😓 Why We're All Feeling Trapped and Anxious

It's not just you. We're all feeling overwhelmed, trapped, and anxious—like there's no hope, no reason to try. Here's why and what to do about it. [Advice]

Hey, I just posted a new article to Reddit. Read it there or here below.

Just a quick word as to what I’m up to. For the last few weeks, I’ve been taking in and incorporating a ton of feedback received for my book. It’s now being read by a professional editor. My hope is that, by next month, it’ll be polished up, and I’ll have a proper launch.

Huge thanks to all the beta readers for the invaluable suggestions as well as the encouraging words. You guys are amazing. :)

By the way, I’m getting started on my marketing efforts. Rather than paying social-media ads, I’d rather support content creators. But I need help finding them.

Know of any artists, writers, or musicians? YouTubers, Instagrammers, or TikTokers? It can be personally, or else it could be a niche content creator you’d like to encourage and see financially supported. Let me know by replying to this email. 🤝

Ok, onto the article:

The Freedom Paradox

Photo by Damir Samatkulov.

We’re living in uncertain times. Our society is mired with issues. There’s inflation, and unaffordable housing. There’s the disappearance of good, well-paying jobs. There’s systemic inequality, inefficiency, and indifference.

So it’s normal that there’s been an uptick in people lamenting the futility of daily living on Reddit. It’s normal if you too are feeling a background refrigerator-hum of anxiety, mixed with a bleak ‘what’s the point of even trying?’ sentiment.

At its core, this is all rooted in a suffocating lack of freedom. We feel boxed in by societal expectations and norms. We feel condemned to a 40-year grind of a career—our options limited to either extremes of sedentary office work or back-breaking physical labor. We find ourselves in a meaningless rat race… which is bad enough as it is, but it’s also being worsened by societal issues, making it a struggle to even keep our heads above water as we witness others drown by the ruthlessness of it all.

It’s scary AF, so… we ‘act out’. We exert what little freedom we have. We do what we want when we want. Pitiful as it may be, our endless Redditing, YouTubing, and TikToking are acts of rebellion.

But that, of course, has a counterproductive effect. The system wants us to be good little consumers. It wants us to be distracted and docile—when we’re not frantically cramming in our work before a deadline. Procrastination is a feature of our system, not a bug.

So, how do we break out? How do we reclaim our freedom?

Restrictions.

It’s a giant paradox, but freedom is only achieved through restrictions.

My phone, for example, can run Waze, a banking app, and a few instant messaging apps. That’s about it. Because of the restrictions I set—which are impossible to remove or disable on a whim—I am precisely not free to do what I want, when I want. But by imposing such constraints, I have rendered myself free from all manipulations from Meta, TikTok, Google, Apple, and all the other tech/media companies that feed off my attention.

The same notion applies in a greater context.

By rigorously constraining my day—by blocking my email except during certain times, by using time management systems like timeboxing and the Pom-Loop method, by fixing strict do-not-disturb-me-unless-the-building’s-on-fire office hours—I am indeed imposing limitations on my freedom. But this has liberated me from the infinite whack-a-mole demands of “Shallow Work”: I am free from the impulse of checking my email 86 times a day. I am free from the need to know what’s happening with Trump at every waking moment. I am free to enter deeper, more productive, more meaningful, and more satisfying states of flow.

Ultimately, I have learned that being free is not “I want to do this and I want to do that, and—checks wrists for shackles—sweet, I can!”

Being free is “I control what I want. I control what I do. I control who I am.”

Put differently, freedom occurs when your desires and actions are aligned with your values.

You, as a well-adjusted human being, value being productive and contributing. You value focused work. You value being engaged and creative. You value stepping out of your comfort zone. You value giving much more than taking.

In short, you have a strong “work ethic,” which is simply the belief that work has value in and of itself.

The problem is that your subconscious desires have been hijacked. They are no longer oriented towards your values but towards the petty pursuit of instant gratification. Your doom-scrolling means you are made to see more ads. You seeing more ads means 'increasing shareholder value' for tech companies. And 'increasing shareholder value' means some dipshit in Palo Alto can buy a second Tesla and send their kids to private school.

In other words, your desires have been reoriented away from your values and towards the values of a few others. That’s why you are so repulsed at yourself and your behavior. That’s why you feel so utterly trapped.

Restrictions.

The way to freedom is through restrictions:

1. Cut out your damn vices. Get rid of them or else use IRON-CLAD (uninstallable, unalterable) website blockers and screen-time limits. Seriously, I’ve written an entire book predicated on the reality that our tech-vices—which provide shortcuts to survival-affirming rewards—are screwing us over royally. It's a poison-drip: we don’t notice what’s happening until it’s far too late.

2. Get a therapist. Now that you’ve cut yourself off from your vices—off the things you’ve been using and abusing to escape from reality—you’re bound for a torrent of repressed negative emotions and sensations. Expect days or even weeks of pain and discomfort. As I’ve written here before, you need to expect to feel worse before feeling better. Step 1 is not a mere “dopamine detox.” Don’t be that Keto dieter who jumps on a bandwagon trend without bothering to understand the intricacies of what they are doing, the impending consequences, and the required support system.

3. Wait. Just be. Seriously. All of us here on this sub are constantly being told to fix this and try that. We put so much pressure and expectation on ourselves it’s unreal. Good habits are good. Self-care is essential. Positive mindsets are key… but none of that should happen through force or coercion. Let yourself be. Let your desires gradually and naturally reorient themselves towards your values. Don't force it.

4. Plan—but don't expect. When you’re feeling motivated and primed to take sustained action, plan out your time as best you can. Set barriers and boundaries. Be clear about what you should do and when—but be careful not to set expectations. Expectations, when unmet with an equal measure of motivation (aka the *capacity—*not the will—to be productive), leads to stress and frustration, which leads to a need for relief through vices, which leads to an undoing of all your progress.

...

Just remember, by embracing restrictions, you can reclaim your freedom. You can realign your desires and actions with your deeper values, enabling you to live a more meaningful and fulfilled life. This journey requires commitment, understanding, support, and a willingness to endure the discomfort that comes with real change. But the reward—a life lived true to oneself—is immeasurably worth it.

All the best,

Simon ㋛

If you found this at all helpful, please take a second to upvote and/or comment on Reddit. ✌️