I realized while freewriting that I tell myself often that I’m broken. I need fixing. Something is wrong with me. I’m fucked up. It eventually spins out of control and my writing goes into all caps with lots of exclamations. It’s been a common theme I found while writing and I began to wonder how much this actually impacts my day to day.

Thinking, Fast and Slow is teaching me that it has a huge impact, without my knowledge, and whether or not I even want it to. My subconscious has developed beliefs and values that has become hardwired into my mind over years. Our minds have intuitive feelings and opinions about everything, whether we realize it or not, and regardless of how complex the situation is.

When I freewrite, and something continues to come up, it tells me that it’s part of my subconscious. I’ve programmed myself to believe that I am broken and many of my conscious decisions stem from this belief. Remember that our System 1, subconscious, makes decisions based on information readily available. Our System 2, what we consider our conscious mind, has come to accept these decisions from our System 1 without questions.

My mind has reinforced itself over years that I need fixing and that I’ve fucked up. When I have to make a decision, one of the first things that I subconsciously acknowledge is that I am broken. If I am broken, how do I know I’m making the right decision? Broken people do not make correct decisions, therefore, I’m not the best person to decide. I do nothing and pass the decision down to someone else. Overtime, this leads to lower confidence and the inability to act. Without confidence or any actions, this strengthens the belief that I am indeed a broken fuck up. Now it’s just an intuitive feel that I have constantly in the back of my mind. Maybe some of you can relate to this. And if you can, then congratulations, because you’ve already taken a step into breaking this cycle.

The big win is that I (you) have actually realized and am willing to acknowledge this destructive cycle. I’m in this cycle for no other reason than my own. Sure, I can blame society, parents, school, assholes, bosses, etc. The list can be endless, but what does that really solve? If anything, that puts us in a state of helplessness. If we believe that we are here because of what others have done, then what can we do to get out? But if we believe that we are the reason for our own life, then we can also get out.

Yes, I’m broken, but I am still fucking here!

I can and will fix things!

I’ve found what makes me think something is wrong!

I am fucked up, but I am learning why and moving on!

The only way to break out of The I’m Broken Cycle (or any type of loop) is to first realize we’re in a cycle. Then it’s about starting to question our own judgments. You’ll know when you start to question and doubt your subconscious when you start to feel strain. Your mind will not want to go down this path. It will tell you that it wants to go back to what is familiar. It doesn’t want believe that it’s possible to not feel broken because it’s too much work. We have to adjust years of belief. And what happens when we break out of this cycle? What’s next?! It’s too scary.

But that’s the path to breaking The I’m Broken Cycle. And once we break out of it, even for 1 day or even one god damn minute, it’s the first step to upgrading ourselves. Then you break out a second time, a third time, and slowly, ever so slowly, you build a different cycle. The Upgrade Cycle. It will be hard, it will be long, it will be a fucking pain in the ass. But it can be done.

We are all broken and we will all continue to fuck up. It’s part of life and totally okay. The faster we acknowledge this about ourselves, the faster we can accept it, and move on to upgrading ourselves.

I will be honest. I tried to read my reviews for each chapter, and I couldn’t even finish reading what I wrote. If I’m not even interested, who else would be?!

Is it wrong to start off an article talking down about my writing? Probably. Maybe. But who cares? This is just my writing evolution and what I’m learning as I try to publish something every Thursday. Today’s will be my third article and I’ve decided it won’t be a regurgitation of reviews of chapters 4 through 8 of Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Instead, I’ll try to unite all five chapters under a single topic. The topic today will be about laziness and why it’s so easy.

A common theme I’ve noticed in the first part of Thinking, Fast and Slow, is that our minds like to be in a state of ease. Our System 1, aka our subconscious, wants things to be so easy that it will make abnormal things seem normal after just a few instances, jump to conclusions, and make judgments as quickly and often as possible. When things are easy, we are most likely in a good mood and are comfortable with our environment. Why wouldn’t we always want that?

Many of us grew up with the idea that we should always be in a good mood. Things should be easy and convenient. This is the best way to live and it’s why we go to school, get jobs, and make money. With money comes the ease of life. And with the internet doing its thing, it’s strengthened the idea for convenience. Food can be delivered to your door. Entertainment is at our fingertips. Shows are just one Netflix click away. Hanging out with friends can be as simple as pressing the ‘power on’ button.

