The anatomy of "doom scrolling" and "The Samskaras of the Unlived" from a message by Daaji

"Past experiences, samskaras, create misery because whenever you move through an experience, it creates a groove in you. If the experience is repeated many, many times, the groove becomes more and more deep. Then if life moves in different ways, and the energy is not flowing in that groove of your past experiences, you feel unfulfilled. But if life continues the same, and the energy goes on flowing from the same groove, you feel bored. Then you want excitement. If excitement is not there, you feel, 'What is the use of going on living?'

You cannot eat the same food every day. I can eat the same food; leave me out. You cannot eat the same food every day. If you eat the same food you feel frustrated because the same food every day loses taste, excitement. If you change food every day, that too will create anxiety and trouble, because the body gets adjusted to the food. And if every day you change, the body chemistry changes and the body feels uncomfortable. The body feels comfortable if you take the same food, but then the mind doesn't feel comfortable.

If you live through your past habits the body will always feel comfortable, because body is a mechanism. It doesn't hanker for the new, it simply wants the same. The body needs routine. Mind always needs change, because mind itself is a flux phenomenon. Not even for a single moment does mind remain the same; it goes on changing."

excerpt from OSHO's book "The Alpha and The Omega vol.4"

"The Samskaras of the Unlived

Every dream that dies without being attempted haunts the dreamer more persistently than any dream that is lived and fails. This is
the wisdom the traditions have always taught. The samskaras of
incompletion cut deeper than the samskaras of failure. A completed
action, even one that ends in sorrow, has an integrity that brings
peace, whereas an abandoned dream has no such integrity. It remains
alive in our consciousness, unresolved, and perpetually asking the
question that fear refuses to let us answer.

In the Heartfulness practice of evening cleaning, we sit and allow
the impressions of the day to leave from the back. We release what
we did, what we said, and what we experienced. But let’s consider
something that is rarely discussed: What about the impressions
formed by what we did not do? The conversation we avoided, the
truth we did not speak, the step we did not take, and the love we
did not express also leave impressions. They may all be harder to
clean than the impressions of action, because they are not events but
absences. They are shadows, and how do we sweep away shadows?

Each time fear prevents an action, the unlived action deposits a
samskara of incompletion. Over months, years, and decades, these
deposits accumulate, creating heaviness. They create the very tamas
that looks like laziness but is actually grief for the life that was
possible and was not lived.

Each time fear prevents you from doing something, the avoidance
becomes slightly easier, and your courage becomes slightly weaker.
The unlived life grows heavier with each avoided step, and the
weight of the unlived is what eventually makes the next step feel
impossible. It is not that you cannot move, it is that you have been
standing still so long that the ground has grown around your feet."

www.daaji.org/daaji-messages/The-Unlived-Life