Recently, I can’t help but feel I may be addicted to short-term pleasure. I check my phone first thing upon waking up, scroll social media compulsively throughout the day, and generally try to avoid feeling even a moment of boredom. I started to hear rumors of “dopamine addiction” flying around online forums, and the possibility that I was suffering from it really scared me. Doctors are warning against an excess of all my favorite daily vices – sugar, social media, TV, sex, and drugs. Those are like, my top five things! Luckily, I decided it’s all a matter of perspective. Here’s how I reframed my dopamine addiction as just freakin’ loving’ my goddamn little life.
After all, one man’s dopamine addiction is another man’s livin’ la vida loca!
It’s important to remember that life is about the little things, like experiencing pleasure every day all the time for as long as you live. Not many people understand this, but I do. Whereas someone else might advise you against snorting a line of cocaine, liking every single one of your coworkers instagram posts, and binge watching seven seasons of Mad Men in a single night, I say that’s just one of the ways I’ve built a legit baller lifestyle.
Next thing you know, they’ll be telling you not to wipe your own ass or sleep with your phone taped to your face so it shows up in your dreams. Yeah…right…
A “medical professional” might tell you that consuming straight sugar for every single meal is unhealthy, but that guy just doesn’t get how I’m doing it. I’m not “struggling with an addiction to a neurotransmitter that dulls pain sensations and increases pleasure”; I’m eating ice cream at 10am because I freakin’ love what I’ve got going on! And no, I’m not the “immediate gratification type”; I just know how to take life by the balls and squeeze. Does that sound like a positive thing? No time to overthink it – there are posts to view!
Where some see a dopamine addiction, I see a balanced life. Sure, it’s balanced between meaningless sex, constant social media input, and enough sugar to kill a small-to-medium sized wild animal, but I get all of those in equal measure, which is what’s important.
So if you, like me, are struggling with the demands of daily life and burying that in a pleasure-inducing, rat-pushing-a-lever-style routine, don’t let them shame you. Smoke a cig, eat some candy, and get back out there, player. You and me? We’re never gonna die!
