Self-control

Alright, this is gonna be a strange one. I tend to have a very strong ability to resist urges of any kind. I never have cravings (I do, but not that intensely) and sudden desires to want something. I’ve always been like this, and it wasn’t until I saw other people succumbing to these instincts that I realized it was kind of like a superpower, in a weird way.

I don’t have a budgeting tool. I don’t keep track of how much I’m spending, and yet I manage to save a lot. People are shocked by this, but it’s just because I don’t make any impulse purchases. Ever. I’ve never bought something off an ad or because it was on sale. I own very few pieces of clothing and I only replace them if something goes wrong. I’m not crazy about the latest iPhone or new electronic gizmo. I don’t buy game consoles when they release. I literally never have the urge.

So it shocks me when people say things like “I just got approved for a higher credit line! I can spend more!” or “What should I spend my tax return on?”. I’ve never had the urge to spend money on something just for the sake of spending it. Maybe I’ve somehow escaped the consumerist mind-prison that capitalism has enforced upon all of us, or I’ve just never cared enough about material possessions enough to try and make purchases like this.

It goes beyond just spending money. Mental attention is also something I seem to take a lot more seriously than most people. When I see an app send me an irrelevant notification, I immediately turn off push notifications for that app. I did that with most social media apps back in 2012 and have never had them on ever since (save for the instant messaging ones). So it comes as a shock when someone says they deleted Facebook or Instagram because they were too addicted to it. In my head, I’m always going “Well, you didn’t need to delete it, you could’ve just had them on your phone and…not…opened them.” I still have Facebook and Instagram on my phone. Notifications have been off for years, but I occasionally check them a few times a week. Apparently this just doesn’t work for a lot of people and they find themselves deleting the entire app.

And it goes into following certain people on social media too. I use Instagram primarily as a photography app, so if I ever see someone I’m following post some silly motivational quote as a post, I immediately unfollow them. This is a product where the experience is largely dictated by the people you’re following, and if you follow trash people, you will get trash content in your feed. It’s that simple. But apparently, lots of people enjoy creeping on old nemeses from high school or their exes to see what nonsense they post, and they get cheap thrills out of it. This in turn makes them feel worse about using the product, and leads them to proudly declare “Instagram is garbage! Everyone should delete it!”.

Those users might find a bunch of goofy images and silly social posts from their circles that make them feel bad about themselves, but every time I open the app, I see a feed filled with inspiring photographs from National Geographic photographers, posts from NASA’s account about what the Hubble is seeing, and wildlife or landscape photographers posting about the latest shots they took. I’m always refreshed and inspired when I open Instagram, and there’s no way I’d delete an app that does that for me.

The same goes for when something’s on sale. Black Friday, Christmas sales, or whatever it is. If I didn’t need it in the first place, I’m never going to be sold on a cheaper price. If a pair of $599 headphones drops to an incredibly low discount of just $99, I still wouldn’t buy them because I just didn’t need headphones at the time. Using the “Might as well get it now because they’re cheap” argument is a slippery slope into easily convincing yourself that you need everything that’s cheaply available due to some weird trick of market economics involving supply and demand.

So yeah, I’ve always taken this self-control for granted, but I’ve only realized how great it is when put in context of how people around me behave. Impulse purchases, feeding bad habits, and addictive loops of toxic product usage are all things that reinforce to me that having this level of self-control is actually a great thing. My friends are usually shocked by this and ask me how I do it. Honestly, I’ve never consciously thought of it. My brain has always worked like this, and I’ve always been like this. Only now have I become grateful for it.