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PureDiscipline

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  1. My jobs one that demands a serious level of competitiveness and dedication in order to rise to the top. Essentially im a competitive mental athlete, its got an inconsistent paycheck due to the nature of it and when your not getting any consistent paycheck you only feel driven to work harder till you see it. I don't need anyone to actually perform at a higher level just more time spent studying and playing. So i normally expect to socialize outside of family maybe once a month often longer. I get along with people just fine, i just feel pretty driven towards focusing less on a social life and more on obtaining a house so. I have to force myself to socialize or i just end up going without. And studying Eckhart Tolle content made me feel a lot less urged in general on the loneliness.
  2. I know its a male thing to do to try and just fix a problem by avidly looking for solutions even when we don't necessarily want to hear solutions and just speak our peace, but my job involves me being at home infront of a pc as well. So i can fully understand the lonelyness that can come from what your experiencing. If your experiencing hangups (i don't know what sort) in terms of socializing or feel that you don't have the best communication skills i got a couple recommendations that might help. When i had come out of a seriously addictive 1 year weed binge (of which i mean maybe 5 hours of sobriety in 365 days) i experienced some pretty terrible effects on my social interactions with people and found myself having to relearn a lot of the process. "How to win friends and influence people" is amazing and not at all the manipulative sounding book the title can be misunderstood as. "Superhuman social skills" is pretty good too. Otherwise i beleive theres a youtuber called charisma college or university or something that analyses social situations and how people handle them well or poorly and the techniques they employ which is pretty cool. It helped me understand where my personality was lacking or how some of my social habits could be portrayed and really helped me grow into a better me. Best of luck
  3. Been a while since iv posted here but low and behold relapsed. This time it was for about id 6 months or so? I noticed it gradually increasing in intensity too until i snapped out of the haze after another 400-500 hours of wasted productivity and weak willpower thanks to the effect gaming has on the brain with a pretty terrible ability to stick to virtually anything i attempt to do. Simultaneously my weights hit all time high of 92kg (im probably healthy at 75kg) which iv been struggling with for a while now. After attempting to piece the struggles im having with weight/productivity/nofap/energy levels i finally realized that it was not the lack of exercise causing the weak willpower, it was the gaming and porn that would have lead to the inability to stick to healthy food and just cook properly. Its also taken a toll on my work quality when i don't utilize periods i have to work and study and use it for gaming instead. After being GameFree for literally 1 day (uninstalled steam etc) iv already cleared like 4 errands i had been avoiding for about 3 weeks now which feels pretty good. Feeling a lot more positive in outlook on everything once again, and looking forward to posting more consistently in the forums. But if gaming is similar to porn in the gaming effects it seems only logical to this time cold turkey both instead of trying to do 1 thing at a time, if the brain takes time to restructure it might as well be done right. Iv decided this time around my new goals are learning to cook (going to be taking classes), Learning coding (using an app called mimo then progressing on to codeacademy), Healthier and excercise (friends and general working out), reading and spending more time with family and friends. Round 3?
  4. Consider learning about willpower. Books recommended are the willpower instinct, and tie this in with your own research into topics like meditation, exercise, diet, routine, and effective habits of highly successful people. The concepts are intertwined really, as your willpower drops you will want to avoid things more and more. Its a limited expendable energy that isn't unending like people would like to make you think. So the idea in quick summary is to tackle the tasks you least want to do early that take the most willpower to push yourself through, and then gradually work your way down the list towards the bottom as your willpower thins doing tasks that you find more and more enjoyable. Meditation, diet and exercise will just improve your overall energy, mood, willpower, and focus. Goodluck!
  5. As far as worrying about the nutrients decreasing due to the carbon dioxide, consider maybe growing your own or buying organic. Or as the hip kids would say it 'biodynamic'. The problem won't be improving any time soon unless the fruits are grown in some sort of private greenhouse or building where the air is controlled i guess. I don't know how much truth there is to the level of effect that bio-dynamic can have but to me it makes sense in theory if your really that worried (the idea of having multiple types of food growing in the same patch as when they die and return nutrients to the earth the soil becomes more well rounded). As far as supplements go, do your due diligents about it. There's some good content books that are rather anti-supplementation due to the systems lack of regulations and the fact that the studies done are normally at their core flawed, weighted, incorrectly focused on the concept of reductionist science (i.e. trying to pinpoint cause an effects to just 1 thing which often isn't doable) instead of wholistic. For content on that read the book Whole, or consider watching What the Health on netflix. And keep in mind there are a lot of studies suggesting that consuming goods in a supplementation form and not its natural form isn't necessarily healthy, and contrast is far less absorbed (up to 23x less in one study of vitamin C in an orange vs a vitamin C supplement of equivilent amount). But try not to stress too much
