The Puer Aeternus, known as the "eternal boy" in modern times. Described as an individual having immense potential and talent, with big goals and dreams. But like most great and wonderful things, they have some critical flaws. The flaws being that they are indecisive, and fear that the "wrong" decision means they lose something that could've been great. But ironically, they struggle to make much progress because they worry about whether they are doing things right, or whether they are making the "right" choice, instead of actually doing the damn things they are trying to do.
Why is this Puer Aeternus the topic of today's blog? Well, I recently realized that I myself am a Puer Aeternus.
I often find myself starting something new—full of excitement and mystery—and spend countless hours and nights working on it. I scour forums, articles, guides, and consume as much information to spend hours optimizing the process to as efficient as possible with the activity. I feel in control of everything—since I am choosing to optimize—and I have the most efficient process/workflow to make the most progress in a short amount of time so I am productive and fulfilled right?
Well fast forward a few weeks, and just thinking about doing that "exciting" thing fills my heart with frozen lead, and I start forming a very thin layer of perspiration on my skin (I seriously do :/ ). I desperately look for something to do or consume to take my mind off of it. Days, weeks, and months go by, avoiding the once "mysterious" and "obsession" filled activity. But out of nowhere, a little spark goes off inside of me. And I start reaching out to that activity again. That spark turns into a flame and I feel that excitement all over again. I am unstoppable for another week or two, but of course, I go back to to the corner of my room, shivering in a cold sweat at the simple thought of doing it again.
An example of this is me doing AJATT. I began AJATT on September 24, 2024 along with my friend, Safri who already started for a short while. A core part of AJATT is doing your flashcards in Anki everyday, doing your best to miss as few days as possible. Along with that is immersing in native Japanese content (like anime :P) with Japanese subtitles only or no subtitles at all for hours everyday(up to 18 hours a day).
Want to know how many days of Anki I have done out of the ~720 days? 41%. 41% of 2 years is roughly 300 days. And my immersion time is in the ballpark of 125 active hours total with about 100 passive hours. If you look at my heatmap in Anki, there are 2-4 week periods of my reviews being completed without fail, and also up to 10 week stretches with 0 reviews done.
Why is that?
Well it can be many factors, like depression or anxiety, exhaustion, "discipline", etc etc. One thing I do know however, is that the idea of committing to something for the long term (10,000 hours of immersion is considered the goal where people reach fluency in Japanese) stresses me. Makes me anxious to the point of paralyzation.
I am filled with thoughts of regret, "man I could've been fluent by now if I wasn't lazy", or thoughts of uncertainty, "is this even worth it? It will take me a few years just to be fluent, not even native level. I can do so many other things in that time. What if this is the wrong decision?" and ultimately, like the Puer Aeternus, I am doomed with having little progress to show since I spent most of that time worrying about doing AJATT instead of actually doing AJATT or optimizing the workflow without ever using the damn workflow, which amplify the effect of those negative thought rabbit holes that I go down.
This turns into a downward spiral of self-deprecating thoughts. And it certainly affects my daily life to a noticable degree.
In therapy recently, I discovered REBT—Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, created by Albert Ellis—which is the practice of challenging those negative thoughts with evidence and facts, and then to reshape those thoughts into positive or at the very least neutral ones.
A guide that I found for this process is the Three Minute Exercise which has 6 simple steps which can be remembered as "ABCDEF":
Of course, the steps are simple and easy to remember, but they aren't easy to do. In fact, its very difficult in the beginning to remember to do this exercise in the event of unproductive thoughts. But, like all exercises, you progressively overload. And the more you do it, the faster you become at doing it without even consciously thinking about doing the exercise.
So, how does this exercise apply to one's issues? Let's use my AJATT activity as the example.
The (A)ctivating experience that made me feel an unproductive thought would be:
These thoughts would then lead to the irrational (B)elief of:
The (C)onsequence of this irrational belief is:
The (D)isputing of this irrational belief would be:
Some reasons for those questions would be:
The (E)ffective new thinking/answer that came from the previous questions would then be:
And lastly, the new (F)eeling or behaviour that comes as a result from disputing that irrational thought can be:
To be honest, this was me disputing an irrational thought and feeling that I was having for the past few days. Although I did feel all those emotions in the beginning, after thinking about it with logic and evidence, I realize now that I don't NEED to do all those things, I would PREFER to make quick progress but nothing in this universe says that I "MUST" be fluent in 2 years (out of the ~3-5+ years). I would rather enjoy this activity than burn out of it and that means moving at my own pace, not someone else's pace just because they became fluent faster.
Life isn't a race and you aren't competing against other people, especially ones you don't even know. Comparing yourself or your progress to theirs will only bring problems and disregard the valid and real progress you already made. Instead of that, just try to be present in the moment and enjoy the experience because you want to do it or because you can do it.
When I first started, I couldn't even remember what A or B stood for. But again, this is a win—although not a huge or small win—and that is more progress made than before.
This isn't easy, at all. But it is simple and it is one method to try out for thoughts or feelings that can cause issues with one's daily life, like mine. I recommend trying this out for a few weeks or months (unfortunately, it takes time and effort to get the benefits) and seeing if it helps. I still have a long journey ahead of me with integrating this REBT exercise in my life to the point of benefit. But again, it isn't a MUST that I have to fully master this process in 1 day. Its a slow process, so I will just be present and experience things for what they are.
If it doesn't help, remember, you still learned something valuable. Maybe REBT isn't a suitable solution or technique for you. But that isn't a waste of time or the "wrong" decision. Finding out what you don't like can be just as important as finding out what you do like, since you will know in the future what works and doesn't work(my friend Safri told me that :D).
This is my first "proper" blog and it definitely has a lot of issues, but I am proud of it because it is progress :3. I hope you have learned something or at the very least found this intriguing, take care of yourself stranger :3 <3