Ikar

It seems like a good idea to branch out of a single thing, school in your case. Realizing you're also a part of a family, that you have some friends and maybe some other activities in your life. You want to give all of them some focus, so when one part collapses, you have other things you do to support you, that basically define you. All of us being here on a daily basis had to re-invent ourselves, because we had a priority we invested in, even though it was detrimental. It's basically what happens when you go all-in on one thing and it fails.

Day 23: I got up in the morning and after some breakfast, I went to school to write an exam. I did the best I could with the amount of time I put in and I think the general theme of the period between writing the test itself and getting the results is "I wish I studied more". I hanged out with one of the classmates after the test and he's about twice my age. We talked about welfare state, philosophy, psychology and relationships. We had a good talk! I came home around lunchtime, so I got my lunch. After that, I started composing the letter for my ex, when I noticed she suddenly wrote me. I was slightly caught by surprise, but I already had a decent draft. I suggested the gravest mistakes mistakes we both made; I got caught up in a swirl of bad events after leaving the army, so my gaming/Twitch addiction was free to bloat as I tried to escape from reality and she wasn't able to do anything, but to build up resentment, as I was becoming more and more of a mess to deal with, because she wasn't able to tell the truth that there's something horribly wrong with me in a way I could understand. She's been failing to answer her personal problems, so I can't hold a grudge against her for not trying to help others solving them. She has to make peace with her first, so she can try to make peace with others. She took all that as an attempt of me trying to get her back. I ended it at that's not the case at all, as that proved me she's not there... yet. She's not a lover, she's not a friend (as friends have to bear truth, or whatever goofy attempt I am able to make at it), so she's a skeptical stranger. Writing her myself doesn't make sense. I'll be happy if she ever manages to recognize my point of view and understand it. There's nothing more to be done for me. My conscience is clean and my past with her settled. As all that went through my head, I was slightly bewildered for my English teaching and it showed slightly. I managed to keep my bearings straight and finish the class though. I met with a former classmate in the evening, so I was pretty social today. I watched ep. 18 of the WWII documentary. Tomorrow @Ikar: checklist-based schedule, work out, exam Friday

Good job, hope you come back more often! My only stable thing I do right now is that I am writing the diary and watch the documentary, but it's better than nothing!

I'm beginning to wonder if we are obsessed with Jordan Peterson, but looking at the world through the lens of responsibility, discipline and truth appeals to me at least. I think it's important to tell her how you feel, so you also get to know what she thinks. After my recent relationship, I found out the phrase "I love you" is rather vague. I think my ex "loved" me for parts of my identity that weren't as integral as she thought and looking at me back then, I was becoming a huge mess, basically gaming/watching Twitch every day. Logically, she ended up disillusioned and I ended up legitimately shocked by the asymmetry between us that's developed over weeks. She'd just never have the incentive to tell me what's bothering her, to tell me the truth, and it just chipped away at her. All she could do was to make rather haphazard attempts to alter my behavior by telling me things like "You should work out more" etc. and coming from that place, you hardly ever achieve more than confusion and resentment. Good luck! Hope my insights help.

Day 22: I watched ep. 18 of the WWII documentary while I was eating breakfast. I got a little bit into the Self Authoring too. Brother came along for a family lunch, asked me about that I put away the photo of my ex from my dashboard, so we talked a little bit about that. In the evening, that stirred up my thoughts, in combination of the thorough personality/philosophy/past assessment I'm doing extensively over the last month. I think I got about 90% of my recent past mined and examined, so I'd like to share that with her, though I have a hard time doing that if I get silence from her on the usual comms. I'll send her a final note tomorrow. Unless I get a positive answer on it, I'm over her, 100%, no doubts. I'm drawing the line and I have this post as testimony that I tried. My letter to her will contain: I also studied throughout the day, probably only 3 hours total, but I still feel better for the test... today! ?

