Ikar

22nd July - 24th July: On Friday, I went to the get-together with my high-school classmates and had a good chat with a few of them. I wrote this to my girlfriend yesterday: "I caught one or two remarks from a guy like I would 8 years ago. I think that some (high-school classmates) see me for who I am today, while others never will. I think this shit is bound to happen with people you used to see every day for a long time (classmates, parents), but now you see only twice a year or so. The environment tends to recreate itself in a very similar way again as it used to and it's hard to escape that." It's a fairly stark reminder of how I was and how I used to feel in the past. I sometimes feel a mixed bag of shame, regret and inadequacy in that setting. Regardless, these people largely do not matter today, so it's pointless to worry about that. I feel truly myself only with a few of them and these I'd try or I'm willing to see more often individually. I decided to come back in the afternoon on Saturday, as I felt the main thing was to show up and meet and chat with the people I wanted to, instead of staying one more day. Worth noting is that I cycled with a few guys and it was about 80 kilometers in total. Yesterday I had a call with my girlfriend and overall a relaxed rest of the day after returning in the afternoon. Today I have a day just for myself and I'm catching up on some errands, as I haven't had a completely free day for two weeks. I'm planning to do some reading, planning and other small things that need doing.

It depends what you define as the "safest possible instrument". The safest way for me to grow my money over the long run are stocks, though bonds might perform better at the moment. I'm 24, so I have a shot for a very long investment horizon. I also don't want to trade - guess, if a single stock goes up or down in the next week, month or year. I did that with Forex and it didn't work. Now I just set the order and buy the whole market index once a month, as my salary arrives. I have a cushion to deal with unexpected expenses or unemployment, so I am covered on both ends. And if the world as a whole goes to the shitter, then I am happy for whatever army training I remember and my gunnery hobby 😄

18th July - 21st July: The internship has been interesting, despite the fact that mapping of greenery and its usefulness for people was not exactly the first thing I'd imagine doing for my internship. My mentor is around 60, however he sometimes strikes me as if he's my age and we get along well. He's very knowledgeable in his field, however he did mention he has no illusions about how much of his work actually gets to the decision makers/politicians. We walked a lot as a part of the mapping. I finished reading the book about homeless people. It was interesting. It made me realize that while at one point there was a possibility that I am going to end up homeless, as in the real story below: A friend of my father has a son who used to game all day and didn't do anything else. He and his wife decided to kick their son out of the flat, so that he could get a job and start functioning properly. There was no telling what would happen (i.e. he could have turned into a homeless junkie), but in the end it turned out well, because he got a job and was able to take care of himself. Now the chance of that for me is zero. I'd have to literally become insane AND forget everything at the same time AND lose all my friends and family, but I wouldn't or couldn't care at that point anyway. I wouldn't be I as I know myself today. Life is looking pretty great for me since I have stopped gaming. I went to the shooting range with my gun buddies on Tuesday. It might actually become a regular hobby of mine. I had a long video-call with my girlfriend on Wednesday. I didn't miss YT the last few days as I was busy working on other things. Gonna allow it from 12th August to see if I broke the habit and if I can use it in a more constructive way. I'm also going to share how my finances look like, to give some context why I sometimes mention it at all in my entries. I started my FIRE journey in April 2021 and I plan to be financially independent by the time I am 35! Links are below: Jack Bogle - bogleheads.org forum: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=344956 - this one is with some discussion with other users, as it's older and provides more context. MMM forums: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/case-studies/my-fire-journey-(24-czech)/ - this one is new and distilled based on the previous link.

I feel you. I do have some gifts sitting in my room, collecting dust. I think my family and close friends mostly got the drift by this point, however I still sometimes get something, when upon seeing it, I know I'm not gonna use it. Myself, I prefer to give some experience (e.g. invite my brother for sushi) or food (meat, nuts, alcohol), so the chance is low that it won't be used, or at least re-gifted. I also very much prefer to have my own system in my own room and it's usually reasonably tidy, except when I'm in stretches when I am busy. It's not a nice sight when everything is everywhere, also because it's easy to lose track of the stuff.

