Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

I think this is a case of words are hard.

OP was asked to elaborate, and tried to put into words a state of being. It wasn't as another story of self, the previous state of having stories of the self was in the original post. This was an attempt to describe something, I am not sure language is nuanced enough to grasp it, or encompass it. I personally experience it as "inner peace" or "acceptance", very close to the core essence of philosophical Daoism or Epictetus' Stocism; I've never been able to put it into words but as another comment says:

>> The problem is that state cannot be expressed in words or cognition, because it isn't part of your mind.

Which I find to be a great way to express it.

It doesn't mean being a transcended guru or anything; for me, the more I work on myself the more I find things that are leftover relics given to me, and I work on figuring out if that idea or values are actually mine or someone else's, and if mine, are they outdated (why did something trigger it) what needs to be reworked, does it need to be reworked. If it is someone else's, do I want to keep it or discard it. Thats one of the more actionable ways I try and explain the years of inner work to get here (by here it sometimes feels like the starting line, not the finish). One day while hiking I stopped in my tracks as it hit me that I could not think of the last time I berated myself (this use to consume a lot of my time, but no one ever knew it), or was triggered into aggressivly defending my ego or tried to be something other than myself for others. I think we are told to build the outer self (protect and hide the vulenable inner), for me that was backwards, build the inner, "know thyself", and you don't need to build an outer protective shell. It's a much more "authentic" self experience, one I don't have to think about.

Of course there are bad days and negative thoughts, but compared to what it was..., its rainbows and butterflies with a couple passing rain clouds now.

As far as I know, stimulant medications for ADHD treatment act as a reuptake inhibitor for those neurotransmitters. The end result is still somewhat the same (levels become higher on stimulants, and it absolutely can help with ADHD), but I've never really seen it stated that people with ADHD have a deficiency in dopamine, just that their brain needs more of it in order to catch their interest. Presumably because dopamine disappears way too quickly even if it's a perfectly fine amount of dopamine.

As someone with ADHD, I'm constantly multitasking because one task is often not enough to keep my interest. If I do many things at once though, it's much easier for me to stay focused. To my knowledge, this is also why music helps me focus while I work.

So I believe it's not necessarily anhedonia that leads to ADHD. Sure, depression-induced anhedonia can result in executive dysfunction, but depression's not what ADHD is (even though ADHD can easily cause depression). Things can keep my interest if they are rewarding enough to overpower my brain's natural "dopamine floor", I guess. I don't mean to imply that everyone with ADHD is the same, or that this can't be a source of symptoms for others, just that I don't see how a lack of exercise would be to blame for it.

> It's well-known in recent years that myopia (shortsightedness) is predominantly caused by insufficient exposure to sunlight as a child.

I think it can also be caused by staring at nearby objects too much of the time, like computer screens. IIRC your eyeballs use the sharpness of your peripheral vision to know whether to stop growing, and if you're always staring at nearby objects, then the persistent lack of sharpness in your peripheral vision will cause your eyeball to elongate too much, resulting in myopia. I am sure sunlight also affects it, but being in sunlight also often has the side effect of being outside where there are often faraway objects to focus on, which if done regularly will also signal to your eyes that they are done growing.

> mentally pushing past the difficulty [...] can train you to do that with other things and teach you how to self-manage your symptoms with mental decisions / willpower

So far I haven't seen evidence for myself that trying harder helps. Sometimes things happen (things like trauma) that manage to keep me motivated and functional for a while, but I haven't found a working strategy to manufacture this motivation at will yet.

My old man told me - Tell fear I am aware of you, but I will do it anyhow

(sorry if the intent is lost in translation from native language to english)