  6. Should be in Sydney during December, when are the events there happening?
  7. Update: Have not played a game since, been focusing on working with my best results iv ever had, also have gone to Las Vegas for 50 days which is very different from home and freaking hot (it hit 47 degrees Celsius!). Managed to chew through a few books which have been backlogged on my reading list for a while now such as Why men don't listen and women can't read maps. Potentially will be going into business now as well (won't mention now but maybe down the line with more progress on the operations!) and also organized a separate holiday to travel around New Zealand once i return home with my lovely Girlfriend. Things are really looking up and iv managed to break the game related stuff once again, this time round it will be more of a case of realizing its not something i can ever dip into and having people game around me is just not something that is gonna lead to a productive life.
  8. Also as deterant every time i relapse i increase my contribution a month by $10. So i either need to make a new pateron. Or you need to increase the cap from $20
  9. good to be back, glad to see you've been putting in the work for the community
  10. Hey, been a while. Since my last post a fair bit has happened in life. I've moved out of home, had to deal with the pressures of taking on more of life's responsibilities and at the same time had a bit of motivation lost in my career after having so much success i just lost any urge to gain material wealth towards buying my first home in cash. Somewhere along the line my room mate who likes to play CSGO somehow (through no temptation via him) lead me into making bad personal decisions towards the whole gaming thing and i essentially relapsed. Since then iv gained a bit of weight (probably about 15kg), gotten sloppy with the diet and social relationships, gotten lazy with meditation/reading and study/work towards poker and regular exercise went out the window. Think i spent a decent chunk playing a mixture of counterstrike/RPGs/various PS4 games. But more or less reverted back to playing a heavy amount of gaming hours. My career itself hasn't actually suffered too much results wise even though my input has more or less been quartered. Which also probably contributed towards me not caring whether i quit or not. Im finding life errands stack up more until a late time that i drive through them, and im generally not content with the direction my life is going right now. I know its a rather pointless empty direction of me trying to accomplish a number on a screen in a game which will yield some perceived mental satisfaction when i get there but actually not make a lick of difference once i achieve it. So i figured a good place would to be to start again by posting here. And really give the forum more of my energy again to hopefully give more back to me and i can get back on track. As of today im going to try burning the bridges once again, by getting rid of all my stuff across all games, and selling my ps4 to my mum who uses the console to access netflix since shes rather un-tec friendly as well as throw away my gamecube and ps vita. Before i moved houses i was learning chinese via audiobook and was about to sign to do a half-marathon and begin training before a back injury from an attempt on a ninja warrior course left me somewhat sore for a few weeks. Hopefully this time around i can quit it for good, so i plan to use the forums a bit more in hope that it keeps me a bit more on path again. Peace
  11. The GofundMe page seems to hav an Error every time i attempt to donate. Iv contacted support with no response
  12. It can't be easy taking this route and im very thankful for the help you gave me. Iv updated my Patreon pledge to $10/month and im going to be donating towards the cause as well. I hope you enjoy the trip reguardless Cam Also damn you've racked up some serious post count since iv last come on here
  13. So i guess this is actually relevant for once. Recently i had some rather stressful patches mixed in with boredom and a bit of ole isolation. So after talking to friends who game a bunch still i decided to jump on twitch and watch some CS GO games. After noticing id began watching at increasing frequency but also that i felt aware that my viewpoint on gaming was shifting from how negative it was to maybe i can do it casually i decided to avoid twitch completely and really look at why i quit in the first place. By looking into the negatives (which this forum helped with since i can look back at my history) and what i felt from gaming i was able to make some progress. After which i looked into what i look to gain in the future and how much time and dedication that is bound to take. And finally i looked into what my life would be like after i started gaming again, i imagined the personal shame id feel after going so many months without gaming and then picking it up again, how id lose the ability to even say that i hadn't gamed in x months, and how the anticipation of the reward of gaming would never be as good as the actual reward. I realized while watching twitch that it particularly is addictive because your seeing the best of the best play, which drives your competitive nature and also that i had to realize i wouldn't play like they would, i would play at a significantly lower level so i had to factor that in which helped dim the reality of it all. The combination of it all together basically helped repel my urge that arose after a good 9-10 months of no-game streak. Id like to say that meditation and reading books on willpower played a significant role in avoiding what could have been a gradual slope of mistakes leading to playing games again. For anybody struggling with them i can't suggest the combination enough (The willpower instinct specifically & either Calm or headspace app which cam recommends). Peace
  14. i used to re-read stuff once in a while but i realized how pointless it feels to read a book and then forget it. Like i did with all highschool/university textbooks. And also good luck to you sir I do think there's something to be said that we may not be consciously aware of how the book is impacting our life (or mindset), but subconsciously it does have a positive impact. Id agree but sometimes i need to re-read information to reconfirm my commitments. Such as avoiding porn/weed/games and being Vegan. Once i read my summarized versions i tend to rebuild my willpower on the subject, other times i get hazy forget the reasons and know there was probably good reasons i took that stance in the first place but the information is so faded in my mind that i jump back into that activity.