Thanks! I am sure @Paul A. would appreciate that as well. I'm at a loss how is YT or Chrome are a system app, while Xiaomi offers its default apps. I'm at a free-market/capitalism proponent. I believe most people would be much better off if they just tried smarter/harder, however I agree with Manson that many things today are optimized for engagement/addiction, so they're hard to kick: https://markmanson.net/newsletters/mindfck-monthly-102

This made me reminisce of my own first weeks of quitting. Thinking what would be the situation with my X and writing her, having +60 hours more to spend a week, working and quitting some shitty temp jobs before settling with English teaching... it was very discombobulating, but necessary. You'll figure it all out in time.

As I wrote above, it's been just a week without the YT main page. It helps me internalize that there are other things I can be doing instead of scrolling the videos and trying to find something new. I follow several channels and there might be, let's say, 3 hours of content a week they produce that I am interested in, but that doesn't make YT the "default" place to go if I feel idle. It's definitely something I can live without for a month or even longer if I so choose. Just one note, I mostly watch content I am interested in on desktop computer. On my phone (Redmi Note 10), it's impossible to remove or deactivate the app just by going to the options, because it's a system app. That makes the process quite annoying, as you have to devise a more complicated process to restrict the access to the app.

13th July - 17th July: I've been feeling boredom here and there since I've blocked YT main page a week ago, however a few seconds after realizing that, I always come up with other things that I need and want to do, such as reading, taking a shower or writing here. As for news, I only watched a bit of national news with my grandma yesterday on TV, nothing besides that. I used my phone browser version of FB a while ago to search in specific groups for specific exchange programs. A few days ago, I also checked one event I attended that was organized by my friend to have all the relevant info. - I went with my brother for sushi, started the internship, read about finance, read a book about homeless people, did a bit of car repair, went to the gym, cycled, visited my family and played billiard. My internship mentor is working on the conception of greenery and its classification in our city. We'll go around the city and evaluate the state of the greenery into some quantitative form using the given criteria.

I think that's a false premise. I do think that a physical letter would grab more attention, but if you already assume their email is spammed, why would they have time to get into a physical letter? Plus if they already got an overloaded/uninterested HR that can't/won't deal with your requests, I don't think that's an employer you want. I remember I sent the email twice to some companies, if the interviews from the first wave of companies that wrote me back (and had an interview with me) were not satisfactory. And don't send "some" applications, send "dozens" of applications. I don't know the specifics of your CV, job requirements etc. but having more options is always better than having less options.

This post would be incisive if the whole forum was saying that "Jordan Peterson is the only way to escape addictions!", but I don't see any evidence for that. Most of his videos/lectures are about preaching hard work, life-long learning, self-improvement and his psychological practice. If you had problems with gaming addiction, you overcame it and your life is better for it, who cares how exactly you quit it? Quitting games was a half-way religious experience for me, because I easily spent 10+ hours gaming a day. My perspective shifted RADICALLY. I was even thinking of picking up some official faith, but in the end I didn't and thought I can handle my life myself. I'm currently trying to conquer my "porn" habit and I successfully haven't watched any for two weeks. I am not describing this as a religious experience and the process is much more atheistic/grounded/rational, but again, who cares? Why do you care? I'm curious.

