Ikar

17th August - 19th August: I've been reading regularly - not every day, but I realize I can find half an hour to read a chapter or two of a book. I'm also reading the newsletters, though they've been accumulating for the past three weeks. Had to get up early the last two days and that meant I wanted to take a rest in the afternoon after my work was finished. Spent some time with a friend in the evenings and had a meeting with my university classmates/graduates in the afternoon. English teaching and internship are going as planned. Spent around eight hours on my feet yesterday mapping the greenery.

13th August - 16th August: Over the weekend, my girlfriend and I went to visit a castle, went for a walk, cooked, went to the swimming pool and... That's it. I drove my girlfriend to the bus station this morning and she left to Georgia. The malicious part of my mind keeps telling me that I am a rejected loser, as I was unable to convince her to continue the relationship. I think the malicious part takes inspiration from concurrent culture/TV or my past experiences with women. However I decided to have the relationships I want now, not based on templates that somebody tries to feed me or history. The part of my mind with perspective knows that just to wait a year or a year and a half without the certainty the relationship would go anywhere from there is a long time. After all, in a relationship, you're looking for someone to be with, not somebody to wait for. And it also knows it's good to take the words of your friends seriously. Honestly, the relationship has been more enjoyable for me when my girlfriend still lived at the same dorm as I did, before she went to the internship to another city. The days spend with her after May over the weekend were always a blur - trying to spend time together to make the most out of the time together, while the other important tasks got stalled. This is obviously a non-issue while dating someone who lives nearby. The good thing about the "romance" in the relationship is that it has a closure I can understand and get by. So while the pain is inevitable and it sucks we won't see each other anymore, the suffering is next to none, as I don't pity myself or second guess something, as I did with the Spanish girl. Another great thing about the relationship is that I never needed to "act like a man" or "extort" something from her. We always said what we wanted, more or less straight up. Not playing mind-games saves a lot of energy and even if we argued sometimes (about something philosophically significant; not about who is going to wash the dishes), we just acknowledged the differences and moved on. This also meant acknowledging our negative personality traits - she is often too disorganized and bad at planning things, whereas I can be sometimes condescending and arrogant (I think I share that trait with my father). I thrive when I have an equal partner in a relationship. I also have experience to see obvious red flags contrary to that a mile away. --- I intentionally watched some YT videos that popped up the last month from my subs, after unsubbing from a few that provided me with only entertainment value. I currently have about 2 hours of videos opened in my tabs that I am interested in, and I've already watched another 1 hour over the weekend. 3 hours of content a month is hardly a reason to have YT as the "default" homepage!

