I call it ‘Whyism’. Because life is long when you ask yourself why you do ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. But it’s mad, hella, crazy short when you do things –anything– mindlessly. And I’m not saying everything you do has to be done with the intent to change the world or cure cancer (and yeah we all have some annoying chores that have to be done) , but if you constantly ask yourself why, and something doesn’t actually bring you joy or make you feel great, surgically remove it from your life.
If the toxicity or negativity of something outweighs the benefit even a bit, get rid of it.
Do you like using social media because you can see what people are up to? But do you also find people you don’t really care about that much shoving their carefully-crafted ‘perfect life’ in your face and trying to make you jealous? Or worse still, people subtweeting or ‘vaguebooking¹’ underhanded insults that are clearly directed at you or someone you care about? Or do you just waste a bunch of time scrolling through a newsfeed full of stuff that isn’t that interesting? Delete it from your life.
Do you read or watch the news to ‘know what’s going on’ or to stay up date? (99% of what is tens of thousands km away from you and doesn’t affect you). When you think about it, how does reading it actually make you feel? At best, indifferent, or at worst, outraged or even depressed? Fuck. It. Off.
Same thing goes for mindless watching of tv. If you love watching a show because you love the characters or the fantasy of it or it makes you laugh, but as soon as you’re doing something ‘Just cause…’ or ‘There’s nothing else to do,’ or the most disgustingly deplorable and dumbass excuse of all: ‘I’m bored’, it’s time to turn it off and ask yourself: ‘What actually makes me feel alive?’
Try it for a day. Ask yourself ‘Why?’ when you’re doing everything you do. It’s creates awareness of everything you do and what actually makes you happy. And the flamin’ excellent by-product is: you end up spending much more of your time doing stuff that actually comprehensively brings you joy. And nothing but.
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¹ I just learnt that. It’s just as shitty and gross as it sounds.