I'm using the template I used the last time. 18/06/21 - 13/07/21 "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: L: I've been keeping up with the newsletters and read a few short booklets I got from LibertyCon about philosophy. T: I've been keeping up with the newsletters. I've read a lot of articles from "Mr. Money Mustache: Blog". I also read "Digital Minimalism" in about four days when I was on holiday visiting my girlfriend. I wrote about it above, though I will mention it again in the text below. Possible direction/goals: Continue getting through the newsletters. (Borrow) and read one book until the next monthly report. Family: L: My brother is nice to hang out with and my father is a reliable and I can count on him with anything, though he is sometimes too hotheaded. I went for sushi with my brother two weeks ago and it was cool. Things are more difficult with my mom and grandma. I spend several hours a month alone with my grandma. I think she sometimes has the "victim" complex in a way that she did XYZ for other people and they didn't do anything back for her or don't understand her (without her asking). I can't help but feel that she also distorts my ability to have an opinion on my mom and that I see my mom as a caricature. That's not to say they dislike each other - my mom visits my grandma regularly and that wouldn't happen if they weren't on good terms. Weirdly enough, I think my mom is the family member I know the least. T: I'm going with my brother to sushi today. I don't think there's anything special happening at the moment. NOT: I don't want to get alienated from my family. Possible direction/goals: Continue working on bettering the relationships with my family. University: L: I forewent going to Erasmus completely, as it would result in the inevitability of extending my studies while not working towards anything relevant to my studies. There's no good way to do any courses/subjects or to write my masters' thesis abroad. I have a creeping feeling that the longer I take to complete the studies, the less likely it is that I'll finish them. I've successfully completed the semester and I even got the highest merit stipend (which is funny, because I didn't have a single A at bachelor's). I'm currently looking for the internship/praxis. T: No university duties directly, however I found the internship and I'm going for the interview/praxis tomorrow. NOT: I don't want to drop out of the university. Possible direction/goals: Find an internship for summer. Find more sources for my upcoming masters' thesis during the summer. Work on the assignments in a timely manner. Exercise/Movement: L: I haven't been to the gym since April and seriously (every week) since March. I keep moving by visiting my students either by walking or cycling, going to nearby evening events on foot and I manage to go for a walk once or twice a week. I also sometimes take the basketball outside and hop around. I think the combination of all this works, however it's not a 100% stable habit, so I have to keep an eye on that. T: I visited my family on the bike two weeks ago, meaning I cycled about 40 kilometers in one day. I take the bike or walk fairly often for minor errands. I'm planning to go to the gym after finishing this report. I feel better about my physique now that I have more free time to work on it. NOT: I don't want to become fat. Possible direction/goals: Keep in shape. Job/English: L: I don't know if I am going to teach English forever, but I like it reasonably enough, sometimes it's challenging as well and it's paid nicely. I'm gonna have less English classes during the summer. I paid the taxes this month. I also contacted the benefit companies, which advertise my business for a small cut of my profits. I also talked about this with my students. Some of them work in HR or marketing and they've been very helpful and the advice they gave me was useful. I went to a business workshop on Wednesday organized by the university and it was useful to clear up some concepts regarding marketing and business progress. T: The work has been slower as expected, though I still do maintain about 10 lessons a week. I picked up a few new courses too. I'm currently working through a lot of ideas/concepts I accumulated during my holiday last week. I got a new font for my website too, so that's something! 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. Possible direction/goals: Keep asking for reviews or recommendations from students. Create a client persona for both B2B and B2C. Update my website to reflect the new ideas and inspiration from the web. Look into strategies in becoming truly self-employed by skipping the agencies in between. Check out a few more seminars on how to run online courses. / English research Women/Dating: L: T: Made a promise to not watch "porn" to my girlfriend. Our relationship is very warm. We shared some nasty secrets about one another and I think that bound us even closer. She's leaving back to Georgia in mid-August. We plan on seeing once or twice more and deciding what's next. Possible direction/goals: Set up at least two dates a month. ----- Digital maintenance: The plan is to get rid of or reduce the usage following apps and websites. I will include cases why they might be useful and why I have had them so far: Instagram app - deleted. I have a few acquaintances there, but they're mostly foreigners and hardly anyone writes me there. If my friends have it, I have other means of contacting them too. News webpages - blocked. I use them merely as a source of fun, due to their comment sections. I hardly ever come across an article that I would be genuinely interested in (maybe one in a hundred or a thousand). The same will go for "Wiki/Current events" - even though it's a healthier alternative to consume news, it might sway me, so I'll get rid of it too for now. Facebook - blocked. I used to justify keeping FB around for scoping events in the area, but I can't remember when was the last time I actually used it that way before coming to Prague (I was looking for events there, as I am not local). YT - limited. I listen to music on YT, so I won't block it completely, however I am going to block/reduce the main page to prevent me from scrolling it. YT works well with my interests overall, but I noticed I just rely on it to entertain me more than I'd like. --- The blocks will apply on my desktop computer and notebook. I'm gonna have only one browser on them with a blocking add-on installed. My phone will be "unlimited", mostly as I am not really used to using it that much (not having mobile data helps a lot) and in case I actually DO need to use the blocked services above. I also have a "Digital Wellbeing" widget on the home-screen of my phone, showing me how much time I spent on each app. This is definitely not the first plan I devised for this area of my life. I actually have it partially in effect on my desktop computer at home already. This is just a thought out update of the plan put into words. --- What to do if I am bored? Replacement activities for 1 hour: reading, cleaning, washing the dishes, learning languages Replacement activities for 2 hours: going to the gym, going for a walk --- Additional thoughts/activities: My hobbies are: personal finance, gunnery, GIS/statistics, reading/videos about (modern) history, English and geography. - I do not want to be lonely. I'm intentionally putting a very broad classification here, because I don't know how my friends or romances are going to look like a year from now. All I know is that long-term isolation is deadly and that I want to have meaningful relationships. I do not want to become addicted again. All of the things above got a lot better once I stopped gaming several hours a day and dozens of hours a week. Time to time, I encounter a game with a strong pull on my psyche. I don't know if there's anything else that could have such a pull on me that would also be good for me. Who knows. - I'm gonna get through all the bookmarks/ideas/concepts on my notebook. Areas: social, business, planning and more. For the first week of July, I decided to visit my girlfriend in Prague. It's was mixed bag of vacation, breaking the stereotype of being in my hometown, creativity and spending time with her. This month, I did these cool activities: spending time on trips with my girlfriend, reading about personal finance, taking part in many social events, working on my business, going to the shooting range.

