People Would Rather Shock Themselves Than Sit Alone With Their Thoughts... Why?

Photo by Frédéric BISSON

Does the thought of alone time make you uncomfortable?

Well, apparently you're not alone.

In a recent study documented on the Psyblog, people were given a choice to either sit still and do nothing but think... or shock themselves.

Guess which one most of them chose?

According to the study, people were put in a room for anywhere between 6 and 15 minutes (Wilson et al., 2014).

They were told to sit and just think, and that there was a button they could push that would give them a mild shock.

And do you know what?

At least half the people shocked themselves.

And the funny thing is, they had just been asked whether they would pay money not to be shocked. And many of the people who shocked themselves had said they would.

“What is striking is that simply being alone with their own thoughts for 15 minutes was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer an electric shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid.” (Wilson et al., 2014). 

And apparently, this wasn't just your classic "teen obsessed with cell phone."

Older people tested the same way. The study included ages 18 to 77, from a wide range of backgrounds.

SO... what does this mean?

I've got two initial ideas. Either:

1. The people got bored. Then they got genuinely curious to see whether there was actually a shock, and how much it hurt. Then they probably figured, surely those psychologists wouldn't let me really hurt myself... and, out of boredom, gave themselves a little volt... I could see this being a reason for a few. But one of the participants shocked himself 190 times.

OR

2. People are growing increasingly afraid of who we've become. What do you do when you're not happy with your life? You try not to think about it. What do you do when you feel like you missed your life's purpose? You try not to think about it. We're a distracted bunch of people, these days. And sometimes our distractions are the only thing standing between us and the inner turmoil of our screaming thoughts.

Maybe there are other options. But I've noticed #2 is frighteningly common.

So the rest of this blog is about the 2nd one.

What do you see when you look back at your life?

I think we're more afraid of our thoughts than we know. We don't want to listen to the voices that sound unhappy with where we are in life, the ones that scream to us early in the morning before we can shut them up with our to do list, and late at night when our minds are too tired not to wander.

Why?

We're afraid of being wrong. We're afraid we're going to hear something in our heads that makes us think "you've made large time investments in the wrong areas."

But I want you to listen a little longer. Listen longer than you think you should.

Because there's more to the story. There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

I ran from my story for a long time. As a kid, I longed to be in a different one. I didn't see any worth in my story. Go to middle school, quietly do my work, go home. Have a crush on a girl who doesn't notice me. Watch her date someone else instead. Be unhappy with how life is. Wash, rinse, repeat.

And so I escaped into distraction.

Distraction with other stories, distraction with busyness, distraction with friends.

But it wasn't enough to get away from the feeling that I may never get to live in the story I really wanted.

But then I started figuring out who God really was. I started seeing that my actual desires matched his actual personality. And then, during college, I learned something that changed my life:

My scariest thoughts are the compass that will lead me straight to the life I've always wanted.

What if God's plan is that you live the story you've always longed to live?

I've got a new plan: Don't run from your thoughts. Stand up to them. Let them tell you the news, that you're running towards something you don't even want. And then, let them redirect you.

There's a way to shift course. It doesn't matter how "far gone" you are. 

And your desire for it will keep growing. You won't ever be able to completely shut it up.

Don't tune your own deep thoughts out. They may be trying to lead you to freedom.


(If you were moved by this post at all, I would love for you to either send me an email on the right side of the page, or comment down below, and tell me what it was. And tell me what's hard about being yourself. I intently read and respond to every email. Seriously.)