Ikar

Day 140: Writing a bit earlier, because I am going out tonight. I was helping out around the house, as we are currently reconstructing the bathroom. As a result, I got my day fragmented to an extent I only got small things done. I sorted out some things in my room, did Duolingo and watched a TED talk. I also got a bit of my planning for the next week done, I will finish it tomorrow. Getting back on track after two months is somewhat difficult! I am gonna do some shopping for good food while I am out.

Day 139: I dodged the entry on Day 138. I came home at about 3 in the morning, so there were no thoughts about doing that. I had two nice little chats with Icelanders I managed to meet on my way to the airport. One of them was a retired pilot and the other one was a retired airport worker who drove me to the airport! Today, I checked on some school things, job things, money, Duolingo (I started Spanish and even German, for whatever reason, alongside Russian), went for a walk and unpacked my stuff from Iceland. I actually felt some small cravings to game. They went as quickly as they came, but it was interesting to notice them regardless. They were probably caused by the second large change in environment in the past several days (Iceland work -> Iceland camp -> home), because I kept my days largely unstructured. ----- I was wondering whether one of life's mechanisms is that the stream of pain/problems is more or less constant. For example, if you go daily through the pain/problem of staying fit, you will not have to face a bigger pain/problem later in the future, like getting obese and having your let cut off because of diabetes. I believe that to be the case, so doing your homework daily pays off, once you have identified it, which proves to be quite difficult. ----- Tomorrow: I will try to nail some one-timers tomorrow, alongside with planning the next week. I have a lot of stuff I marked down in Iceland (and even here) to mess around with. I am going to an event in the evening too, so it will be nice to get social.

I have found that unless you do something terribly stupid, people will give you the benefit of the doubt. Whether you are more of a compassion black hole or more genuine (or a mix of the two), that is up to you to decide and act upon! I just re-read the first days of my journal. I started out small and stupid, just dodging games. Later out I think I managed to build a nice beginning for my new life out of the time of "dodging games". Do not worry and start small!

Welcome to my diary Lea! I think the point is that nobody really wants to work those jobs, not by default anyway. It still does not change the fact that they chose the job themselves. I think you are in some trouble if you choose to do something you really dislike, especially if that goes over the years. I think a nice symptom of that is when you come off work, then watch TV/stay on computer for 6 hours straight and then do the same thing the next day. That seems to me like the recipe for disaster (spoiler alert: I lived like that). I am not sure if resilience and courage are something that is built up, rather than discovered. I am inclined to think to think that I am (and actually everyone is) capable of doing anything, except a few things I have troubles doing. Making decisions and being responsible is scary, but if you do not do that, you are just gonna end up bitter and resentful about how everything is out of your control. So while it is hard, it gives your life some meaning and that is worth the effort in my opinion (unless the whole of humanity plans a mass suicide!). I am at home already, but thanks anyway :)

Not at all. They were both people I just met. If it happens too often, I will try to think about it, but I believe they were the exceptions. Good luck with the girl!

Day 137: I went for a walk, did the groceries, wrote, went to the swimming pool and wrote more. Pretty happy with how today went. One more night here and I am going home. Mission accomplished.

Good job man, crush it! Good luck with the girls too. If I learnt something from Peterson, then it is that any reasonable woman loves responsible men ?

Learning when to say "no" is very important. I both said "no" and got said "no" in the past three days, meaning I will not speak to these two people ever again. I will live and I am fine with that. I cannot be friends with everyone, in fact, nobody can. Saying "no" also saves a lot of time for both sides. Good luck with your hobbies/goals and building good habits! Good downtime is as important as good uptime.

Day 136: I visited a museum in the town today. I have a weird thought that I actually do not spend enough time on my phone to research my money investing options. It is kind of strange to come back to having all the time for yourself again!

I also grew to like SP games more and more later on. I had a feeling my teammates would generally let me down in MP games, as I think I always put in more hours than the average player into the game. There is some comfort in screwing up in an SP game and not having anyone to blame. It is kinda like real life! ?

Day 135: I relaxed pretty nicely today. Visited a museum, swimming pool, had an interesting encounter and wrote a bit. Gonna relax tomorrow as well, with more writing though.

