Who am I?

I am writing this today because I didn’t start my day on my phone.

For years now, media has been hijacking my brain and I’ve been dopamine juicing with it like a junkie, begging for another little hit just to keep me from feeling the depression under the surface. I’ve done social media fasts, and they felt great, but like a diet, after I reached my goal, I went back to my old lifestyle.

Today felt different. I left my phone in the living room and struggled with not having it before I fell asleep. All sorts of ideas came to me that suggested I needed my phone, and like a patient loving parent, I said “no, dear.” When I woke up this morning, I felt tired and cranky, actually kind of depressed and miserable, but I also felt this awareness of my life slipping through my fingers, an awareness that I had been masking routinely with stimulation.

With just a night of no distractions, I was able to sit on the discomfort, the sadness and the pain within my body over the lost years of my life spent on daily addictive avoidant behavior. I asked myself, “Who am I? Am I this guy who wallows in self-pity, who gives up before it’s too late, who begs for someone to come along to save him? Am I the sad creature who shuts down and avails himself of the social safety net or his family just to persist while my soul is buried miles deep?”

Yesterday a friend mentioned that my testosterone at the age of 40 is probably half of what it was at the age of 20. That means that I don’t have the natural drive that I did then. In order to get motivated, to release the dopamine necessary to act, I have to stimulate it manually by exercise, cold showers, intermittent fasting, etc. I have to commit to systems of behavior just to get the energy necessary to overcome my emotional blockades and roller-coasters.

Last night, shortly before bed, I watched a video in my living room about 15 things I can do to have a healthy brain. Number 1 was aerobic exercise. Number 2 was consistent sleep. I watched the whole list and took notes to implement everything he talked about, but it starts with the basics. I watched another video about how to reduce symptoms of ADHD, which is related to insufficient dopamine production, and many of the same items were mentioned from the list. But the larger message in this video was about our modern culture driving behaviors that constantly drain our dopamine — phones and food snacking. Fasting from both forms of short quick stimulants allows the dopamine to replenish in the body so that the executive function has more power to act.

So, tossing in bed this morning, all I could think about was how I need to set my body up for success, and how I want this change to be permanent. So I said goodbye to the old me, sadly, grieving him, and I committed myself to my new identity.

I am someone who leaves his phone in the other room at night.

Check.

I am someone who exercises the first moment he gets out of bed in the morning.

Check.

I am someone who gets up consistently at the same time and takes power naps if needed later in the day.

I am someone who doesn’t browse for entertainment or stimulants, ever.

I am someone who journals, who meditates, who sits quietly to know himself, who writes essays to publish — check, writes books, writes movies, writes music, who doesn’t call people just to chat, who seeks out his desires carefully and methodically, who follows through with those things that are important to him.

I exercised for 40 minutes, took a cold shower, and wrote this essay.

Will I be the rest of who I say I am? Will I be consistent with this new sense of identity?

I am going to live into that question for the rest of my life.