HealthyGamerGG - Doing the Small Stuff Feels Pointless

Episode Date: September 18, 2022

Dr. K talks about what to do when the small stuff feels pointless. He talks about expectations, falling short, feeling like everything must be worthwhile, and more! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So it doesn't matter whether money is real or not. Like the act of gambling and the random reinforcement schedule and getting some kind of victory is sufficient in suppressing the limbic system. I need everything to feel worthwhile. Whenever I'm doing well anything really, healthy or unhealthy, I have this issue where I need everything to feel completely and totally worthwhile. As of late, I felt it becoming increasingly problematic for being both productive and healthy. Essentially, I set out with a goal of some kind, and if I don't complete them, I either waste absurd amounts of time, trying to complete those goals, or have a heavy damper on my mood for the rest of the day, which stops me from getting anything done.

There are some situations that I think are worse than others. Trying to meet people, for example, has been coming up a lot since I'm just starting college. On days where I haven't met as many people as I liked or had a good conversation with anyone, I end up in a very drained state where I can't get a lot of schoolwork done. I feel like I just want to go home and sit around for a day, playing video games, are doing something generally easy. Usually by the next day, I feel fresher. However, there are times where I feel like this need for things to be worthwhile

has been borderline addictive. Most recently, I've been spending hours staying up playing this gambling, this gambling on a game I play to earn credits. It's not real money, and there's zero benefit to having the currency aside from saying that you have a lot. Still, I keep playing. When I lose a bit, I feel a need to earn my way back up and end up driving myself further into holes.

I get that gambling can be like that, I find it odd that I'm so hooked even though the money has zero value. I've also recognized it as a problem with porn usage, which is a problem I've been actively trying to deal with. Whenever I relapse, though, I get into this mindset of I won't be doing this for a while again and binge really hard until I feel satisfied. I was wondering, does anyone else feel this way? How do I have this need for productivity affect me less harmfully? Is this a healthy mindset in any capacity? So let's kind of take a quick look at this. So this is a situation. where someone needs to feel like everything they do is worthwhile.

So oftentimes you've got a particular thing that you want to accomplish and you want to, you know, you want to use your time productively. So we want to use our time productively because then we're like good people, we're healthy people. We're successful people if we use our time productively. So let's be productive. Everything's got to be, I can't waste any time. And then what happens is if everything we have to do needs to be productive and we can't

waste time, something weird starts to happen. If we don't live up to some of our expectations, we'll either waste a lot of time trying to accomplish these goals because we've got to do it, right? Or we'll have a heavy damper on my mood for the rest of the day. And then what happens is we'll oftentimes get into these situations where we're not quite sure what's going on. And then we fall into all these other kinds of behaviors like playing video games, doing gambling stuff, pornography. So let's try to understand what's going on here. Okay? Let's try to break down, first of all, where does the feeling that you need to do everything worthwhile come from? Secondly, how do we sort of manage that feeling?

how do we deal with it? Thirdly, what are the consequences of this whole cycle, both psychologically, neurologically, reinforcement-wise? And lastly, like, what do we do about it? Okay, so let's take a look. So generally speaking, I exist. And then what happens is when I go about living my life, I will create an expectation. So this person, for example, will talk about, let's say, you know, I'm in college. And so on days where I haven't met as many people as I liked or had a good conversation with someone, I end up in a drained state. So let's try to understand what that means. So we create an expectation for ourselves.

And then let's say we start here and we try to live up to that expectation. If we live up to that expectation, fantastic. But if we fall short of the expectation, this window leads to disappointment. Now, once we have this emotional disappointment, which you remember is a feeling, our brain, oh, oh, make myself disappear for a second. Once we have this emotional disappointment, what we're going to do is cope with it. Okay? So this is how the brain sort of deals with emotions.

We have to do coping. Bring myself back. So let's take a look at that. So once I feel emotional disappointment, let's say this is shame, right? So like feeling like I've fallen behind. Look at all those other people. I start making comparisons. All those other people are making friends and I'm not making friends.

And then once I start to do that, this, I have to deal with these emotions with like some kind of emotional. Let's make sure we. Okay. So I have to deal with all these negative emotions with things like video games, gambling. the unholy trifecta. And this person even points out that even when I'm gambling, there's no real money involved. So why do I keep doing it?