Day 134: It was a long walk today, so I am gonna relax tomorrow.

Day 133: In the morning, I went for a short hike. Then I cooked lunch, went for another small hike, visited the swimming pool and sauna. I think I am fairly justified to feel trashed after all this. I have a longer hike planned for tomorrow with all my gear, so I hope everything will go fine!

I never cared for it too much either. I think I was mostly looking for something I am good at. It turns out that if you put enough time into something, you become good at it! I used fear of the abyss that would make my life insufferable after what I knew what the correct decision was. Something just had to go.

Here's my monthly summary. I actually already wrote it a week before, but I forgot to post it after a day or two. Game Quitters - I'm still reading the journals I am subbed to, I subbed to a few more even. physical development - The work was generally not very physically demanding, but I keep moving for the majority of it. I take a longer walk once a week, but make sure I spend at least an hour outside every day, except when the weather is horrible. mental development - I read some of the "Subtle Art" from Mark Manson, I generally get around to read an article or few a day about psychology/philosophy/self-help. I am currently focusing personal finance though. going out/screen time reduction - Since using a phone for anything (compared to desktop computer) feels obnoxious, I try to put in the time I have generally into something substantial. I learn, read and write a lot, while not watching almost any videos. There is not anything to do as for events outside though. uni - I feel happy for it. I can see some connections between "economic geography" and "personal finance" as well. Semester starts in less than a month. English teaching/my business - This has to be tackled when I return, perhaps even more than the university. I did some job scans this month, I plan to do some paperwork to make it official when I get home. family - I have been keeping in touch every few days. We are gonna do a small late birthday celebration and I will have something small to say about my past four months. dating - Quiet, for now. Takeaways from Iceland: Tourism - I had the opportunity to be in Reykjavik for a week, so I am sure I saw most of the interesting stuff there. I will have a few days after I am done working. However, my gear is somewhat clunky and I generally prefer to set up my tent, grab a bag with a few kilos, go for a hike and then return back. I do not think I ever seriously planned for week-long hikes or renting a car to drive around. Neither did I make a list of things I wanted to see. Work - I worked a dirty job in a meat factory. It helps a ton I am fairly disgust insensitive. I have a feeling this is not a job for me, however I am grateful for the experience and, of course, for that hard cash. I am convinced that university education will still be the better path for me over the long run though. I cannot change people. People generally try to be good (even if we lack the self-awareness to sometimes tell what that "good" is). I am fairly adaptable. I can work hard enough for a goal (job) and get decent results. Diversity or work/life balance is important. I spent the first week in a tent, with searching jobs in the morning and walking around/touring later. I will spread out my personality even further when I get home. I have put all my eggs into one or two baskets before and the result was not pretty. I plan to invest most of my money during the next 30 days/a month. I learnt how to cook on a basic level! :V AFTER ICELAND - priorities: hobbies: modeling (WWII stuff), paintball, geocache, drumming (yoga?) Meditate my business/English teaching - schools (both state and private), websites for teachers, jobs university (whatever happens and springs to mind while there) Self-authoring Money investment

Day 132: Last day at work was actually super busy today, so I had to step on it. After work, I decided to get dropped off at a campsite not too far away, so I am back to sleeping in a tent. I ate and wrote a little, but I am fairly exhausted, so I will just go to sleep soon. Tommrow I plan to just relax with some small hike and swimming pool afterwards. I have earned every last bit of it.

Day 131: Afternoon after work went by so fast I barely noticed it. I ate, wrote with a friend, cooked, tried out some gear, ate again and it is now 6 hours later. Tomorrow is my last day at work and I planned to leave right after it. I think I stress myself a bit more than I need to now. I still need to pack myself and plan, but I do not suppose that should take longer than an hour or two, so I am waking up a bit earlier tomorrow. I guess facing the unknown will always be the same!

Day 130: After work, I wrote, did laundry, cooked and went outside for about an hour today. The last couple of days, I am noticing a shift in my eating patterns. I no longer eat only when I feel hungry and I can eat bigger meals. I did something like this consciously about 2 years ago, but only for about a week. Oddly enough, I think this only started because I started eating more vegetables. I am happy for this, as some 70-75 kg weight for me is good in my eyes. I will tackle the food situation when I get home as well, I noticed I did not eat almost any bread for the past two weeks. I also read up some articles about early retirement, investing and such, basically building up my knowledge, so I can make some decisions when I get home.

