All it took was clearing my browser history - and I'm back to Persian!
I don't use the Big Tech social media, it never really had any appeal to me. But recently I found myself totally addicted to Reddit. I mean no wonder, with everything's that happening in the world right now, I had so many reasons to doom scroll. Did AI ruin the world already? Is it the WWIII yet? Etc.
And every morning and every evening (and many times throughout the day too), I'd try to make myself go back to studying Persian, and I would somehow end up back on Reddit. For hours at a time. It was not only stealing my time, it was also making me extremely anxious. And it was hindering any progress in my learning.
I tried to reason with myself. Just five more minutes and then I'm back to studying. But couple of minutes later I would be thinking - what's the point anyways? The world is ending. In the age of AI learning languages is pointless. I might as well just continue scrolling... And so it went. I was so disappointed in myself. I should be better than this.
I didn't even have the Reddit app downloaded on my phone. I was just using it in the browser. Finally, in a godsent act of desperation I just... cleared my browsing history.
The next time I tried opening Reddit I had to type in the whole url. And those additional two seconds I had to ask myself "Do I really want to do this?" made all the difference. Haven't opened it since. And I'm back to Persian. Reached my 14-day streak today and last week averaged over 2 hours a day of active study. Couldn't be happier. And even if it's pointless, I'm not letting AI steal that joy from me.