August 14, 2025

Humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of millennia. Human civilization has only been around for 6000 years or so. Something I’ve been thinking about is when did humans start to struggle with consistency? I doubt cavemen were ever worried about lazing around when food was scarce and the threat of becoming prey was ever present.

It’s my opinion gen-z has the most free time available compared to other generations and that’s a bad thing. I don’t personally believe that humans were meant to have this much free time. With the possibility of doing anything also comes the choice of doing nothing, aka wasting time.

Personally, I’ve found that I really struggle with staying focused because I always have the option to pull out my phone and doom scroll. I, of course, am blessed with a family that allows me to live at home while I’m unemployed, but that blessing also makes me more comfortable with my decisions to do nothing at times. I have an addiction to youtube, particularly youtube shorts. In my worst moments, I don’t think about the consequences my inaction has.

But, I do wonder… how did I get to be like this?

Memory Start

I think I’ve always been a slacker. I think I was always trying to push the envelope when it came to getting out of work that I didn’t want to do. It definitely doesn’t help that I’m the youngest.

My parents were often busy with my older brothers, who were going through highschool and college preparation, while I was still in elementary school. I think with the lack of supervision I was always able to do whatever I wanted.

Fast forward to middle school, I had already built up a plethora of bad habits. Because of my strict tiger mom, I learned to prioritize test scores above learning. I wanted to avoid a lot of the beatings and the yellings but I didn’t want to put in any of the work. So I was a habitual cheater and procrastinator. I would wait until the next morning to copy my friend’s homework assignments and find any way possible to cheat on an exam.

I think partaking in lying and cheating so often in my formative years left me with harmful thinking patterns and a lack of confidence in my ability to get things done. As I try to finish up my bachelor’s degree at the ripe ol’ age of 28 the proper way, I find it difficult to stay consistent with my studies. It’s hard for me to attempt to catch up to lectures because the scale of the task and the guilt for falling behind gives me anxiety.

I try not to blame myself for failing to start or falling behind too much and try to focus on the positives. Because otherwise, I feel that it multiplies my guilt and I’m more likely to turn tail and bury my nose in my phone with mind numbing short form content. It sometimes feels as though i am lobotomizing myself with my phone to not deal with the harsh realities of my world (harsh to me).

The Advice Part

The monster is really bigger in your mind than it is in real life. It’s not as though you and I are incapable of the task at hand. We’re likely just freaking out about it. It might not get done as soon as it needs to be or with the quality that you would like it to be, but the important thing is to try your best so that you can continue to improve.

It’s not as though I’d be able to suddenly become productive at any given moment in a year’s time. For me and my circumstances, it’ll probably be a lifetime struggle that will fluctuate between easy and hard to manage. I’ve lived my life not really ever giving it an honest effort, and now that I’m trying to it’ll be a lot of work to overwrite those years of habit etching in my mind.

You need to affirm to yourself, that you’re capable of doing whatever it is that you want to get done. Try to change the way you think, and see if that removes any of the friction causing the procrastination. Consistency is key, but consistency in effort is what we want to measure.

After all results are nothing more than a snapshot of our progress. Have a good one :).