Craft By Zen

Unsplash image from Jazmin Quaynor showing a weekly calendar
Unsplash image from Jazmin Quaynor showing a weekly calendar

•

4 min read

•

🔖weekly   🔖reflection

2024 Week 10 - Weekly Notes

If you look at the 10 largest companies in the world, half of them are trying to create this addictive relationship to technology

— Ted Giola, How to break free from dopamine culture

My mind has been wandering into thinking about how to stop the short-term, quick release, distraction hobbies. It’s a hard addiction to break. Very likely this will be a longer journey than a month of my “year of renewal”.

We rush because we’re late. We also rush because we want to move quickly away from discomfort. We rush to come up with solutions to problems that would benefit from more sustained consideration. We rush into obligations or decisions or relationships because we want things settled.

— Melissa Kirsch, Why we can’t stop rushing

I’ve caught myself in a rush of “what is next” rather than ask myself “where am I at”. It’s this pull of not wanting to know how bad things are. Like what’s the status of my health? What’s the status of my relationships? My family? My obligations? Instead, I find myself numbing out, distracting away from the real problems. Of course, it’s not a rock bottom. It’s a functional state of just bearable enough to see where I’m at, then go back into my doomscrolling activities. It’s not healthy.

To counter this, I’m placing some mindful practices. Sprinkle them where I can. I started a new note called my North Stars, or guiding principles. They help me with heuristics in choosing one things over another. Like producing over consuming. Engagement over distraction. Little mantras that can help me escape the distraction loop.