Joshe

@Natasha Tori Maru If this were an inertia problem, how do you explain all the action OP is already taking? Going to work, making spreadsheets, taking courses, and they seem like the type that's already brushing their teeth and taking showers. lol. So, if behavioral inertia isn't the sticking point, what is? Gotta be something else, right? You seem to be resisting the chronic threat part. It's possible to be under so much ongoing threat and anxiety that the only thing that matters is knowing there's a path to safety, and the system can't truly relax until it sees one. The thing is, no perspective shift or behavioral change on their own can solve the threat, and people under these conditions intuit this, which makes them panic even more. Real threats have to be addressed directly, not with some indirect mechanism that requires a major change that may or may not work. Anything else just makes it worse.

@Eskilon Good point! @blankisomeone That's all good to hear. Right track!

If they could solve the structural problems, they may not need anything like a therapist. They need practical, actionable advice to address the most pressing issues. I agree. I'm not anti-action. I'm anti-blind action. What specific action are you suggesting they take? Just something that makes them feel good? It's not that simple. They're already taking action. Going to work everyday, trying to figure out what their blocks are, buying self-help courses. They can't reframe these as positive because sometimes, your structure is so destabilizing that your nervous system won't allow it, literally. When living in precarity, small positive actions that don't address the structure doesn't build momentum. It builds false hope followed by deeper exhaustion when nothing changes. Small wins don't compound, they just delay the crash. I'm saying: act to change your situation. Not: act to change your perception. OP thinks they need to change their perception and everyone here has confirmed that, but it's the wrong order.

There's a level of inference required to see what is going on here. The inability to read between the lines is the whole problem with this thread. Most are responding to OP's language at face-value: lazy, easy, don't want to work hard, without modeling the internal state. "I want things to be easy" from someone in survival mode is a cry for relief, not a philosophical position about effort. OP isn't sitting comfortably in a stable position looking at life and wishing it were easy. There is massive structural instability. And they're being told their cry is a character flaw, and "just push past it", "you don't really want it", "you're a fool to want things to be easy", "just take action and things will get better". All well-meaning and potentially true and applicable from a stable position, but dangerous in this situation. Their latest post basically proves my entire position. It'd be nice if I wasn't the only voice of reason up in this motha fucka.

😂

Yes, that is your right. But my point is related. I processed your content but instead of engaging you there, I wanted to show you a potential structure so you can stop doing this to yourself. It's impossible to be at peace while being hyper-focused on enemies and threats. If/when you're ready to stop hurting yourself and others, come back to what I said - it could potentially be of some value if you want to explore it. We just want you to be at peace, that's all.

You're saying it's too risky to not take the big risk. lol. What if you shoot for the stars and fail spectacularly (as most do), have identity collapse, then become a failed artist, depressed in a closet with a gun in your mouth? Surely, there's a middle way.

One of these would suit you better than retail work. None of them are sexy, but they'd probably work wonders for your stabilization.

@blankisomeone You're not lazy. You deeply desire low stimulation and cognitive space and your current situation is a total mismatch for that. Forget the self-help stuff for now. Here's what I'd actually do: 1. Get brutally honest about your current situation on paper. Write down: What's your income? What are your expenses? How long can you survive if nothing changes? What skills do you have, even if they seem minor? What do you have access to (people, places, tools)? No judgments, just facts. You need to see the actual game board. 2. Identify what's structurally wrong with your current job. Is it the social demands? The physical environment? The pay? The hours? Lack of autonomy? Name it specifically. "I hate it" isn't good enough. "I'm introverted and customer interactions drain me to zero by noon" is. This tells you what to avoid next. 3. Look for adjacent moves, not dream jobs. You're not looking for your passion right now. You're looking for something less bad that buys you more stability. What jobs exist that avoid the things you identified in #2? What's one step sideways that would give you more breathing room? For me it was construction - not a dream, but a MUCH better fit. 4. Audit your network, even if you think you don't have one. Who do your parents know? Siblings? Old classmates? Anyone who works in a trade or runs a small business? You're not asking for a favor yet - you're just mapping who might know someone who might have a spot. My path opened because my dad ran into a guy at a convenience store. 5. Lower the bar for "safe enough." You don't need to solve your whole life right now. You need to find something that lets your nervous system calm down enough that you can think clearly and move. What's the minimum viable stability? A job that doesn't make you want to die? A living situation with slightly less chaos? Start there. 6. Stop consuming self-help content for a while. Seriously. It's making you feel like the problem is your mindset, which sends you into loops of self-blame. You need practical problem-solving, not more frameworks about beliefs, mindsets, and courage. All the self-help/mindset stuff has real value, but only once you have a stable base. It can't fix anything at this point. The goal right now isn't to find your purpose. It's to find enough safety that your brain and being can come back online. Everything else will naturally flow after that. Feel free to answer these questions here or in a DM and I'll try to be of some help if this path resonates with you.