I have a friend on med school. She has it rough. She has to go there for 6 years to get the degree and even after that, she has to do approbations. I also noticed she sometimes has self-worth issues. Another guy I know on med school said med studente need to have the do-or-die mentality. I almost feel lazy by default compared to you all! Good luck striking a good life/work balance ?

It is more about always having something useful in mind and taking some time to do it on a daily basis. If you manage to put some at least 30 minutes daily towards some bigger goal (right now mine is personal finance), so it does not bite you in the ass in the future, I think that is a good start. Add one or two more things to that daily and there is gonna be a huge difference between you and a TV couch potato in a few weeks. Haha, I actually did not think of her writing that (at least not consciously!), as I do not think she ever thought that, but who knows. It was meant to be a hypothetical scenario. Anyway, she did love me for me (as I did her), but in the wrong way. You are right I am better off without her and that she is (hopefully) better off without me as well. It makes me think that we kept reinforcing each other in out bad habits/attitudes, so in this regard, the relationship actually worked out nicely, if that was our goal ?

Day 129: I think it is nearly impossible for a person to not enjoy the end of their employment, but hopefully I am doing it for the right reasons this time. After work, I ate, wrote and went to visit the Icelander, likely for the last time. We discussed some interesting topics. We discussed food, prices, nutrition values and the overall logic behind these. He also mentioned his near-vegetarianism, which is actually a good way to save a ton of money (and enviroment) for meat! Myself, I have been eating a lot these days, especially vegetables, and somewhere along the way in the last few weeks, I gained about 5 kilos of weight, meaning I am back to my army weight a year ago. I like that, because I have been planning to get heavier a notch. I also mentioned my memory got improved by planning my days, or at least doing mindful activities, even after work. I do not schedule my days in Iceland per se, but I know where to put my focus and that is good enough. I hope to keep this up even after I return home! Last thing I mentioned was trust and self-fulfilling prophecies. If my boss does not trust me to do my work well (and decides to put his doubts out loud), then I indeed have one less reason to do it well. Another example is this. If my girlfriend thinks I am cheating on her, I might as well do that, since I am guilty in her eyes no matter what anyway. The second option is to leave, but either way, the relationship is in a bad place. After the talk, we said goodbye and parted. I did not manage to do anything else for today otherwise, but the long talk was worth it.

Duolingo is hard to binge. I have not been there for 2 months (as I would have to go through the hassle of using my phone for it), but I remember doing 4 exercises of Russian per day to get the 50 XP and that took me about 15 minutes to get done. I plan to add Spanish after I get home too, as I know something from high school. I know this will work for me, as I already have a good level of English (in my home area anyway) and I plan to leverage on my languages together with geography I study on the uni. Do what works for you! ?

Day 128: This is my last week at a full-time job for quite some time, at least that is what I think now! I am trying to end up on a good note. After work, I ate, wrote, then read some interesting articles here on finances and thrifty lifestyle. I also wrote my grandma. I was outside only for a little bit, as the weather is fairly bad. I am currently cooking a chicken for dinner. Another good one for the count. Diversification for each day works.

What is this magical place that demands you work only 25 hours a week? ? Keep up the momentum!

Peterson is great! I started with him, then got around to Mark Manson. Eckhart Tolle has been great for me as well, especially after I put in some "logic" from Peterson to work. These are just a few, I guess there might be more in my journal somewhere. The important thing is to diversify. Our brains like that. There is a reason why there are tasks that should be done daily; exercising, brushing teeth, meditation etc. They do take up a chunk of time daily, but they are worth it over the long run! As for goals, they are fine, but the real metagoal (goal of goals) is to get your habits/mindset to a different (better) place. For example, if you say "I want to save up a thousand dollars.", what you actually want is to be the guy who can save up a thousand dollars regularily, i.e. who is more mindful of his finances, who knows how to spend and how to sell his time for money well.