0 Self-Control and Boredom

Self-Control and Boredom The root of all problem is self-control. Self-Control is basically the ability to suffer and to choose what is less pleasurable for the sake of future benefit. Self-control is a skill. Everyone can master this skill by practicing it every day. Make it a habit and it will feel like super power. I choose to be vegetarian. It was a huge self-control in the beginning, now it's natural for me. Now I've been a vegetarian for more than five years. I believe I can do anything else as long as I really want it and try it. It helps me to have better self-control and have more positive emotions. In many situations, self-control doesn't work. If I am surrounded by foods, I'll eat more. The condition matters a lot. People do what is available. If you live in a house with swimming pool, I believe you will swim more often no matter whether you like swimming or not. You will swim more often than those who really love swimming but live very far from swimming pool. The option we choose is what is obvious in front of us. Therefore if I want something or become something, I need to create the situation fit for that. Boredom is the enemy of self-control. When you get bored, you want to do something else, go somewhere else, and so on. I often try on myself to read one book page to page but in the middle of reading I get bored and want to change the activity. Sometimes I imagine myself if I do not get bored and can finish book after book after book, it would be great. I can have unbreakable consistency and become a master in relatively short time. Modern people get bored so easily because they train their brain to do that unconsciously. When boredom hits, people can just open their social media and they become addicted very soon. They can turn of TV and doing nothing for hours being hypnotized by the various news and entertainment. They loss their ability to read books or doing anything that need long attention span. When they do their work, they constantly distracted by their phones, checking something every now and then mindlessly. Self-control is fragile at the beginning. It can break anytime with various temptations. I've tried to quit social media so many times and still failed miserably. I have nothing to show off but still I use it just to see what others do. In the past, when I have a lot of things to share, I was sharing like crazy as if I was the center of the world. I spent more than five hours a day. It was madness. Now I spend about ten minutes a day or less. If you are beautiful, you are unlucky person. You will be hooked by social media. Any post from you will get a ton of likes and you will be addicted by the false attentions. They don't really care. You won't have time and energy to do something better, to pursue your dreams. You'll become the center of attention and all of them is fake. Playing stupid game winning stupid prize. That's it, quit and stay away. Celebs are miserable people because of this. Their life is never a peaceful one. They care about people's opinion and they become their slave. Then how to train self-control? By doing boring stuffs and be persistence. For example read the most boring books and finish them no matter what. It is hell but then reading any book will feel like heaven. Most people think that reading books is wasting time, yet they spend their time doing nothing but watching TV or mindlessly checking social media all the time. Self-control is to suffer willingly and people do not see the logic in there. The purpose of life is pleasure and yet after they do it all the time, they are unhappy. Antisthenes said, "The purpose of life is virtue not pleasure, pleasure is not only unnecessary but positive evil". I think what he means by pleasure here is like what people think about pleasure such as; drinking alcohol, sex, delicious foods, laziness and so on. I agree to Antisthenes in that sense. Pursue pleasure and you will be miserable, pursue virtue and you will be peaceful and then happy. In my opinion, people who love reading are happy people, people who love clubbing and parties are unhappy people. Those who love reading have peaceful of mind, those who love clubbing and parties have restless of mind. As Spinoza said that true power is understanding. Money often causes dangers and destructions. It frees the Pandora box in your mind. It granted all your evil wishes and desires that has no limit. Reading will strengthen self-control and exercise boredom, going to party is often to lose the self-control to the boredom. The reason to do something matters. The reason why we need to strengthen self-control is to be stronger. Power equals happiness, Spinoza said. It's true as far I notice and learn what makes people happy or unhappy. Happiness is always simple and needs less. People complicated their life because they live in complicated society. When they want to stay simple but society requires them to be the same as others, they do not have much choice. It's very complicated just to get married for example. Life of unhappy people is like story created by Franz Kafka, The Trial. If you are powerless, you are unhappy. That is the simple truth. The opposite of self-control maybe is self-sabotage, to fail oneself from within because it is much easier to do than practicing self-control. I do it all the time. I sabotage my diet when I meet delicious foods. I don't really understand the real reason behind this behavior. It seems like the automatic version of myself. My autopilot and default mode of life is to get pleasure mindlessly. Now I'm looking at a big house in where the owner is unhappy person. He is complicated and lies to many people for his own benefit. He is greedy and ignorance. I have experiences be deceived by friends for money. Their names are forever tainted and they live unhappy powerless life because they have much worries a lot of reasons to hide.