Category: Thoughts

I’ve unknowingly conditioned myself to work better when I’m out of my home, drinking coffee and smoking.

It all started a couple of years ago, when i left work early and decided to do some work at a cafe instead of heading back home. At the cafe, I ordered a cup of long black and drank while I slaved away at my laptop. Little did I know, this was just the beginning.

When I was done with my work later that evening, I realized that I finished a lot of work in such a short time span. My mind told me, ‘it must have been the coffee, keeping me awake and focused!’ Plus when I’m not home, I actually have a reason to focus on work, since I can’t do anything else. At home, I’d just be distracted by my computer games, guitar or my bed.

After that day, I continued doing the same thing whenever I had the opportunity. Cup of coffee, cigarette and laptop open. In fact, tonight, I’m doing the same thing.

I didn’t really think about it until about 10 minutes ago when I was thinking about excuses, and why people use them and realized that I’ve been using excuses myself. Sure, I’m away from my distractions when I’m not at home – but I know people who can work from home just fine. They know how to compartmentalize their time well. Why can’t I?

I’m probably just not trying hard enough, and now, I’m a victim of conditioning. I can’t work at home at all and I take every opportunity to get out of the house if I want to work. Sure, I get my shit done, but I’m also running away from the problem of self-discipline instead of fixing it.

Just some food for thought on a Friday night.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy – I know it’s nothing special, everybody experiences it, but it was only recently I discovered its name. It’s basically a name for when you keep doing something you don’t have to or shouldn’t do because you are already invested in it.

Anyway, I noticed that it’s something I’ve been going through a lot recently. I spent a lot of money on games on Steam – and even though they were cheap (I only ever buy games on discount or in bundles), I felt the need to complete them because I had already spent money to buy them. However, not all these games are good and when I play bad games, I end up wasting my time (which could be spent playing Dota 2 instead kek). While this doesn’t happen all the time, I do finish some of these bad games, which is often a mistake. I don’t get my money back when I play them, so I have literally no reason to play a game to completion if I don’t have fun doing it.

Now I’m not saying it’s a good thing to waste money, but all this could have been avoided by being careful with my money in the first place. I’ve learnt to cut off a lot of things in life due to the limited amount of free time I have. Life’s too short to waste – so make sure you do what makes you happy.

Cigarettes are bad for your health. There’s no denying that, but if there’s one thing which I think cigarettes are great for – getting conversations going. Great conversations have started from someone asking for or offering someone a light or a stick. This little stick in your hand holds a lot of power. Sometimes it’s as simple as asking someone, “wanna go for a fag?” or saying “hey, you smoke too!”.

Maybe I’m imagining things but I think there’s some unspoken bond between smokers which makes it easy to strike up conversation. Be it talking about work, your night out, or just life in general – smoking seems to put people at ease and in a position where they can comfortably say what’s on their mind. Notice how smokes light up before they start talking about something heavy?

Smokers are also almost always nice enough to share their cigarettes with you. Even if you’re a complete brokeass stranger in a foreign land (true story).

Sure, not everybody enjoys smoking, and some people will even tell you off for doing so. But the number of people I’ve met who were annoyed by cigarettes is fewer than the number of people I’ve had great conversations with while smoking.

I’m not here to advocate smoking (do it if you want to, it’s your life) but it’s just something I’ve noticed since I picked it up.

Haven’t met many people through vaping yet, but I have received random high-fives from complete strangers which I thought was pretty weird. Nobody ever high-fived me for smoking.

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PS After a while I decided, maybe what I’ve written is just my confirmation bias, and people who don’t touch cigarettes have just as interesting conversations.

PSS Also, it feels great to have one while it’s raining outside. Something about the cold, wet, miserable weather contrasting against the warm yet cooling sensation (if you smoke menthol) in your mouth.