I'm using the template I used the last time. 13/07/21 - 13/08/21 "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. 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. T: I read the book about homeless people, their stories and advice for life. I also read the "Animal Farm". It was very catchy and I read it in one sitting, even though I was dead tired by the time I finished it at night. I started on Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment". I've been active with the newsletters too, though not as much in the past two weeks, as there's about a dozen of them accumulated now. I've been reading Frugalwoods a lot. 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. I'm going with my brother for sushi today. I don't think there's anything special happening at the moment. T: As I wrote earlier, I went for sushi with my brother and his girlfriend. We had a family meeting yesterday and it was actually quite engaging compared to how it is normally. 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. No university duties directly, however I found the internship and I'm going for the interview/praxis tomorrow. T: I'm roughly halfway through the internship (60/120 hours). I'll list the pros and the cons of it as I see it: + The people there are chill, helpful and the atmosphere overall is relaxed. That's a big positive. I remember this was not the case during my final months in the army, though I understand I was quite an idiot four years ago and the degree to which it was self-imposed could be debated. - I'm not sure of the importance of the assignment I am working on now. We finished the greenery mapping and digitization of it last week. This week, I worked on correcting some data formally in GIS (editing polygons, dealing with overlaps). Although the guys around me agree that the data source is dubious and sometimes outright wrong, they say we need to work with the data we've been given. It's just hard for me to seriously work on something I don't find the purpose/reason in. - The office environment overall is distracting (not for me now, because I do mundane tasks and sometimes I have to ask others for some help), as people go around the rooms and talk. Sometimes it's work-related, sometimes it isn't, yet my workplace there is hardly ever quiet. Compared to the high-focus classes of English that I usually have (45-60-90 minute classes; except when the students are working on some grammar exercise, I need to go to the toilet etc.), the office environment seems like an unfocused dungeon to me. --- Things that are probably somewhat unusual about me work-wise: I actually do enjoy doing some routine and mundane tasks in general. People often ask me if I want to teach English forever, if it's not stifling or boring. I honestly tell them I don't know if I want to teach English forever and that it's the best job I've had so far. I could always up my English more by taking only more advanced students to teach to force me to study and prepare more. I get why people ask this, especially if they are more of the creative sort. I understand they want a job they can learn a lot from. I'm going to be a bit counter-cultural here; learning is not without forgetting. Learning for the sake of learning is not a must for everyone, but for a few people who take it up as a hobby. There's just no way to do everything at the same time. My great curse of the past became a great gift of the present. I spend thousands of hours at the computer, yet I learnt English well enough to build up on that and turn it into my job. Good learning doesn't exist without rote. Good language learning is very much something for people who love rote; it changes slowly and there's an "infinite" number of words, combinations etc. Learning how to work in a GIS software after a year? You'll be lucky a) to remember the basics after not working with it for a year, but also b) to find the same/similar layout/version of the program as you left. That's why I have hobbies, I try out things in my off-time and if I enjoy them very much, I might do them more often and monetize them. That's my creative time, free of charge. I revel in calculating and optimizing my taxes over and over again, trying to find out if I can save more in a legal way. I also enjoy working in the GIS, just drawing polygons on hours on end. Maybe even to be a shooting instructor? To sum it up, I've worked a job I didn't enjoy in the past. But nobody knows better than I do what jobs are those. --- 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. Job/English: L: 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! T: Not as many classes, but I worked on the website and other various small improvements. Gonna have to take some pictures with students. 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 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: A lot of walking as a part of the internship and regular short-distance cycling as a part of getting to the internship and classes. Cycled 80 kilometers total to the cottage at the weekend trip. NOT: I don't want to become fat. Possible direction/goals: Keep in shape. Women/Dating: L: T: (copied, no need to make up something else here) I spent the weekend with my girlfriend. It was a nice car-trip overall. She told me she doesn't want to have a long-distance relationship when she leaves in two weeks, partly because she already has the experience of long-distance for three years and she doesn't want to go through that again. I did cry (which I haven't in at least a few months, if not years), although I do not feel heartbroken. We're gonna see as a couple for the last time in two weeks. I take it as it is. Life's good. - I'm writing this to alleviate some of the melancholy that has come to beset me. I probably won't be writing for the next few days, as I'm seeing my girlfriend for the last time this weekend. Whenever I think of parting this way with her, I feel that my eyes are watering. I can't remember the last thing that did this to me. She's been a great friend to me and I believe she will be in the future too. I believe she made her decision after contemplating it for a long time. I know she likes me, loves me. And because she's a great friend of mine, I won't question her judgement and try to convince her of something else. She knows what she would go through if she had another long-distance relationship. She has the right to say "no" to it and act in her best interest. Possible direction/goals: Set up at least two dates a month. ----- Digital maintenance, new info after a month written in blue: 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. Deleted the account a week ago completely, there's just no point in having it. 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. No point in having these around either, the blocks stay. 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). Computer blocked and I have never had the app on the phone. I use the website for Marketplace (for room/flat rent) and sometimes events. I catch myself fairly quickly if I notice myself scrolling. 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. I'll peek on the main page, go through my followed channels and pick out videos I want to watch that they made the last month. No stream watching. I actually watched a guy stream before this month, though he usually streamed only for an hour or two. It was because he switched from making videos to streaming; I don't think I would start watching him if he only streamed in the first place. --- 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 --- I have watched about 70 or 80 episodes of South Park since March until today. I normally watch it while I eat lunch at home (more when I am ill, but that rarely happens). That's a relationship I want to have with YT or other websites/apps too. --- 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 moving out of my current dorm of three years to another one, where I am guaranteed to have my own room. I want to have a single room for my work and also personal stuff. I'm a bit uneasy, as the other dorm manager has not confirmed it yet and I need to let my old dorm know I'll finish at the end of the month. The other dorm manager has not confirmed it, though she replied to my initial enquiry saying there's room, so I hope that is still valid. Had a lot of weekend visits/trips in July, August is calmer. I'll probably need a weekend to move from/to the dorm. Went to the shooting range three times the past 30 days. - I'm gonna get through all the bookmarks/ideas/concepts on my notebook. Areas: social, business, planning and more. This month, I did these cool activities: spending time on trips with my girlfriend, reading about personal finance, taking part in many social events, meeting friends, working on my business, going to the shooting range.