Laziness has become easier. Before technology, it was harder to be lazy. If we were hungry, we had to actually get off the couch and drive/commute/move to get food. If we wanted to hang out with friends, we had to go to someone’s house. This meant we probably had to shower or at least brush our teeth. Being a bum on the couch was harder. Don’t get me wrong, I was still lazy as fuck before technology. My average time of being a bum on the couch has just increased with the development of technology.

So coupled with technology, and being told that anything but a good mood was wrong, we now run into our Lazy Cycle. Our System 1 is easily primed, which is to say that a stimulus could influence our next thought or action, without our conscious intention. In our daily lives, we are bombarded with positive thinking, living your best life, how to be happy, other people’s snapshots of their awesome lives, and on and on Instagram goes. Our System 1 is primed for “good vibes only.”

Now, our mind systematically wants to keep things easy because that’s the best for us, right? And it is seeing repeatedly that everyone else is living awesome and are always in a good mood. We also want to be in a good mood. But when we have to work, think about finances, or look into self-development, we feel the opposite of “good.” Thinking about these things is the opposite of ease; we feel strain. And our minds do not want to be in any sort of strain. It’s uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

So we run, push away the feeling, hide it, hold it, ignore it. Anything but actually feel it. As time continues, we become more set in our ways of always wanting the good and never the bad, and god forbid the real ugly. It’s possible that the “good” isn’t even that “good” anymore. It’s actually pretty shitty, but it’s what we’re familiar with. So we stick to it and the Lazy Cycle continues.

The secret to breaking the Lazy Cycle, or any sort of cycle, is nothing fancy. In fact, we probably already know what the answer is, we just don’t want to admit it. Because it’s not familiar and our brain is screaming that it feels uncomfortable. We need to go back to being in a good mood! This is wrong! This hurts!

But is it really that uncomfortable? Is it really that painful? These sorts of questions are only questioned, and answered, by System 2. And System 2 is activated during a state of strain. It’s the window where we can actually reprogram our thinking.

And so the simple, god awful truth to breaking the Lazy Cycle is to get familiar with what causes strain. Take small steps repeatedly, everyday, in feeling what you’re running away from. Things won’t change immediately. It may take months or years to truly overcome and break whatever Cycle. However, it’s the daily action of stepping into the strain that will activate the part of your mind that questions and can reprogram how your subconscious thinks.

It’s how I wrote this article today. Because let’s face it, writing this was extremely uncomfortable and not familiar at all. My mind has been telling me this entire time to stop this horrible practice. But you know what? After all this, it doesn’t feel that bad.

I’ve been interested in psychology for quite a few years (it was my major after all), but I couldn’t get through Thinking, Fast and Slow the few times I’ve attempted to read it. It’s very popular in the psychology world, but my mind really wasn’t really up for it. Is it now? “Yes” is what I’ve been telling myself, so let’s begin with chapters 1 through 3.

The book is divided into five parts. The first part is titled “Two Systems”, and quite obviously, the first chapters are setting the stage to answer the question “What are the two systems?” and we get into right away in Chapter 1.

System 1

This character is our subconscious. It’s the mind running behind the scenes. It’s the automatic thinking, for things that are quick and immediate thoughts that take little to no effort. It’s our FAST thinking. Examples include:

• Answer 2+2
• Orient to the source of a sudden sound
• Drive a car on an empty road

Pretty much things you could do without your attention.

System 2

Let me introduce you to our conscious mind, System 2. This character is activated when something takes your attention; when there’s a demanding thought, some choice to be made, or something happens that requires your concentration. It’s our SLOW thinking. Examples would be:

• Brace for the starter gun in a race
• Search memory to identify a surprising sound
• Tell someone your phone number
• Fill out a tax form

System 2 is activated whenever you need some form of focus.

Review

Both Systems are always active when we are awake. System 1 is running automatically while System 2 is in a “comfortable low-effort mode, in which only a fraction of its capacity is engaged.” (Footnote, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Loc 427).

