Ikar

Day 172: I spent the whole day outside. Teaching went alright, as well as going to the doctors', so hopefully I'll be fit in a few days. I just read a bit about money and did Duolingo, as optional objectives. I'll try to consolidate and get more stuff done tomorrow, as I have the whole day for myself.

Day 171: I got started on a few things I was delaying, so the day was not overall bad, however my foot seems to be getting worse and I am getting somewhat neurotic about it and I have no clue as to what might be causing it, so I'll get some help for that tomorrow.

Day 170: In the morning, I had a short English teaching lesson. I went to see the doctor, I'll be going for an appointment again soon. I used the time I was waiting to check up on some articles related to money. I spent around 3 hours today helping around the bathroom reconstruction. I watched some videos, did Duolingo, wrote with a friend and prepared for tomorrow. It was a pretty nice day overall, even though I did not get everything done. Tomorrow's a day as well!

I decided to do it as more of a preemptive measure, I even kinda forced myself into it, oddly enough. Quitting or watching porn very rarely; that seems like a good idea too, it's much better to rely on your own imagination, that is uniquely weird and creative ?

Day 169: The last week was a bit weird. I felt happy about NF actually not being an issue at all for a few days and I did not crave it, so I masturbated willingly yesterday. I'll keep the counter around though, as I wrote before, so I don't happen to slack in bed. It gives me clarity. As a result, I feel like I can zero out on any thing in my life I'm doing and stop doing it, no matter what I think about it initially. On the other hand, I did not have any exercise the past 4 days. Something's up with my foot and I will have it checked out hopefully tomorrow. It's not immobilizing, but I think I rather not push it. I also felt like the past 4 days just flew by without me actually doing anything, when the fact was that I was simply going out - teaching, learning, socializing and helping around the house. It's too easy for me to justify not doing anything of too much importance after such events though, even if I have stuff planned for myself. As for today, I helped around the house, got Scrabble and Peterson in, including a lot of writing, thinking and reading. I also got the schedule done, so I would like to nail those things I had planned for myself for the next week. NF - 1 day

Yes, I think I mentioned that a few weeks ago as well. We have a limited amount of time and we can only do this much with it. I guess the important thing to realize is that healthy hobbies generally spread across time a lot more than addictions. It's not difficult to watch 70 hours of series during a week, but studying for 70 hours a week is impossible for most, and even if it was possible, I wouldn't think it would be efficient at all.

Day 168: I've been helping around the house in the morning and attended an English course during the afternoon, so I just decided to relax and write a bit in the evening. I'll try to just get organized tomorrow and plan the next week. NF - 0 days I think I'll keep the NF counter around and perhaps modify it a bit. My main gripe was staying in bed after waking up.

I think I see what you mean. I'm quite good at changing my environment already (maybe more than I'd like, as then I find I do not have the time and energy to do things that need to be done at home), so I'll continue to do that and see what happens. I think I am reasonably integrated and nowhere as much of a mess as I was a year ago, though I wonder how I will look at this post a year into the future! Thanks for the encouragement, I will continue to work for the good, whatever that is.

Hey! Thanks for the support. I think I am strong enough to persevere, finding a good date is a lottery - I just have to win once and I can't win if I don't play.

Day 167: I went to school today and had a good time. Then I had to deal with an unexpected tangent on Tinder. Once again, I got proven that total certainty that totalitarianism or nihilism provide is harmful. Everything can be interpreted in any way. NF - 7 days

Day 166: I wrote, watched some Peterson and did Duolingo today. In the evening, I went to a hockey match with my parents. I did not do much more than that today, I was just relaxing. NF - 6 days

Teaching went alright. I think I made the point that my students are more than welcome to work on their English at home and to bring forth ideas for topics they'd like to discuss, but I also made clear the fact that failing that, I will strive to make the class the most enjoyable for myself at least. I think sharing the responsibility for the class to be effective and enjoyable lies not only on me as the teacher, but also on the students. The discussion/seminar made me think about a few things: It made me think about my childhood, examining the roots of my addiction and how much of a role the education system played in that. It seems to be the case that education is largely predicated on obedience rather than voluntarism and that this kind of goes against the notion of a responsible individual. The world is fucked up and will always be and that's kind of the beauty of it, because you can always work to make it a little bit better. I thought of that and it gave me a strange sense of satisfaction after the seminar. I also thought of this article: https://markmanson.net/wrong-about-everything

Day 165: I taught, visited my grandma and attended a discussion/seminar about education and kids. The day was pretty great, I think I definitely got a lot to think about based on the events of today. NF - 5 days

Day 164: I got about 80% of the things I wanted to get done today, so that was good. I checked out something regarding my business, went through some bookmarks and read, on top of the more common activities I do every day. I'm planning a big update summing up my half a year without games. I was on Twitch on Day 145 for a bit after I finished my stream, but I never thought of visiting it since then. I think to make the update good (and perhaps something I can be proud of), I'll need to devote some time towards it daily (as I did with the letter for my ex a few months back - that actually turned into a well-written document about my current values) for at least a week. Writing primarily for the purposes of my own self-evaluation is quite demanding (I did not touch Self-Authoring since I got home and I did not do it on Iceland either), so I'll need to get into the habit. My agenda is already filled up with activities for the next three days, but I'll try to get after it. NF - 4 days So far, so good. I wonder how masturbation impacts the body chemistry.

Writing is indeed interesting, that's why I like to engage in stretched-out conversations with others. I don't think I am great at asking questions and pondering about them myself, so I try to look for cues in my environment to stir up my train of thought. It's generally why I keep the entries short. The headache is gone already. I rarely ever get it, so I know that I can give myself the "luxury" of taking it seriously and just take the rest of the day off.

