field notes: on perseverance & pain in the age of instant gratification

Escaping the dopamine machine as a dopamine fiend

Welcome to field notes, my casual blogging platform within my Substack Messy Dialectic. If you are looking for refined essays and discourse, check here for the latest posts. If you love rambling, brain dumps, and chit-chats about life experiences, then continue reading on.

This is a topic that I’ve been meditating on for the past few weeks as I have been struggling with a frustrating situation of my own.

Remember that camping post? You know, where I went camping for my birthday?

Well, basically, I went on that camping trip for my birthday, and then when I came back my husband and I were met with tons of noise on the side of the wall that was originally empty when we left. As the days drew on, and the noise was constant (literally all day and night) we realized that no, those weren’t workers renovating the unit. Those were brand new neighbors.

And they are terrible.

Come to find out, what we hear all day (and primarily all night) is their zoo of 3 animals (two cats and one dog…...) who zoom around all night. They have seemingly taught their animals to play on the wall that connects our units, and even throw toys at our wall… In addition, they yell loud as hell into the night, all the way into the morning, and even have loud furniture that they slam so hard that it shakes our wall!

It has been a nightmare that the management has barely been dealing with (which started with weeks of us complaining, and the neighbors telling the management that they have no idea what we’re talking about 🤡), so what else is one to do?

Well, I’m now set up to move (🥳 yippee!) and in the meantime, I’ve actually been… sleeping on my couch…

I won’t lie, it has been a large source of frustration to sleep on my couch when I own a big, beautiful, ultra-cozy king size bed (from a cheap bed in a box company no less) and at the end of the day, I deserve to feel comfortable and safe in my own home so that I can get sleep and be well-rested for the work that I do. But this is an issue that, to be fair, has technically been solved.

The move is slated, the new apartment has been reserved (it’s so cute, I’m so excited!!), and a plan has been made to keep me from continuing to experience the levels of sleep deprivation that I was dealing with for 5 weeks when I was attempting to sleep in my bed and simply didn’t want to sleep on the couch out of stubborn dogma.

All that’s left now is the passing of time.

That part is the challenging part for me, and has made me very introspective in the past few weeks as I’ve dealt with this (reminder, the camping trip was September! It is now November!!!).

My first few weeks on the couch made me realize how much I personally just love to have what I want immediately. Now, I’m not faulting myself for wanting to sleep in my own bed, but it was more a funny thing that I laughed about with my loved ones because I found that the couch was giving me the best sleep of my life. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a new sleeping location or if it’s because of how dead quiet that side of the unit is, but wow. As someone who struggles with sleep maintenance insomnia, it has been wild to sleep at night and then wake up to my alarm especially while on the couch.

So, in a funny way, my solution to deal with this frustrating situation not only solved my problem, but it even improved a whole part of my life.

Not to mention, the hubs and I have a great exit plan that we’re grateful to have, plus we’re thankfully at the end of the lease anyway. So it all really worked out for the better. For context, I got the lease renewal message coincidentally at the height of all this insanity and at the height of the management doing fuck-all nothing, so it all really truly worked out in perfect divine timing.

The problem then, is this feral craving I have for the finish line. Again, I give myself grace, yadda yadda yadda, it’s okay to be excited for something better and exciting I know. But, I also know myself, and I know that the feeling I have inside is like a child tantrum-ing, screaming about how badly they want the candy now and when told that the candy can be had after dinner, they keep crying about how they want and need it now.

It’s like a searing burn that shakes my entire body. It’s what made me realize, shit, I have been messed up by the drug of instant gratification. The damn phones done’ rewired my brain.

It triggered a set of self-evaluations within myself, and it occurred to me that this desire for instant gratification is leading a lot of my current issues in life. For one, I realized that I don’t go out to a lot of events or things like I’d like to because driving takes time (as they say, Houston is an hour away from Houston), getting ready takes time, planning with folks takes time, recharging after hangouts takes immense effort and intentionality, it all takes time and effort. And then, you put all of that work in to get a little dopamine hit that might not even have the mileage to last you to the next fun event you have scheduled later in the week.