I'm not really gaining anything. And that's because that makes sense, actually, interestingly. Because when it comes to gambling, for example, our brain has certain, like, circuits that get activated when we gamble. When we activate these circuits when we gamble, they actually suppress our limbic system. So it doesn't matter whether money is real or not.

Like, the act of gambling and the random reinforcement schedule and getting some kind of victory, is sufficient in suppressing the limbic system. So this explains why even if you're not getting any money, you're still going to be gambling, because the gambling is doing the job that it is set out to do, which is to deal with all of this emotional disappointment. And so what I would imagine we'd see in this person

is that the more they fall short of their expectations, the more they engage in this sort of gambling behavior and falling behind and all this kind of stuff, pornography, video games, et cetera. So now we've got another issue, which is that once I've fallen short, this translates. into the future. So if I fallen short by this, this amount, let's say. What that means is that going

forward, I start at a deficit. So now when tomorrow rolls around, let's say here's the baseline, here's what I want to accomplish, here's the expectation, but I'm actually starting over here. So since I only made one friend yesterday, I actually have to cover this whole distance. So even if I move from here to here, let's say I do this much. How does it feel? How much have I fallen short? Now I've fallen short by this amount. Right? So even though I made progress, it feels like I fall short. And then this carries over to next time. Now, this is below the baseline.

Now, today, I have to do this. And now let's say that I work extra hard. Right? So yesterday I did this much. Today, I'm going to do this much socializing. That's a lot more. Where am I? Now the gap is this much.

And so something very bizarre starts to happen. If you really look at this, this is progress. This is progress. This is progress. this is progress. All of these are progress. So now we're in trouble because despite progress, we feel like we're failing. Now, once we feel like we're failing, enter the pornography and gambling and video games. Now we're in a lot of trouble because when progress does not positively reinforce behavior, where does that leave us? That's a huge issue. Because even though I'm doing all the right

stuff, I don't feel any sense of accomplishment, which in turn means that I'm not going to be reinforcing the actual behavior that's improving my life. And this is how you get stuck in this trap. And the bigger this grows, this gets so big that eventually everything you do has to feel worthwhile. I cannot waste one second of a single day because I've dug myself into such a pit that I need to be extra, extra productive every moment of every day. Every time I go out, I need to make 10 friends. Every time I go out, I need to make 15 friends. Every time I study, I need to get an A plus. It all needs to be. I've wasted. so much time, this gap is so big. Oh my God. How do you make up for this gap? Everything has to be

worthwhile. Because if I'm so far behind, I can't afford to waste any time. So this is something that's kind of interesting. People who are successful can afford to waste time. People who are behind cannot afford to waste time. The more in the hole you are, the less your time is worth, the more miserly you are about it. It's huge irony. Right. So if I'm behind, if I'm 28, years old and I haven't graduated from college and I don't have a job, how much is my time actually worth? Not very much. If I'm 28 years old and I'm in surgical residency, how much is my time worth? It's worth objectively more. Who feels guiltier taking vacation? The 28 year old who doesn't have a job whose time is worth objectively less than the surgeons or the surgeon who's 28 and like can't wait for a

vacation. And so now we get into a lot of very interesting problems. The first problem that we've already talked about is that despite progress, we feel like we're failing. The second problem is that we become miserly with our time. And as we become miserly with our time, we can't take chances. If we can't take chances, we become paralyzed in terms of options. I can't even apply to college because I need to get in. So the application has to be perfect. If the application has to be perfect, I have to spend so much longer on it. I can't afford to do good enough. This leads to paralysis. The more we get paralyzed, the more further behind we fall. And the more we end up being miserly with our time.

And if you can't experiment, you can't take chances, it's really hard to dig yourself out of the hole. The last thing, which we've also kind of talked about, is that the more that one and two pile up, the more we end up with emotional coping mechanisms. So we've covered this, kind of gambling, gaming, et cetera. And the problem is that these, in turn, like, make it harder to actually make progress.

Right? So these then sabotage us. So what do you do about this? Abandon expectations. So this whole thing starts with this. idea right here. Here's my starting point. Here's my expectation. If I move this amount, this is falling short. If I have no expectation, this is all a win. We started today here. We ended today here. This is a win. If I have an expectation, this is a loss. Do you all get that?

