At this point in time, this is just an unordered list that I've added to as it came up. Honestly, not all of these even sound like my goal of having *fun*. Maybe I've forgotten how to have fun? I was just surprised how difficult it was at times to produce this list, and, even upon completion, it still doesn't sound exactly thrilling.
I'm noting that on this list, nothing is really as easy and effortless as melting my brain on my phone. Maybe that's why it's so hard to quit, because it takes nearly no effort to get started. Not to mention the design of attention economy, the dopamine oversaturation, etc.
Honestly I haven't totally done this. They have been deleted, redownloaded, and deleted again. However, I think that I'm developing a healthier relationship with them as time goes on. I have had a regrettable night that I stayed up too late because of them. Rather than punish myself by attending the following day's entire conference (would have been 8am-7pm), I went in at noon figuring that I wouldn't had a bad full day and instead had a pretty great half day (7-hour half day...).
I have also found myself getting more easily bored by these apps, which is something I'm actually really happy to see. It's nice to keep myself occupied while I eat alone, and admittedly the hotel cable tv is not really serving me very well. I have increasingly enjoyed reading a book while eating, but sometimes it has been too long a day or too messy food, and the "bad" apps have been nice. But I am more often taking a step back and noticing that the actual content of these is not especially engaging and I am having more fun interacting with some of the things on my list above!
I had a long day as a first day at a conference out here. I sat down for a 15-minute meditation, but had to cut myself short because I was starting to fall asleep! I want to do it right, so I will try to do it tomorrow.
I am victim to plenty of cravings that have a negative effect on my life. Sometimes it's food, often it's sweets, and as we have established, sometimes it's my phone. I enjoy doing other things than my phone, and binge eating when stressed makes me feel worse shortly after it makes me feel better. I think this meditation will help me stop these behaviors before I engage in them and improve my quality of life!
This day was HARD! I got to the conference center only to find out that I had 2 hours to kill. I looked at my to-do list and figured I'd target this meditation. Here's how it went...
Foreword: I found in the conference center brochure that there was a meditation room. I went to the fourth floor of the building just to realize that it was on the fourth floor of a different building!
Lesson 2 of the "Coping with Cravings" Course (4/24/2024)
Fortunately this day was much easier than before, though because of this, I think it didn't have quite the impact as the day before. It was still great, however, and I felt much calmer at the end. However... I believe this was the night before my night of regrettable decisions! So maybe it did not have immediate impact either. I ended up going out to eat and having a drink, both of which were poor ideas. I have been overeating on travel because it is hard to do otherwise, and both of those choices did not help me to achieve my goals. Perhaps stubbornly, I chose to get some work done after waiting too long to get it started. This is actually an improvement for me because my typical modus operandi is to ONLY agonize and go to sleep way too late. This time I did get some work done, but going to bed at 4am was... unwise.
I have actually found myself making some better decisions, however. Last night I needed to eat dinner, but had had a lot of food scattered throughout the day. Opting for a snack instead was a much better option, and I did a better job at evaluating not only how I would feel in the instants after my action, but also how the action would affect me further on.
Many times I have overeaten, particularly sweets, and thought at the end, "Wow, I feel horrible. And I knew I would feel horrible because I always feel horrible after I do this. I wish I would have considered that when I started!" Now I feel that I am improving in this regard, little by little.
Exercise this week has been easy out of necessity. I have no vehicle and am staying 0.7 miles from the conference I am attending. Commuting, exploring, and simply navigating the conference center has made getting my steps very easy as you can see below:
