Ikar

I feel like this excuse I made specifically for this situation is invalid now. The point of the break is not to have a specific period "off" during the day. The point of the break is to do the activities I made the break for. I'll direct some more thought towards this. I don't really know if there's any other choice but to auction my time. I fall behind on household chores and I hate being unfair towards my girlfriend by letting her pull most of them. It's not only household chores, but other stuff too. I want to feel not being rushed - and its my fault if I don't carve time out for myself.

I remember @BooksandTrees once mused about hobbies turning into work. You kind of have to take care of your plants, otherwise they wither and die. You are right that it's a self-imposed obligation. I think it's possible to like the process of having a plant, but I am definitely not the person for that. I personally prefer hobbies I can walk away from at any time and that require no ongoing investment of my time. Then I can purely do the hobby for fun without strings attached. If I later want to get more serious about it, I can actively commit (for example, by joining a group, training, buying equipment etc.)

I'm using the template I used the last time. 16/8/26 - 11/9/26 "L" will stand for the (last) plan/notes for this term. "T" will stand for done this term. I added "Future goals/direction" to better reflect on the things I am trying to do and to add specificity. I will copy it and stick it somewhere where I can see it to remind myself whenever I feel aimless. I will also use different colors: blue for newly added goals/habits, green for completed/successful, orange for ongoing/some progress and red for ones I haven't worked on in that period. Books/Reading articles/Learning: L: I've read very little the last month or two. T: I got used to reading various blogs on Substack, but I'm having some technical issues with subscriptions. Read a really interesting thesis on organizations and people in them: The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to "The Office". Possible direction/goals/habits: (Borrow) and read one book until the next monthly report. Read daily (a few times a week). Reading (and crosswords) are a good way for me to relax. Drop a book whenever I don't look forward to reading it. CHECK HERE EVERY MONTH. (While this is technically just a hobby, I like to keep it separate, because it's a big one.) Family: L: I managed to meet all of my family members this period, which surprises me as I didn't have that much time to do so. Had a burger with my brother, a whole family meeting, lunch with my mom and lunch with my father. As I was away for the most of the last three weeks, I don't know what the situation is with my grandma. I just know she finally agreed to go to an assisted living facility. I'm meeting my parents later today, so maybe I'll know more. T: Met my father for his birthday and went to an improv show with my brother. Meeting my family tomorrow as well. NOT: I don't want to get alienated from my family. Possible direction/goals: Work on getting the new kitchen for my grandma. Continue work on maintaining the relationships with my family. Keep in contact at least once a month. Business/English/Army: L: No significant news this period, just a new student or two, probably replacing the ones ending. I wasn't here much. As for the army, I have a training in about a month, which I will probably attend. T: No holidays this period. I went to a local lecturer meeting, which was quite nice. I'm gonna be quite busy next week and then I'm gonna have my army training. NOT: I don't want to have a job that I don't enjoy. I don't want to have a job that is not well paid. Past projects: Copied to a Google Doc to keep this less cluttered. Current projects I'm working on: Website improvement project - since August 2024 - finished August 2025 with some small upgrades in autumn 2025 lecturer trainings - ENG business February-May 2025 55 minutes F2F lessons (+ online reminder too); pricing updates I and one of my FIRE friends organized a teacher/lecturer meeting. Find more teachers/colleagues to share workload with (with or without commission). Areas to work on continually: English table update - check every now and then for improvements. Keep classes at around 15-20 hours a week. Keep asking for reviews or recommendations from students. CELTA colleagues calls. Go through "lecturer academy" + CELTA materials + lecturer course. Exercise/Movement/Health + 10-13 break: L: Spent two weeks out of the last four out mostly walking, hiking and cycling on holidays with my girlfriend. If I count these out (and Tuesdays), I managed 9/9 days. It's possible to work out gym-style inside with the A/C on even during the worst of the current heatwaves. I managed to overwork my tendons in my knee on the bike on the second holiday. It comes up only specifically when I pedal and it's also the same leg that I turn inwards when I walk. Might be connected, so one more reason to start doing the balance and spine exercises to fix my feet. T: Counting out Tuesdays (even though I once managed to exercise even on Tuesday), I managed 14/16 exercise breaks this period. I also did the spine and feet exercise a few times, though I am not really consistent with it. I mostly just do strength training during the week nowadays and some hiking/cycling at the weekend. NOT: I don't want to become fat. Possible direction/goals: Keep in shape by exercising at least twice a week for 30-60 minutes. Have a session every weekday from January. Start flossing regularly. Incorporate balance and spine exercises. Keep on using the Oura ring to track vitals. Keep having the 1000-1300 break. Social + Personal Hobbies + Free Time (cool things I've done): L: This period quiz, one meeting with friends and a FIRE meeting. Watched films when my girlfriend was away. T: I have a new phone. Went to an improv show with my brother and met my colleagues at the lecturer meeting. Had a FIRE meeting, high school reunion and a board games night. Also met my girlfriend's friends from the office. I also had my second ever VR session with some of my friends. I however experienced a "VR hangover" that lasted for about three days. I felt quite lightheaded, so I'm not gonna go again, because it's quite a weird feeling. I'm also thankful for the help of my girlfriend's father who helped me out with my malfunctioning car. Possible direction/goals: Keep in touch with my friend groups (FIRE, quiz, best friends...). Relationship with my girlfriend: L: Since I've been off porn for a month, I have to say that we have better sex. I overall think the relationship is in a better place too. We also went to a funny talk show. Spent time together, went for a trip to a different city too. Visited her family. I even thought of how and when to get married. Spent time on holidays together, all OK, no porn for three months. Went to a sushi restaurant for my birthday. T: Went for some trips with my girlfriend again. Possible direction/goals: Make time to talk every day. Keep on working on strengthening our relationship via common activities. Others: L: Three months without porn. I still get some sort of excitement nostalgia. I am still learning to disentangle the different feelings and actions. Do I want sex? Am I horny? Or do I want to masturbate just because I want to cope with disappointment? Those are the questions that sometimes roam in my head and they don't always have a conclusive answer to them. It's about repetitions - not only about how many days you are without X, but how many times you resist, distract myself from dwelling in my head and take the harder road. I spent some evenings of a holiday with some of my girlfriend's family members. One of her cousins has two small kids. Spending time and raising a kid is really hard work. I'd argue it's hard work even if it's done badly. Having more kids is a lot of work and today's society is not really conductive to it, as families have atomized and a lot of the previously free communal services (by cousins, aunts, distant relatives) are professionalized and monetized. One of my friends/acquaintances is gonna have a baby in a few months, so we'll see how that changes him. Came back from our holidays on Saturday afternoon. I was happy to have some time for myself! I read about volatility drag in finance and air drag while driving yesterday. I tried to pick my bike lock today. I miss doing these kinds of things when I am not at home. I like to spend time on my own. Though the summers in our flat are getting terrible, so maybe it's a good idea to get out somewhere for most of the summer. But to be fair, I had 4 days without my girlfriend too, when she traveled with her sister - I watched films and had some meetings with friends. I just feel it's hard to really manage routines when I am out more often. I know a lot of people don't have nearly the degree of freedom I have - even if they make far more money, they just live paycheck to paycheck without ever entertaining the idea that maybe they don't need to work until the official state-sponsored retirement. T: No porn for almost four months. It does still however find its way to my mind sometimes. Anyhow, I'm seriously considering to keep Fridays off permanently. --- For thought: Maybe I should just learn to plan better, though just the thought of having some hours of my day scheduled makes me cringe. Oddly enough, I don't get this feeling while planning lessons of my students, normally in bigger blocks. Maybe I should rethink that belief to make me happier. This might change with the late morning exercise lessons. 10-13 change works well. I've had this recurring thought every now and then that I am often somehow prevented from what I want to do in my free time; basically whenever I am not with students or sleeping. No, I just need to stop reading and learning all the time and start doing things. Imperfect action yields results. Information alone is useless. I like these reports, because they take me back in the calendar and let me see if there's something I've missed or something I need to check on again.

I think the penetration of information about behavioral addictions is quite abysmal among the general public. Plus I agree with you they probably have "normal" levels of consumption on their minds. Anyway, I honestly don't know how people would react if I came to them ten years ago and told them "I play computer games 8 hours a day." It'd probably scare them off. About five six years ago, I was chatting to a girl, perhaps trying to see if she would be a good date. I tried for about ten minutes to find out whether she can talk about anything else than watching series, but failed. I can say that this did scare me off :D Either way, I dislike pure-audio podcasts due to the fact that I can't concentrate fully. I need the video too. I prefer listening to music, because there's no information "to be missed". I often drive the car without listening to the radio too. But I'm probably the weird one :) Nice introspection. If you feel like silencing a friend, it could be social. I can empathize with "running away from negative thoughts". It just depends on whether the escape is temporary and healthy, or whether we're avoiding doing something important. It's not always easy to distinguish. I think the blockers are mainly important to reinforce the initial decision. As in "I spent an hour setting this system up. I've done something to help myself." To use my porn example, I actually don't have any porn-blockers on my PC. It's because I've never watched porn on my PC, but on my phone. As for my phone, I use SPIN safe browser (basically a browser with a built-in restricted mode). I also uninstalled YT and can only use it through the browser. I also installed a more advanced all-phone porn blocker. I never got around to activating it though, because the app monitors the screen all the time and I didn't want to just surrender all my privacy and security (passwords). So yeah, I can probably access my "favorite" porn in about a minute, but it's just that I don't think I need it anymore. As for the severity, I used it a few times a week for maybe half an hour before quitting.

Sounds great! I hope the new company treats you fairly in the future as well. I've recently noticed out that I watch YT less. I don't really know why, but the videos from the channels I follow just don't pique my interest. Anyhow, if I am over 100 days without porn, you can manage 90 days without YT 👍 Good luck! My mom suffers from the same condition, it's actually somewhat scary. Did the doctors give you any recommendations, besides using the machine?

Welcome back!