@30_yrs_of_gaming Here you go! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071075/

Day 21: I watched ep. 17 of the WWII documentary while I was eating breakfast. I also helped out mom with planting peas! After lunch, I checked out the Iceland jobs and applied for some. Then I worked out and during that I had another talk with mom, as I'm pouring a lot of time into psychology these days and I want to share my findings. I really enjoy the process of dissecting and trying to learn the maximum from the past too, though I think I've revealed the main points already. In the evening, I got a bit into studying for the exam on Monday, though briefer than I'd like. All in all, I think I can count it as I got 3.5/5 things I wanted from today, compiling about 3-4 hours of "work" which is pretty decent. Might've spent around the same time on psychology today. Morning @Ikar: - email the English kid! - study for the test - 2-2-1 hours (morning-afternoon-evening) - probably wishful thinking for 5 hours, but I'll give it a shot Discipline IS pain AND discipline WILL BE gain. Remember. Thanks!

Damn, that's appalling. I wonder how much resentment she's built up she's gotta vent. One thing to remember is that you can always choose your reaction to the situation, though if you start out good and then suddenly she has a 180 mood swing, it's very hard to detach yourself from that situation. I'd focus on yourself first. You can't allow the "outside" compromise your integrity by relapsing. Even if it's the mother of your kids lashing out on you. If you feel like you're losing control, set up some rules of communication, say, an email every three days. You're not throwing the family under the bus, if you set up rules of personal responsibility, quite the contrary.

I'm hoping I am not becoming too obsessive about it, but it's really difficult to be binge-watching psychology lectures! The two of them got me when they described discipline as "sacrificing present, so you can have a better (chances, success, time) future". I never felt like someone would empathize with me on that idea of "discipline IS pain" before. Everyone was only saying "discipline WILL BE gain". Combining these two together the concept finally started to really dawn on me.

Day 20: I watched ep. 16 of the WWII documentary while I was eating breakfast. After that, I worked on my paper and I put together something very basic to at least hand it over for the deadline. I watched some Jocko & Peterson in the meanwhile. After lunch, I went to the university to write a test and to hand the paper. The test was somewhat easy, but since I didn't get around to studying for it very much, I feel it's like a 50/50. If anything, I enjoy improvising on tests on subjects I know little about! In the evening, I watched some more lectures on psychology by Peterson, as it's my primary focus these days, though I'll have to strike a balance between that and university, as exam term is here. I'm not having any issues with nofap whatsoever, with about 110 hours done and 60 to go this week and even if I actively let a thought in, it goes away on its own. That makes sense with me being around the house most of the times, though I am very eager to go out to work out, take a walk or go for a beer with friends. I feel like stopping things is way easier for me than starting new ones! Also, @Ikar I'll be happy if you tomorrow: - work out - 1 hour - get bearings on the subject and study for the exam on Monday - 1-2 hours - check out Iceland jobs - 1 hour - play Scrabble or gardening with mom - 1 hour - get the notes from the 4 hour podcast and write them down here for everyone to read (with some commentary) - 2 hours Then you can do other things and watch Peterson all you want. Thanks buddy! See you tomorrow.

I'm not too sure what the answer here is. I'm currently half-way through my nofap week and I have hardly any cravings. Then again, I still spend most of my time at home and I have very little experience with porn per se, so @30_yrs_of_gaming is making a good point from a perspective I wouldn't be able to deliver. It's perfectly fine to feel sexually curious in late teens/adolescence. It really comes down to the distinction whether you're thinking of them sexually or as potential (lifetime) partners, BUT there's never gonna be a clear cut most of the times. It's really up to you how you feel about the situation and if it warrants action, good thing to remember here is that all of us found this forum as self-diagnosed gaming addicts, so I'd trust your own judgement.

Hi! This is really important. I'm always interested in how the struggle is looking like for others, as we're all different, even though we start with the 90 days. In my experience, I crave gaming/Twitch very little, if at all, mostly just a few nostalgic thoughts, but I easily acknowledge them and they go away on their own in a whim. The main damage caused to me is that I can plan and follow through my plans with difficulty. However, every day I wake up more excited on a regular basis and do activities I know that will benefit me long term, even if they are unstructured!

