The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
I remember going years ago to a BBC boardroom, in front of a panel of senior editors, to be interviewed for a promotion. Getting this job was something I really wanted, and I was keen to make a good impression. As I started to answer one question about teamwork, something weird happened inside my head. Over and over again, playing in my mind, was "The Wheels on the Bus" children's song. Although I was attempting to concentrate on my story about the tardy attendee and the less-than-patient presenter, I could feel myself losing control. I was chanting the song in my head, gnashing my teeth, and blinking my eyes like crazy. After a while, one of the panel members caught me acting strangely, and I felt as if I were on a pedestal for everyone to see.
For several years now, this has comprised—the painful habits that most obviously manifest are scraping my tongue over my teeth, doing complex eye movements, and peeling the skin off my lips until they bled. These behaviors worsen when anything is high-stakes or I am trying to enjoy the moment. Realistically, my OCD acts quite insidiously all the time; it seems to constantly avoid some part of conscious control and will of its own, though extrinsic to me. Apart from OCD, I have another problem with procrastination. Very often, I ruin my attention by scrolling through social media or emailing someone when I ought to be spending quality time with my kids. I am also an addict to screens and booze to get me through the evenings—but, of course, one of the normalized ones. I'm addicted to productivity: forever ticking lists, filling up every second, and all the while wishing for time and space to think.
Self-sabotage is a sort of intriguing process that really fits well with things like procrastination, distraction, addiction, and OCD. We know the damages these are causing to our own lives, yet we still hang onto them. For instance, when things really count, we tend to foul them up—beating ourselves up incessantly over wasting hours on activities that are not relevant, which basically halts any kind of progress. What's really happening with this self-defeating circle in which we just keep undermining our finest laid plans?.
Plato's image of a charioteer driving two winged horses, one light and one dark, is taken as a metaphor for the human divided psyche. One horse symbolizes the light of moral intention; another, that of dark irrationality and undermining. It is such a model of split self that echoes down to this day in the likes of thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and psychiatrist R.D. Laing. It is now that neuroscience looks into the details of brain involvement in these behaviors and identifies imbalances of neurotransmitters that prevent the brain from regulating intrusive thoughts in OCD.
According to Piers Steel, an expert on procrastination, impulsive pleasure-seeking behaviors and the delay of procrastination are what drive our irrational actions. Our motivations mostly fade away when needed the most, earlier on knowing that we will be worse off. Again, addiction is a kind of self-sabotage where instant-gratification craving gets better of our rational intentions.
Ultimately, while mechanical explanations like neural pathways and dopamine responses offer a degree of insight, psychoanalysis suggests a much deeper understanding of our split selves and contradictions. Much of what ends up being self-sabotage, against our best interests, has been coping mechanisms or ways to handle stress and emotion. By recognizing these and making sense of them, people can find self-compassion and lead more balanced lives.