I think it's just the fact people still don't fully grasp the idea that gaming could be addictive. They've heard of smoking, drinking, gambling... but gaming? I am however confident there'll be more self-identified gaming/social media addicts coming out of the closet over time, as the "uniqueness" stigma lifts as the mainstream media talks about the issue more and more. Is there a clearer way to say something is addictive? I think it's one of the best descriptions of addiction I've ever read. Reading this part, I remembered reading or hearing somewhere that people often think that they are "ordinary people who have unique experiences", while the opposite is more likely - we are "unique individuals having common experiences". It's worth thinking about when facing a problem - probably billions of people had the same problem to solve at some point too.

Do you have any new pictures for upload, so we can also take a peek and compare? 🙂

Losing my X was probably the trigger I came here three years ago too. I hope you are able to maintain a positive relationship with your X and your daughter.

You can try what I did. Not many language companies externally advertise they have available language courses for lecturers. The situation is so dynamic it wouldn't make sense to give a serious "regular" job posting for a "job" that is once a week for 90 minutes. When I first set out to seriously search for a job, I opened Google Maps, typed in "language school", "language agency", "English teacher" etc. and looked up all the companies in my area. I still have the file and it has nearly 100 e-mail adresses. Since then I've sent out hundreds of mails asking for an interview. I've been to dozens of interviews. And I've worked for a few companies. All this work made me have experience, options/relative job independence and confidence in myself. Now, it happens from time to time that somebody finds my advertisment/website and contacts me, or remembers me from the past and makes me an offer, but not often enough to build my business on that. I am happy I did all the work in the past and today I'm benefiting from it.

