Living a Totally Vicarious Life? STOP It!

Vicarious: Vicarious comes from the Latin work vicarius, which means substitute.
If you have vicarious enjoyment, you have a second hand thrill.

by Mike Corthell

My first instinct is to tell you that if you're living vicariously, stop it for God's sake! Get off the couch and get out — live life for yourself!  But life is a balancing act, is it not? Moderation in all things. The real problem I have with vicarious living is that anything that is pleasurable to a human being is addictive. That is our nature after all.

''If you're a good journalist, what you do is live a lot of things vicariously, and report them for other people who want to live vicariously.''

— Harry Reasoner

As an addictive pursuit, vicarious living is like eating. We can't eliminate it, we can only moderate it, but how do we do that? How does a couch potato get off the couch?

There’s nothing wrong with admiring someone's achievement and being impressed with their talents, but we start to lose parts of our own identity when we let our own self-worth come from watching others build theirs. It can and will, slowly, and insidiously degrade our own ambitions.

This is the deal. Never taking a risk in life is the biggest risk you can take. What is the second biggest risk? Not believing you’re capable of taking one. If you over-indulge in getting pleasure through others lives(reality TV?), living like this excessively, living vicariously through others, will strip you of any sense of ability or at least hinder it.

Rather than escape to someone else’s dreams, try to use them to inspire you. Create your own.

How to stop watching others and start living your own story? What inspires you? What 'floats your boat'? Really think about it. Then start planning things to do to accomplish goals.

You can try this:

Commit yourself to going one week without vicarious distraction. Whatever your 'thing' is...No blogs, social media, sports, romance novels or especially reality TV shows.

Once you’ve done this, you will find focus, you’ll be forced to face life and see all its possibilities. You’ll also find yourself with plenty of time to explore new things, time to get out and live your live.

Life is about balance. It is also about action. There's not much action on a couch, unless it's a love seat! Get up, get going and live YOUR life, not someone else's life.

~