Why did I buy so many books that I never feel like opening it ?

This article is prompted by what happened to me in a normal morning last year. One day, sitting on the floor, looking at the bookshelf in front of me, I suddenly wondered what was wrong with me: there were hundreds of books in the shelf  that I wanted to read at the time I saw it but never opened the cover of almost all the books. Am I crazy? Maybe not. Do I love shopping? Nah. The more I thought, the more curious I was. 

So I searched my question on Internet and happily found out that I am not alone. Many people share the same problem with me and complained about it-- "I need more willpower to keep reading books", "I have so many books rotting in the shelf because I do not have time to read", "my neighbor so noisy that I can not concentrate on reading".  Everybody seemed to know what is the problem , but nobody knew how to solve it. I didn't know it too, so i just forgot it. This problem stays with me and keeps cursing me not only in terms of reading but also everything such as playing guitar or playing tennis I tried to learn and tackle.

I recently read a new book named 你的生命有什么可能, written by a Chinese writer named 古典. I knew this author by reading another book named 拆掉思维里的墙. I actually finished this book after i bought it, which is amazing. I like this book for the new way it proposes to perceive our daily life. In the new book, he claims that being interested in anything is not inborn but cultivated. Some people are not born to love playing guitar, reading book, or playing tennis but instead learned to love it. This is important to me, since it means that instead of trying to maintain my desire to read, I should cultivate my own passion for it.

Flow

Then how should I cultivate my passion, by watering it everyday? Maybe. By doing what you want everyday, you create a habit that helps you keep doing it. Another thing to notice is the ideal relationship named "flow" between the challenge of work and your skill. According to Wikipedia, "flow, also known as zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity." 

Now, looking back at my problem, I think buying too many books itself is the problem, since I bought so many books I want to read that I am choked by my interest. The solution will be buy a book once at a time and finish it before i buy another one. This is a easier mission to complete and therefore helping my passion for the book to grow day by day, since I am still a noob in reading.

Of course, this is not scientifically supported, and i welcome any discussion and debate over it. If you have any idea about anything, please let me know in the comment. Thank you.

Why do I automatically compare myself to peers when it hurts

I have long been used to comparing to my schoolmates in terms of many aspects, from the score of last math test to how physical appearance. The feeling of being superb is enjoyable, while the feeling of being inferior is unendurable. I think this is familiar for everybody. We can never control ourselves from comparing with others, especially peers and people near us.


Why Compare

But why do we do it? Considering the how comparison tortures us when we feel inferior, and how it leads to bad results when people keep up with the Joneses, I doubt the meaning of comparing with each other. However, I understand that every trait of humans descends from ancient time with us for a reason. In other words, if human beings are keen on comparing, it always means that such behavior has its reason for existing.

The comic strip named Keeping up with Joneses 

Biologically, the reason is obvious, since comparison reminds you of what you need to survive in the nature when you see that your friends who know more about hunting lead a better life. This pushes you to improve hunting skill so that you can catch up. When you are extraordinary, comparison makes you happier and more motivated to spend even more time on hunting. This is just a extempore theory pops in my mind, but it partly explain the benefit of comparison.

But now we live in 21st century, our brain fails catch up the rapid change of environment, and we sometimes do something for a reason that no longer exist in our society. I do not need to know about music to survive in the society, but I still automatically compare myself with my friends who are good at playing piano and guitar.


What Should We Do

Knowing the why comparison happens does solve the problem, i need to know how to deal with it when it happens, since i am not likely to stop it. According to "Should You Compare Yourself to Others?", we need to understand the benefit of comparison to utilize it properly. The articles suggests "a healthy comparison is looking at great work and analyzing its parts". You learn from comparison and therefore find out the potential of human beings. That is why sometimes comparison will be inspiring. Knowing how Einstein proposed his famous theory in his 20s when he was just nobody in a small patent office can make people who dream of making a new discovery in science.

Nonetheless, there are still a lot to learn more about the mechanism of comparison. It is a double-edged sword, and whether you can benefit from it depends on how you use it.

Good luck, have fun.

Why do I spend more time on game when I am busier?

Life Out of Control

This weekday I had 3 blog analyses due on Thursday, a history test on Friday morning, a community leader application due on Friday afternoon, and a blog due before Friday midnight. So with so many works waiting for me, I chose to play League of Legends, a computer game, on Wednesday evening until 9 pm.

As a student who cares about his grade, I find it a mystery that I almost screwed my academic life by indulging myself in meaningless battle on Internet. Actually, this was not my first time to do such ridiculous thing. I decided to find out what happened to me on the Wednesday night.


Brain under stress

I first tried to understand why I did it by recalling the night on Wednesday. I just finished my dinner and was so full. Siting on my chair in front of the desk and staring on the history textbook, I suddenly felt the revulsion to read it and wanted to do something else. Being so ambivalent, my mind was finally blown up by the contradiction and decided to give up thinking to do whatever I want. Then I chose to play computer game.

An article on Time.com about decision making argues that “It's counterintuitive, but under stress we tend to focus more on the rewards than on the risks of any decision”. An experiment referred in this article was designed to study the impact of stress on decision making by stimulating similar situation. 


Researchers found out that males are more inclined to take risk and make a faster decision, while females always react oppositely and make decision more slowly. Now I know that I played game because I am so stressful that my brain chose the most favorable one and refused to consider the consequence of the choice.

Time to Hack the Mind

However, instead of blaming the mechanism of brain evolved from ancient time, I want to figure out some ways to counter it. So here comes a problem: How? There are a lot of suggestions online about how to make tough decision under pressure. Here is one that I found on Forbes.com:

1.      First, Frame The Question (by asking 4 questions)

2.      Find Your Answers

3.      Evaluate Your Answers And/Or Decisions

4.      Apply Your Decision

Actually, this does not work for me, since I could not even finish step 1 before I quitted. I found a much more helpful suggestion from a Chinese question-and-answer website called Zhihu in which the most voted answer points out that when you choose to play game, you don’t really need it, since playing game will only make you more exhausted. 


On the other hand, it recommends that “do not blame yourself for being self-indulgent.” Seemingly counterintuitive, it is based on the truth that people have limited energy and willpower. Instead of solving the problem, blaming yourself and feeling guilty, indeed, increase your stress and therefore the possibility of failing next time. The ultimate solution is to love yourself, which means to admit your limitation as a human being and to forgive yourself. Make sure this does not mean to indulge yourself, and you should follow your own principles.

Additionally, when I am hungry and tired, I don’t want to study any more. So before you are about to tackle your paper or test, make sure you have enough energy to go through the hell.


Stop blaming. Love yourself. Eat enough. Sleep enough. Enjoy hacking your brain.