I'm using the template I used the last time. 16/7/26 - 16/8/26 "L" will stand for the (last) plan/notes for this term. "T" will stand for done this term. I added "Future goals/direction" to better reflect on the things I am trying to do and to add specificity. I will copy it and stick it somewhere where I can see it to remind myself whenever I feel aimless. I will also use different colors: blue for newly added goals/habits, green for completed/successful, orange for ongoing/some progress and red for ones I haven't worked on in that period. Books/Reading articles/Learning: L: I've been reading (financial, but not only) blogs by Financial Samurai and Derek Hagen. I've also started a book recommended to me by my girlfriend on the lack and discrepancy of data on women from a feminist perspective, but I'm having a better time reading the financial blogs still. I've grown a bit tired of reading financial blogs, so I picked up the book again. I'd like to get back to reading daily. T: I've read very little the last month or two. Possible direction/goals/habits: (Borrow) and read one book until the next monthly report. Read daily (a few times a week). Reading (and crosswords) are a good way for me to relax. Drop a book whenever I don't look forward to reading it. CHECK HERE EVERY MONTH. (While this is technically just a hobby, I like to keep it separate, because it's a big one.) Family: L: I visited my grandma at the hospital, my mom at her spa retreat and I'm meeting my brother tomorrow over sushi. Nothing much happening otherwise. T: I managed to meet all of my family members this period, which surprises me as I didn't have that much time to do so. Had a burger with my brother, a whole family meeting, lunch with my mom and lunch with my father. As I was away for the most of the last three weeks, I don't know what the situation is with my grandma. I just know she finally agreed to go to an assisted living facility. I'm meeting my parents later today, so maybe I'll know more. NOT: I don't want to get alienated from my family. Possible direction/goals: Work on getting the new kitchen for my grandma. Continue work on maintaining the relationships with my family. Keep in contact at least once a month. Business/English/Army: L: So at the end of June, I managed to strike the deal at the company with the conditions being pretty much what I wanted. That's pretty good, as it's a lot of work for a lot of money. I also had some physical army testing and I managed to run longer, do more push-ups and sit-ups too. T: No significant news this period, just a new student or two, probably replacing the ones ending. I wasn't here much. As for the army, I have a training in about a month, which I will probably attend. NOT: I don't want to have a job that I don't enjoy. I don't want to have a job that is not well paid. Past projects: Copied to a Google Doc to keep this less cluttered. Current projects I'm working on: Website improvement project - since August 2024 - finished August 2025 with some small upgrades in autumn 2025 lecturer trainings - ENG business February-May 2025 55 minutes F2F lessons (+ online reminder too); pricing updates I and one of my FIRE friends organized a teacher/lecturer meeting. Find more teachers/colleagues to share workload with (with or without commission). Areas to work on continually: English table update - check every now and then for improvements. Keep classes at around 15-20 hours a week. Keep asking for reviews or recommendations from students. CELTA colleagues calls. Go through "lecturer academy" + CELTA materials + lecturer course. Exercise/Movement/Health + 10-13 break: L: I did the army test and I managed to run longer, do more push-ups and sit-ups too. As for the breaks, by getting the new client, I effectively made it impossible to have a break on Tuesdays. I was thinking of going there on bike, but it's a bit too far for me (around 60 kilometers total). I allocate two hours to (paid) travel there and back even in the car. I'll count these days out for the future. That means I hit 15/16 of working days, out of the grand total of 24 working days. 8 days were not possible due to traveling and work. This might warrant some future thinking whether I actually don't want to change this to make time for exercise on Tuesday afternoon. Managed to cycle, hike and go to the gym with my girlfriend a few times at the weekend too. Attended a running competition/army test and marked down the results in the table. T: Spent two weeks out of the last four out mostly walking, hiking and cycling on holidays with my girlfriend. If I count these out (and Tuesdays), I managed 9/9 days. It's possible to work out gym-style inside with the A/C on even during the worst of the current heatwaves. I managed to overwork my tendons in my knee on the bike on the second holiday. It comes up only specifically when I pedal and it's also the same leg that I turn inwards when I walk. Might be connected, so one more reason to start doing the balance and spine exercises to fix my feet. NOT: I don't want to become fat. Possible direction/goals: Keep in shape by exercising at least twice a week for 30-60 minutes. Have a session every weekday from January. Start flossing regularly. Incorporate balance and spine exercises. Keep on using the Oura ring to track vitals. Keep having the 1000-1300 break. Social + Personal Hobbies + Free Time (cool things I've done): L: I had yet another another FIRE meeting, met my best friend a few times, went to a pub quiz and attended a friend's birthday party. It was actually nice to see some old friends in a while. T: This period quiz, one meeting with friends and a FIRE meeting. Watched films when my girlfriend was away. Possible direction/goals: Keep in touch with my friend groups (FIRE, quiz, best friends...). Relationship with my girlfriend: L: Since I've been off porn for a month, I have to say that we have better sex. I overall think the relationship is in a better place too. We also went to a funny talk show. Spent time together, went for a trip to a different city too. Visited her family. I even thought of how and when to get married. T: Spent time on holidays together, all OK, no porn for three months. Went to a sushi restaurant for my birthday. Possible direction/goals: Make time to talk every day. Keep on working on strengthening our relationship via common activities. Others: L: Now I'm at 8 weeks of no porn. I'm going through an online course slowly and steadily at least a few times per week. I just don't need porn if I take care of myself; and that's easier to do if I have more control over my time. Week 27 (June/July week) was tough. It was very stressful (a surprising amount of work), as I didn't have time for myself, on top of a heatwave. Our flat is really exposed to sun, so it was a major pain. Despite that, I managed to not watch porn and I was grounded. Good job (just saying that to myself). Still thinking about new quality-of-life improvements, related to work, money and time. The 10-13 break every day is good. What's next? No work after X p.m.? Hard limits on the number of lessons? No work with "bad" clients? I don't know really. It's actually quite difficult to responsibly manage more than 25 hours per week due to the nature of my work. Even then, I feel like I have much to do besides work anyway, which I (still) don't do for example, using the inter-dental toothbrush, do balance exercise to fix my posture etc. How do I limit my workload with some intent and thought and maximizing the purpose I get from my work? It's a good problem to have, but I still want to solve it in a way that makes sense. T: Three months without porn. I still get some sort of excitement nostalgia. I am still learning to disentangle the different feelings and actions. Do I want sex? Am I horny? Or do I want to masturbate just because I want to cope with disappointment? Those are the questions that sometimes roam in my head and they don't always have a conclusive answer to them. It's about repetitions - not only about how many days you are without X, but how many times you resist, distract myself from dwelling in my head and take the harder road. I spent some evenings of a holiday with some of my girlfriend's family members. One of her cousins has two small kids. Spending time and raising a kid is really hard work. I'd argue it's hard work even if it's done badly. Having more kids is a lot of work and today's society is not really conductive to it, as families have atomized and a lot of the previously free communal services (by cousins, aunts, distant relatives) are professionalized and monetized. One of my friends/acquaintances is gonna have a baby in a few months, so we'll see how that changes him. Came back from our holidays on Saturday afternoon. I was happy to have some time for myself! I read about volatility drag in finance and air drag while driving yesterday. I tried to pick my bike lock today. I miss doing these kinds of things when I am not at home. I like to spend time on my own. Though the summers in our flat are getting terrible, so maybe it's a good idea to get out somewhere for most of the summer. But to be fair, I had 4 days without my girlfriend too, when she traveled with her sister - I watched films and had some meetings with friends. I just feel it's hard to really manage routines when I am out more often. I know a lot of people don't have nearly the degree of freedom I have - even if they make far more money, they just live paycheck to paycheck without ever entertaining the idea that maybe they don't need to work until the official state-sponsored retirement. --- For thought: Maybe I should just learn to plan better, though just the thought of having some hours of my day scheduled makes me cringe. Oddly enough, I don't get this feeling while planning lessons of my students, normally in bigger blocks. Maybe I should rethink that belief to make me happier. This might change with the late morning exercise lessons. 10-13 change works well. I've had this recurring thought every now and then that I am often somehow prevented from what I want to do in my free time; basically whenever I am not with students or sleeping. No, I just need to stop reading and learning all the time and start doing things. Imperfect action yields results. Information alone is useless. I like these reports, because they take me back in the calendar and let me see if there's something I've missed or something I need to check on again.

I'm using the template I used the last time. 13/6/26 - 16/7/26 "L" will stand for the (last) plan/notes for this term. "T" will stand for done this term. I added "Future goals/direction" to better reflect on the things I am trying to do and to add specificity. I will copy it and stick it somewhere where I can see it to remind myself whenever I feel aimless. I will also use different colors: blue for newly added goals/habits, green for completed/successful, orange for ongoing/some progress and red for ones I haven't worked on in that period. Books/Reading articles/Learning: L: I've been reading (financial, but not only) blogs by Financial Samurai and Derek Hagen. I've also started a book recommended to me by my girlfriend on the lack and discrepancy of data on women from a feminist perspective, but I'm having a better time reading the financial blogs still. T: I've grown a bit tired of reading financial blogs, so I picked up the book again. I'd like to get back to reading daily. Possible direction/goals/habits: (Borrow) and read one book until the next monthly report. Read daily (a few times a week). Reading (and crosswords) are a good way for me to relax. Drop a book whenever I don't look forward to reading it. CHECK HERE EVERY MONTH. (While this is technically just a hobby, I like to keep it separate, because it's a big one.) Family: L: So my grandma was (finally and thankfully) hospitalized about a month ago. During one of the "routine" emergency ambulance visits, one of the medics noticed that her legs are in really bad condition, mostly due to poor hygiene. No surprise there, because I had called the emergency back in January because of her legs. She had a surgery in the hospital and they pumped antibiotics into her, but it seems that it's just a matter of time when they're gonna have to amputate her leg. She also had undiagnosed/untreated diabetes for a very long time, which doesn't help. She still delusionally insists that she's doing okay and looking forward to being home in her flat again... I met my brother yesterday for lunch and we had a good talk about his job and other stuff. - I had two visits to my grandma in the hospital, both with my parents. I'm happy that now she has daily care, though of course the bad news is that it's unlikely it'll ever get substantially better. On a brighter note, my parents and my girlfriend's met for the first time and it seemed to me they had a pretty good time together. T: I visited my grandma at the hospital, my mom at her spa retreat and I'm meeting my brother tomorrow over sushi. Nothing much happening otherwise. NOT: I don't want to get alienated from my family. Possible direction/goals: Work on getting the new kitchen for my grandma. Continue work on maintaining the relationships with my family. Keep in contact at least once a month. Business/English/Army: L: In the end, I got contacted by the company I sent the offer to, so something did in fact come out of it. I updated the price offer asked for a really premium rate this time, because I need to travel to get there. The outlook is good, I have more than enough work at this point. I'll have to make some price increases to reflect that. I also made a partial analysis of the rate of return on the website. I compared the performance of the last 8 months of the old website and 8 months of the new website. The old website "generated" 5 students and the new one "generated" 5 students as well. I also have three active inquiries now. I guess I was expecting more, but granted I also raised the prices and have enough work as it is, I'm not really bothered by that. I had a few army activities in April, including a SERE theory course. I'm still in contact with the "price offer" company. If it works out, great, I'll have extra 5-7 hours of work per week for a great rate. If not, I'll have more free time for myself. I win either way! I also sent out the questionnaire for this semester. Nothing else otherwise. T: So I managed to strike the deal at the company with the conditions being pretty much what I wanted. That's pretty good, as it's a lot of work for a lot of money. I also had some physical army testing and I managed to run longer, do more push-ups and sit-ups too. NOT: I don't want to have a job that I don't enjoy. I don't want to have a job that is not well paid. Past projects: Copied to a Google Doc to keep this less cluttered. Current projects I'm working on: Website improvement project - since August 2024 - finished August 2025 with some small upgrades in autumn 2025 lecturer trainings - ENG business February-May 2025 55 minutes F2F lessons (+ online reminder too); pricing updates I and one of my FIRE friends organized a teacher/lecturer meeting. Find more teachers/colleagues to share workload with (with or without commission). Areas to work on continually: English table update - check every now and then for improvements. Keep classes at around 15-20 hours a week. Keep asking for reviews or recommendations from students. CELTA colleagues calls. Go through "lecturer academy" + CELTA materials + lecturer course. Exercise/Movement/Health + 10-13 break: L: I had the army tests just two days after writing the last report. I passed, but I want to improve on my result, so I'm going again in two days. Managed to exercise 17/20 of my 10-13 breaks. I also dug up my run competition results from the last three years; I'm getting better, bit by bit. T: I did the army test and I managed to run longer, do more push-ups and sit-ups too. As for the breaks, by getting the new client, I effectively made it impossible to have a break on Tuesdays. I was thinking of going there on bike, but it's a bit too far for me (around 60 kilometers total). I allocate two hours to (paid) travel there and back even in the car. I'll count these days out for the future. That means I hit 15/16 of working days, out of the grand total of 24 working days. 8 days were not possible due to traveling and work. This might warrant some future thinking whether I actually don't want to change this to make time for exercise on Tuesday afternoon. Managed to cycle, hike and go to the gym with my girlfriend a few times at the weekend too. Attended a running competition/army test and marked down the results in the table. NOT: I don't want to become fat. Possible direction/goals: Keep in shape by exercising at least twice a week for 30-60 minutes. Have a session every weekday from January. Start flossing regularly. Incorporate balance and spine exercises. Keep on using the Oura ring to track vitals. Keep having the 1000-1300 break. Social + Personal Hobbies + Free Time (cool things I've done): L: Had another FIRE meeting, met my friend a few times and attended a pub quiz with a few other friends. We also watched the hockey championship. I also watched a few action and finance films when my girlfriend was away with her family for the weekend. T: I had yet another another FIRE meeting, met my best friend a few times, went to a pub quiz and attended a friend's birthday party. It was actually nice to see some old friends in a while. Possible direction/goals: Keep in touch with my friend groups (FIRE, quiz, best friends...). Relationship with my girlfriend: L: Since I've been off porn for a month, I have to say that we have better sex. I overall think the relationship is in a better place too. We also went to a funny talk show. T: Spent time together, went for a trip to a different city too. Visited her family. I even thought of how and when to get married. Possible direction/goals: Make time to talk every day. Keep on working on strengthening our relationship via common activities. Others: L: I felt a bit clueless as we were coming back home from the holiday last week, as if I had no priorities and no goals. This week proved me wrong. I actually felt quite beat-up at the end week, as I plunged from my active holiday of 10 days straight back into work. I have more than enough stuff to do and to work on that are meaningful - it's just that for a day, I felt that nothing was going on. This year, so far I've managed to sock away about 35% of what I made this year, after taxes. I've debated myself on whether I should take more holidays, but come to the conclusion: What would I take holidays from? There's not much point in doing so if I already do what I want and what I need. I've read something on living an international lifestyle - changing countries every few months to avoid personal taxes, but I guess it's not something that would interest me at the moment. Last but not least, I'll circle back to porn. It's been kind of back and forth for the last few weeks, but even months and years. I had some limited success of longer streaks of no porn in 2022 for a few months, no porn in 2024 for a month before the CELTA course (it was very insightful, but also very stressful). I obviously don't do it in social settings and sometimes I'm busy enough to not think of it for days or even weeks. It's not even that I watch porn for nudity and some depictions of sex, I think there's something else at play. After about a week of abstinence, I also feel my natural libido coming back. The issue is, I don't know how to help myself with it. I'm planning to do some research again on how to understand myself better soon. Continuing on my musings with money, considering what I've saved up through my work, I feel like I might start giving the money more purpose and intent. I might use it to give myself more free time, but I don't feel like overloading myself or neglecting an important area of my life. Just the balance and spine exercises and flossing come to my mind at the moment. I need to give myself some more time to think about this. @Heretic666 As I wrote above, my relationship with my girlfriend got better after about a month off porn. It's not that I've completely stopped thinking about it, but it's not even been that hard to abstain. In fact, I even managed to masturbate on my own (without porn), which is something I haven't done in a long time. I also feel more energy overall, so I might be getting better sports results. As a side note, my girlfriend and I went to a fertility clinic to check if we're both able to have a baby and the results were positive for both of us. As for battling the company that refused to refund me for tickets for a concert after it was canceled, I got a court order in my favor, so it's going well. T: Now I'm at 8 weeks of no porn. I'm going through an online course slowly and steadily at least a few times per week. I just don't need porn if I take care of myself; and that's easier to do if I have more control over my time. Week 27 (June/July week) was tough. It was very stressful (a surprising amount of work), as I didn't have time for myself, on top of a heatwave. Our flat is really exposed to sun, so it was a major pain. Despite that, I managed to not watch porn and I was grounded. Good job (just saying that to myself). --- Still thinking about new quality-of-life improvements, related to work, money and time. The 10-13 break every day is good. What's next? No work after X p.m.? Hard limits on the number of lessons? No work with "bad" clients? I don't know really. It's actually quite difficult to responsibly manage more than 25 hours per week due to the nature of my work. Even then, I feel like I have much to do besides work anyway, which I (still) don't do for example, using the inter-dental toothbrush, do balance exercise to fix my posture etc. How do I limit my workload with some intent and thought and maximizing the purpose I get from my work? It's a good problem to have, but I still want to solve it in a way that makes sense. --- For thought: Maybe I should just learn to plan better, though just the thought of having some hours of my day scheduled makes me cringe. Oddly enough, I don't get this feeling while planning lessons of my students, normally in bigger blocks. Maybe I should rethink that belief to make me happier. This might change with the late morning exercise lessons. 10-13 change works well. I've had this recurring thought every now and then that I am often somehow prevented from what I want to do in my free time; basically whenever I am not with students or sleeping. No, I just need to stop reading and learning all the time and start doing things. Imperfect action yields results. Information alone is useless. I like these reports, because they take me back in the calendar and let me see if there's something I've missed or something I need to check on again.

I quit games when I was 21. It was a good decision, looking back on it :) Anyway, there's no point in regretting the past. Hindsight is 20/20. The important thing is that you've learnt 1) what needs gaming helped you with and 2) how to fulfill these needs elsewhere. It might take some time to manage that, but it gets better over time. It seems to me you have a good attitude to deal with this. Good luck!

Hey, do you have somebody to help you out with this? A potential colleague or business partner? Or just contacts of people who might be able to help you? Are there any regional agencies that can help you out with supporting the project? I'm just asking to know which direction are you taking this :)

I think parenting is one of those things you can't get ready for and once you're actually doing it, then you hardly ever have time to think about it. So I definitely agree the best preparation is to sort yourself out first, because then you can adequately react on the spot. That's why I am 6 weeks porn free at this point. Maybe I have some other problems too, but then I'd believe it's mostly just about setting priorities. Plus I actually want to be there with the kids. I don't want to get a child and then just work to provide income. My father did that. Now, at age 60, he tasks my mom to convince me to do something for him - instead of telling me directly. I'd even think that was normal, until I met my current girlfriend. I just want to be better than him in this regard. And all this was made possible by quitting games in the first place. You indeed are one of the guys from 2021! Quite a rough time to quit gaming, but there's never THE right time to quit an addiction anyway. 23 weeks is great! If you still get cravings, it's useful to use the "HALTED" method from the guys here on the forum. After those 6 weeks, porn is relatively easy for me to handle now. I just need to remember it's not THE answer to all the unpleasant (or even pleasant) emotions. I have other ways of dealing with emotions. Also, don't be afraid to come back after relapse - I'm writing this for you as much as I'm writing it for myself. The only time you truly give up on yourself is when you stop trying. Good luck!

I somehow randomly got the idea to go through my diary entries some 5-6 years ago, when the coronavirus lockdowns were in effect (March-May 2020 and October 2020-April 2021). Looking back, I'm mostly proud of myself. I made it. Maybe I was too intense sometimes. Sure, I cringe at certain passages. I'm in shock from some others (all the girls - here I am now in a relationship for the last 3,5 years, lol). But I've still made solid progress as a person :) I was really quite experimental, as I had quit games just a year or two before that. Over time, I had decided to follow my heart to teach adults English. I've escaped the clutches of Forex and a second MLM financial scheme. I'm happy I did, because I'm not the type of person to deal with constant manipulation and backroom backstabbing to just sell out my soul for money. I also left behind a lot of other stuff. I decided to not continue in my field after finishing the university. I quit drumming. I also never really picked up martial arts. I also left behind a few relationships that didn't work in a way I wanted them to work. I kept on writing, but mostly just here. I learnt a lot. I'm happy and grateful for that. Shout out to all the old guns who were here during the time: @ceponatia @BooksandTrees @Phoenixking @Icandothis @Empathy @DaBest @TheNewMe2.0 @Amphibian220 @Alexanderle @Tzen1 @PianoLearner @chiliflavor @Bird By Bird @Arthur @JSmith @Pochatok @Jason70 @royal panda And also shout out to all the new guns (yes, new guns, because most of you registered after April 2021, hahaha), who took some of their time to read my entries here: @WilderDaze @Yan @FDRx7 @reader @Heretic666 @RealityOptimizer Time runs quickly. It's been quite a ride. And I'm not leaving yet :)

