Be present, before it’s too late.
About toxic cult like “productivity as a philosophy” and how to actually get better from someone. A real someone that found out the hard way.
How to actually be present, I’m sure everyone specially right now, in these times, we find ourselves more than just on auto pilot. We are in a constant state of struggle, pain and addiction to this cult-like philosophy of toxic productivity. And don’t get me wrong. Productivity itself it’s a great tool to get you through your goals in life, the problem starts when instead of looking at it like a tool, or maybe lifestyle hacks it a mutates to a “philosophy” a cult like hive mind to subscribe just becase you’re addictive to the adrenaline. You subscribe everything to it, smooth the brain into doing more, learning more, trying to be more “efficient” but you are not enough but somehow… and burning out more than ever.
I Found myself in this exact hectic state until my body basically gave up and crashed. I physically got sick, it couldn’t take it anymore, no matter how healthy i thought the bio hacks were doing, it just gave up, and when I physically had to stop, when I had no other choice but to really STOP. The guilt tripping over me was worse than the pain I was experiencing physically.
Then I realized that I was actually suffering by my own terms, and that I mostly didn’t even get the results I needed. Yes, I was efficient, on time, everything the whole package but also I was feeling empty and burned out to the point of that thinking of what to eat made my already bad migraine worse. So what I did was just stop, literally, I just stopped, let in the silence, and let my brain breathe, without thinking about my meetings, about how can I grow my finance portfolio, about how many steps I had done so far that day. I just stopped, no phone, no book, nothing to analyze, nothing to make more efficient, no decisions. Just stop, no guided meditation, no trying to gather my thoughts and let it flow. Just a big stop, and amazingly, it didn’t even take an 1 hour to feel better, it took about what I can say was approximately 5 minutes for my brain to actually feel relived, the actual stress and tension went from a 100 to a 50. And I started thinking how amazing that felt and how actually all the mental clouds started dissipating, everything felt like blue skies again when I just let my mind be present and wonder, like I took a leash off, and it felt like freedom.
So now I tell you, the reader, the same thing, in hopes that it can prevent a total body collapse on your body before it’s too late.
Give yourself grace, please, and actually you will find that it will be way more productive, when you give your body time to decompress. Studies show that the people that pause and just do other stuff tend to be more creative, proactive, and overall productive so in this article I’m not actually just gonna share my experience and leave, I’m leaving a list of things that you can do right now, that will help with all this problems plus the guilt and shame that our perfectionism brain traps us in.
I wanted to add this rococo painting because I thought it perfectly catches that essence of being present, specifically in the way Fragonard’s Catches that feeling of playfulness and vitality, that I think it’s what we lose the most when we find ourselves in autopilot.
So first one:
1.
Be present, like the title I don’t mean to sound cheesy or anything, but you can try by just being bored, we actually need to be bored more to activate the part of our brains that sparks creativity and problem solving. So more than being present, just be bored, listen to why there’s a second bird outside your window that’s louder than the other, notice what shade of white are your walls, what would you called that shade of white.
2.
Just watch that 3 hour movie you been keeping on letterboxd watch list. Yes that foreign film that you find the concept deeply pretentious but still want to watch it because you got FOMO. Just watch it, you don’t have to like it, in fact you can hate it, but just sit back for 3 hours, no phone, no notes, and actually watch it without thinking that if you don’t like “it would be a waste of your time.” It won’t be. In fact now you would have your own opinion about it and yes maybe it would give you the chance to inflate your ego and say “I was right it’s a very bad movie” or maybe you will love it. The journey it’s the goal, not the outcome.
3.
Make that recipe you kind of remember of how to do it because you saw it in a TikTok, but don’t go to the TikTok, just try to remember the most important steps and then just try to make it, without recipe, without steps, without tutorials, and if it turns out bad, which I kind of doubt, you have something to laugh about, or to talk about it with your friends, you got a new anecdote. It’s about the journey not the results. Specially in this day and age where everything it’s quantity of things, how many books I read, how many this, how many, how many. When how many of those “journeys” do you actually remember, not enjoy, not having a cute instagram pic, how many do you remember with detail, almost none because you were on autopilot and your brain will filter it out leaving you an empty sack of quantifiable “achievements”.
And the last one, inconvenience yourself more. If you can, and have the opportunity to do so. Just to give an example, if you eat bread everyday, try to make the bread yourself from scratch. Or go out of the auto pilot and just instead of asking google something, go to the dictionary, and find that word you didn’t understand. Yes it takes more time, yes it’s more inconvenient, but making it a little harder, makes the journey longer and worth retaining by our brains.
Specially in this day and age I think we should stop the auto pilot and start doing more hard boring things to just keep ourselves healthier and more presents before we become a big sack of empty success, that might be quantifiable but it would never have the quality to fulfill us.
Thank you so much for reading, I really really appreciate that someone takes some of their time to read what I mostly vent about here on substack, and if it can make someone feel seen or heard then it actually makes sense that I keep talking to the void.
Thank you for reading, it means a lot 🖤