These two systems work together in a loop. System 1 continuously generates suggestions for System 2 in the form of impressions, intuitions, intentions, and feelings. If System 2 agrees with these suggestions, the impressions and intuitions turn into beliefs, and impulses turn into voluntary action. (Footnote, Loc 427)

However, the loop is stalled when an immediate impulse from System 1 goes into question. Like if we get angry and System 1 decides the best response is to flip over the table, or if we’re driving at night and System 2 decides that paying attention would be a good idea. So our System 2 is in charge of our self-control and usually has the last word.

When our attention and effort is fully required, our System 2 is completely engaged. This is especially true when a new type of task is required of a person. System 2 steps in and “can program memory to obey an instruction that overrides habitual responses.” (footnote Loc 644) It’s the system that is called upon when following rules and comparing objects on multiple attributes, and making deliberate choices between options.

Switching between tasks is effortful for our minds. This understanding (for me) drives the reason why keeping focus on one task without distractions for a period of time is important to get into a “flow state.” With constant distractions, your mind is spending energy trying to stay on task.

This leads into why it seems that laziness is built into our DNA. As Kahneman points out, the “law of least effort” comes into play for not just physical exertion, but also mental exertion. If there are several ways to accomplish a task, humans naturally gravitate towards the least demanding option. We want things to be easy, and often times, not doing something is the easiest route. Repeat that enough times, and not taking action becomes programmed into System 1 as a default setting.

It’s why taking action, even when you know it’s totally the right thing to do, becomes so difficult at times. We’ve done it to ourselves and getting System 2 to beat this instinct from System 1 is tough. And as System 2 exerts more self-control and uses mental energy, (to take action, or to do the right thing) the ability to have self-control depreciates over the day, which is “ego depletion”.

The idea of mental energy was actually proven by Baumeister. Effortful mental activity is expensive in glucose. When performing difficult cognitive reasoning or a difficult task that requires self-control, your blood glucose level drops. So, this means I should go eat something with glucose (chocolate) after writing this, right?

Lessons

Big lesson learned from Chapter 3: Do the hard tasks early! Eat the frog in the morning. Your afternoon self will thank you.

Being able to “take action” when we want to won’t come easy. I honestly believe it’s a life long challenge. No matter where you are in life, you will run into times where “taking action” will take more effort than either Systems want. But the only way to train your Systems to take action, is by taking that one step, whether it tiny or microscopic, every single day. This is the driving factor behind my article “How I’m Beating Depression.”

Our System 1 is much stronger than our System 2. And in order to improve our “self-control”, it would be more impactful in the long run to edit our System 1 vs. having System 2 make these energy consuming “self-control” decisions all the time.

In conclusion, I’m way more into this book now than I was 5 years ago. I’m not entirely sure how to have a “conclusion” for this article, so I’ll just end with, see you next week for the next chapters of Thinking, Fast and Slow. (Note: really need to work on the ending…)

Today is the beginning of a new system I am implementing for myself. This system is designed to do three things:

1. Create a reading habit
2. Create a writing habit
3. Publish every Thursday

Last week, March 4, 2021, I decided that I’d publish something every Thursday. My first article was written in an hour. This is not bragging. If you read it, thank you, because it was more free writing and not thought out. It was written with just feeling. No concern about punctuation or grammar or whatever. Is it great? No idea, and I didn’t care. I had just made a commitment and damn it, I wasn’t going to fail on Article 1, Day 1!

However, I ran into a problem when thinking of Article 2. What the hell am I supposed to write about? The advice I hear/read/watch/whatever is to write about what you like, what you enjoy, what you are good at, what you are passionate about, what gets you moving, etc.

For me, nothing jumped to top of mind.

So I decided I’m going to write about what I’m currently doing. And what I’m doing is something I like to call, “Going Back to Basics” mixed with “Breaking the Cycle.” (Mental Note: Wow, this is good stuff. These are going to be the titles of future articles. Good find, James. Yes, I’m affirming myself.)

In a nutshell, back to basics is just relearning how to read, write, and making sure I exercise. These few things are helping me break out of my current cycle of negativity.

This new system is strengthening my going back to basics by writing weekly about a book that I am currently reading.