I have some time today, so I figured why not? Backstory: I've been invested since 2020 (I randomly started literally during the COVID crash) and since 2021 I'm invested more effectively and in bigger numbers. Today in 2026, it's enough to just look at the S&P 500 growth over the past 5 years to see how successful the whole market has been. Maybe there'll be a draw-down, but that's besides the point. Besides, one can't invest without getting the money first. I don't have a bad job to quit or a horrible lifestyle to change. No debt either. No terrible desire to spend on something either. It seems to me the only life-altering decision in terms of money would be having kids. That might give the money some tangible use. If I don't have kids, there's probably no point in saving as much as I do now. I'm not really afraid of being poor when old. I'm afraid of being inactive and senile, like my grandma is now. I'd probably work less though, as I just consider having time off more valuable than money. If I do have kids, I'll pool the money I make at the time in with my girlfriend and the baby. Having babies is still quite a brutal remembrance to how things were in the past (given that birth can't change much by the definition of genetics) and I want to be there to do my part and to actually spend time with the family once I have it. This will probably also mean working less. Having kids is still somewhat scary for me, because you can't walk back on that.

I'm using the template I used the last time. 16/5/26 - 13/6/26 "L" will stand for the (last) plan/notes for this term. "T" will stand for done this term. I added "Future goals/direction" to better reflect on the things I am trying to do and to add specificity. I will copy it and stick it somewhere where I can see it to remind myself whenever I feel aimless. I will also use different colors: blue for newly added goals/habits, green for completed/successful, orange for ongoing/some progress and red for ones I haven't worked on in that period. Books/Reading articles/Learning: L: Started with a book and found out about halfway through it that he was implicated in the Epstein files. Granted its a book about psychology, I no longer consider it valuable. Gonna head to the library again. Continuing with various blogs, mostly on finance. T: I've been reading (financial, but not only) blogs by Financial Samurai and Derek Hagen. I've also started a book recommended to me by my girlfriend on the lack and discrepancy of data on women from a feminist perspective, but I'm having a better time reading the financial blogs still. Possible direction/goals/habits: (Borrow) and read one book until the next monthly report. Read daily (a few times a week). Reading (and crosswords) are a good way for me to relax. Drop a book whenever I don't look forward to reading it. CHECK HERE EVERY MONTH. (While this is technically just a hobby, I like to keep it separate, because it's a big one.) Family: L: So my grandma was (finally and thankfully) hospitalized about a month ago. During one of the "routine" emergency ambulance visits, one of the medics noticed that her legs are in really bad condition, mostly due to poor hygiene. No surprise there, because I had called the emergency back in January because of her legs. She had a surgery in the hospital and they pumped antibiotics into her, but it seems that it's just a matter of time when they're gonna have to amputate her leg. She also had undiagnosed/untreated diabetes for a very long time, which doesn't help. She still delusionally insists that she's doing okay and looking forward to being home in her flat again... I met my brother yesterday for lunch and we had a good talk about his job and other stuff. T: I had two visits to my grandma in the hospital, both with my parents. I'm happy that now she has daily care, though of course the bad news is that it's unlikely it'll ever get substantially better. On a brighter note, my parents and my girlfriend's met for the first time and it seemed to me they had a pretty good time together. NOT: I don't want to get alienated from my family. Possible direction/goals: Work on getting the new kitchen for my grandma. Continue work on maintaining the relationships with my family. Keep in contact at least once a month. Business/English/Army: L: In the end, I got contacted by the company I sent the offer to, so something did in fact come out of it. I updated the price offer asked for a really premium rate this time, because I need to travel to get there. The outlook is good, I have more than enough work at this point. I'll have to make some price increases to reflect that. I also made a partial analysis of the rate of return on the website. I compared the performance of the last 8 months of the old website and 8 months of the new website. The old website "generated" 5 students and the new one "generated" 5 students as well. I also have three active inquiries now. I guess I was expecting more, but granted I also raised the prices and have enough work as it is, I'm not really bothered by that. I had a few army activities in April, including a SERE theory course. T: I'm still in contact with the "price offer" company. If it works out, great, I'll have extra 5-7 hours of work per week for a great rate. If not, I'll have more free time for myself. I win either way! I also sent out the questionnaire for this semester. Nothing else otherwise. NOT: I don't want to have a job that I don't enjoy. I don't want to have a job that is not well paid. Past projects: Copied to a Google Doc to keep this less cluttered. Current projects I'm working on: Website improvement project - since August 2024 - finished August 2025 with some small upgrades in autumn 2025 lecturer trainings - ENG business February-May 2025 55 minutes F2F lessons (+ online reminder too); pricing updates I and one of my FIRE friends organized a teacher/lecturer meeting. Find more teachers/colleagues to share workload with (with or without commission). Areas to work on continually: English table update - check every now and then for improvements. Keep classes at around 15-20 hours a week. Keep asking for reviews or recommendations from students. CELTA colleagues calls. Go through "lecturer academy" + CELTA materials + lecturer course. Exercise/Movement/Health + 10-13 break: L: Managed to exercise 13/19 of my 10-13 breaks. The week before the holiday was weak, as we prepared to leave and I had more