No one has dream-like life. Some people have figured it out and take control of majority of their problems. Others think that life is brutal and blindly fight with it every day. I am in the latter group, but slowly make my way into the first one. Let me explain.

I believe that there are two main types of issues that have impact on our lives: external and internal. Each of those can be also divided into 2 sub-groups, as you can see in the graph below. Visualising this makes it much easier to understand the next steps:

  • what is my role within the origin of the problem (should I blame myself, or was I the victim due to pure misfortune)
  • how spread is the issue (who else is affected)
  • what is my impact on the problem (is there anything that I can do to stop it or should I seek out help from someone else)

When it comes to Internal problems, I believe that that most important thing is to recognise that we have something wrong going on.

Example:

Some of us live our lives, meet new people, and after a while say goodbye to them as we move into different directions, and that is normal. We gain new friendship, but we also loose some. As time progresses, there are more and more people less engaged in the real world in favour of digital life, so having a small constant number of physical friends has become a standard. So where is the problem?

What if we notice at some point, that we have became incapable of maintaining long lasting friendships? What if even this handful of close friends is slowly melting down, and it is very hard for us to trust and engage in relationships with new ones? What if we hear yourself saying each time someone refuse to go out with us: “that is OK, I am good with myself, I rather be alone that with anyone”?

Here is the problem. Humans, as a species, evolved to be social (more or less). Our physical and mental heath depend on our interactions with others. We have a specific hormones that make us motivated and happier, when we help others and when our social group prize us – this is built in into our body and mind over the thousands of years of evolution. When we isolate ourselves, we are doing it against our nature.

Our primitive brains, which evolved before digital era, are confused and cannot understand the rapid changes that they are facing. We see, talk to and hear our friends, but they are not next to us (skype, whats up), we have sex with beautiful men/women, but there is no physical interaction (digital pornography, sex toys), we belong to a large group like minded people, but when we need them for something other than common topic of interest, we cannot count on them (various forums and groups on facebook or other platforms). The basic interactions are there, but there is always something missing, when we dig deeper. Some of the requirement for creating stronger bonds are not there.

When I was kid, I remember asking my friend to go out for a walk with me. We used to spend a lot of time together. Some days there was a lot to talk about, other days we walked in silence, only making comments when we stumbled upon something during the walk. Today I find it difficult to ask someone to go with me for a walk without a specific reason and without a time scale. Boredom is not longer welcome. When we feel like there is nothing to talk about, we reach for our phones to fill up the gap. No more silence together and no effort to find a sub-interesting subject. Conversations via messaging apps are plain and quick. Natural indicators of mood and engagement in conversation, such as tone of voice or face expressions, have been replaced with size of font or emojis read on the screen of mobile phone. Sound of a laughter, smell of the perfumes, touch of the skin and eye contacts are no longer present. Is is much easier to block a digital profile or phone number, than to have a difficult conversation face to face to understand each other and “fix the problem”. It is easy to be replaced with thousands of available digital friends.

I am not trying to play a victim here. I am guilty of all above – I realise that. My addiction to digital life started with my first mobile phone during my teenage years. This is the time when the strongest bonds are being created. When we make lifelong friends, learn how to be good boyfriend/girlfriend, when they have first intimate moments, sex, parties, trips etc. I missed most of that in favour of sending and receiving text messages with people I have had not courage to meet in the real life. My brain has developed less social skills that it normally would, and now this becomes more evident than ever.

Like a prisoner, who was released from a captivity after years of living in a closed environment, I need to re-learn how to live in a society where deep trust, intimacy, long term commitments and compromises are norm. Each new person I meet and engage with, intentionally or subconsciously, makes me aware of more of my shortcomings. There are so many things I lack, and the worst thing is that I don’t understand most of them. Sometimes it feels like living in two dimensional world and trying to visualise the concept of third dimension. It is intimidating and depressing each time I realise that I can’t, when for everyone around me it is as simple as breathing.

So here I am now. Full of doubts and fears, lonely in my own world. But I believe that there is a hope. I am aware of my demons, I don’t deny nor ignore them, and I’m willing to work on myself.