Distracted — Seeking Entertainment.

I don’t know how to stop…I don’t know if I can stop…I know I somehow have to stop…

Seeking entertainment online at this point in my life today is my greatest barrier to success in life. It is the single thing that takes majority of my attention and time.

I wake up and the first thing I do is to seek entertainment — it is not that I seek it, I feel my body pulled toward it; check scores of sports action of that morning and previous night — catch the highlights, who scored, what happened etc., catch the tv episode that just got released, the tweets, YouTube, Instagram — check who liked, who replied, check medium, who liked who replied, who followed how many views on the last post.

Check my new phone, admire the camera, selfies, scroll through photos, all the while time is ticking,…take breakfast while watching something, do laundry while something is playing the background, be in a matatu while something is playing, some music, something.

Entertainment and distraction have been the things that have brought me down in many ways. The escape, the dopamine, loss of focus, lack of quality focus time and deep work, for as long as I can remember. Gabor Mate says addiction is an habit that produces negative effects to the individual but he is unable to stop. I am addicted to my electronics. I recently got a second phone and it doesn’t really help with this habit.

The last four hours of this have been invested in distraction and entertainment seeking online— another habit that I have noticed with myself is empty socialization ( this where I go talk to people about trivial things, I show up and discuss things that don’t really matter — to fill a void within me — to get a doze of pleasure/good feeling ). At the back of my mind I know have work to do, I have a school assignment to do, I have a meeting to arrange, I have laundry to do — so when I am seeking the entertainment I feel inner self conflict of ‘this is not what you should be doing’. It is a doze of pleasure and inner conflict at the same time.

I have been conditioned to have entertainment as the end point of every endeavor i.e. when I finish work — I watch something, listen to something. It is a dangling carrot in the end of every little endeavor that requires focus and critical thinking/any task that my mind perceives as ‘hard’. Nowadays it is even in the midst of the endevour and not at the end. I literally feel emotional pain/discomfort sometimes when I know I have to focus in order to do something. I feel myself avoiding to do that task by any means necessary — I remember 2 days ago I literally went on a bike ride away from my work station just avoid having do work. The mind has many ways of masking this habit e.g. by spouting phrases like you don’t like this thing that’s why you are avoiding it — any form of justification.

As I write this, my mind takes me to images of how it would feel after having achieved the state of not seeking entertainment, it suggests ways or method of what to do in order to break away. I sincerely know that absolutely everything that the mind suggest I do so that I can stop seeking entertainment and distraction and empty socialization will not work.

Not installing a web blocker.

Not installing an app blocker.

Not restricting time that I visit certain places.

Not uninstalling the apps that cause distraction.

Not deleting my social media accounts.

Not doing less, not writing a plan, not replace it with another habit.

Not ‘focusing on my purpose’.

Not adopting some technique, not reading some book etc.

Not anything that comes from willpower and discipline exerted comes from myself or outside, such is akin to pushing a cart while inside of it — it doesn’t work.

If I am to overcome this habit, it will be by another way that comes from a source within myself mightier than the suggestions of my mind, my willpower or self-discipline. This I know for sure — It is unpredictable how this comes up — but my writing of this article it my calling, my invitation for it to come. I have overcome things I never thought I would ever overcome this way once and for all…I need it again in this case.

At this point in my life, I will admit that I am incompetent in many ways, all my work lacks quality, I am drowning in mediocrity and averageness all because I am always distracted, I am always seeking distraction and entertainment. I am an extremely smart human being, I have been gifted with ‘brains’ but this single habit alone is taking me down with it. I do not want this to be the case anymore — the heavens can see it in my heart.

One thing I always mention to God when I pray is about my desire to not waste the life I have been given. To make the best use of it. I know it cannot be up to me to make good use of it, I has to be some kind of inspiration from beyond myself that overpowers me so that I can act. Otherwise it will be another episode of gritting my own teeth.

This is where I am. This is my sincere and surgical look at my current predicament.

I was born not to be many thing but NOT average.

The ultimate destination of my quest is to arrive at the point where the need to seek entertainment, distraction and socialization is dead.

It has begun…