Sure! You always did that when we were younger!

Imagine you have five minutes to load up on valuable shit before the time vortex drags you in. Maybe you’ve got a backpack or a bag handy. What are you grabbing?

First of all. WATER. You don’t know what the water situation is going to be! There might be cholera! Bring as much as you can reasonably carry in the lightest container you have.

Bring matches. Ability to boil water may save your life. And if you don’t need them for that, they’re lightweight & valuable anyway.

NEEDLES. Obviously.

Whatever is in your spice cabinet, sure, but prioritize saffron, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, “exotic” spices. Pepper and salt are high value too. If you know you’re going somewhere inland, salt goes up in value. If you know you’re going somewhere in Asia/Asia Minor, “exotic” spices are less expensive there. (Not vanilla though, that’s ALWAYS expensive).

Good kitchen knives. Don’t underestimate the value of modern steel. Plus, they can be weapons in a pinch.

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horse: OH WE'RE GOING NOW? IT'S TIME TO GO? OKAY LET'S GO LET'S GO

I love Emet bc the first thing she asked when I shared this in the triad chat was, "Happy horses are very often very stupid. Do we know if the horse was okay? Was it shod? It could have hurt its feet very badly."

So here I am googling "horse runs with peloton" and yes, the horse was okay. This was the 1997 Critérium International. The horse was okay. :)

"Don't you feel satisfied that your windows are so clean now?" It sucked and it sucked and now I don't care. I just remember the sucking.

Hello, I have ADHD and I am also a licensed clinical therapist!

This part sucks. Not gonna lie to you. That said, our brains DO still get rewards, just not from "task completion" (something something, the combination of executive functioning whammy that is task initiation, task break down, task execution, and task transition following completion). Instead our rewards tend to come from one or more of a few areas:

• Food. If you've ever seen the stat that ADHD folks are more likely to have "binge-eating" patterns related to sugar and carbohydrates, this is why! Simple sugars are an easy burst of energy, comfort, flavor, and sometimes even joy! For everyone, but for ADHD folks this may feel really significant because we so rarely have other reward responses
• Drugs. People with unmanaged or undermanaged ADHD are more likely than non-ADHD peers to find themselves reliant on substances like alcohol, weed, cocaine, opioids, etc, due to the way these substances interact with our reward centers. And even once our disabling symptoms are well accommodated, reliance on substances to induce reward responses is still common, and can be essential to the "rest and decompress" process that our autonomic system (the sympathetic nervous system specifically) needs in order to reduce hyperactivity of motor movements, thoughts, or activation/reactivity responses.
• Mentally/emotionally stimulating activities. This one is vague. But that's because they're going to be different for every person, and likely different even within one person's lifetime! For example, right now my "stimulation exposure" activities are to go outside on the deck with my dogs and tear bits of herbs off my garden growths to chew on (combining sunshine, watching my dogs play or playing with then, and fun variable tastes works well for me), or maybe putting on my noise cancelling headphones to my "caberet" or "southern gothic" playlists while I curl up in bed with some hot tea (the caffeine in the tea is regulated when I feel hyperactive, and the heat, steam, and flavor make for great mindfulness opportunities. Also, the music lets me shrink my world to a size that is tolerable for me at that moment), or diving into whatever my latest research project is (who doesn't love a research rabbit hole!)

Sometimes individuals have other things that can trigger rewards for them, and it's always worth making a note when you run across something like that!

I find that by popping off one of these options DURING or IMMEDIATELY AFTER a task that would otherwise be next to impossible to get thru without becoming a raging self hating asshole can make a big difference in how one experiences that task.

Examples: when I need to clean the house because my maintenance routine has fallen apart, I prep a vape with sativa delta or sativa THC, and shove it in my binder. I take a hit periodically throughout the task process to keep me functional and regulated. I also set pomodoro timers for 45 min each so I can alternate between "working" and "resting".

When I fall behind on notes, my wife buys me peanut M&Ms from the corner store and I pop a pair of M&Ms for every late note I submit for work.

When I'm having a low-function work day, I will prioritize taking my breaks outside with the dogs, and sometimes will splash water around from the hose on them and myself for a bit of a temperature change.

If I've overextended myself but still have essential tasks to complete, I will pause about every 15-30min to do a breathing exercise (5-6 count breath in through the nose, and 2-3 count breath out through the mouth - this is really good for short energy boosts and overcoming brainfog)

It's important to keep in mind, that these are not "incentives" in the traditional sense, where if you don't do the task, you don't get the reward. ANY use of your executive functioning would be rewarded in the brain to some extent for regulated neurotypicals, and just because our reward systems aren't great at self-activating as expected, doesn't mean we should have to live without the positive reinforcement that EVERYONE is supposed to get. So if you made an attempt at the thing, you get to trigger your reward response.

Overtime, myself and clients I work with have all noticed a shift in how we perceive tasks once this becomes common practice. Because we now have history and memories of tasks feeling positive to do (even when they are demanding or difficult for us), it becomes easier to interact with that task overall. You start to better notice the changes in approach that may make it even easier. You stop dreading the knowledge that the task needs to be done. It's easier to hop back into maintenance routines even after they've fallen apart. Basically, when you manually trigger what your brain NEEDS and can't self-create, a lot of the distressing aspects of executive function become WAY more manageable.

There's also a lot to be said about the experience of shifting self shaming and self blaming around what it means to "succeed" at a thing or "complete" a task, but that's sort of a different post. For now, suffice to say that being the kind and compassionate and understanding person you likely are for others, FOR YOURSELF, makes a big difference in how easy or hard the above strats will be to execute.

You probably know a few of the things that manually trigger that reward response for you. How can you make that ability work in your favor?

So if your brain won't give you a reward for completeing a task...store bought is fine?

johnny english really destroyed all movie logic

the funniest part is that he’s not even running

Mr Bean as a Persistence Predator

"Uncle, make sure you get that glowy light in the picture and send it to my dad to let him know I'm about to capture the Avatar!"

This was so cute I had to draw it

and of course Iroh is doing what-