Try to turn the downside up

One of the countless times I was giving unsolicited advice to a friend, I trailed off mid-sentence. In that moment, an idea crystallised. I do that, now and then; start talking, or writing, unsure which way I’m going but thankful for an audience, enjoying the wind in my ears flying out my mouth. We were talking about feeling down – the hyper-gravity of inaction and how to break through it. Well, I was – I don’t know what they were saying, I was talking not listening. The revelation that revealed itself was how I sometimes use nihilism as a motivator.

When I’m feeling flat, uninspired and/or uninspiring, and the usual pep-talks and sources of inspiration don’t hit the mark, I reach down into the pit of despair and voice the doubt: nothing matters so what’s the point? Often, I’ll get stuck there and fall to pieces for the day, but when I keep exploring that line of questioning and turn it on itself, it helps me push through the wall of doubt. If nothing really matters, it doesn’t matter whether or not I write this article. But if it doesn’t matter, then why not just do it and see what comes of it. Maybe nothing, but equally, maybe something. If the only thing I achieve is the satisfaction of finishing something I set out to do – that’s enough.

Recently, while I was working on this website, I was agonising over making the images tiny jpegs so the pages loaded faster because the internet is hard. I could feel myself getting bogged down in the details and they began to haunt me, trick me, they were drowning me. So I reached for nihilism. What did it matter if the header image for this article was a bad scan of an average photo and had little to do with the subject at hand? It didn’t and it doesn’t. So it stands to reason the stress associated with this hangup doesn’t matter either. I had unthinkingly attributed meaning and importance to something that simply didn’t matter and it had rendered me catatonic – how ridiculous. Fortunately, nihilism was there to push me past this sticking point, and I finished uploading photos and writing this article.

Using nihilism as a motivator comes with a warning – it needs to be used for good, not evil. The most important step in using nihilism as a motivator is the final leap – the follow up questions you need to ask after you reach the ‘what’s the point’ point. When you feel your motivation flatten, use this simple 3-step guide to finding it again:

1. Take a moment to examine why you’re feeling flat

2. Ask yourself: is this a matter of life and death? And, does it really matter?

3. If the answer is no, remember that if it doesn’t matter there’s no reason to not do the thing.

Decision fatigue is a slimy slope to evil nihilism so taking time to ask why you’re not feeling it, and identifying the source of the blerg or mental quicksand, can help you push through. Because nothing really matters, especially your self-doubt.

Nihilism is the best, and the worst but ultimately, it doesn’t really matter.