Who here has poor impulse control?

Shit man, I could've written this. I agree 100%. Life can be extremely mundane, especially as you get older.
There really isn't much to look forward to if you don't have a significant other. Maybe birthdays with friends and family, but if they have S.O.s
Then they're usually busy with them, especially if they have kids.
So that leaves one with a lot of time on their hands, and with today's world with so much distraction and stimulation.
I understand why most people become drug addicts or internet users and pmo addicts.
The internet has kind of taken the mystery and the "oohs & ahhs" out of life.
It's hard not to feel disconnected and numb to it all

 

I can speak for myself. Addictive personality stems from some traits like shyness, introversion, low self-esteem. Hello, this is who I am. Another factor is lack of succees or lonliness that result from the traits mentioned above.

As for depression, try to feel and notice your moods. They actually fluctuate. A low followed by a high which is followed by another low. Nothing is permanent. But there are ways to shorten the duration of depression - a nap, a walk, gratitude (this one is hard when one is depressed - but it's crucial), setting daily goals and "celebrating" them by giving yourself a pat on the back.

 

I know that feeling. It's frustrating. But I believe (which may not be true) they have a delayed effect. Not sure how long the low would last if I didn't do them.

 

My approach is always the same - set some goals and divide them into smaller ones if necessary. For me, currently it's learning Spanish, tidying my room, doing some exercise (I want to lose 5 kg). Do some things despite the friction but do them every day. I want to look at the periods of my worst depression and think to myself: I wasn't at my worst but I managed to draw / learn coding / learn a foreign language / read 10 news books etc. But it's me. I've been always afraid of wasting my life and being a failure.

 

My impulse control is terrible, runs in the family. My dad's side all struggle with smoking and alcohol addictions, and my mum said she lost a lot of her relatives to drugs. My younger brother is severely autistic and non-verbal and it seems to be present on both sides of my family. My hometown has the highest drug death in Europe among other things, and the area I was raised in had a life expectancy of around 45 at one point. But my great-grandmother outlived all her children and died at 90 two days ago. Never drank, smoked, or did any drugs. I hope to do the same and by cutting all the poison out of my life like porn I can be the person I wish to be. I refuse to go near alcohol too knowing the effects it has on the body and brain.

 

Internet addiction too has affected my brain in god knows what ways. Had it not been for the lockdown, I would have been a much more happy and functional person. But instead, I missed out on two years of my life. Only started to recover after being prescribed medication. It became a literal nightmare and I lost interest in everything. Only aimed for short-term dopamine since I was exhausted both mentally and physically. And when students came to school we were years behind. I hadn't gotten any help with my maths learning difficulty so I was stuck doing primary school level maths in the bottom set. Everyone I know is perpetually online and constantly miserable. Gen Z has zero impulse control, even before the lockdowns. Social media like Tik Tok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter with spoonfed algorithms that crush attention spans and rot your brain. And junk foods, vapes, learning gaps. Discipline is the most valuable skill and virtue a person can have.

 

The drug problem here is rife, unsure how a tiny country can produce statistics like that. Outdoing a continent of a billion with a crappy little city under 150k pop. is beyond a joke. Drugs are the worst example of addiction and rightfully deserve to be tabooed. Unsure how the same doesn't apply to porn and alcohol, probably because companies can profit without facing backlash.

If you're tempted to spend on certain stuff, think of its long-term value and why you want it in the first place. I used to love video game collecting but found that rather than playing the games, I would put them on the shelf, forget about them then go onto finding the next 'rare' game. Don't give into consumerism.

 

It's called the Glasgow Effect, Scotland has always been the industrial center of the British Empire and lagged behind in all respects as a result. Everything from health both physical and mental, life expectancy, education, social mobility, etc is lower than what it is down south. The government wants to disillusion themselves that it's some sort of socialist progressive hipster utopia but really most folks are living on the poverty line in crappy schemes with very few life opportunities. I'm a big advocate for Scottish independence but not under our current government, they're all a bunch of out-of-touch bourgeoisie twats that profit off false promises at the expense of deprived communities.

With video games, I'm switching over to a PC to save money. Screw paying £90 for a single game. FIFA chavs buy the same game over and over again full price, baffles me. Adding games onto an endless backlog list is not healthy nor fun.

 

Scottish Independence could have worked 10 years ago, but not now. Doubt many people would even register it as a possibility nowadays. But the whole country seems to revolve around Central Belt anyways so it makes no difference what I say.

Paid £80 for Demon Souls on release, but never got past the first boss. Absolute ripoff considering I paid £600 for the console itself. Few exclusives too. Modern video games are a complete scam. Mainstream media is poison.

 

Being an industrial center doesn’t make you poor, it is the most reliable way for an economy to become advanced. It happened to all the advanced economies of today, you can see with Korea and china that it happens very quickly, those who didn’t go through this process are only rich because they are servicing these kinds of economies.

There is usually a short window of opportunity while the country still has a low labour cost and high birth rate, if a country doesn’t manage to clim up the value added chain and diversify their economy before it close they are going to be caught in the so called middle income trap.