I've been feeling this way for quite some time now. I honestly don't feel like chasing a career, competing with people, or constantly pushing myself to do things I don't even want to do.

Sometimes I just imagine living alone in a small house somewhere in the mountains, surrounded by nature, playing games, doing basic things to get by, and just living peacefully without worrying about a hundred different things all the time.

I know life doesn't work that way easily, and you still need money to survive, but I really wish there was a way to live without all this constant pressure and struggle.

I'm curious if there are other people who feel the same way. What are you guys doing with your lives? Have any of you found a way to live more peacefully without following the usual path?

I'd genuinely like to connect with people who understand this feeling. Maybe we could even make a small group where we can talk about these things and share ideas.

For a long time, I’ve been struggling with addictions and bad habits that were really self-destructive. I’ve also noticed a pattern: every time I tried to stop one of these addictions or bad habits, another one was intensified by a big factor. I kept running in circles, trying different solutions, only to find myself back where I started, or sometimes in an even worse place. The only thing that really seemed to be effective was doing nothing.

Three years ago, I was at the peak of my tobacco addiction. I would roll really strong tobacco and, many times, smoke without a filter. Seeing where I had gotten myself, I decided it was time to stop. Of course, it wasn’t easy. Many times, when a trigger happened, I got a really strong physical sensation that I needed to smoke again. This sensation never actually stopped, it just became more and more manageable. I realized that the sensation only went away when I was really focused on other things, but when I was bored, stressed, or even excited, it would come back. As I struggled through it, I became really addicted to porn, social media, and web surfing, to the point where I thought I would be unemployed if I kept moving in that direction. Those bad habits came in handy when quitting tobacco because they completely stopped that annoying physical sensation of uneasiness and craving.

Honestly, quitting porn, social media, and web surfing was harder than quitting tobacco. I mostly don’t do it anymore, but there are still days when I find myself losing an hour because someone sent me a link to Instagram or YouTube and I kept browsing and searching for more until I realized I was doing it all over again. I also realized that the craving for social media, porn, etc. was the same one I felt when I stopped smoking.

When I stopped porn, I became completely addicted to short-form social media content. When I stopped social media, I either relapsed to porn or lost hours of my day searching for random stuff on the internet. When I convinced myself to stop that as well, I would lose hours ruminating on my own thoughts or watching movies and anime.

But I wanted to stop it all, not to be productive, but to live a more deliberate life, where if I was doing an activity, it was because I had actually chosen to do so.

I only felt I was starting to regain control over my life, and to stop being caught in the cycle of consumption, when I began following the strategy of doing nothing. I made a rule: when I needed to do something important, it was okay to do nothing first. By doing nothing, I mean no thinking, no technology, just contemplating the things around me. What happened was that in about 15 minutes, and most of the time even less, I got too bored and started doing what I had deliberately planned to do. Doing this consistently made me stop feeling overwhelmed, led to a simpler life, and finally made me feel in control of my actions.

Sorry for the long text, hopefully, this will help someone else.

*****These are my own thoughts, written by me (in this day and age, unfortunately I feel the need to state this ) and not by any machine or online prescence (yes, depsite my use of hyphens).

What is self-actualisation, really?

What if it's not about the modern capitalist ideal? Not about being the thinnest, the fittest with the six pack and"glass skin" or owning the latest tech, with a perfect family, six figure business that experiences substantial yearly growth? blah blah blah

What if it's deeper? What if it's about honesty?

What if it's about doing the tough work of dealing with your traumas? Understanding why you are the way you are, what drives you, why you experience the relationship dynamics that you do, why you have your insecurities, understanding how people work on a basic level, stripping it all back to the raw wood, and then learning to overcome it - to stop resisting things that you enjoy, stop trying to be someone else, stop maintaining those relationships that are one-sided but you've guilted yourself into maintaining, stop pretending to be interested in things you aren't, things that you have tried multiple times and secretly feel ashamed that you don't like them in the way others do but you try because society tells you to.

Maybe you watch soccer because you're a man and your friends like it but deep down you don't really care about it. Just stop and tell yourself "that's ok" and allow yourself to say "actually, soccer bores me and I want to bang my head against the table whilst watching it".

Maybe you're naturally short and stocky - stop trying to become a sprinter. Or maybe you're tall and slim - stop trying to become a beefcake, and embrace being healthy and slender. By the way, most hollywood "beefcakes" are not ultra tall, and cannot in the long term maintain that beefcake condition you see in the movies anyway without maintaining an impossible and detrimental routine. Accept your biology, and then embrace it.

The classics - oh you'll read them one day of course, you say? You just need to find the time, you say. You've started Wuthering Heights but you couldn't quite get into it and you're waiting for the good part to kick off. Let's face it, you don't like them really do you? Don't read them, stop lying to yourself.

Deep down, you're not really interested in that degree that sounded so fancy - drop it (really, you're wasting time fooling yourself).

But that's not it. Go further. Dabble in various philosophies. Learn about different ways of living. Find what you agree with and what you don't. Find what works for you.

Feel guilty because you didn't go to the gym? Don't. No one went to the gym for the first 315000 years of humanity - they've only been going the last 50. Why is the gym so important? Similar for getting your nails done, your eyelashes, your Uber Eats order, and your Netflix subscription.

Maybe you've arranged to go out for seafood on the weekend, somewhere fancy. Sounds nice, right? But according to whom? Is it because you're craving seabass with a side of asparagus and steamed rice? Or is it because you've had it repeatedly hammered into you that seafood is fancy and scarce, and worth spending 2-3 times as much on. But if you're honest with yourself - you want the burger, or the noodles...

It's a rant, and some of the examples I gave might sound quite random. But in my perspective, many people seem to be going through life on autopilot. I'd encourage everyone to just take a step back and break things down to the basics. For me, this is an integral part of the simple life.

EDIT: Just to mention that the examples I've mentioned are meant to be exactly that - examples, to give a more concrete idea of what I'm talking about here. I'm not criticising any individual interests like soccer, or classic literature, nor Netflix etc. etc. (some of which I enjoy myself).

There's a cracked pane of glass in my place. It's been like that for about a year now. It hasn't spread, it hasn't fallen out, it still does its job, so it just sits on the list of things I'll get to eventually, and somehow a year goes by.

Not the leak, not the lock. The small stuff. At this point it's just part of the room. Ten minutes and a tube of sealant would probably sort it, and nothing gets bought or thrown out, which is maybe why it never feels urgent.

So what's yours, and did you ever actually fix it?

How do simple living people view retirement accounts, like IRAs and 401ks? Avoid them altogether, keep them modest? I think I sometimes get so afraid about the future that I forget to live in the present.