I'm still not fully accepting this "hard work" and effort thing

[Dioxide2533]

On 12/28/2025 at 9:04 PM, Leo Gura said:

It is a profound mistake to want things to be easy.

I don't see how one can make the decision to change what he wants.
Subconscious reprogramming or similar self-help stuff for this purpose hasn't worked for me at least.

IMO if one is not the ambitious type, only choice left is to learn to live with less. Spiritual bypassing and all that.
And to keep an open mind for the rare times something comes easy.

[Hello from Russia]

@Lyubov Do you guys really eat fries with ketchup in America?

[Natasha Tori Maru]

The thing is - OP cannot think their way out of a problem the thinking mind created.

The one thing possibly not tried is to just act, and asses internal change following action. 

Not try to internally change and then act. 

You need to act out, do the thing. Execute. Physically. In reality. The internal change will follow. 

Trust and surrender.

I was taught the method of Kaizen (Japanese Dad):

The core idea behind Kaizen for personal development is that making tiny, consistent improvements helps bypass the brain's "fight-or-flight" fear response that often derails large, overwhelming changes. By focusing on a single, almost trivial, action, you build momentum and gradually form lasting habits, with the cumulative effect leading to significant transformations over time. 

I have always used this method to slowly build momentum out of a funk.

Edited 10 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Just do some shit. Don't get influenced and distracted by other people anywhere offline or online (including this place), subtly manipulating your perceiption of how hard work and progress should look like, what you should and shouldn't do, should and shouldn't think etc. if you trully wanted to achieve something you'd just do some shit towards achieving it every day, of course the issue is that you don't probably really want it, or the perceived effort isn't really worth it, or the idea of having that thing was implanted into your mind by outside influence so it's not really authentic to you. In such case, it is understandable to not really do shit as trying to achieve something you don't really even want is kind of gae

[Joshe]

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. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Joshe This is why I said they need a trained professional. 

Taking action toward small, positive outcomes is not dangerous. It builds momentum. 

[Eskilon]

1 hour ago, Joshe said:

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. 

Theres also the assumption that this person is somewhat ambitious and like doing crazy efforts to accomplish things. Meaning he is the achiever archetype. But this might not be the case.

So far people in this thread have been projecting their achiever pesonality into the OP. Which is quite common overall here tbh, people think effort and ambition is king and people need to conform to this. 

I think Op needs to find if he is ambitious or not( in the traditional sense that he cant live with himself if he doesnt constantly move his mind or his hands towards some goal or title). Tbh I think he isnt and he should study psychology and investigate himself more.

Edited 7 hours ago by Eskilon

[blankisomeone]

6 hours ago, Joshe said:

@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. 

These are good questions. Thanks. I'll think about them.

I think normally I tend towards being slightly more ambitious than average which isn't perhaps saying much. Just struggling and fearful atm. Been feeling a lot of anxiety. Trying to just get up out of bed and face the day, as thinking too much before acting amps up anxiety even more.

When I look into my future I cannot see a clear way out of my situation. If feels like the same path will continue forever. So I've been trying to drop thinking too much about the future. Sometimes I feel suicidal and the furthest into the future I can bear to think about is 10 minutes. I'm not feeling suicidal at the moment. It's been a week or two since my last intense feelings.

I'm slowly building more trust with my coworkers and more opportunities for having fun with them are coming up. Today I had my first real laugh with them which felt really nice and made me feel a bit more safe. I guess if we're able to build a better social atmosphere we'll be able to tolerate keeping the job for a bit longer.

But yeah anyways, just really trying to get my anxiety levels down and I think a better income would help me a bit. I've been saving up and filled out spreadsheets with my expenses. Quite sad to look at Lol. But Joshe's questions sound helpful and I'll think about them.

And yeah I guess thinking about what my "passion" is just literally doesn't work when I'm depressed. "Having a deep passion" sounds ridiculous when you've been feeling chronically depressed and anxious and all you need is a decent survival strategy for some breathing room.

I'm tired

Edited 6 hours ago by blankisomeone

[Joshe]

3 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

This is why I said they need a trained professional. 

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. 

3 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Taking action toward small, positive outcomes is not dangerous. It builds momentum. 

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. 

Edited 5 hours ago by Joshe

[Joshe]

@Eskilon Good point! 

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

 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Joshe action of any kind.

Just having a shower.

Just brushing teeth. 

5 minute walk around the block. 

Engaging physically with reality in any way possible. In the smallest, tiniest ways.

Read OPs reply - they are immobilised and bogged down because of THINKING. Thinking is contributing. Any mechanical action is showing the brain that things can be accomplished even if tiny. This is the rewiring. You change the brain from 'i achieved nothing today' to 'I took care of my body, even if nothing else'. 

The beliefs about 'too hard' don't change with thinking - they change when you physically do something in reality and the brain rewires itself. You essentially teach yourself how to operate through leveraging this in built mechanism. 

A baby learns to walk through just doing and trying again and again and practicing. One wobbly step one day. Maybe two the next. Baby doesn't think. Baby isn't thinking about one day paying bills and needing money for car payments. Ridiculously thinking too far on the future. The future doesn't even exist! Yet.

OP is caught up in some future of big achievements and the weight of it all. THAT is the mind state. The brain gives up and asks 'why, what's the point?' because nothing was done toward this goals. It's not seeing how goals are going to be achieved. Brain doesn't need a huge path outlining the whole future toward being a millionaire. It just needs small actions that accumilate. AND COURAGE TO TAKE THESE SMALL STEPS IN THE FACE OF FEAR. Taking action toward ANYTHING acts as the feedback to change beliefs. Goals are achieved through millions of tiny baby steps. Brain goes 'oh, okay. That wasn't that bad' 

Millions of tiny actions. Just 2 minutes of breathing. Just one moment to wipe a bench. It translates to actions and execution. Before you know it, execution is reflexive and the energy to activate it is lowered. Body moves. Body does. 

The body and movement. It is smarter than the brain. 

Edited 5 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Therapy and medication are beautiful assets available to lower the activation energy to execute. Until we can do this on our own, without aid.

Edited 5 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[blankisomeone]

1 hour ago, Joshe said:

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.

This sounds correct to me

[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. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Joshe

[Joshe]

10 minutes ago, blankisomeone said:

This sounds correct to me

Yeah, and the cruel irony of it is repeated effort without relief teaches the nervous system effort is dangerous because it leads to dissapointment and depletion. So over time, the brain learns avoidance. 

The biggest lie of self-help: that internal work is sufficient to change external circumstances.

Self-help says: fix the inside and the outside will follow. Reality says: secure the outside first, and the inside will calm down on its own.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

@Natasha Tori Maru 

If this were an inertia problem, how do you explain all the action OP is already taking? 

You seem to be resisting the chronic threat part. 

Not resisting the chronic issue - suggesting professional help. Chemical imbalance is what needs to be considered.

Unless you are happy to claim you are equipped to deal with suicide, depression and suicidal ideation? Which is the context here. 

I am saying if the issue is that bad, there could possibly be a neurotransmitter issue/imbalance or serious psychiatric issue at play.