The tax of cheap pleasures

I would have wanted to be lost in the work.

But I caved in to cheap pleasures.

And so I let the day go by, rolling over the bed—in and out of consciousness, then out of the bed but still mentally hollow—allowing myself to be consumed by nothing in particular but everything that goes through my social media feeds.

I chose to surrender agency, becoming a slave to whatever the algorithm decided to serve my finite attention.

I did not feel energized even after a day of doing nothing in particular. The laziness just sucked the energy out of me, leaving me demotivated, weak, and empty. It was totally the opposite of what the “do nothing” idea advertised. I was fooled, or maybe I fooled myself.

Why did I choose this, knowing what I know?

For cheap pleasures, I traded the energy that could have carried me into the work, and the finished work, and the fulfillment that comes from it.