Nothing excites me...

Who hasn't at some point experienced feelings of listlessness, apathy, or demotivation?Sometimes apathy appears in specific moments (like those famous Sunday afternoons) or during more prolonged periods of time...

• Physically, it feels as if the body weighs more, as if we are cycling against the wind and each pedal stroke costs us an enormous amount of vital energy.
• Cognitively, it seems as if everything is indifferent to us.
• And emotionally, nothing moves us or has the power to excite us enough.

Sometimes it's hard to differentiate when apathy is a problem to be addressed and when it is actually a state of stillness with which we struggle because we are accustomed to excessively high levels of activity. It's as if our body is addicted to high levels of adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol, and we feel strange when we are not immersed in the whirlwind of stress in which we are used to functioning.

Thus, like a pendulum, we swing from the extreme of activity to passivity, from agitated enthusiasm to the monotony of listlessness. Sometimes this pendulum swings during the week, other times it occurs during a change of life stage or when life forces us to turn down a few decibels...

When is Apathy a problem and When is it a momentary state we must learn to live with because Ups and Downs are part of Life?

Although culture urges us to always be on top, in the middle of the scene, with some project under our arm and galloping to our excessive demands, this is not always a good reference for a healthy and happy life. Sometimes, stopping to sharpen the saw or taking time to retreat into the cave is the best option to continue with strength and more awareness.

The word "pathos" derives from the word feelings. That is, when we are "apathetic", we don't experience too many feelings or we experience a kind of flattening of them, as if they were on a plateau, where flatness is the rule. On the contrary, when we feel 'empathy,' the feelings are experienced with such intensity that they lead us to act and mobilize ourselves for those who are suffering.

If this attitude towards life persists and we naturalize it almost as a way of positioning ourselves, it is good to roll up our sleeves and act accordingly so that we don't spend our lives with our heads down, wasting our valuable time waiting for 'something' magical to activate within us and fill us with vitality.

It is our responsibility to differentiate what is what in this widespread discouragement that feels so heavy to bear, where meaninglessness takes over our everyday life. Not everything is always emotional or stress as we tend to think. Here, psychology joins hands with medicine to address this issue that may have a specific neurological or physiological basis to treat.

When what we lack is 'Fuel'

It may happen that rather than existential depression, we have such low levels of dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, and noradrenaline that no matter how much willpower we exert, we lack the emotional 'fuel' to get going. Other important factors to consider are thyroid problems, hormonal levels, poor nutrition, anemia, certain dementias, self-medication, and the use of marijuana as one of the main depressants of will. Sometimes these issues or a lack of nutrients cause our emotions to 'go on strike,' leaving us feeling like we have no blood running through our veins.

Depression, apathy feels like a hole in the ground from which it's hard to climb out by ourselves. Knowing how to ask for help is smart when we realize it's costing us more than usual, or when that state, which appeared in isolation, is becoming normalized, and we are getting used to living at half-heartedly.

For there to be no apathy, serotonin must be within a range of 50 to 200 ml in blood. Below that level, it's very difficult to be in a good mood, not feel anxiety, worry, or irritation. Ruling out these variables is the first thing we need to do to avoid spending years in therapy feeling that nothing inside changes. Sometimes the solution is found in simplicity, and what we need is to adjust certain essential habits for good living.

What is our listlessness trying to tell us?

If organic causes are ruled out or persist despite treatment, then apathy and indifference are telling us something about how we are conducting ourselves in life. Perhaps it's a warning from our unconscious that we are living a wrong life, with undesired people, in the wrong job, even in the wrong country. As if the way we are using our life energy is extinguishing the good spirit of our soul. Then, it becomes very difficult to find motivation, 'a reason to take action,' since we only repeat more and more of the same on autopilot, without any different seasoning that adds more flavor to our divine existence.

Sometimes apathy tells us that there's a pending issue we need to address and never have, such as a lingering grief that stayed under a life too busy, and when it had a chance, it seeped in like dampness for us to deal with.

Apathy comes to talk to us about something we need to face head-on. Functionally, it lowers our energy so that we don't continue going so fast to the point of escaping from what happens to us, what hurts us, or what we are lazy to change... Sometimes we are indifferent to the life built just as it is, and we need to do or undo something that makes a difference, where everything is the same. Maybe we need to decompress what is compressed or unfold what is folded so that something activates and we get on track.

Where Does Emotional Apathy Come From?

Sometimes apathy is the result of not fulfilling our destiny, understanding destiny as what we build daily that makes us feel self-realized.

For example, when someone next to us resolves everything, it impoverishes us. Why? Because what motivates us is far from comfort; what motivates us is achievement! It's about feeling capable, flourishing, and empowered.