I think in my case, it's true, if you consider "heightened stress level" an acute feeling of boredom. It's sometimes the case that I feel idle for too long and that subsequently stresses me out and makes me unable to concentrate. It's just due to the nature of my job that I often have 1-2-3 hour windows and YT videos of 10-30 minute length are the easiest way out for me. I think GQ might be the last website that I regularly comment on. I don't comment in the comment sections of news stories. I used to comment very often on various websites in the past though.

29th June - 7th July: So I went to the gym and then to the shooting range on 29th. That was a pretty great day! On Sunday, I cycled for about three hours to visit my parents instead of taking the car. For the first week of July, I decided to visit my girlfriend in Prague. I took advantage of the fact that a lot of my students told me in advance that they will have holiday this week, so I only had to write two or three mails to reschedule the classes with the remaining students. It's a mixed bag of vacation, breaking the stereotype of being in my hometown and spending time with her. I'm not planning anything or using my calendar at all. That said, it also doesn't mean I'm not doing anything useful. I drafted curriculums for students of courses that require them and I edited the font on my business website. I've also started reading "Digital Minimalism" by Cal Newport in I'm pretty much through half the book (230 pages in total) in just three days. I can't remember when was the last time I read something this fast. I picked up the book about two or three years ago at a book fair, but it's been sitting on the shelf ever since. I decided to take it with me to Prague. I know one of my friends decided to do a weekly digital detox and that I'm kinda back-and-forth between using news websites and Youtube, but I didn't actively consider that before taking it. I just remembered I had it and took it. --- The plan is to get rid of or reduce the usage following apps and websides. I will include cases why they might be useful and why I have had them so far: Instagram app - deleted. I have a few acquaintances there, but they're mostly foreigners and hardly anyone writes me there. If my friends have it, I have other means of contacting them too. News webpages - blocked. I use them merely as a source of fun, due to their comment sections. I hardly ever come across an article that I would be genuinely interested in (maybe one in a hundred or a thousand). The same will go for "Wiki/Current events" - even though it's a healthier alternative to consume news, it might sway me, so I'll get rid of it too for now. Facebook - blocked. I used to justify keeping FB around for scoping events in the area, but I can't remember when was the last time I actually used it before coming to Prague (and I was looking for events here, as I am not local). YT - limited. I listen to music on YT, so I won't block it completely, however I am going to block/reduce the main page to prevent me from scrolling it. YT works well with my interests overall, but I noticed I just rely on it to entertain me more than I'd like. The blocks will apply on my desktop computer and notebook. I'm gonna have only one browser on them with a blocking addon installed. My phone will be "unlimited", mostly as I am not really used to using it that much (not having mobile data helps a lot) and in case I actually DO need to use the services above. I also have a "Digital Wellbeing" widget on the homescreen of my phone, showing me how much time I spent on each app. Replacement activities for 1 hour: reading, cleaning, washing the dishes, learning languages Replacement activities for 2 hours: going to the gym, going for a walk This is definitely not the first plan I devised for this area of my life. I actually have it partially in effect on my desktop computer at home already. This is just a thought out update of the plan put into words. --- I have a good opportunity to focus on my own life with all its needs and wishes now that I'm mostly on break from both teaching and university. The real work is now! Made a promise to not watch "porn" to my girlfriend. Our relationship is very warm. --- Summer goals: Find and do the internship. - I found one, unpaid, but I am 90% it will get approved. Work on my business. - Website fonts Get into better shape. - Working on it. Digital cleansing. - Find more activities to do over time instead of clickbaits and lazy fun.

19th June - 27th June: I can't say there's been nothing happening, however I have not been recently in the mood to write anything. I spent the weekend with my girlfriend camping in cities we've never been before. I spent some time reading about finance and the mindset, socializing and moving as well. The summer break for many courses starts next week, therefore my plans for the extra summer time are: Find and do the internship. Work on my business. Get into better shape.