I don't think this is landing. Behavioral and psychological interventions aren't sufficient to solve this. They are minor adjuncts at best. A personal story to illustrate: When I was about 19, I moved to Florida with my girlfriend and we were staying at my dad's - a precarious situation to say the least. Living on his house boat in a canal where the owners didn't even want the boat, an alcoholic girlfriend, and no vehicle to get around. But, I figured there was more opportunity in the Florida Keys than my small hometown (3k population). I had no skills so I got a job at the Albertsons grocery store in Key West. This was a horrible fit because I was very introverted and probably ASD Level 1, so the whole experience was very destabilizing. I did acclimate within about 2 weeks, but it was a horrible fit structurally. After about 6 weeks, my GF couldn't stand the precariousness and left to go back home, which was soul crushing, but I weathered the storm. She actually dropped me off at Albertsons on her way to the airport - I had to walk through those doors as she was leaving. After a few months of working at Albertsons full-time and only making about $400/wk, I just couldn't take stocking frozen food into the freezers anymore. I was suffering. Then, one day, I went out to eat my lunch and was thinking about how much I hated it all. I decided that I couldn't live like that anymore and I just straight up walked to the bus station and went home. The next day, my dad noticed I wasn't at work and asked me what I was doing. He teared up with fear when I told him I wasn't working at Albertsons anymore. He asked me "What are we going to do?" and I replied "I don't know". Later that week, he was at the convenience store and ran into an acquaintance (Bobby) who had a small construction business, and he asked him if he had a spot for me. He said yes and I started working construction. From the outside, it seemed like I was lazy because I quit my job, but I wasn't lazy at all. In fact, when I moved to construction, everyone was constantly impressed with my work ethic, so much that they felt lucky to have found me. I can't tell you how many times I heard people talking and saying things like "That Joshy is a good worker". When I looked "lazy", I was actually pathless and overloaded. When I had a trade, structure, and stability, suddenly I was the "hard-working guy". I lucked into a much better fit, and from there, had safety. Without that safety, I wouldn't be where I am now - working for myself, doing things I don't mind doing. Had my dad never ran into Bobby, I'd have been stuck with "I don't know" and no path. The same place OP is now. If you've never been stuck like this or have forgotten what it's like, suggesting "mindset shifts" is borderline gaslighting. Behavioral and psychological interventions are insufficient for solving structural misfit under survival threat. You don't self-help your way out of a burning building. Safety isn't a nice-to-have adjunct. It's the biological springboard. And what is safe for one person may not be for another.

My dad was always creating enemies. Always thinking someone was plotting against him. He built these stories in his head and turned people into enemies. He was constructing the entire thing. He thought people were sitting around thinking about him and how to get him. I always had to tell him, "dad, these people are not sitting around thinking about you. Do you really think they're sitting around in their favorite chair, spending their time thinking about how to fuck you over?" Over the years, he came to realize the absurdity of his enemy creation and is much more peaceful now that he doesn't do it anymore. You create enemies because you're getting something from it. It's about self-worth and emotional pain. There are certain insights or facts that you can use to show you the entire enemy creation thing you're doing doesn't make logical sense. You can deconstruct the entire thing relatively easily if you want to. Just ask.

Christmas offers time off from work, decompression, and a sense of belonging and connection rather than striving. Receiving gifts makes people feel good and cared for. People in general are in better moods during the holiday season. I’ll take it.

Because if you chase a dream with a known failure rate of +99.99%, you can easily screw your life up. “Acknowledging” risk isn’t the same as mitigating it. My version of mitigation would look something like: work your ass off for 5-10 years - saving as much money as you can - and work on your craft as a hobby during those 5-10 years, then shoot for the stars.

