Troubling Signs of a Surreptitious Trend — Not Making up Our Minds

At some point, we’ve all seen the five-billionth google search pop up offering free iPhones or the Mistplay ad boasting we can make a living by playing its games.

At least for an instant, we’ve all taken those fantasies seriously. Who wouldn’t want to reap benefits without actually working for it?

Acting on such whims occasionally is harmless.

It’s a different story if we commit ourselves to making something work without putting in enough effort. Here are three good examples:

(Literally) Cutting Corners in Our Diets

Unsatisfied with our bodies but also not dedicated enough to work our bulges off, we often choose to restrict our diets. Done primarily by eating less.

Better be one strip of bacon instead of two, half a slice of cheese instead of a whole slice and no ketchup instead of any.

Seeing that we’re doing something, we are content. That is, before we start to always feel hungry.

We’d try to reason with ourselves:

Three fourths of one slice of cheese is less than one, right?

*chews guilty* *stomach gurgles*

Nine tenths is still less than one, right?

*chews more guiltily* *stomach gurgles*

Nineteen twentieths is still less than one, right?

*chews very guiltily* …

Meals become tortuous mental marathons, all the while our bodies remain pretty much the same.

We didn’t put in enough work, so we got nothing.

Watching Tasty Recipes Without Trying Them

With their straightforward, time-efficient and visually-appealing cooking tutorials, Tasty’s videos appeal to everybody.

There’s no harm in watching them for entertainment purposes.

But if self-taught cooks were to binge watch Tasty’s videos without getting their hands dirty, if they were to give themselves the illusion they’re pursuing their dreams, all they can possibly achieve is to waste a lot of time.

Memorizing Trivia to Appear Educated

Ater watching Jeopardy!, some of us are tempted to recite random facts to appear educated.

If we really do have vast amounts of knowledge, happening to recall trivia would be a side product.

The reverse — memorizing irrelevant information to learn — isn’t doable. A good education is less about knowing and more about applying.

I admit, we can impress future in-laws by knowing a lot of trivia. Yet with the amount of effort we’d have to put in, it’s not worth it.

The Solution? Make Up Our Minds

Deep in our hearts, we must’ve known that such actions don’t help us at all, but we spend time on them all the same.

Our mistake lies in our attempt to serve two masters. We want to change, but also not change. We’re equally dedicated to both.

Shown evidently in the three examples, we can’t stay in our current predicament. Our self-deception brings on the onslaught of the worst of both worlds. We reap neither benefits by changing nor the benefits of not changing.

We must reach a decision. We can list the reasons for each alternative and see which sways us more.

If we find we’re more inclined to change, we must seek the correct way to initiate changes. To lose weight, we need meal plans and workouts; to learn to cook, we need to actually cook; to be more educated, we need to learn properly.

If we find we’re not motivated enough to make changes, we maintain the status quo. There’s no shame in that. Without a good reason, it’s natural we don’t take action. Let us find comfort in knowing that just the attempt of making changes indicates we’re better versions of who we are yesterday. And the day we lash out with no hesitation? It’s bound to come.