Have you produced a list of examples (no matter how small) where how much you enjoyed an activity changed?
Veering into potentially dangerous advice: It may be easier to weaken an existing preference, than to construct a new one. If you feel one preference is overshadowing other (existing) preferences, then weakening the dominant preference may make the other preferences more likely to be expressed. The danger is that you weaken one preference, but other preferences don’t up-regulate themselves as a result.
An example:
I felt that I was spending too much time reading low-quality news and link aggregation (so reddit and NYT style websites). In contrast to your example, I wouldn’t say that I particularly enjoyed this over other activities; instead, I think these media sources were hijiacking some sort of ancestral instinct (e.g. few people actually like “click-bait” titles, but most people feel drawn to click anyway).
Using willpower worked a bit. What worked equally well was consciously criticizing the material I wanted to spend less time reading, noting that the information wasn’t causing me to change my beliefs, and (more than I would like to admit) reading the low-quality comments and developing the feeling of “I don’t want to be like these people”. This didn’t feel good, but after I was able to bring my activity to a more normal level, my preferences adjusted themselves such that I naturally wanted to do other things (and enjoyed them more) relative my earlier preferences.
I’m not sure if this is a good approach. Certainly, many people have reported that they have unintentionally destroyed their ability to enjoy something. For example, a bad work environment, stress, or insecurity can all destroy the enjoyment you take in your career.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind weakening the preference for video games. There have been strange times in the past (before I targeted video games as this much of a detriment) where I’d start to think of playing a game as me sitting infront of a screen wasting time slapping buttons to move pixels way with zero reward outside of some kind of immediate psychological masturbation that’s 100% useless outside of the context of the game itself.
If you can believe it, my immediate reaction was akin to someone thinking of something immoral: “No, no. Don’t think that way—it’s wrong.”
It’s a thought I’ve been purposely cultivating now. Maybe not as harshly, but I want to use it as a tool.
Have you produced a list of examples (no matter how small) where how much you enjoyed an activity changed?
Veering into potentially dangerous advice: It may be easier to weaken an existing preference, than to construct a new one. If you feel one preference is overshadowing other (existing) preferences, then weakening the dominant preference may make the other preferences more likely to be expressed. The danger is that you weaken one preference, but other preferences don’t up-regulate themselves as a result.
An example:
I felt that I was spending too much time reading low-quality news and link aggregation (so reddit and NYT style websites). In contrast to your example, I wouldn’t say that I particularly enjoyed this over other activities; instead, I think these media sources were hijiacking some sort of ancestral instinct (e.g. few people actually like “click-bait” titles, but most people feel drawn to click anyway).
Using willpower worked a bit. What worked equally well was consciously criticizing the material I wanted to spend less time reading, noting that the information wasn’t causing me to change my beliefs, and (more than I would like to admit) reading the low-quality comments and developing the feeling of “I don’t want to be like these people”. This didn’t feel good, but after I was able to bring my activity to a more normal level, my preferences adjusted themselves such that I naturally wanted to do other things (and enjoyed them more) relative my earlier preferences.
I’m not sure if this is a good approach. Certainly, many people have reported that they have unintentionally destroyed their ability to enjoy something. For example, a bad work environment, stress, or insecurity can all destroy the enjoyment you take in your career.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind weakening the preference for video games. There have been strange times in the past (before I targeted video games as this much of a detriment) where I’d start to think of playing a game as me sitting infront of a screen wasting time slapping buttons to move pixels way with zero reward outside of some kind of immediate psychological masturbation that’s 100% useless outside of the context of the game itself.
If you can believe it, my immediate reaction was akin to someone thinking of something immoral: “No, no. Don’t think that way—it’s wrong.”
It’s a thought I’ve been purposely cultivating now. Maybe not as harshly, but I want to use it as a tool.