Like, this is mind-blowing once you really get it. That the same amount of effort or progress can lead to positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement, all based on the expectation. So there's kind of a correlate to abandoning expectations. you can't fix tomorrow, sorry, you can't fix yesterday's problems. So let me put it to you this way. If I'm 28 years old and I'm applying to college, I'm thinking about applying to college. And then I think to myself, oh my God, I don't know if I should apply to college because I don't know what to major in. What if I major in the wrong thing? And then I spend four years in college and then I'm 32 and I have the wrong major. Then I'll have wasted 14 years of my life. So I can't afford to get into the wrong major.

I have to figure out what's the right major. So then I end up doing research. I never apply. I'm trying to figure out, okay, what's the career? What do I do with my life? I'm stuck. But the key thing is that like you're 28. You've already wasted 10 years.

Call that L. Like you got to eat the L. There's nothing you can do today that will make up for the time that's already passed. And it's our attempt to make up for the time that's already passed that really creates the problem. That's what actually paralyzes. Because how can I afford to lose 14 years when I've all, if I, if I've lost 10, But we don't think about it as losing 10. We think about it as, okay, if I make it worthwhile, then those 10 years may not have been a waste.

We try to get those years back. And that burden becomes so impossible because how do you make a decision for a major that makes up for 14 years of spent time? Impossible. You set yourself up for failure. So whatever you've screwed up in the past, you've screwed it up, it's over. Let it go. Can't fix it. That hurts, though.

Oh, my God, like you're telling me it was a waste. Like, I'm not telling you it's a waste. you're the one who's telling me it's a waste, all kinds of benefits, but you refuse to see them because you're trying to make up for it. So you can't solve the problems of yesterday today. This is kind of general. Be careful operating from a feeling. So we've got to be super careful about letting our feelings dictate our actions. So I'm going to, let's take a quick look at this post and understand. I end up in a very drained state where I can't get a lot. I feel like I just want to go home and sit around for a day, playing video games. Next day, I feel fresher. Right. I have this

issue where I need everything to feel completely and totally worthwhile. How does gambling make them feel? So even this, I get into this mindset. I won't be doing this for a while and binge really hard until I feel satisfied. So what is dictating all of this person's actions? When do they stop when they feel satisfied? They need to feel worthwhile. So I want you all to just imagine for a moment what this person's life would be like, what your life would be like, if feelings did not dictate your actions. It's fine that you feel a particular way. We're not saying that you shouldn't feel that way. Does the feeling need to dictate the action? I need everything to feel worthwhile.

Can you do it anyway? Can you even do it if it doesn't feel worthwhile? What would start to happen in your life if you stopped using pornography until you felt satisfied? What would happen in your life if you didn't need to have things feel worthwhile in order to do them? I feel like I didn't make enough friends today. I feel like I need to make a ton of friends at this party because I need to make up for being a shut in for the last week. What would happen if that feel? no longer controls you. So you have to acknowledge that it's just a feeling. We're not saying it's

false, but all it is is a feeling. It's not a law of nature. It's just how you feel in that moment. And you may say, okay, but Dr. Kay, that's hard. You're correct. It is hard. Yogis in ancient India spent years, if not decades, mastering their feelings. So what chance do you have? Pretty good one, because you're basically equipped with the same stuff they are. You're a human. So a very simple thing you can do if you want to know, okay, how do I not let my feelings engage with actions. How do I not be controlled by my feelings? One very simple meditative exercise that you can do. There are various versions of this. So I'm going to share with you all a couple. The first is that the next time, when you start ordering food, order it to not be perfect. So let's say that I want to eat a bacon

cheeseburger. I'm going to order a bacon cheeseburger for lunch. So instead of getting a bacon cheeseburger, get either a bacon burger or a cheeseburger. Cut out one thing. Like if you want to get ice cream with sprinkles, cut out the sprinkles. In more extreme versions, if you like your burgers without tomato, get it with tomato. Either add something that you don't like or remove something that you do like from the equation. And then you will say, oh my God, this is insane. Are you telling me not to eat my favorite food? And you can still eat the food. We're not saying deprive yourself entirely. We're just saying instead of shooting for perfect satisfaction, shoot for less than perfect satisfaction. So what you want to start doing is allow yourself to do things that you don't feel like doing.

