How hard does your brain fight being influenced daily
Humans are easily motivated and even more easily demotivated as well. With motivation comes the urge to do something. And that something is usually an urge to buy something — also called impulse buying.
Just FYI, am just another human trying to make it through life. The only difference is the enlightenment I had with minimalism last year. It all started from the popular NetFlix series — The Minimalists: Less Is Now. Ever since that show, I have followed countless channels on youtube and have never stopped learning about this way of life after that day.
But we all watch things on a daily basis. Then why did this thing stick on? Well, my opinion, is that it is more than entertainment but a solution to all our life's problems. The urge to be something or buy something under the influence. The show teaches you, it's okay to be normal. It tells you that it’s perfect to be imperfect. And the best of all it teaches you to invest in experiences.
After a long time today, I was browsing randomly after work and found this sudden urge to do something. I am a big fan of bikes and have always wanted a super cool bike. So I started searching for the best bikes. It didn’t take me long to understand that most of the good-looking ones are far from affordable. Any bike I buy will need me to apply for a loan and pay huge interest to the bank. The next task was to find a decent affordable one, but with a daily commute in mind. So mileage. Then it hit me that petrol prices are going high and with any new bike comes road tax and insurance costs too. Insurance is a yearly game too. So the mind shifted to — then why not buy an electric bike? The looks, omg, are disgusting. But I still went searching for them. With that came, charging times, long travel battery issues FOMO, booking periods so on and so forth. After 2 hours of wasted time on research, I realized it was not worth it.
And that is when it strikes me, I spent so much time on something which I will hardly ever use. I mean, am a software engineer and travel has never been a big part of my day. Then why am I investing in this?
You see, getting influenced is a big part of our daily lives. We are bombarded with so many advertisements and so many technical details of things we don’t even need that the mind is easily confused. If you open Youtube or Instagram today you will see people dressed up in colorful clothes with beautiful backgrounds, jumping around, riding bikes, and whatnot. In one shot, all you can wonder is damn! I wish I had a life like that.
Whenever you have an urge, just think about this — I will buy “this” if I can come up with a solution other than this. And with that, I leave you with this final realization of mine for today — A bike is to travel through the journey of your life. Your journey is what is important.