  15. i used to re-read stuff once in a while but i realized how pointless it feels to read a book and then forget it. Like i did with all highschool/university textbooks. And also good luck to you sir
  16. Hi guys another spaced update. I returned home for some family/friends fun. 4 months of traveling Sydney was great fun but there really is no place like home. I spent most of december meeting with friends before heading off to Rhythm and Vines music festival. Essentially it could be summed up with drinking, dancing, drinking games, meeting people, next to no sleep, then more drinking. Nero and pendulum were the headliners and rocked. At this point i no longer feel even remotely interested in games. I feel like iv well and truly gotten past everything. I still have a ps4 and xbox in my house because my mum was using it for Netflix and i never got around to selling it but i have literally no urge to play it whatsoever. However i have been finding the odd friend whos been actively trying to quit video games funnily enough (if they ask for more i always direct them straight to this site). After spending a month back home Im flying back to Australia for a month of poker in Melbourne at the live series Aussie Millions. So the next 3 weeks or so should be an interesting mix of work hard play hard. Iv also taken it upon myself to read a book a week while im there At the moment iv got these lined up -Whole: a book about nutrition and diet thats extremely comprehensive from the looks of things. I always lacked understanding on diet but since going Vegan i figured i should probably learn more on the subject. Its a sequel to the china study which got me on the dietary path in the first place. -Exaughsted to energized: A book about the science of energy levels from all areas of life and how to maximize it to get the most out of your day while still not damaging your body. Should be a good read since iv always felt like i don't do enough with my days. -Gorilla Mindset: A pretty cool book cam might have recommended actually, which focuses on ways to well round your life without delving too in depth which is nice. Books quick and easy. -Anxious: The modern mind in the age of anxiety: I figure by learning about anxiety its the best way to gain compassion for people who are struggling and also teach myself how to best cope with anything that pops up (not that im really an anxious person) plus its also gonna be useful for when i do pick up psychology. So far im already roughly half way through Gorilla mindset and its taught me a bunch. Iv realized how important self talk is in my life and how much different people can bring out a different personality in me so i am gravitating towards people who bring out the me i like. A lot of the struggle of quitting games i felt was reconnecting with people. It felt difficult due to the whole low self-esteem (in some respects) coupled with judging yourself which lead to a feeling i felt abnormal and socially slow. But i found out its more who you are with and your comfort levels/enjoyment that dictate the level of natural genuine emotion you tend to show. That and the reassuring feeling that everybody is nowhere near as perfect as people seem to think everybody else is. That cognitive bias mixed in with things like Facebook that just tend to further the cognitive bias by showing you snippets of peoples lives with none of the negative or boring. Its no wonder there is such levels of depression around today. And staying in a bubble often just perpetuates ones own thoughts reconfirming and changing them in different ways. But also its very easy to fall into a trap of being at home. For people who tend to not make much of an effort towards socializing i find a calendar rule sort of works. Making sure you hang out at least 2-3 days a week with people, preferably different ones so your social circle remains wider. Anyway till next time
  17. One of the best resources for this right now is on the yourbrainonporn.com website. Although it's focused on porn, the similarities between how your brain responds to porn and gaming are close. I just put together the latest 150 scientific papers on compulsive gaming/gaming addiction for my book, so over the next few months look for me to do more videos on these and I will also release a full list of them at some point along the way. TAKE MY MANEY ALREADY
  18. Been a while since posting but i feel there's been a big enough series of changes iv made to talk about. I realized that while iv quit video games i haven't really changed my life i just delved deeper into workload and instead of being unproductive at the pc on counter strike i just turned that into mind numbing hours of poker for some moolah (which has been going nicely so i can't complain). But i see now that the reason i more or less backed away from the challenge pack that Cam put out was more out of personal fears on some of the activities. So i put together a personal list of skills, activities, and fears id like to get past and a bucket list. (which i won't list here until i complete something on the list) I also deepened my meditative practice which i feel is a great direction towards understanding fears, emotions, unhappiness and the clinging to things that create all the suffering in our lives. Thanks to cam's recommendation of the art of charm podcast iv been religiously listening to it and gaining a lot of insight into some interesting topics. Body language specifically being a very interesting area iv started picking up and reading at all opportunities when i go out. But id also like to recommend the art of manliness to the list of resources On a side note i watched a couple youtube videos of cs go games and can confirm it is my crack cocaine. My room mate plays video games on the daily and i have declined every offer and not really felt bad about it, however watching a single game of cs go i can feel my interest peaking pretty quickly. There was a video today that sort of illustrated i feel a bit of what the addiction of gaming is like : http://www.shockmansion.com/2015/12/02/video-short-film-set-in-the-slums-of-the-future-where-virtual-reality-junkies-satisfy-their-violent-impulses-in-online-gaming-uncanny-valley/ With VR around the corner its going to be interesting seeing a new wave of addiction and disconnect in society hit.
