I’m pretty sure that when most of us hear the word “addiction” we have a negative association with the word – even if we can use it in a tongue-in-cheek way at times, most of us realize that clinical addiction is nothing to take lightly.
That said, these 16 serious addictions are sometimes written off as necessary by society – just take a look at see whether or not you agree.
16. It’s ok to disconnect.
Being too connected to friends or social media, you don’t need to be constantly on your phone and stopping what you are doing every 5 minutes to look at your phone.
15. It’s not a crime to relax.
Being “busy”
14. Just say no.
Working extra hours for free.
The organization will gladly let you work for free but absolutely shouldn’t do it.
13. G0tta keep capitalism going.
Shopping
This addiction is actually a medically recognized addiction with it’s own name – Oniomania.
12. Live in the now.
I went dogsledding yesterday for my birthday. It was a nice zen meditative ride while someone else steered.
Dude said he would have some people browsing Instagram while on the sled. Not even posting, just browsing. Killed me a little inside since I had just brought a lil camera to record it for me, myself and I to look back on.
I didn’t even really look at my camera while on, just held it and admired the beauty around me while I hoped there was something being captured for future me. He was obviously speaking with some salty undertones about the social media addicts.
11. Why should we care?
Obsessing over celebrities’ personal lives….
I don’t give a f**k who’s dating who, who had a baby, who got divorced, etc., and I don’t understand why anyone else does.
10. We all just want it to stop.
24hr cable news.
Anyone else here old enough to remember Paul Harvey? For decades, people heard his voice on the radio and thought of him as the voice of America. He was immensely popular and was constantly courted to write newspaper columns or have a daily TV Show.
He maintained that was difficult, if not impossible, to write interesting content on a daily basis and it would lead to false content. I can’t say that he was wrong.
9. Newer is not better.
Always buying anything that is NEW! EXCITING! BETTER!
What a crock of s*%t.
8. We don’t even realize it’s happening.
Consumerism.
I recently started trying to be more mindful of how I spend random money. I didn’t realize I was buying something almost every day of the week!
And some of it is just stupid stuff! I went to the store to buy tofu for a recipe… then I left the store with $30 of crap I didn’t need AND forgot the tofu.
7. It’s actually not healthy.
Cell phones. Constantly having it nearby, checking it all the time, having to be available 24/7 in case someone tries to contact you.
As someone who has this addiction, it’s really not healthy and adds a lot of unnecessary stress to my life.
6. Mass production.
I’ve recently been going through a bit of a granola transformation and I never really got the “problem with consumerism” until now. I knew there was waste and people were just buying stuff for the dopamine hit and a lot of it is unnecessary, but I didn’t get the real problem with it.
Suddenly it dawned on me what mass production really means. We have suppliers who just make a ton of shit, not really knowing if any of it is going to be sold or if it’s going to the landfill. They get to sell off whatever quantity to retailers, who are gambling on being able to get people to buy it. But what happens when no one wants to buy it? How many products are made in the hopes that someone will be interested enough to exchange their money for that dopamine hit and a piece of plastic? What happens to all the leftovers that don’t get sold? Straight to the landfill!
Then there’s how low quality everything is. I remember this example from my childhood because my dad tried to explain it to me like this: say you have a pair of scissors, and the blades are getting dull. What do you do to rectify this situation? Well your scissors are still 99% completely functional, the blades just need to be sharpened. But who sharpens scissors? You can just head down to Walmart and get a new pair for $2, so why bother putting the effort into maintaining the perfectly good product you already own? So those 99% good scissors go straight to the landfill.
It’s a gross system we’ve built where everything has to be new, but we make so much more stuff than could even be purchased by our population to hedge our bets on who’s going to buy what. If you go out shopping now you’ll still see Christmas decorations on clearance because not enough people bought those decorations this year so they’re marked down to move them otherwise they’ll just be sent to the landfill.
I really want to live with less, but our systems are built in such a way that it’s hard to break away from it. I try to buy one good product that will last instead of cheap ones that need to be replaced but even this doesn’t seem to help because it just means that’s one less person bringing this crap into their home so it sits on the store shelf until it’s time to be dumped. It’s a systemic problem but so many people are addicted to fast shopping that it is not in the best interest of anyone to try to curb this habit.
5. They designed it that way.
Being on Social Media
It’s not entirely your fault, social media is literally designed to be as addictive as crack.
4. It’s not a competition.
Some people are addicted to comparing their lives to others when they should really strive to be the best they can be.
Trying to outperform others leads to endless frustration, but trying to outperform yourself leads to true improvement.
3. Everything in moderation.
The lotto. It’s really fun to imagine what you would do if you won. If you’re not blowing tons of money on it. That could be worth it right there.
But it’s so expensive, and your chances are like .00001 of winning something you can retire with.
2. A freeing realization.
My Facebook got “hacked” (basically phished) and they haven’t let me back in yet even though I followed Facebook’s own policies for getting access to my account again.
It’s been several days now so I was thinking, s*%t, I’m gonna have to make a new account. And then I realized… no I don’t. I don’t really miss it at all.
1. Nothing is forever.
unlimited growth
In fact, Netflix stock tanked as a result of new subscriber growth slowing. Since most Americans that would want a Netflix account already has one.
It really kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?
Let us know in the comments if you think there’s something else that belongs on this list.
