Once upon a time…

in a time long before smartphones, gyms, porn hubs and infinite scrolling, humans had a loyal companion, and that companion was called “Dopamine”.

Now Dopamine was a friendly little monster who would accompany us on our journeys and whisper things into our ears

Whispers such as “Go there”, “That worked – remember it” or “Try again”.

and these whispers kept us alive.

Back in this time, life was difficult.

Food was scarce, danger was very real and our energy had to be used extremely wisely. Dopamine was there to support us and answer the question

“Is this worth the effort?”

If you found edible berries after hours of walking then dopamine would say “Remember this place. It kept you alive”.

If you were able to successfully hunt an animal and applied techniques for success then dopamine would say, “Do this again. It worked!”

Build shelter. Find water. Bond with others. Reproduce.

Dopamine didn’t reward comfort or pleasure. It rewarded survival linked effort. It rewarded the actions which kept us alive.

This monster was so friendly to us because these rewards were rare. We actually had to use effort in order to earn the satisfaction.

Dopamine never cared about our happiness. It never wanted to make us happy. It was meant to make us move. Move towards food, safety and connection. And when the job was done, when we found our food or safety – dopamine stepped back. Dopamine didn’t linger. It didn’t beg for more. It respected our boundaries.

Dopamine helped us create its own demise

Through the struggle of trying to survive we found new pathways, which were rewarded by our good friend dopamine – yet dopamine was unaware that it was helping us create its own enemy.

Enter the character of convenience.

Convenience didn’t roar at us. Covenience didn’t threaten us.

Convenience joined us on our shoulder and whispered other words to us “Let me help”, “Why struggle” “I can make this easier”.

And Dopamine fell in love with Convenience – because Convenience gave the rewards faster, reduced Dopamine’s workload and made everything exciting.

Convenience love bombed Dopamine and Dopamine loved it.

But then things started to shift.

Dopamine became confused and restless because Dopamine only knew one thing “This feels important. Remember it. Repeat it”.

Dopamine kept learning – but it kept learning the wrong lessons.

The soft friendly whispering monster which had helped us to survive all those years had suddenly become restless, angry and demanding.

It started screaming in our ears “GIVE ME MORE” and as humans, humans who had developed a trust to Dopamine we mistook Dopamine’s angry demanding words as desire.

Our ancient ally had become overstimulated, underchallenged and thus dysregulated and we made it our enemy.

• We blame Dopamine for our lack of discipline.
• We blame Dopamine for our addictions.
• We blame Dopamine for our faults

Yet Dopamine is just an ancient monster, trapped in a world it wasn’t designed for.

The truth no one tells us

Dopamine was never our enemy and even Convenience isn’t the real villain.

Both have their jobs. To keep us alive.

But the real issue we have is that no one taught Dopamine when to stop.

We didn’t give Dopamine boundaries.

We didn’t introduce:

• Friction
• Waiting
• Effort
• Endings

and so Dopamine forgot how to rest.

So we don’t need to defeat Dopamine.

We need to retrain our old ally. We need to help Dopamine adapt to the world it just wasn’t designed for.

If we put effort before reward, if we ignore convenience for purpose, if we allow ourselves to get bored and if we create natural stopping points then Dopamine will be able to soften.

Dopamine will stop screaming and will start whispering again.

And our Monster becomes friendly again.

Dopamine was never the enemy – Convenience just taught it bad habits.

Let’s tame our friend together.