Now, in more extreme versions, you can also do things like, you know, adopt more specific diets and things like that. Just start by not giving into your feelings in some small way. And we're not saying make it drastic, right? Don't order your least favorite thing on the menu. You like, you can still order things that you like. Just try to make it less than perfect. And as you do that, what you'll start to learn is that you're going to feel like you want that bacon. I don't want tomato on the sandwich.

I don't want it. Okay, well, so what? You can still eat it. It's kind of bizarre. So if you're stuck in this cycle of everything has to be worthwhile, first of, understand where it comes from, that it's born from expectation. It's born from the things that we carry over from yesterday and put on today. And fundamentally, it's born from our inability to separate actions from feelings. And if you can do those three things, then you will be able to do

things that are not worthwhile. And it'll be like freeing. It's like liberating to be able to do this. Because right now we're so controlled by our feelings, right? I'm triggered or upset by people using a particular phrase. So I'm, I need everyone else to stop talking. I'm not saying that hate speech is good or anything like that. Please do not interpret it that way. You know, there's still bad things and you know, you shouldn't say things that hurt other people. But at the same time, like, just think a little bit about right now what's happening in the world is that we're surrendering our happiness and peace of mind to the actions of others. Instead of training ourselves to be able to tolerate, be undisturbed by someone else's venom, we're actually.

starting to like open up and like let them affect us. We're surrendering control of our own happiness to the words of other people. Now this is an important caveat. I'm not saying it's okay to say hurtful things. So we should still hold people who engage in hate speech and things like that accountable for saying harmful things. But what I'm saying is that there's a there's a side to this story that we haven't engaged it, which is personally being able to withstand toxicity. Recognizing that like this person can use whatever words they want to, but I'm not. not going to be happy or unhappy based on what this person says. Like, think about that for a second. Are we surrendering control of our peace of mind to the words of another human being? I'm not saying

it makes it okay. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be accountability for actions. That's completely different. You can hold them accountable and still be internally peaceful. So does that mean I don't care about what they say? Not caring implies apathy. I don't think that you should not care about what they say. I'll give you all an example. So let's say someone says something hurtful to me. Now, it can hurt to hear it, right? But then I've got a couple of different options. I can tell them not to say this, which may be completely reasonable. So I'm not saying, don't do that. But internally, I've got a couple of options, too. I can start to think a little bit about, okay, is this true? Do I agree with this person? Where is this person coming from? Why are they saying this? Is it possible

they're saying it just because they've had a bad day? And so sometimes when people criticize us, like, their criticism has a lot more to say about them than it does say about me. Sometimes it says a lot about me. So that's where like we've got to be a little bit critical about the process, but then we may sort of realize at the end of it that, okay, like this person is, you know, so I've worked with people who are addicted to substances. They have histories of addiction and they'll be prescribed controlled substances. So sometimes they'll be on like opioid maintenance treatment, like Suboxone. And then they lose their Suboxone. And they get very, very angry at me because I won't prescribe it again because they lost it. Who knows? Do they lose it? Did they abuse it? I don't know.

And so there's a protocol around what's appropriate for prescribing, what is it? And then depending on how they feel about it, they can start getting really nasty. And then I can decide how I deal with their words. So do I want to hold them accountable if they say things that are disrespectful? I'll tell them that. The way that you're talking to the staff today is not acceptable. They're here to help you. And I understand that you lost your Suboxone. That's not their fault. It's not okay to talk to people like that. And also, I don't have to be mad about it. I don't have to be like, oh my God, this person is such an asshole. All addicts are bad. And like, oh my God. No, it's like that person, like, they've got an addiction. And it sucks because they're now going to be going through withdrawal.

I should be compassionate and I can still hold them accountable. Does that make sense? So it's about being like internally okay with yourself when someone says something that's harmful. It doesn't mean that we want to allow them to say things harmful. That's like a subtlety that I think is lost on the internet. That you can hold people accountable for actions while still being compassionate towards them and not letting them hurt you as best as you can. And what started to happen is we've like completely forgotten that second bit, right? We're all about accountability and canceling people and stuff like that, which there may be good reasons for. I'm not saying that there aren't good reasons to do that.

I'm just saying that there's another piece to it. It's an incomplete equation.