It's OK, thanks. I didn't think of it for the rest of the day. I am not thinking it's the end of the world and wallowing in my sorrow or anything.

I'm writing this to alleviate some of the melancholy that has come to beset me. I probably won't be writing for the next few days, as I'm seeing my girlfriend for the last time this weekend. Whenever I think of parting this way with her, I feel that my eyes are watering. I can't remember the last thing that did this to me. She's been a great friend to me and I believe she will be in the future too. I believe she made her decision after contemplating it for a long time. I know she likes me, loves me. And because she's a great friend of mine, I won't question her judgement and try to convince her of something else. She knows what she would go through if she had another long-distance relationship. She has the right to say "no" to it and act in her best interest.

I think that strategy works well for business and salary negotiation too. I'd just be careful of "selling" in personal life; I think you can't just "sell" someone into starting a family with you, for example.

Ah, sales. A part of my English teaching is sales too, because while people are mostly already "sold" on the idea of learning English, I still have to "sell" them on the idea I am the person they should choose to guide them. Though I would probably buy (or even receive for free) second hand furniture myself; makes it easier on the wallet and being financially independent sooner for me. Guess nobody can buy a second hand English lesson 😄 It's always nice to have the clients return and commend you either by words or more money spent. I once had this multi-level financial advisor gig, though I never seriously got myself into it. I don't know why; I just never really believed in the service. After that I got enough English classes anyway. Later on, I found out this company works on fat commissions the customers pay. You may get a few dozen dollars from every piece of furniture sold and I may get another student to teach, but these guys get one-time and ongoing % fees of the product they pitch and sell well. If he really wants to do that, let him. People just sometimes grow apart, though I understand cutting people off for the first few times is difficult without much previous experience (being young).

6th August - 9th August: After writing here, I did some housework - cleaning and small reorganization of my room. I played cards with my friends in the evening and even got a few presents from them which was nice 🙂 Worked on my business website on Sunday, prepared for the classes, did some weekly planning and visited my family. - I got some news on Monday from randomly meeting the dorm director that it will be impossible to have my own separate room at the dorm due to the big influx of new students who are applying to live here as the new school year starts. I gotta say I was quite fortunate to live here for nearly three years and to have my own room. I got here in November 2019, probably after the room was left vacant after some people left since September 2019. In September 2020, everybody was scared of CV, so there was not that much interest in living in big shared spaces. In September and October 2021, I had two friends living here for a week and two weeks, meaning they "blocked" the room for any possible long-term occupants. I'm just too old to share my intimate space with someone else most of the time. I started asking my friends if they know of someone who is renting a room or a small flat at maximum. I also started searching on my own and I'll be sending some emails tomorrow. No time to lose here. - On Monday, I had the internship. After that, I claimed my shoes in a shop and got new ones with a slight discount. I went to have a beer with one friend in the late afternoon too. Today I had English classes, went for a coffee with one friend and after that met some acquaintances. Now I'm writing this. Plan for tomorrow is the internship in the morning, lunch and then searching for the place to live!

