(2026apr24) \/copes\/ is emerging as an important central node on my blog. Relevant blogs include…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These aren’t all the posts, but I’m putting them here to look at them a certain way, to see if they spark some realization for me in a way that makes it work out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(2025jan14) now updating the list to include everything in reverse order:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to be further updated and consolidated<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2731 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
trying to reduce reliance on a cope (cigarettes, screentime, etc) is very difficult. it gets much easier if you define an outcome that you’d like to inhabit, and focus on that. eg if you focus on wanting to get fit, run a 5k, etc you’ll likely find yourself smoking less as you progress.
similarly something like “I should spend less time on twitter” rarely ever works, I keep hearing from people beating themselves up over this. when i ask them “why do you wanna do that?” they often have vague answers. a strong answer will displace the cope. focus on what you want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(I expanded on this in a substack note a while ago…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2731 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
it’s very rare that you actually need to have a focus on reducing X in order to increase Y. i’d go so far as to say that people often overfixate on reducing X *at the expense of increasing Y*. you end up seeing people impose all sorts of weird self-flagellate-y restrictions…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
someone once DM’d me about wanting to be less overanalytical. n i’m like… why? “because it’s getting in the way of my life”. how? what does that mean? articulate it. precisely, what specific things are you not doing, bc of your overanalysis? prioritize the actual thing u want<\/p>\n\n\n\n
someone else said, “i want to spend less time doomscrolling”. it’s the same thing. what do you actually want? until you articulate something you actually want, doomscrolling will win! if it were as easy as “stop doing X” everyone would’ve done it by now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
i went looking for a transcript of a chat i had with a friend about something similar the interesting thing to me is how people will… when they don’t have clarity about their goals, will often switch to “taskmaster mode”, and get mad at themselves about little imperfections<\/p>\n\n\n\n
imho, generally speaking, the problem with most people isn’t what they’re doing wrong, but what they’re not doing right someone out there is doing everything you’re doing wrong, 10x worse, harder, and still way more successful and happy despite it because they’re doing Y right<\/p>\n\n\n\n
suppose you listen to podcasts 4 hours a day and you feel like shit about it somewhere out there is a guy who listens to podcasts 6-8 hours a day, and somehow has a great life (ish? maybe?) despite it i’m not saying you should be like the second guy, but he’s worth considering<\/p>\n\n\n\n
text I sent the doomscrolling friend: “if you 2x’d your output on the thing that mattered the most to you, you wouldn’t mind scrolling 8 hours a day” in his case he’s a writer, so i’m asking him to consider how it would feel to write a 2x better essay than anything he’s done<\/p>\n\n\n\n
problem is that people get so acclimated to their circumstances that they struggle to imagine big wins and so they end up nickel-and-diming all the little fucken nonsense that doesn’t really matter, and then feel doubly shitty for it<\/p>\n\n\n\n