Welcome back.

I'm using the template I used the last time. 08/05/21 - 18/06/21 "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: L: I actually went through my 100+ newsletters yesterday to give myself a fresh start on them and to see whether I will keep up with them. I could unsub from some/all of them, if I no longer find them interesting. No books. T: I've been keeping up with the newsletters and read a few short booklets I got from LibertyCon about philosophy. Possible direction/goals: Continue getting through the newsletters. Family: L: Nothing new comes to mind. T: My brother is nice to hang out with and my father is a reliable and I can count on him with anything, though he is sometimes too hotheaded. I went for sushi with my brother two weeks ago and it was cool. Things are more difficult with my mom and grandma. I spend several hours a month alone with my grandma. I think she sometimes has the "victim" complex in a way that she did XYZ for other people and they didn't do anything back for her or don't understand her (without her asking). I can't help but feel that she also distorts my ability to have an opinion on my mom and that I see my mom as a caricature. That's not to say they dislike each other - my mom visits my grandma regularly and that wouldn't happen if they weren't on good terms. Weirdly enough, I think my mom is the family member I know the least. NOT: I don't want to get alienated from my family. Possible direction/goals: Continue working on bettering the relationships with my family. University: L: University's been normal and the classes I attend are mostly interesting. I haven't gone to Germany, but I am planning to go to Bulgaria for Erasmus after summer. It's amazing how the perception of education shifts once one has a real job and isn't fed by parents, for example by learning to value one's time. I sent the prof the outline with ideas what to write about in the thesis and I'm planning to meet him in May. I'm going to have two exams in a few weeks, but I suspect they won't be overly difficult and that I'll pass with a few days of studying. T: I forewent going to Erasmus completely, as it would result in the inevitability of extending my studies while not working towards anything relevant to my studies. There's no good way to do any courses/subjects or to write my masters' thesis abroad. I have a creeping feeling that the longer I take to complete the studies, the less likely it is that I'll finish them. I've successfully completed the semester and I even got the highest merit stipend (which is funny, because I didn't have a single A at bachelor's). I'm currently looking for the internship/praxis. NOT: I don't want to drop out of the university. Possible direction/goals: I finished the exams successfully. Find an internship for summer. Find more sources for my upcoming masters' thesis during the summer. Work on the assignments in a timely manner. Exercise/Movement: L: I feel that my "free-time" movement habits are sliding, however I somewhat counteracted that by creating incentives to push me into movement, such as having to visit students within walking/biking distance. I'm really not a fan of going to the gym lately, however I've already been outside with people playing football or basketball, as the weather got better. T: I haven't been to the gym since April and seriously (every week) since March. I keep moving by visiting my students either by walking or cycling, going to nearby evening events on foot and I manage to go for a walk once or twice a week. I also sometimes take the basketball outside and hop around. I think the combination of all this works, however it's not a 100% stable habit, so I have to keep an eye on that. NOT: I don't want to become fat. Possible direction/goals: Keep in shape. Job/English: L: I also visited my English teacher-friend and asked him about his history when it came to teaching English. He said that he started teaching when he was 26, started his own courses when he was around 35 thanks to recommendations and had these ever since. He is now around 50 and he started teaching at high school a few months ago for a change of pace. The meeting helped me soothe some anxiety over the fact I am not advancing as fast as I'd like to when it comes to teaching. Regardless, I've recently made the effort to ask my students for recommendations to a) the respective language schools, b) on my website and c) on Google Maps. It can help me leverage my position regarding the language schools as well as to attract more private students. I managed to get a raise from one of the companies, a nice 16% raise. I'm also looking into getting my own payment terminal in my phone and possibly a pay gate on my website, on top of the cooperation with the benefit companies. I might even start my own LLC soon. T: I don't know if I am going to teach English forever, but I like it reasonably enough, sometimes it's challenging as well and it's paid nicely. As I wrote above, I need to take some internship/praxis for the summer and the one I responded to was paid nicely as well. I'm gonna have less English classes during the summer, so I'll spend the time on the internship or master's thesis. We'll see if I like it (and if it gets approved by the prof at the uni). I paid the taxes this month. I also contacted the benefit companies, which advertise my business for a small cut of my profits. I also talked about this with my students. Some of them work in HR or marketing and they've been very helpful and the advice they gave me was useful. I went to a business workshop on Wednesday organized by the university and it was useful to clear up some concepts regarding marketing and business progress. 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. Possible direction/goals: I'm also gonna attend an interview and another to re-negotiate my salary, once all the reviews I from my students are in. I received some information that I could use to my advantage, so I'm gonna work on that in the next few weeks. I set up cooperation with the benefit companies. Keep asking for reviews or recommendations from students. Create a client persona for both B2B and B2C. Update my website to reflect the new ideas and inspiration from the web. Look into strategies in becoming truly self-employed by skipping the agencies in between. Check out a few more seminars on how to run online courses. / English research Women/Dating: L: T: We've been seeing for weekends. My girlfriend even made a surprise visit today, traveling to my hometown for the weekend. Possible direction/goals: Set up at least two dates a month. ----- Additional thoughts/activities: My hobbies are: personal finance, gunnery, GIS/statistics, reading/videos about (modern) history, English and geography. - I do not want to be lonely. I'm intentionally putting a very broad classification here, because I don't know how my friends or romances are going to look like a year from now. All I know is that long-term isolation is deadly and that I want to have meaningful relationships. I do not want to become addicted again. All of the things above got a lot better once I stopped gaming several hours a day and dozens of hours a week. Time to time, I encounter a game with a strong pull on my psyche. I don't know if there's anything else that could have such a pull on me that would also be good for me. Who knows. - I spent more money than usual this term, due to the fact I had to pay the taxes, stock up on food and buy fuel for my car. It's no problem, I'm still bound to get two full paychecks until the summer break starts for some courses. I also noticed I'm writing here fairly often now. This month, I did these cool activities: reading about personal finance, taking part in many social events, working on my business/visiting a business seminar, going to the shooting range, going to the excursion with the uni and overall visiting a lot of social events.

