Behind the Blog: Elena

                     

 

Hi, it's a pleasure to have you here. I'm Elena, a girl who's finding a way to un-plug. Recently I've come to the conclusion that the attraction to satisfaction must come at a cost. In order for one to chase, one must be challenged. I present to you "75 Hard". A challenge created by the one and only, Andy Frisella, an entrepreneur, podcaster, motivational speaker and life coach. Andy started the project in year 2020, at that time Covid-19 had just sprung and he was developing the, 1st Phorm International. A company that  planned on helping athletes with nutritional supplements and sport performance.     So with all that said we, (my amazing partner Lucy and I) welcome you to our challenge to unplug, 75 Creative. As she calls it., our tiny corner of the internet, where we will begin to post regularly in the span of the next three months. Documenting our creative exploration and with that, an uncovering of new hobbies that are sure to tickle our fancy, and I bet yours too.

What happens when a person gets everything they've ever wanted? Some might say that's heaven, some might say that's the quiet joy of living in a personal utopia. What I want arrives in days, not months or years. Amazon Prime at my personal disposal. What once required patience, labor and privilege now comes readily accessible to everyone. I have access to my desires, but with that access comes my fears too. 

Lately, it feels as though the universe listens to me: my thoughts and prayers... they come true. So why am I bored? Maybe it's because satisfaction doesn't land the same when it arrives too easily. Maybe our dopamine systems were built for effort, for struggle, for anticipation!  The rat race isn't just about chasing what you can't have; it's about believing the chase is what gives meaning. 

Have you ever wondered whether a life without stress is even worth living? I'm from New York, New York, born from a lifestyle of urgency. My experience has been a long string of deadlines, expectations and an obsessive need to self-improve. People talk about wanting a calm nervous system, and I get it, I want that too. But I think we often confuse peace with aimlessness. Without goals, without direction, we unplug to rest but we don’t, we drift. 

Some say there's no end to evolving, but lately it feels like we don't even process our lives anymore. We can't see what's in front of us because we're always speeding toward what's next. Can we evolve like this?

The fascinating, tragic part is that we've had centuries to refine these skills, yet somehow we're getting worse at it. We've replaced meaningful rewards with instant ones, sex on demand, phones glued to our palms and the constant drip of doomscrolling, the stimulation of drugs, the endless chase of small hits that never add up to anything whole. These things activate our “Reward Center”, yes, but not in ways that nourish us. They just soothe us long enough to crave the next hit.

So I'm asking you to take a step back with me to the beginning, to simplicity. My personal saying is to move forward, we must first go back. Back to the unanswered questions. Our ancestors somehow navigated without the tools we have today. Cavemen must have understood satisfaction far better than we do. They knew how to create their own dopamine, how to find meaning in survival, they had to work for it, did they find meaning in effort? 

I'm not telling you to abandon intimacy or technology or pleasure. I'm saying the way we get these things have woven themselves into our daily lives so tightly that removing them feels impossible. And if I'm being honest, I'd be lying if I said I could live without them. That comfort is fleeting and hollow yet it’s something our bodies cling to. It's hard to imagine life without it. But acknowledging this isn't defeat. It's the first step back, the first moment of clarity before we decide what is actually worth craving.