We take a step every day. Maybe we sometimes take one or two back. But we learn from our mistakes, and keep moving forwards. And one day, we’ll look back and be amazed at how far we’ve come.

We just have to want to change in the first place.

5. Understanding that change comes from within.

The last great truth I’ve realized is that you can’t force someone to change. People have different levels of perception, different forms of life experience. We can argue and advise all we want, but you can’t batter someone into believing. It doesn’t work like that. True growth comes from within.

You see, the key to change lies in the concept of identity. We subconsciously cling to whatever we feel is a part of ourselves. A part of who we are. This is why guilt- and punishment-based approaches are so ineffective. By driving home that we are guilty of something, we actually reinforce it, and ensure that whatever it is remains as part of our psyche. The key is to forgive ourselves, and move on.

If you want to quit smoking, you can’t think of yourself as struggling against the urge to smoke. You have to tell yourself that you don’t do that anymore. You have to tell yourself, I am not a smoker.

Because the work of becoming better is just that: work. It takes a thousand tiny choices, day after day, to let go of what holds you back. Sometimes we choose not to. We’re only human. We lie, we cheat, we take the easy way out. We think we can get away with it – until we learn otherwise.

So the best advice I can give is don’t change. Be like Peter Pan; stay young forever. Keep doing the same things, day in, day out, until they make you sick. Until you think, there must be a better way. Until you hit rock bottom. That’s where the true, innermost desire to change is born.

That’s when you start growing up.

***

If I could say one thing to my younger self, it would be to trust the journey. Appreciate where you are in life. You’ll screw up, make mistakes, go through all kinds of angst and pain and anxiety. There’ll be good times too, shining moments that will make it all worthwhile.

And someday you’ll be a little older, a little wiser. You’ll look back and know all of this brought you closer to the man, or woman, that you were always meant to be. 

You just have to take it one day at a time.



1 I dedicated another post to this article alone. It’s an outstanding examination of self-awareness from an author who died too soon. If you haven’t already, go read it.

2 This is all on one device, remember. So convenient.

3 Interestingly, researchers at the University of Rochester later repeated the experiment, but with a twist. The researcher who gave out marshmallows acted either trustworthy or unreliable. The number of children who held out for the second marshmallow rose and fell accordingly. This suggests that it’s not a matter of nature, but of nurture. The reliability of a child’s experiences will help determine whether they have faith in future outcomes, or choose to seize what they can while they have the chance.

Crucially, it also means that self-discipline can be taught.