Although Weird Al is not a rapper by design, I threw in a link for him too 🙂

I enjoy listening to rap from time to time, mostly Eminem, although I also listen to a select few smaller bands like Living Legends (this is a great song about addiction) or The Chicharones (this one is quite funny, at least it has that ring to me :V ). So that's my "expertise". I usually hear more drum/beat structure in rap, so that's what I am used to. I also don't always sing along with the song, though I sometimes like to. I heard your song once and I got that you are singing about a personal message. As a whole, without the beat it just feels to me like a 3-minute long slur of words. This is how the LL song I linked originally felt to me too actually, so if that's what you want to do, then it's good 🙂

2nd August - 6th August: I've actually worked on my website every day since. It turns out I actually do have an extra hour or two a day, if I want to find it. I added a few pictures and did a bit of rewriting. I need to do more of the same for the rest of the page, so I suspect it will take a few more hours. Besides that, I am going to work on adding the site to other internet media and overall marketing. - I spent time at the internship on Wednesday and Thursday and had a bunch of English classes on Friday. Played billiard, met up with gun buddies and read a book and finance newsletters. It was also my birthday yesterday, so today we went for sushi today with my brother and his girlfriend to celebrate. I plan this weekend to be slow and easy; just chilling, working and not rushing anywhere.

I believe it, because I used to live like that too. The old adage says "things have to get worse before they get better". Quitting games is one thing, but the actual red pill is seeing things for what they are. Going through the trough is the worst. The sedative is off and the reality sets even before any meaningful positive results arrive from walking the straight and narrow path. Do what's best for you.

31st July - 2nd August: I'm having a feeling that I wasted a lot of time today, which is not necessarily true. I had 5 hours of teaching, cooked, read a new book, researched ammo prices, dug up an old list of "dreams" and updated it from today's perspective, worked on a few emails and read some newsletters. The thing is that rather than wasting the day, the day feels disjointed, as if I needed something singular to work on for a few hours. I think the overarching theme is there are projects I chronically don't have time for. I could be developing my website and marketing strategy or working on my master's thesis, but I am not. Yes, I have classes to teach and yes, I have internship to do, but in days like these, I wish I had more of a plan to tackle the serious issues that may not really have a finish line or expiry date. What further complicates things is that it's hard to get started on things that seem very big, as there just seems to be no progress. They are the elusive ones. I'm never going to have more time, unless I prioritize some things over other. - I spent the weekend with my girlfriend. It was a nice car-trip overall. She told me she doesn't want to have a long-distance relationship when she leaves in two weeks, partly because she already has the experience of long-distance for three years and she doesn't want to go through that again. I did cry (which I haven't in at least a few months, if not years), although I do not feel heartbroken. We're gonna see as a couple for the last time in two weeks. I take it as it is. Life's good.

25th July - 30th July: I read the whole Animal Farm in one sitting on Thursday. I just need a good book to get into to interest me in reading. The internship has been going on as well, spent about 17 hours there last week, which is more than what I spend teaching these days. I also spend a lot of time walking and cycling because of that. I'm going to the shooting range often too. I should go there twice the next week, once with friends and once to "instruct" my friends' kids. My digital maintenance has been going well. I do peek to FB every now and then on my phone. My news consumption is next to zero. I noticed that it's easy to slide into "interesting" articles/videos, even if I am intent while searching for specific information. I also noticed that if I want to search for a song on YT, the Google search engine is capable of dealing with that too. My girlfriend came to visit me for the weekend and we'll do a car trip today.

I think bouts of dissatisfaction are normal and a part of being human. Everyone can be always doing more but... why bother if your belly is full and the bed is comfortable? I think the main ingredient to overcoming the feeling is keeping busy. However keeping busy according to your own volition, not because somebody said that you should do something. Then you'll see where the life is taking you and the direction will be clearer. I gamed (often socially), wrote about games and learnt English well, even though there were guys who were even better at English in high school. English teaching is my job now. As for the directions and goals themselves, you also never know when some paths will intersect. I've always been a saver with my money and I naturally accumulated it, even if I had no reason to. Later on, I learnt I could reach some amount that would free me completely of the worries that I can't afford to do something and it definitely opens up many more possibilities for my future.

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.