Since day one I was a very active, let's say spirited child.
I sound like a condescending parent.
As an adult this is translated into a fierce drive
to create, and do, and put myself out there.
I take a lot of pride in saying that I have my mother's work ethic.
And that I'm willing to push harder and for longer than others around me.
That being said, lately I've been feeling way off.
I've been feeling creatively and mentally bogged down,
like I'm trying to run through mud.
I've been exploring digital minimalism quite a bit lately.
Creating limits and finding ways to curb social media and internet usage,
but I think this goes way deeper than that.
I think this is a consequence of an addiction that I have to productivity,
and never taking breaks.
We live in a world that really encourages this.
You know, when are we supposed to slow down and not be
productivity machines every once in a while.
Work is like the first thing that I think of when I wake up every day,
and it's probably the very last thing that I'm contemplating before I go to bed as well.
The problem I have is that I love what I do and
creating these videos adds a depth and sense of
meaning to my life that absolutely nothing else does.
But well-being requires
balance, you know and that's something that I seriously lack.
Recently, I got a few comments and messages on doing what is known as a 24 hour dopamine fast.
This is kind of like doing a 1-day homemade version of a vipassana retrat.
It's kind of crazy, but it intrigued me as a way to sort of break this cycle that I'm in.
Basically, you go an entire day without using the internet,
or any technology like your phone, or computer,
doing any work, exercise, sexual activity, reading, or listening to music.
I decided to make this a water fast as well,
which meant nothing but water for 24 hours.
So I decided to try it out because why not?
I feel like my whole life is a series of experiments.
My only exceptions would be to use my GoPro
as a way to sort of document thoughts in the whole process,
and my phone as a timer for when I do meditation.
All right.
It is 9:27 a.m.
I just slept for nearly 10 hours.
That is insane.
I can't even remember the last time I slept that long.
That is a long time. This is a bit of a strange sensation.
I'm pretty sure I have never done anything even similar to this in my entire life.
I've never had nothing to do all day long.
Like I said before I've always had a
strong drive to do things
and oftentimes that's just because I love learning and I love creating,
but sometimes I think it's also because of a fear that I have
of time slipping by and not doing enough.
I can already feel my thoughts racing
even though
there's nothing going on.
I'm very familiar with this feeling of pressure,
of having to start the day and get going.
And I even felt it today
even though I have absolutely nothing to do, which is very interesting,
how our patterns get set within us.
So my plan really is to, I guess, do a lot of meditation.
I'm gonna be documenting it.
But other than that,
I have no idea what I'm gonna do.
I refuse to look back on my life in old age and regret missed opportunities,
or you know a life governed by fear and doubt.
That's just not gonna happen.
However, the rhythm I'm currently living at
is unsustainable and I feel like
work can be as much of an escape as anything else.
You know, like alcohol, or gambling, or whatever.
It's an amazing way to distract yourself from other things that are going on
and I think that that is what people like Elon Musk do.
That's the only way that I can think of
for somebody to handle the amount of pressure that he's under.
Basically, with your car, with your computer,
with basically anything that you own
there's some sort of maintenance process.
You gotta take it in to get it checked, or get something fixed,
or repairs or whatever.
The thing is, I don't think we do that with ourselves anymore.
Because of the constant exposure to stimulus, and our phones, and technology, and the Internet,
it just never stops.
So I think that's kind of what this is for me today, you know.
It's like a maintenance day and it's not so much for my body,
it's for my mind. I feel like my mind is what needs it.
Because I'll give my body rest days. There's days when I don't work out or whatever,
but I just can't even remember the last time I've given my mind
a day to rest, to reset completely.
So I guess we are have to just see what happens.
So this was a personal challenge, more than anything,
to not let absolutely anything distract me,
or allow me to run from myself.
So there are a couple of other things that I am
wanting to face today as well.
The first is a fear of boredom.
I think this is something that
my generation really struggles with, in particular,
but I think we all struggle with this nowadays.
I see old people glued to technology as well, so I don't think any of us are exempt at this point.
And also this feeling of not getting enough done in a day.
You know, if I don't have a particularly productive
day where I'm focused on my work, and getting things done, and finishing projects, and whatnot,
I have this horrible feeling of
not having done enough.
You know, kind of like the day slipped through my fingers,
and I'm wondering if my priorities are
maybe not in the right place, you know.
Because it really affects me.
It has a very powerful negative effect on me that I don't like.
I want to be able to have off days,
I want to be able to not be operating at my best at all times, you know.