I should have mentioned I'm working off an intuitive hypothesis here, which is the beliefs are symptoms of instability, not the root cause of it. Lazy people don't buy courses, don't make multiple forum posts, don't keep wrestling with being stuck. Lazy people disengage. OP is doing the opposite. Over-engaging, flailing, trying everything. The motivation is there. Something else is blocking movement. The standard frame says effort is available if you choose it. OP's experience contradicts that - they try but it don't work. They have no alternative explanation for the gap, so they think: "I must be defective". They've diagnosed themselves as lazy because it's the only explanation they can come up with to explain their resistance. Also, They've been told so many times they're lazy that they believe it. But their actions contradict the label. They're acting like someone who wants out badly but can't find the exit. This intuition led me to believe they’re stuck due to fear of not knowing how to find a viable way out. If I'm right, It's not a matter of beliefs/mindset so much as it is practical advice and forming a safe trajectory they trust. Not mentioning this upfront could have caused some confusion, haha.

@Natasha Tori Maru My argument is simply: If I'm right that legitimate fear is causing immobilization, before they can act, they need to be able to see a viable path forward that resolves the fear - not by addressing it directly, but by clarity of a safe trajectory. That's my theory. Without that, fear locks up the system and no amount of willpower, courage, or perspective reframing can unblock it. It can be mitigated to some extent with mindset, but it's not guaranteed and mileage varies. Sometimes, the obstacle is external and real, and treating it as mindset problem is wrong, counter-productive, and even harmful. Yes, that is what it looks like after the engine is running. Anyway, good talk! 😁

No formal diagnosis needed. Chronic fear is a normal response to chronically unsafe conditions. If your situation is unstable and precarious with no safety net and no clear path forward, chronic fear is the correct signal - your nervous system is working as it was designed. It is "normal operation" to freeze and shutdown when risk is high and every visible move looks unsafe. That's what all organisms do. 😂 I understand this chronic fear we're speaking of because I lived with it for many years. The problem was financial uncertainty - ambient fear was always present. The only way for the fear to lift, aside from actually making the money, was knowing I could solve the problem. Having a workable path to the solution. But I wasn't immobile because my circumstances were different. I had a bit of runway and I had high self-efficacy. Without those, I likely would have been paralyzed myself. Courage = fear + belief that I can handle it (self-efficacy). Without self-efficacy, courage is just desperation. Not everyone has courage, or can have it without considerable self-development. Some of us get lucky. Telling someone without self-efficacy to "have courage" is like telling someone without legs to just stand up. 😂 For real. I agree to a degree. But perspective adoption doesn't work like plug and play. You have to first have the circumstances to discover them, and just hearing about them or contemplating them isn't enough to plug them in. The problem with "it's all perspective" is it assumes you can mindset your way through anything. Which is flattering when your structure is already fine because you get to take credit for your ability to rise above. "Don't complain about digging this ditch for 10 hours at $12/hr bro, it's all a matter of perspective!" Perspective is a nice thing to have after you've solved the problem. Not as useful when you're drowning in the chaos.

@Natasha Tori Maru I agree that addressing the fear directly would just be more destabilizing. I'm thinking OP feels like "My life conditions don’t support long-term stability" and there's chronic background threats, an unstable foundation, and behavioral freeze. My intuition is that the immobilization is fear-driven. I'm suggesting they find a credible path forward. They need a visible, workable path that leads from where they are now to some version of security. Once that path is visible, the fear loses its grip and they'll be able to move. I can't say what all will go into that, but no amount of inspiration or mental gymnastics or reframing is going to work without addressing the actual real-world problems. OP needs actual answers as to how to move forward. The questions I initially asked could identify some of the blockers, which could inform a strategy for getting the answers to construct a path. Basically, they need clarity of trajectory that maps cleanly onto reality to unfreeze, is what I'm thinking. As long as they're stuck in the "I'm lazy or broken" frame, they can't see the structural problem because they're using that to answer the question of "why am I not moving?". If the problem is your character, there's no structure to examine, no blockers to identify, no path to build. The only path available from this frame is "try harder" or wallow in shame, which perpetuates the loop of immobilization. Your example of acting despite fear - that works when there's a clear action to take. But what about chronic fear with no obvious action? Which I think is the case here.