8th June - 13th June: I've been keeping fairly busy - going out with friends, studying for the last exam (got it), setting up the internship/summer job and visiting my girlfriend at the weekend.

What do I NOT want? An idea that kept bouncing in my head for a long time after watching Peterson's videos. It's easy to define what I want and then be complacent enough not to care or be happy where I am. I will put this into my monthly report as well to keep track of it. --- Family: I don't want to get ostracized from my family. My brother is nice to hang out with and my father is a reliable and I can count on him with anything, though he is sometimes too hotheaded. Things are more difficult with my mom and grandma. I spend several hours a month alone with my grandma. I think she sometimes has the "victim" complex in a way that she did XYZ for other people and they didn't do anything back for her or don't understand her (without her asking). I can't help but feel that she also distorts my ability to have an opinion on my mom and that I see my mom as a caricature. That's not to say they dislike each other - my mom visits my grandma regularly and that wouldn't happen if they weren't on good terms. Weirdly enough, I think my mom is the family member I know the least. University: I don't want to drop out of the university. I forewent going to Erasmus completely, as it would result in the inevitability of extending my studies while not working towards anything relevant to my studies. There's no good way to do any courses/subjects or to write my masters' thesis abroad. I have a creeping feeling that the longer I take to complete the studies, the less likely it is that I'll finish them. Exercise: I don't want to become fat. I haven't been to the gym since April and seriously (every week) since March. I keep moving by visiting my students either by walking or cycling, going to nearby evening events on foot and I manage to go for a walk once or twice a week. I also sometimes take the basketball outside and hop around. I think the combination of all this works, however it's not a 100% stable habit, so I have to keep an eye on that. Work: 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. I don't know if I am going to teach English forever, but I like it reasonably enough, sometimes it's challenging as well and it's paid nicely. As I wrote above, I need to take some internship/praxis for the summer and the one I responded to was paid nicely as well. We'll see if I like it (and if it gets approved by the prof at the uni). Relationships: I do not want to be lonely. I'm intentionally putting a very broad classification here, because I don't know how my friends or romances are going to look like a year from now. All I know is that long-term isolation is deadly and that I want to have meaningful relationships. --- I do not want to become addicted again. All of the things above got a lot better once I stopped gaming several hours a day and dozens of hours a week. Time to time, I encounter a game with a strong pull on my psyche. I don't know if there's anything else that could have such a pull on me that would be good for me. Who knows.

