“Easy” buttons are the things that appear in front of us that we want to reach for because they temporarily take us out of our pain and stress. They do not work in the long run, because what they actually do is help us abandon ourselves. “Easy” buttons take us to fake heaven. Fake heaven always turns out to be hell. You know you’ve hit an “easy” button when, afterward, you feel more lost in the woods than you did before you hit it. It has taken me forty years to decide that when I feel bad, I want to do something that makes me feel better instead of worse.
I keep a handwritten poster in my office titled “Easy Buttons and Reset Buttons.”
On the left are all the things I do to abandon myself.
On the right are my reset buttons, the things I can do to make staying with myself a little more possible.”