Why Consistency is Not Consistent in Our Lives

"Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most." – Abraham Lincoln

Akrasia 

In what ways were you a victim to it this month? 01/2024   01/2025

We often write the previous year for at least one full month before we knock ourselves in the head that one more year is indeed past us. This means we are still living in our past patterns. Sometimes it's an honest mistake, other times it's a lack of will to change. Or when you don't care enough to change.

By the way, Akrasia is the state of acting against your better judgment. It's when you know what you should be doing but you do something else instead.

Why? Because in the past when we did those things, it made us feel good. You know, we almost always forget about the after effect, the consequence, because if it was a negative experience and our brain, essentially being a deletion device, likes to stick to the good stuff and get rid of the negative.

Like the time you ate a mint choco-chip ice cream at 11:15 pm. Your brain collected and stored the memory of having a good time with your peers while you ate it and tossed out the part where you had a brain-freeze and couldn't sleep all night. 

Why? Because you replayed the good part so many times that it left an imprint - like your name scratched so deep on the back of your school desk that it never erases. Etched for life, am I right?

We've become so accustomed to making our experiences as good as possible RIGHT NOW that we've actually forgotten what it means to delay gratification. Waiting nd pausing before you give-in has become such a foreign concept. 

Let's take a little peek into why this actually happens. There are 2 Yous:

1. Today You
2. Tomorrow You

Today You wants to optimise for immediate pleasure, perhaps sacrificing only a teeny slice of effort for tomorrow's sake. Since this effort is minimal, it doesn't actually move the needle as one may have hoped.

Which means, Tomorrow You wakes up to an overwhelming bundle of backlog. It's stressful, so you pass it to the Next You to handle. This game of passing the parcel becomes endless.

Every You is Proactive to push the burden forward and Pro-avoidant in creating any real strategy to address it.

The justification? "Why should I take on the load? There's nothing at stake for me except missing out on today's pleasures." This is just Pure Self-interest at work.

The 50th version of You? That future self is too distant to feel real, which means it's pointless to make any sacrifices for it today. ‘Who knows if there will even be any fruits of this labor!’

Once again, it's classic short-term thinking.

The most (and simultaneously least) that Today You does is imagine an ideal Future You. The vision is temporarily motivating until... you notice everyone else focused on their immediate needs. And as they say, you are an average of those around you.

Your tribe becomes your vibe - their dreams seep into yours, their priorities become your default settings.

And there goes the dream again, out the window. For the hundredth time.

But patterns aren’t prison bars. They can be broken, mended, and changed. It can be frustrating to hear that "you just have to do a few things differently and you're there" - it sounds too simple, almost dismissive. But it’s the essence of change. 

And essence, as you Pro-Bakers may know, is poured in the least quantity yet manages to become the whole crux of the crust. 

All in all, don’t just do things for Today You; do them for all the Yous to come.

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