social events. Went to a race and got ran 6,2 kilometers in 29:13 minutes - roughly 4:45 min/km. We were active during our holiday as well, but not in the standard way of running or lifting, but we did a lot of hiking and cycling. T: I had the army tests just two days after writing the last report. I passed, but I want to improve on my result, so I'm going again in two days. Managed to exercise 17/20 of my 10-13 breaks. I also dug up my run competition results from the last three years; I'm getting better, bit by bit. NOT: I don't want to become fat. Possible direction/goals: Keep in shape by exercising at least twice a week for 30-60 minutes. Have a session every weekday from January. Start flossing regularly. Incorporate balance and spine exercises. Keep on using the Oura ring to track vitals. Keep having the 1000-1300 break. Social + Personal Hobbies + Free Time (cool things I've done): L: Met my friend, played table football and had a nice holiday in Normandy. We visited many bunkers and museum and even cemeteries related to WWII. T: Had another FIRE meeting, met my friend a few times and attended a pub quiz with a few other friends. We also watched the hockey championship. I also watched a few action and finance films when my girlfriend was away with her family for the weekend. Possible direction/goals: Keep in touch with my friend groups (FIRE, quiz, best friends...). Relationship with my girlfriend: L: Spent time together on holiday and watched some films together. My girlfriend mentioned she'd like to talk and debate with me more often. T: Since I've been off porn for a month, I have to say that we have better sex. I overall think the relationship is in a better place too. We also went to a funny talk show. Possible direction/goals: Make time to talk every day. Keep on working on strengthening our relationship via common activities. Others: L: I felt a bit clueless as we were coming back home from the holiday last week, as if I had no priorities and no goals. This week proved me wrong. I actually felt quite beat-up at the end week, as I plunged from my active holiday of 10 days straight back into work. I have more than enough stuff to do and to work on that are meaningful - it's just that for a day, I felt that nothing was going on. This year, so far I've managed to sock away about 35% of what I made this year, after taxes. I've debated myself on whether I should take more holidays, but come to the conclusion: What would I take holidays from? There's not much point in doing so if I already do what I want and what I need. I've read something on living an international lifestyle - changing countries every few months to avoid personal taxes, but I guess it's not something that would interest me at the moment. Last but not least, I'll circle back to porn. It's been kind of back and forth for the last few weeks, but even months and years. I had some limited success of longer streaks of no porn in 2022 for a few months, no porn in 2024 for a month before the CELTA course (it was very insightful, but also very stressful). I obviously don't do it in social settings and sometimes I'm busy enough to not think of it for days or even weeks. It's not even that I watch porn for nudity and some depictions of sex, I think there's something else at play. After about a week of abstinence, I also feel my natural libido coming back. The issue is, I don't know how to help myself with it. I'm planning to do some research again on how to understand myself better soon. T: Continuing on my musings with money, considering what I've saved up through my work, I feel like I might start giving the money more purpose and intent. I might use it to give myself more free time, but I don't feel like overloading myself or neglecting an important area of my life. Just the balance and spine exercises and flossing come to my mind at the moment. I need to give myself some more time to think about this. @Heretic666 As I wrote above, my relationship with my girlfriend got better after about a month off porn. It's not that I've completely stopped thinking about it, but it's not even been that hard to abstain. In fact, I even managed to masturbate on my own (without porn), which is something I haven't done in a long time. I also feel more energy overall, so I might be getting better sports results. As a side note, my girlfriend and I went to a fertility clinic to check if we're both able to have a baby and the results were positive for both of us. As for battling the company that refused to refund me for tickets for a concert after it was canceled, I got a court order in my favor, so it's going well. --- For thought: Maybe I should just learn to plan better, though just the thought of having some hours of my day scheduled makes me cringe. Oddly enough, I don't get this feeling while planning lessons of my students, normally in bigger blocks. Maybe I should rethink that belief to make me happier. This might change with the late morning exercise lessons. 10-13 change works well. I've had this recurring thought every now and then that I am often somehow prevented from what I want to do in my free time; basically whenever I am not with students or sleeping. No, I just need to stop reading and learning all the time and start doing things. Imperfect action yields results. Information alone is useless. I like these reports, because they take me back in the calendar and let me see if there's something I've missed or something I need to check on again.

Well yeah, that's the thing. My purpose is what I do. My purpose was what I did. We can today argue whether "gaming" was a good purpose for me back then, but it was my purpose back then. A few years ago, I decided to change my purpose and started doing other things. I mean, again giving myself as an example, I think I had a purpose of "gaming" attached to me since being (let's say) 10, but unknowingly and without being able to really choose. If anything, for a long time, I was unable to change my purpose from "gaming" to branch out to something else. But we don't need to get hung up on wordplay and philosophical details 😅 You're right. I think they were all hyper-effective and organized. I also think it's worth noting that they got lucky. They were at the right place at the right time. There have been dozens of Edisons, hundreds of Obamas and thousands of Musks that we've never heard of, because the competition at the top is brutal :) Agreed 😄