Basically, I want the freedom to be a human being.
I've always struggled with ending the day,
and arriving to the time when it's appropriate to go to bed.
But, not feeling like I've done enough and that horrible sinking feeling,
kind of like I'm trying to stay ahead of something,
you know, some sort of disaster or some sort of
destruction of some kind if I were to fall behind, you know, if I weren't to keep up my pace.
I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's kind of how I feel.
I'm not going to be an invincible 21-year-old forever.
Time will eventually get me,
and if my sense of self-worth is entirely dependent on what I'm capable of doing right now
I think I'm going to have to face some harsh realities eventually.
I'm gonna journal a little bit,
and then I'm gonna try an hour-long meditation session,
and then kind of go from there.
As soon as I disconnected from things at around 10:30 p.m the night before,
I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders.
The pressure that I constantly feel to keep going, and keep creating dissipated.
So, I just completed an hour-long
meditation session.
It was great.
But it's only 11:12 a.m. still,
so we're not even in the afternoon yet,
and I have no idea what I'm gonna do.
So I guess this is sort of where things really begin?
I don't know.
Today's really meant to be a very low input,
low consumption,
but also low output, low creation day. It's just a day where I'm trying to just "be".
So looking back, this was really an amazing experience.
It was very difficult to not know what to do,
but just sitting on my balcony gave me the space to think, that I rarely give myself.
I know this is going to be hard to believe, but doing that alone was actually rewarding.
You know, when I first arrived in Mexico, there was just this amazing sense of wonder and excitement.
There was so much newness,
and so much warmth, and just fantastic energy here.
And I feel like in the last few weeks I've kind of lost a little bit of that.
I've taken things a little bit more for granted.
It's been harder for me to feel grateful,
and, I don't know, I already kind of feel like it's coming back a little bit.
Just this time that I'm taking appreciating my life.
I feel like that excitement is kind of coming back a little bit. I don't know.
I could feel my mind thanking me for the permission to rest and recover,
kind of like giving water to a dying plant.
Thinking of taking a little walk in the park to reflect a little bit more. I'm pretty amazed that it's been almost,
I guess, 20 hours since I've eaten anything.
I feel completely fine.
That's kind of cool.
This is actually reminding me a lot of childhood,
because before I was a teenager, especially as a younger kid,
my life still wasn't completely on the internet,
you know connected, constantly getting updates,
notifications, like it was a different existence basically to the one that I know now.
That also feels like the last time I really felt
boredom, you know having wide expanses of time
where I could just think and imagine stuff.
Yeah...
Strange. Really strange.
I was just looking in the mirror and realizing, like I'm a young man.
You know, what happened?
Where did my childhood go? Where did my teenage years go?
I'm already like an adult.
And it's just strange sometimes to sort of realize that.
And that I'm in this stage of life now.
I'm realizing I feel insanely rested.
I don't even remember the last time I felt
this rested,
and it's amazing. I just feel very clear mentally.
I crossed paths with a friend walking over here.
We had a little conversation,
and I just felt very present to the conversation, to what he was saying,
to what I was saying.
It's really nice.
Thought about how we create schedules, and deadlines, and stress, to keep moving forward.
But for what?
At some level these are imaginary restrictions that we place on ourselves.
I say I want the freedom to screw up and to go at my pace,
and yet I don't even give myself permission to do those things.
All right, I'm gonna do
some more meditation because I got nothing else to do.
The day is getting kind of long.
I saw this coming for sure.
My first meal after the experience was just beans and rice and tortillas, but it was...
Incredible.
Between the night before, the nap that I took, and the night after, I slept something like 21 hours.
Which I mean, what does that tell you?
Also without being too cliché,
I mean, I do feel like doing this kind of thing
helped me be at least a little bit more appreciative
of some of the incredible things that we have, like unlimited access to
the world's music whenever I want it.
I want to make it abundantly clear that I am NOT a health expert in any way.
I'm just a kid on the internet.
So I'm not recommending that you do any of this without doing your own research.
I just wanted to share my experience because I found that this was very effective in helping you get back on track,
and like, recalibrating.
if you enjoyed this video,
consider subscribing for more, or you can follow me on Instagram
to keep up with some of these personal experiments that I do.
You can also support this project on Patreon,
and I think what I'm going to do is create a bonus video on there
answering some of the questions that you guys have
about this whole dopamine experiment that I did.
And finally, I have a newsletter.
Yeah.
Alright. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you guys soon!