Ah yes, a "nuanced reasonable person". 😝 I was referring to a specific situation where fear has a grip. The order is correct for the vast majority of people. Also, you don't use passion. It uses you. It's emergent. You discover it when you pay attention to what you're drawn to. So IDK how you can "use" it to push you through anything. It's not like caffeine. lol You can't use passion like how you can use inspiration. I think these two are often confused. It's like: Safety -> Curiosity/Inspiration -> Repetition -> Competence -> Meaning -> Passion. Telling OP to find their passion is like someone who inherited a house telling a renter "just focus on what brings you joy, money isn't everything." Easy to say when shelter isn't consuming your bandwidth. I made this point elsewhere: No one comes out the gate passionate about Excel spreadsheets or accounting. It's only after they get good at it that they form a passion for it. Maybe a lot of confusion comes from us using different definitions for passion: Passion as appetite: strong positive feeling toward something Passion as devotion: compulsive drive toward mastery in a domain I'm using #2 only. If someone says "I have a passion for travel". They're talking about #1. As much as "passion" is a topic around here, I feel like it needs deep contemplation.

First and foremost, money buys security, freedom, and optionality. There is intense fear that these things won't come. If that fear is the dominant signal (which I intuit it is), engaging in something one enjoys does nothing but distract from that fear as it accumulates in the background. The pressure mounts and mounts. Calling them lazy, telling them to suck it up, or telling them to find their passion, does not address the fear! Nothing else matters as long as the belief that there is no way out persists. Fear says "you need security NOW" Security requires sustained effort over time Sustained effort requires some degree of psychological stability Psychological stability is impossible while fear dominates So fear prevents the very action that would resolve it "Find your passion" or "suck it up" does not pick this lock. They only distract, guilt-trip, and shame. The solution is to remove the blockers preventing one from realizing they can do something about the fear - realizing there is a way out. Once they see there is a way out - a credible pathway with a clear sequence of actions that leads from here to security - only then can they move. The correct order is: Safety -> Stability -> Passion -> Mastery Not: Passion -> Grind -> Success -> Safety lol

True, this is a common blocker. But some can't muster the energy to figure out if or why they should walk the 70 miles. They don't know that the 70 miles is even the right thing to do. They have other blockers. Energy levels is a big one. OP mentioned sleep problems in another thread. Running on fumes makes everything much more difficult.

You talkin to me bruh?

Lazy would be "I don't care about improving my life". Since you want to improve, you're not lazy. You're dealing with a structural problem. What is so hard about working hard? Are other things using up all your energy? Are you stuck in indecision? Do you fear committing to a specific path due to uncertainty or FOMO? Are you too distracted with other things you feel compelled to do? There's a reason or reasons for your resistance. All you have to do is find out what they are, then restructure. Restructuring takes time. You will have to endure an acclimation phase. Accept that, given your current structure, motivation and willpower will only come AFTER you gain momentum, not before. But they will come, so long as you restructure. There is no mind trick to solve your problem. No special alignment trick. You gotta remove the blockers.

It's risky as hell bro. Biggest risk is lost time you can't get back and wasted effort on acquiring skills you can't easily market. Thousands of hours invested in something that does nothing to pay the bills. This is the most common outcome. Proper support would be to account for risk. The hardest thing for artists is they have to spend years or decades making bets that their efforts will eventually pay off, and for the vast majority, they never do. That's just the reality. I'm not saying it's unlikely, reality is. Also, energy turns to shit when you don’t get reality feedback relatively quickly and often. This is a huge psychological cost that is never acknowledged. Can you really just push through for 5 years without reality feedback that what you're doing is working? You can, but the longer the feedback loop, the stronger your financial and psychological grounding needs to be. Ignore this at your own peril. My point assumes you care about not wasting time. If you don't care about wasted time, then maybe the risk drops significantly.

Too risky without massive talent in making music. And even then, still too risky. Even with massive skill, without capital, you’d need a lot of luck with exposure.

I have no reason to believe there's a lobby or a chooser. I don't think death is a state you'll ever be in. All I've ever known is consciousness, so I suspect experience just continues, though not through any soul progression or anything like that.