  19. ? thanks, without stumbling across your ted talk id still be doing the same repetitive cycle of suffering
  20. Thats news to me! i didn't know tinder had bots. But its understandable as well. A lot of the girls on online dating sites tend to be looking for kids and can't find guys their age willing to take that step (from the profiles i saw). Tinder everybody uses so the stigma was taken away, like a different realm of online dating. But i agree with everything cam said as well as your views on everything. Its much nicer to meet people in social context!
  21. I completely get where your comming from on the ganja. The clear headedness and productivity that comes by staying sober far outweighs any non-medical reasons personally. The whole vegan thing I find while a bit of a struggle to find good places to eat at times has become second nature. The thought of eating meat while it does appeal, the supposed health negatives that come with consuming it outlined in the book (which may not necessarily be 100% true but they were convincing enough to drag me over) just make me feel happier about eating the vegetables instead. The health industry is one confusing bundle of misinformation i never know what to believe! ?Day 86 game free - Weed streak broken @ 51 Hi guys been a while since i posted but some interesting challenges arose. The other day after having solid life progress since the last post in all areas i was confronted with a situation. I was sending a friend off and hanging out with him before we went, in the process we ended up going to a new group of guys and there was weed/video games (FIFA15). When the situation arose and i saw video games were present and the guys there trying to be polite and make everybody feel included there were new problems and processes i noticed going on in my head. Immediately after finishing a book on willpower i began noticing one of the terms they coined at work. 'Moral Coding'. I was basically trying to find justifications to myself on why playing the video game would be okay, why i should feel fine with it, its a social setting and a rare circumstance etc etc. I declined the offer to play only to be re-offered and re-re-re-offered so reluctantly i took the controller in my hand. Fortunately my friend who i had had a big conversation about my addiction and what it meant to me to avoid it was nice enough to jump in and phrase things in a way that may have looked sort of dickish but i was very greatful for. More or less saying i knew nothing about the game and he wanted a good team-mate so i swapped with another guy . After dodging the playing (i held the controller during the menu screen, and i didn't pick a team so i felt that my streak wasn't broken...specially so close to the 90 day mark i had always hoped to reach) we went out and had a smoke. The thing about weed i find is i tend to become hyper analytical about everything. Being that i tend to struggle socially with understanding social concepts that go on around me it was really enjoyable to sit back, and listen in on various conversations, dynamics and learn from those in the room. By the end of the night i had learned a fair bit about social context, banter and how to keep things in a competitive nature fun and good hearted most importantly. I did end up viewing a lot of fifa without playing, but still found myself more interested in the chess game going on to my left. But without meditation and understanding the psychology about whats occurring mid-bad decision i feel i would have been far more likely to just end up playing the game and breaking a streak i was proud of through various justifications. When the scenario did arise i just had the figure in my head of how many days id made it and i thought ahead about the feelings of disappointment and frustration and anger that the decision could bring on just over a single game. As far as the weed goes im gonna let another 30 days tick by before i hit up the ganja again :D. Very enjoyable but i still prefer to use it in a nature that i can study things rather then just buzz out on a couch watching netflix. So some Questions and resources i am looking for i hope others could contribute towards -Anything about understanding humor or joke psychology/grammar construction -Resources that are good study material for social situations -How do you respond after somebody is persistent in offering you a turn on a video game in a group setting while everybody is watching?
  22. I read the summarized version of The Willpower Instinct (was 1 hour instead of 5). It blew my mind and taught me all my tendencies and why i spiraled into addictions constantly. Would highly recommend it!
  23. ?If in doubt...tinder? With an avatar like that im sure you'll be smooth talking in a matter of minutes
  24. ?I am in the same boat with nails. As far as meet ups go have you considered maybe learning a martial arts or boxing? Its competitive, healthy, strategic and you get to meet new people in a fun sport (like judo). And the ladies will like that too im sure Glad to hear your taking school seriously i always regret not having given my grades my full attention. Its one of those things most people learn later on about. Its like appearance, getting top grades is just another representation of yourself and your standards. As far as girls go, nobody remains hot as they get older anyway so go for the ones with personality and show of impressive direction. Thats gonna be way better then a girl who drags you down with her social problems and habits but happens to be pretty. If you can get both then jackpot!
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