Following, I like the idea of the numbers tracking progress!

I was thinking how smart and developed I would be, when I got into a relationship quite late (I was 20 and nicely addicted to games at that point), but it ended in the stellar fashion of teenage relationships. There was intimacy and passion, but no real trust. I think sex nails the first two nicely, but I think it clouds the third element very well as well. Sex is emotional. Trust, on the other hand, seems like more of a "cold" virtue. You can reliably trust a friend who comes 9 times out of 10 to meet up in a bar to come the 11th time. I think once you are on the "casual sex" train, it gets pretty easy to just quit on anyone once things get uncomfortable, because you know there's that another woman who you do not have an issue with. I think the point the teenage relationships mostly fail is that nobody has an agenda of what they want and why they want it. Both just decide that they look good and get together. Now that's a pretty broad selection, if I can say that some 20-30% of females (-+5 years of my age) seem physically attractive to me. The choice is yours, but I think fucking around is gonna fuck you up. On the hobby list, I second what @Phoenixking wrote. You have a ton of ideas, you just have to take action on them. Do not try to take on all of them at the same time in a single day. Rather, try to think of how much time do you want to put into them. Do you want to rock climb every day? If so, does that make the gym redundant? Maybe you'll end up tossing half the ideas and you'll come up with new ones.

Day 163: I got about half the things done I wanted to get done today. That's not bad, considering I spent about 3 hours just laying in my bed because of a headache. NF - 3 days Regarding this, it helps I write it before going to bed. The thoughts come and I just let them go.

A lot of people really do not want to do anything after they come back home from work/school. I've realized that after 2 years of full-time studying or full-time working, basically since I got through high school. I've thought before of waking up way before going to work/school to counter that. I've had the opportunity to work afternoon shifts (1400-2200) at one point, while still waking up at 0700 as a normal person. It was an interesting experience, to use my willpower on my free time first and then use it on work. If your goals have the ability to motivate you enough to shift your waking times, then definitely shift your schedule accordingly. Related to that, I think you might be putting too much emphasis on the end product and that helps to get you overwhelmed as well. You need to see some growth; life would be fairly boring too, if you were able to get everything done in one go in a few hours. Myself, back in May/June, I complained to a friend that making a website for my business would take too much time. He happened to know of txti, so I picked it up, created a single page in two hours and wrote what is my business about in a basic form. It's been the same ever since I wrote it three months ago, but I at least I have something to go on when I'll be creating my own real website eventually. Another example of that would be me taking on the Gulag Archipelago. I am about 70 pages in. The total number of pages in the book is 2100 (that is why it comes in three volumes). If I read 10 pages a day, it will still take me over half a year to read it, yet again, I'm too curious about the book to just dismiss it just because I can't read it in a day. I also think my long-term projects are more loosely defined, if they are defined at all, so that helps me with freeing up my hands and establishing some basic habits, without worrying too much about the end goals. I get a bit scared just looking at your list of goals, as I know it would overwhelm me as well. I think the only goal I currently have that is neatly defined is that I want to get my university degree in two years and that time-span is not something I get to manipulate with (in a way that I could shorten it anyway). Every other goal is up to me and my ability to set it up so that it satisfies me. I know you're aware of it, but having sex as a part of something bigger is a good idea. Sex is no joke and you want to do it with someone you can trust, on the off-chance you might have kids with them. You don't want to be like the woman trying to kiss you on the first date. That's a difference between a position of power and a position of desperation.

Day 162: I played Scrabble, watched Peterson for a bit, sent a few emails, read the Gulag Archipelago, exercised and updated my ads online, which I should have done way earlier after coming back from Iceland, but I feel like it was an honest mistake that I managed to forget this part of my entrepreneurship. NF - 2 days

It's interesting how even after almost a year one can still see their past in a slightly different angle, interpret it differently and try to figure out what to do in the future based on that. I understand your frustration when you parted with your friends for the night after having fun. If I socialize nicely one day, then I'm sometimes bummed I do not have the same opportunity the next day too.

I'd say if you are not sure about quitting games, then do it and see what happens. At first, I was also just curious what would happen. I think all the "quitters" to an extent realize they have 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week and that they want to spend that time better. Good luck!

Good job on kicking both smoking and gaming at the same time. Getting the agenda up is a great idea. I'm mostly still at the level of just writing things down I want to do on particular days (sometimes I plan a day ahead, sometimes I plan a few days ahead), rather than pinpointing the exact times when I want to do these things. I use Excel for planning my days .When I do a certain activity, I highlight it in green. If I do a little bit of it, or it's some continual project with multiple steps, I highlight it in yellow. If I did not do it at all, I highlight it in red. I can also use the past days for evaluating what went good and what went wrong and adjust for that in the future, as long as I am honest with myself and keep track of it truthfully. The good thing about getting a job is that it automatically nails some time for you (so you do not have to plan your free time), gives you money and might have some other benefits like socializing, doing what you like etc. The bad thing is that it also drains your willpower and it's definitely harder to be working on "your own stuff" after it, compared to if you had the day for yourself. Another thing to consider is that it also shapes you and you really want to be aware of what's shaping you. In a sense, you have to make sure the job also works for you. For example, if you are regularly angry in it and hate going there, then that is really a horrible way to exist for half your life, no matter to which extent is the job is genuinely unpleasant to do and how much of that is "your fault".

It sounds like you have a nice plan. Good luck!

Day 161: I switched to learning Spanish in Russian on Duolingo and dropped German for now, as I think it's too much to be going for three languages at the same time. I played Scrabble, did a bit of homework, watched Peterson, went outside to exercise a bit and watched a bit of Mitchell and Webb. Other than that, it's been a lazy day. Also, to make this a bit harder on myself: NoFap - 1 day