3rd June - 7th June: At the weekend, I was searching for some (paid) praxis/internship and I found one interesting offer. Listing all my qualifications and achievements and reflecting on my life made me feel nice and grateful. I don't think that I am delusional about that either. Unless there's some catastrophic event wiping out my relationship with the Georgian girl, getting fired from my jobs and university and losing a friend/family member COMBINED, I'll be doing just fine. I can handle these one by one "going out", even if it will be annoying and saddening. Life is good. I went to the shooting range with a friend on Saturday, visited my family on Sunday and started studying for my last (for a better grade) exam on Friday. I picked up my suit and shopped for food yesterday extensively. I got a lot of good stuff (read nuts, olives and non-alcoholic beer) for a good price. I actually enjoy shopping for food in bulk 😄 I also felt fairly tired the last two three days before going to bed. That's a good sign that I am putting myself to work.

20th May - 2nd June: Porn is still a struggle, however this week's been only once and the last one as well. I feel like I am going outside more and walking or cycling more often. The exams went fine, though I want to get a better grade from one to get the grade stipend from the uni. I went to get sushi with my brother on Wednesday. It was fairly good and I think we'll go there again. I feel like I got more time overall and that I also laze around more. I'm also fairly social in the evenings. I think it could be the aftermath of the Georgian girl leaving, as we socialized one another fairly often. On a related note, I enjoy spending time with her every day, however not all day. But that's the reality we live in and we have to deal with, when we see for the weekend every other week. She however inspired me to read more and educate myself more now.

I recently saw an animated YT video trying to explain what "love" is, based on one guy's interpretation of what Jesus said or did in the Bible. He interpreted it as "giving willful attention with the intention to understand someone". This fosters connection between people and creates a bond if done right, unless the person is completely deluded or seriously mentally ill. Stereotypical romantic "TV love" is mostly focused on getting the other person's attention during some sort of courting process of uncertainty. It's also possible one person does something fairly crazy to achieve that. It's worth mentioning that what one sees as undying acts made out of love, another might see as creepy. Finally the couple kisses at the end and the credits roll, or alternatively the main character wallows in the pain of unrequited love. It's fairly interesting this recipe is often applied for singles, as well as divorced (casting serious doubts on the fact that the first part of the relationship is the most important, as presented). Regardless, it's just the first part of the relationship that doesn't repeat itself afterwards. It's a fool's errand to try and implant something as intrinsically unstable as this period of courting into an ongoing stable relationship. The instability past the first stage has different sources, e.g. figuring out what to do together or considering each other's long-term values. Not whether the other person likes me. Pure sexual desire with zero knowledge of the person is not love either. Otherwise PornHub would be called LoveHub. However it's not completely independent, as it's hard to be romantically involved in a relationship with zero physical contact. All this means that the word is fairly ambiguous. For me, "love" can be directed towards anyone, anything or any activity. There's a sense of devotion, attention, betterment and purpose. It's also trying to understand other positions and points of view. Giving the benefit of doubt, ingrained in the approach of not blowing up every time someone does something stupid (from our point of view).