Other times, apathy comes from a song we sing to ourselves, something like: 'this world is awful,' 'why me?', 'why was I born into this family?', 'I don't belong here'... When this song plays in our ears, we are like a punctured balloon, our vital energy escaping. Instead of doing something interesting for ourselves or to improve what we see and dislike, we immerse ourselves in a useless feeling of indignation that doesn't even become enough frustration to make anger lead us to useful and constructive action.

When the balloon remains punctured, it's because our attention is focused on what doesn't work rather than what is already in motion. Apathy seeps in where activism and hope have given way. Therefore, the best antidote to apathy is beneficial action for oneself and others.

What to do after we look at what was hard to see? What if that vital energy seems not to return, and we continue living half-heartedly?

The answer reminds me of the story of car starters from over a hundred years ago... it was about cranking the handle until the engine started, a task that must not have been easy, requiring strength, patience, and rolling up your sleeves. The same is demanded of us to turn the trend of apathy and indifference inertia. There's a saying: 'Scratching is just a matter of starting!' The same applies to getting started with something that initially costs us a lot but then comforts us for having done it.

So, to transcend apathy, we must act as if we don't have it. We need to crank the handle of the body and mind so that discouragement turns into encouragement and dejection into passion for what is done. We need to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask that person with pale eyes: 'If you had the desire or energy, what would you do?' And when the answer emerges, do it! Before a pile of excuses and arguments to stay the same overwhelms us, start campaigning to begin with what you have been looking at from afar because it's never the right time, because you don't feel like it, or because eternal postponement always wins.

When we start to activate what we have dismissed, the sum of those small efforts begins to tip the balance from apathy to interest. What we start makes us want to continue, whether it's a book, a craft, a writing, a painting, a project, or even the most trivial or small thing that turns the needle of initiative and emotion. For example, if we join a group, we begin to find there a place of reference; if we start something beautiful, we want to finish it. This sense of continuity makes us want to get up. So where there was indifference, now there begins to be something that makes a difference, no matter how small. This change in attitude, stemming from action, starts activating the neurohormones of pleasure, and the circle begins to turn in the other direction. The engine starts, and one feels that getting going becomes easier because what was rusted is getting lubricated. With each new pedal stroke we take, we feel we are advancing, and the discouragement is left behind. And it may come back every now and then... but we already know how to turn the handle or what we should avoid doing not to fall into the ditch. For example, one thing we must avoid in the face of apathy is isolation. Isolation reinforces indifference, so be careful of always saying no to an invitation, even if you like solitude... learn to build a bridge that goes back and forth between you and people, don't build walls or barriers.

Willpower as a Heroine

Where there is no desire, establish WILLPOWER. Desires are not very important for the most important things in life. Desires count when, through effort and discipline, we build a life we like. They come after willpower has paved the way, like someone with a shovel making a stride on solid ground so that water flows naturally and smoothly. Then achievement, purpose, meaning move what was inert. And this message is especially for the new generations where the concept of 'desire' is overrated: 'if I feel like it, I do it, if not, I don’t.' With mere desires, I'm sorry to say, no one has gotten too far. Desires are so volatile, ethereal, and unstable that they are not reliable guides to get where we want to go. I don't know anyone who has graduated because they are dying to study, nor a mother who gets up to breastfeed because she doesn't feel like sleeping anymore, nor do I know anyone who gets up every day with the same desire and energy. work, even if they pursue their life's vocation.

Rarely does one wake up wanting to do things that don't feel like doing, at least that's what happens to most mortals. However, how much satisfaction is felt when without desire one does what one knows is good for oneself! One returns from running more upright, from studying with head held high, from doing what seemed so difficult, empowered and proud of oneself. It is then that the next time it doesn't take so much effort to do what is hard... because the experience of achievement is a higher sensation than the reward of staying on the couch at home doing nothing that implies personal improvement.

Therefore, the recommendation to not stay anchored in apathy is to do what we don’t feel like doing by creating a nice environment, putting on music and good vibes, and then enjoying the effects that those efforts bring as a reward for our endeavor to move forward.

A renowned psychologist, a precursor of Transpersonal Psychology, once said:

It is by doing that something internal begins to stand up. And it is when we see its effects that we feel like doing it, and even if we still don't feel like it, we do it anyway because the sensation that follows leaves us with a nice 'taste of self.'

Make it happen!

Those who are involved with life have a motto that keeps their soul ignited: MAKE IT HAPPEN.

If there are things you see and don't like, contribute your part, exercise values where you think there are none, spread your seeds, even if you don't see the fruits, the mere fact of thinking of yourself as nourishing takes you out of meaninglessness. As a Zen proverb says: just do it!

The phrase that, by the way, has been popularized by a well-known sports brand... that also invites us to put on our trainers and stand up to the complaints, passivity, lethargy and apathy that distance us from our values. Try to put light where there is apathy or darkness, and apathy and indifference will gradually fade away.