We know the answer to most of our problems. We know what we need to do. We know we need to sleep early, eat healthily, exercise regularly, spend time with friends and family, do things we are passionate about. We know all this. That’s not the problem.
The problem is that we don’t do all that. We do not sleep on time. Instead, we keep watching the next episode or the next video or just keep scrolling down the feed, not looking for anything in particular.
Even when we do that, we know we should not be doing that. When we eat that chocolate cake, we know we should make different choices. We are happy to eat the cake, but we are not happy about the choice we made. The guilt creeps in.
So why do we do it? Is it because of instant pleasure versus delayed gratification?
I don’t think it’s that simple. We all have the capability of imagination. And we use it to imagine so many things. We imagine what it would feel when all our dreams will come true. So we can imagine the pleasure which is supposed to come after a lot of struggles. We do not need to trade that for a moment of pleasure in the present moment.
I feel that the challenge is not about discipline. It is about what we believe. We do not really believe that the delayed pleasure is guaranteed. We might have faced some roadblocks, and now that is stopping us from truly believing.
When we believe something, then there is no choice. We do what we truly believe in. There is no difficult or easy choice anymore.