Stagnation

You know when you’re just thinking about life and you suddenly get all these ideas of how you want to live that seem so unattainable? And you get the idea that you want to start so many different things at once, but you just don’t know what to do first or where to begin? And so you kind of sit there like damn, I’m so stuck here. I want to do all these huge things right now but in reality, I’m sitting in my room on a Tuesday afternoon alone and what I really should be thinking about are the four tests I have this week. There is no change in sight.

This happens to me quite often.

The feeling of stagnation makes me feel really down about myself. It makes me feel like I’m not living up to my fullest potential. I don’t know if this is something other people struggle with, but in my opinion, I believe that’s why so many people go crazy in small towns. They get so pent up and feel like they have nowhere to go and nothing to do, which causes them to go off the rails in their own mind because of their stagnate reality. Or maybe I’m wrong and some people really do like it. I don’t know.

In psychology, we talk about this thing called learned helplessness. It is when one is unable to avoid repeated traumatic events from which they cannot or feel like they cannot escape. For me, it’s not so much a “traumatic event” that I feel like I cannot avoid, but it’s more just the feeling of days passing by and not really doing anything substantial. This sense of hopelessness and loss of control is a really hard feeling to tackle. The part of learned helplessness that was most eye opening to me had to do with the experiment that proved learned helplessness in dogs. Seligman (a famous psychologist) conducted an experiment where he put dogs in a cage and repeatedly gave them an electric shock. The dogs would jump around, trying to get out of the cage and stop the shocks, but they could not. Eventually, the dogs stopped even trying to get out and surrendered to the knowledge that there was no way of stopping the electric shocks. The dogs developed learned helplessness. Next, Seligman opened the cage, so the dogs had a way to escape. The electric shocks repeated again, but even with a way out, the dogs did not move. They had already learned their helplessness to the situation, so even when an opportunity for escaping arose, they were blinded by the feeling of helplessness that they could not see that there was a way they could get out.

This experiment has really stuck in my mind. Often, when I think about what I want to do with my life and what I want it to look like, I have a feeling that it is an unrealistic expectation for me. I feel like there is no way I could get out of this small town where everyone is essentially forced onto the same life track and do something potentially different. And I feel so stuck. I have learned helplessness. And something that scares me is that when I do have an opportunity to escape, I won’t be able to see it.

Overall, I have realized although it is scary, it is normal to feel stagnate sometimes. I have not really figured out how to tackle it, but here are a few things I’ve picked up so far. First, write down what exactly it is you want to achieve, or whatever you are thinking about that is making you feel stuck. Then, do one small and attainable task that gets you even just a little closer to that goal. And every time you feel stagnate, come up with another small, attainable task to do. This is so important because even the smallest steps forward are still steps forward, and at least you can accomplish something that is getting you on your way. Lastly, in order to not miss opportunities to “escape” from learned helplessness, you have to constantly be challenging how you live in your current environment. And if you see any opportunity arise, take it!

Learned helplessness and stagnation can be very scary and hard feelings, but at least we are not alone, and we never truly know what the future has in store for us. We will have plenty of opportunities in the future.

– Avery