Hey, look at me. Look at me. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: you need to condition yourself to being okay with being inconvenienced by things. The first time I spoke about this I meant it in a mental health way- it is good to go out to the store and see people versus just ordering alone at home- but there is another more pressing societal issue you should be more concerned about as well.
Any service you rely on for convenience can be weaponized against you the moment you begin to rely on it. Streaming used to be a cheap and convenient way to see movies at home. It is now exorbitantly expensive, you need multiple accounts just to get what you want, and any of those movies can be taken from you at any time. And unless you have gotten used to going through the “inconvenience” of owning physical media, you can do nothing about it. Same goes for buying things on Amazon. Same goes for any service like DoorDash etc. These companies WANT you to be reliant on them for convenience so they can do whatever they want to you because, well, what else are you gonna do?
Same thing goes for the uptick in AI. If you train yourself to become reliant on AI for doing basic things, you will be taken advantage of. It is only a matter of a couple years before there are no free AI services. Not only that, but in the usage of AI’s case, it is robbing you of valuable skills that you need to curate that you will be helpless without the moment the AI companies drive in the knife the way they have done with streaming. Delivery. Cable. Internet. Etc. It will happen to AI too. And if you are not practicing skills such as. Writing. You are not only going to be at the mercy of AI companies in the digital world, but you are going to be extremely easy to take advantage of in real life too.
I am begging you to let go of learned helplessness. I am begging you to stop letting these companies TEACH you helplessness. Do something like learn to pirate. It is way more inconvenient at the beginning, but once you know how, it is one less way companies can take advantage of you. Garden. Go to the thrift store (older clothes hold up better anyway). These things take more time and effort, yes, but using time and effort are muscles you need to stretch to keep yourself from being flattened under the weight of our capitalist hellscape.
Inconvenience yourself. Please. Start with only the ways you are able. Do a little bit at a time. But do something.
How do i love myself???
I've been meaning to write something like this for a while!
First off, what is self love?
I consider self love to be compassion towards yourself. Aware of your flaws, and aware of your good traits, but not hinging your sense of worth on either. I think of it as similar to characters people like - oftentimes our favorite characters are highly flawed people, and it's not that we love them despite those flaws, but we love the whole picture and want to see those characters grow.
How do you learn to love yourself?
I think it takes time! It's not something you can learn overnight, but something that comes with going through life.
And I think another important thing to remember is that baby steps are great, and it's absolutely okay if you don't love yourself right now. Your journey will take time. It might be a huge accomplishment for you to be self neutral - being okay with yourself and being neutral in your skin, even if you don't 'love' yourself. Here's a short blog post that talks about self neutrality!
Something simple you can do to change how you think of yourself is replace things like "ugh, I'm so stupid" with more neutral self talk, like "whoops, I made a mistake!" Your mind is listening to things you say to yourself, so work on replacing negativity with kindness.
Resources
Who Am I? Worksheet: Helps you enhance self awareness by looking at other people's perception of you, and your own perception of yourself (you can print and handwrite or just type your answers on a doc, whatever's easier for you)
'Love Letter' to Myself Worksheet: Helps self love by having you write down things you love about yourself, how they benefit you, and how you can continue to honor them
Loving Kindness Meditation: If meditation is your thing, loving kindness meditations are amazing! Essentially, they have you direct statements like "may I be happy, may I be well, may I be peaceful, may I be loved" at yourself, then a close friend, then an acquiantance, etc. I've linked my favorite one here, that I've done countless times. But if that particular recording isn't doing it for you you can search "loving kindness meditations" on youtube, spotify, etc and see what you like!
Ways to practice self love: An article that I really liked, because the author talked about how she'd pinned her sense of worth on her accomplishments and learning to let go of that.
You can also go through my self love tag! I use it for strategies, as well as things that you might have needed to hear.
saying “i want him” about the character but not in a romantic or sexual way . i just Require him i need to Obtain him
put down the chat gpt. consume too much caffeine and nicotine and write a paper that you barely understand while you approach hallucination territory from too little sleep and too much raging. engage with academia in the way god intended
october cups my face in gentle hands. sunlight filters through me, casting my heart on the pavement like stained glass. i know i'm going to be alright.
be busy. busy not checking messages. busy reading those books you never started or finished. busy having a good night of sleep. busy taking care of yourself and your skin. busy moving your body. busy helping your community. busy reflecting on your life and what you can improve. busy doing things aside from the capitalistic viewpoint of “productivity.” busy slowing down.