But why go out when you can stay in? There are algorithms that serve up little surges of dopamine on tap 24/7. You don’t have to go out and put so much effort into feeling good. You can choose to be cooped up in your cozy abode, have a nice cozy beverage or meal, and scroll to your heart’s content. There’s no traffic to deal with, no rude weird energies, nothing that exhausts my introversion, no frustrating experiences, it is paradise in the palm of your own hand.

It is unfortunately the best (in the context of getting those dopamine hits), but it isn’t the most conducive to having what humans truly need for healthy mentals and for living fulfilling lives.

I also realized that I have a big problem with deriving my own dopamine from the dopamine of other folks’ success and endeavors.

I am one of those people who perfectly tailors and handcrafts their feed to be niched down to the gods. Every crevice of my identity, dreams, and hobbies is articulated perfectly in who I’m following on all platforms (YouTube, IG, and TikTok primarily). Let me tell you, it’s awesome. It’s like my own little curated TV station on whatever platform I’m craving at the time.

I primarily follow a lot of enterprising Black women who do really cool things by putting themselves out there, taking risks, and going on fun adventures. They have so many connections and stay in the streets whether that’s via public transport or driving. They are doing the work to live fun, exciting, successful lives, and they are confident and hardworking enough to broadcast that on their social media channels.

As an empath, I watch their content and feel so extremely proud of what they’re doing and accomplishing in the world. It’s so exciting to watch people who look like me accomplish things beyond my wildest dreams. It’s awesome. But the problem is that I get attached.

I get so attached to these feelings of excitement and joy for others that it does, in a weird way, take away any part of me that feels like I need to do it too. I get this weird feeling where it’s like… Because I can see how that success looks on the screen, I don’t get inspired to create that success and joy in my own life. It makes me so satiated. I end up feeling so fulfilled in my own life watching others live a life that I wish that I had.

Personally, I find this line of thinking so… fascinating and bizarre, “bizarre” mainly because it was me sleeping on the couch that made me realize that I was feeling this way for who knows how long. But the more I have given myself time to sit with it, the more I realize the extent of the mental hole that I’ve been stuck in.

I don’t think that the solution is to ban my favorite lil’ rectangular devices from my life, however I do know that I must change my mindset.

In preparation for my big move, I’ve also begun a fitness and mindset journey to just get me prepped for the 2025 that I am intending to have, and all of these thoughts are included in the journey. I have begun to consume content with much more intentionality with a focus on manifesting my own hopes and dreams.

I honestly haven’t even worked to manifest anything in my life since taking a mental health hiatus from my skincare business (it has been like 2 or 3 years or so at this point), and I donno… I think something shifted in my mind during the big 11/11 portal (I know woo-woo topics, sue me), and now I suddenly feel ready to get back into myself and into my own life.

I also have realized that I must put myself out there if I want to have anything that I truly desire since all of my aspirations are quite outward facing, and that feelings of satiation are just not satisfactory. I have to make myself keep going until I actually have what I desire. I have to reach feelings of accomplishment and triumph.

I have to realize that the pain in the processes and journeys is necessary a lot of times, and also in many cases, worth experiencing. The pains of traffic that I have to drive through to get to a friend or an event, the awkwardness and fear of putting myself out there, the sadness of rejection, the boring aspects of my creative aspirations, the frustration of not getting it right all the time (thus subsequently decreasing the dopamine I could be experiencing). It’s all, unfortunately, a part of anything good that anyone wants to have and experience, but it’s also a part of being a human, and there’s nothing that takes us outside of the natural realms of living than our little devices and their algorithmic dopamine machines.

Scrolling and watching as a bystander on my little rectangular device has protected and shielded me from the everyday pains of having to human, and in turn has shielded me from the exciting life that I could be living. It was a very easy rhythm that I accidentally stepped into, and it has felt so good to be on the receiving end of endless dopamine hits (especially with the tumultuous years I’ve been experiencing). But I donno, maybe the mental fog is clearing up and giving me the physical ability to get my back off the wall and get back into the mix of things.

As I continue to meditate on this, I only wonder how many others are trapped in this sort of loop, doing the exact same thing unknowingly.