There are many people who inspire me, but I remember one specific time when something I read impacted me in a profound way.
About 2.5 years ago, I stumbled upon a Medium post that really made a difference in my life. Unfortunately, it’s been taken down, and I’m not sure why. The post was titled something like “How to Give a Shit About Something When You Don’t Care About Anything” or something along those lines. Surprisingly, I still remember the title.
I was at a low point in my life where I could not do anything regularly for even a few days. Even without regular sleep or meals – I just forgot. Nothing worked. I did not care about anything at that point. And I was scared of how much worse it could get – I could never study, get a job, or be independent. This future scared me.
I was desperate for something.
I realised I was affecting those around me with my indifference, and that hurt. People were worried I might just lose interest in life altogether and be gone in the next moment. That realisation shook me to the core, and I knew I had to do something.
Feeling desperate, I turned to Google at 2 in the morning (as you do when you are a modern human), searching for “how to give a shit about something.” That’s when I found the article.
I saved it and read it repeatedly.
The advice was straightforward, yet it resonated with me. Start with something small—something you decide to care about. As small as you have to. The point was to find something that you decided to give a sh*t about. It is your decision. It does not matter if you do not feel it. You can decide with your head and take action. The feeling will follow after a while. Some people decide that university is something they care about; others decide that they will give a shit about their friend, hobby, family, job, whatever.
The point is to take action.
For me, everything seemed too overwhelming, but the article suggested choosing something as small as waking up at the same time every morning. It sounded a bit ridiculous, but I was desperate for change.
And as with most things, change starts with some small action taken regularly.
So I decided—I am going to care about waking up in the morning. It will be the most important thing in the world for me. Nothing else was important at that point; I could do whatever as long as I woke up before 12. I made a simple checklist on a sheet of paper to track my progress and put it on the wall.
The first week was relatively easy, but in the second week, I broke the habit of staying up until 4 a.m. and waking up at 2 p.m.
I felt devastated and attacked myself with negative thoughts—how horrible I was that I could not just do this simple thing. I spiralled down for a few days. Then I put myself together, read the article once again, and decided to start again. I do not know from where I got the energy and motivation to start again, but I did. And I have to say that from that point on, I did not break my new habit for around a year or more.
Of course, there were times when I slept more than usual, but it was not important anymore; my life had changed.
Let me tell you how.
As I started to wake up in the morning, I got a new problem: what do I do with my time now that I am awake?
I decided to read Jordan Peterson’s book, “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos,” something I’d wanted to do for a while. So my routine was like this: I woke up, went to my desk, and read the book. That is it. Nothing more. I read about an hour and then just went about my day, but it changed things—when you change one thing, you want to change another and the next, and so on.
I found that I started to care a bit—I started to want to change some things. Like how I ate and how much time I spent outside of my room. Progress was happening, and I began to give a shit about various things. I asked myself a daily question: “If I had to do something that would make my life a bit better, what would it be?”
Listening to myself, really listening, and taking action became routine.
Gradually, I transformed my life. I participated in a project for people in similar situations, learned to code, normalised my eating habits, and incorporated regular walks into my routine.
My life stabilised, and I started caring about the small things.
These small changes gave me a sense of control, something I desperately needed. My mantra became focusing on controlling my sleep, eating habits, and exercise—the things that made me feel good. Let’s put journaling there as well. I wrote some during that time. That, of course, helped. But it is a different story.
That Medium article changed my life.
I could never be thankful enough to the author of it. But the moral of this story is that you get to decide what you care about and take action before feeling. And change happens in the details—doing a small thing regularly.