I'm 32

July 5th, 2026

Oh wow it has been a bit. I think about this website pretty often, but I haven't updated it in a while obviously. I've been pretty hooked on instant gratification, but also I bounce around between hobbies in such short periods of time. This was definitely a fulfilling one though, so I do wanna get back on the train. But what has pushed me to actually hop on here to update it this time is my birthday was last week, June 27th, and I turned 32, 2 to the 5th power. I love my birthday, and I love checking in with myself periodically, and a new Johm year is the perfect time to check in with myself. So that's what I'm gonna do here, in this relatively public setting.

So I've been in such a weird state recently. It's hard to pin down what exactly I'm feeling, because that bounces so drastically between days but also feelings are hard to describe sometimes. When I started this website, I had just had a medication change so I was HIGHLY emotionally disregulated. I was working on improving myself in spite of that, but the severity of the mental instability ruined my life for a period of time. I'm back on the tried-and-true medication combination that I've been on for years now, so I'm back to my regular chemical balance, but I'm still working on the day-to-day. And I know that all comes in waves and progress isn't linear, but progress has kinda been non-existent recently.

The main thing that has been holding back my progress, at least in my opinion, has been dependant I have been on dopaminergic activity. The main two offenders of this have been YouTube, like it has been for me for the past 20 years, and Hinge. I just go to YouTube so reflexively that before I even notice I'm on the website I am locked in and watching a video or a short or something. Hinge has been a new addition in the past few weeks, and this has got me looking at my phone SO MUCH MORE than I have been for a very long time. A little bit ago I made a new Instagram account for my friends to send Reels to so I wasn't getting notifications for them and I could make the intentional decision to look at them which successfully kept me off my phone, but Hinge has rehooked me on it. My screentime nearly doubled my first full week using Hinge. But I will say, even if I'm not using my phone, I'm still using my laptop, so the screen addiction is still a problem.

There's a guy I found on YouTube named Jose Briones. (I know I'm talking about how YouTube is a huge problem for me, but part of the reason why it is such a problem is because it DOES give me good and useful information. Sometimes.) Jose Briones makes content about digital minimalism and reducing these distractions, and I recently starting following his Substack titled Moving Offline. His YouTube content is primarily reviews of modern dumb phones, one of which I did buy and use for a few months before switching back when I was touring apartments in preparation to move, but on his Substack he talks about how a dumb phone is not the true solution. If you just take the phone away without adjusting the habits, you're not truly solving the problem. So in my case, if I use a dumb phone or if I use a smart phone but only have an hour of screen time per day, it doesn't change the fact that I'm addicted to my laptop and addicted to YouTube.

So Johm, you may be asking, why are you rambling about this right now? Isn't this your birthday reflection post? To answer that, I will simply say that I don't know, and that I just started typing and ended up here. I talk about this a lot without taking the action necessary to truly address it. But during this year where I am 32 years old, I do want to address it. I want to be able to focus on how good long-term gratification feels. It feels so good to sit and meditate every day. It feels so good to read a book that inspires me. It feels so good to use that inspiration to move my life forward in a new direction. I talk about self-improvement so much to my friends, but I genuinely do not feel like I truly self improve nearly enough. There is likely a level of it that is just having too high of a standard for myself, but I just want to be the best person I can possibly be.

I spent a long period of my life wanting to be special by NOT being able to do things. I wanted to get attention by someone feeling bad for me and wanting to help me. Probably some childhood whatever thing. But probably when I was around 25 I realized that it is SO MUCH COOLER to be able to do anything and everything I want. I have made a number of decisions to stop being scared of something (like when I decided I wasn't afraid of heights anymore so I could start rock climbing), or to start liking something (like mushrooms and spicy food). This realization has defined my life since then. I've always had some level of perfectionism in that I wanted to be great at everything I did, but I never wanted to do the work to truly be the best. I believe that part of the reason for this is I have been hooked on the dopamine hit associated with scrolling through YouTube since 2006. It wasn't the same in the early days of the website, but nonetheless I think the option to have something easy and mindless like watching a video took the drive to improve away. The combination of wanting attention by needing help and always having an easier activity at my fingertips stunted my potential from a young age. If I could go back in time and nip that in the bud I would, but I would never have the opportunity to do that, and I have wasted so much mental energy wishing I could.

So 32. Right now. 8 days in. No better time than now to start working on myself. I talk to my therapist regularly about the "I don't wannas", the thought that passes through my brain any time a high-ish effort but good-for-me task appears and I don't wanna do it, and how succumbing to these IS a dopamine hit as well. So one of the instant gratification things I want to get rid of are these. The IDWs in tandem with YouTube are keeping me away from being the person I want to be, and the person I have been in the past. So this year, starting now, I'm gonna cut them out. I'm gonna use them as a sign that I should be doing whatever they are telling me not to do. I have the power to do this. The IDWs keep me down in so many areas, another notable one is with weightloss. I don't wanna not eat this snack, so I eat it. I don't wanna exercise, so I don't. Then I look at a picture of myself and feel terrible. And I don't do anything about it. But it stops at 32. I can do it. I know I can.

I made mention of Hinge as well. It's a tougher one to cut off because honestly I do experience a decent bit of romantic loneliness. But the solution I talked about with my therapist is blocking it off my phone most of the day, and deliberately setting aside time to use it. The key to this is resisting the urge to turn off the blocker when it is on. Also to try and hang out with the people I meet on there ASAP instead of waiting and just chatting on this app. I've got a ramble about how online dating is essentially scrolling through YouTube or Netflix or your Steam library or whatever to decide on the perfect thing to watch/play, but instead of media it is humans. That feels fucked up to me, but my therapist pointed out that I know what I want out of a relationship, and this is a tool to use to get there.

So in conclusion, there are a few things I want to cut out. The most important one I think is the IDWs. They won't go away, but I will just stop listening. When I do this, the positive activities I gravitate towards in the first place will come back. I believe in myself.

This was a lot. Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful day.