I’ll be reading a chapter a day (start easy, right?), taking notes, and putting some thought into my take away from each chapter. I’ll publish my thoughts every Thursday until the end of the book or the end of time, whichever comes first. To start, I’ve chosen Thinking, Fast & Slow by Daniel Kanehman, which I started to read in 2016, so the end of time might come sooner.

All kidding aside, my goal is to finish this book and be able to publish every Thursday. Whether I continue this system with a second book will be decided when I accomplish my first goal. Who knows, maybe it’ll evolve to something else. Maybe it’ll be even more interesting than “book reviews.” Wow, it’s so dull. God, help me.

There’s not one thing that will help get over depression. It’s a whole mix bag of things. Here’s my mixed bag over the last 60 days.

Write

I’m writing everyday. Not a lot and not about anything in particular. I’m just free writing. Meaning, I just write whatever is on my mind. When I first started, I’d literally write things such as “I have nothing to write about”, “what am i even writing”, “why am i doing this”, and “i am thinking about writing and just writing.” It was nothing.

What I was doing though, was getting into a state where my hand would write out what my subconscious was thinking. And what I found after several weeks was surprising and obvious at the same time.

I loathed myself. I hated myself. I hated everything about me. I hated that I hated it. And I hated that my writing was about hate. Surprise! And also, duh, I am depressed, of course i hate.

This helped identify that my depression and negativity was actually rooted in my subconscious. That made me realize that as much as my conscious mind was wanting not to be a negative asshole and a depressed piece of shit, my subconscious was like “no, fuck you, this is who we are.”

Finding out that it wasn’t me, per se, really helped me understand that I could get over depression.

Exercise

I love exercising. I used to be work out nut. But whenever life got the best of me, one of the first of my habits to disappear was exercise. So now I’ve made it a point that I will exercise every single fucking day. But running and lifting weights and counting calories and that shit was just too exhausting to think about to get back into exercise.

So i decided that going out for a walk in flip flops was exercise. Even if it was for 1 minute. Dead serious. Why is a 1 minute walk even count? Because, it was the ACT of going out for the walk that was important to me. Consider what it took to go out for that 1 minute.

I had to get out of bed, put on clothes, put on shoes, go out my apartment, into the elevator, through the lobby, and THEN go out for that 1 minute. Look at all I accomplished. Awesome job, James. You got your exercise in for the day.

And you know what? Now I actually go out for runs. Nuts how it started with just 1 minute.

Meditate

God. Meditation. I sit there and have to think about not thinking or think about my breathing. Nothing could be more stupid. And yet, after days of actually sitting there for just 10 minutes a day, I can honestly tell you that somehow meditation has helped me. Because now I can recognize when my mind starts to think about something else. So when i start to spin out of control and think about what a lazy fuck I am, i actually notice that my mind went there. It took me months to figure this out. I’m still horrible at meditation, but it’s something I do twice a day now. Just 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night. This isn’t to become more Zen. Maybe that comes later. This is just to get used to knowing when my mind shifts from one thought to another without me realizing.

Affirmations

I will admit that this one seemed stupid to me. In fact, I started this one by accident. My body is not very flexible, so I decided that since I’m exercising more, I should also start stretching more. I found a simple 10 minute yoga stretch routine by Yoga With Kassandra on YouTube. Her 30 day morning yoga videos also happened to include a different daily affirmation. I wasn’t going to do it. It’s dumb. I just wanted to learn to stretch.

Yet I found myself repeating her affirmations. Two have stuck out for me which are “I have all the answers within me” (because I tell myself “I don’t know” all the time) and “I am at peace with myself” (because if i was at peace with myself, than i wouldn’t hate myself, right?).

I found that these two affirmations come to me during my walks and when i’m writing. I believe it’s getting through to my subconscious. He hates it because he keeps telling me that we don’t know anything and actually hate ourselves. But fuck what he thinks.

Summary

I can’t promise that these 4 things will help everyone out of depression and negative thoughts. However, doing any of these things will help you to get moving. And honestly, when you’re in a deep dark rut, like being depressed, the best thing to do, and maybe the only thing, is to simply move. Take action. Move a pencil across the page. Just go outside. Learn to catch yourself when your thoughts shift. Tell yourself something good, even if you don’t believe it.

It won’t be an immediate cure, and sure, you’ll fall back, but when you do, just move.