Day 19: I watched ep. 15 of the WWII documentary while I was eating breakfast. I noticed I'm using advanced words I learn from it, as there's about 10 unknown ones in one episode I translate. It's not that I would miss the context, but I want to know their precise meaning. I also finished the podcast above with a ton of notes. They really talked about a lot of great stuff, broadening my perspective of familiar things and yet, some of it struck me as if it was new. They "told" me to clean my room and wash the dishes, so I did that. After that I checked some of his works and took the Understand Myself test. My recent major shift in behavior since I quit gaming/Twitch, as I found out, was that I am a lot more excited on a daily basis which I find is a precursor to being motivated to do new/interesting things and research and live a better life. I'm also slightly more extroverted, as I want to establish more and deeper relationships, though I am still kinda stuck in the house. After that, I had a talk with my mom about my last two weeks, it felt good to confide via speech, as I mostly do it through writing. I took a walk, though the weather outside was nasty and watched some Simpsons afterwards. To top it off, I'm writing with a friend too right now. Unfortunately, throughout the day, I made a very unconcentrated effort towards the school project, so I'll have to do it in the morning, as I can't push it any further. The test earlier told me I was a bad planner and I put that to a test ?

It does! I found out that when I feel inspired, I don't feel inspired to do just one thing, but everything. If I knew how to manipulate myself into it, my life would be super awesome ?

Day 18: I watched ep. 14 of the WWII documentary while I was eating breakfast. I got up somewhat late and not very well rested, so I slacked for a while. After the lunch, I played Scrabble with my mom and after that I worked out. Workout finally got me on track throughout the rest of the day, as I stumbled upon this marvelous podcast: I took notes during the video I'm gonna re-write into my "book notebook", possibly even here to really get it under my skin. So while I didn't do anything for university per se, I did study!

I remember telling my ex "I wish I could take care of myself as I take care of you." I've probably heard it thrice today already from different sources and I'll write it down too: Love yourself. = Take care of yourself like of someone you would care for. It gives me shivers on how much I resonate with that.

I was on the other side of it. My ex broke up with me and she wrote me she took a really long time to manage to get herself up to the point where she'd just rub it into my face, as sometimes I did random acts of kindness along the way, which softened up her resolve temporarily. I was just so socially unaware/ignorant that I never saw it coming. We were practically the same and I think the thing she hated about me (and maybe what she still hates in herself today) was that we mirrored each other in basically being a pair of losers who never got anything done, even though I never got an answer from her on that. I wrote her about the mirroring a while ago and I didn't get a response since (and got a bit angry with her after that), but truth hurts. I went on a month without her and in the progress I had to gut out of myself both being with her and gaming/watching streams. It was rough, but it had to be done. As a result, I never had time to hate her, though she had a lot of time to hate me. If anything, I'm grateful she become my catalyst for being here today!

The question stirred my thoughts; imagine in how that works in romantic relationships. There's very few people that can stay legit friends after they break up. There's a ton of resentment towards the end of it most of the time. Hate is a very cheap and effective means of dealing with the situation. Agreed. Some games are past the point of being just an innocent colorful combination designed to bring some joy, especially nowadays.

Just read through the diary as a whole, interesting experience. I'm over two weeks in. At the start I also felt unstoppable, having so much time, doing all the things I wanted. Now I think I have a cognitive bias, because I feel overwhelmed and I think I am not getting anything done! Before that, it'd be unthinkable for me to go work out outside, but now I just pick myself up and go. I didn't get "anything" (school stuff) done in the morning, because I got a headache and felt exhausted and I automatically feel bad for not converting EVERY SINGLE hour of gaming into something valuable, but that's impossible. I feel like I need to learn to relax without guilt, especially when I feel under the weather. Thanks for allowing my self-reflection to come up here, have a good one!

Day 18 morning: I've dreamed quite a bunch since I stopped gaming. I dreamed about playing some Wolfenstein game today. I had a very vague feel during it of how relapse would feel IRL. I also dreamed about my ex in the past few days, but I didn't get any specific feelings out of that. Last reply I got from her was a week ago, so I'll guess I'll see about her in a year. That ought be interesting, as I'm set out for the best year of my life!

Day 17: I watched ep. 13 of the WWII documentary while I was eating breakfast (fun fact: I had my lunch for breakfast). I started working on the school project and I'll try to get it done tomorrow. I did some research into business. I did some prep for English teaching in the afternoon. In the afternoon, I went for a job interview for one language school, but I'm not 100% sold on their method of teaching, so my performance wasn't very on-point, so I'll see what comes out of this. Later on, I went English teaching on my own terms, I had a good time and I believe my students had a good time too! In the evening, my mom invited me to an opera (for a lack of other suitable partners). If I got it right, a guy refused to wake up and stayed in a dream forever to stay with a girl. I've heard modern plays can have multiple interpretations though, so I am not too unhappy if that's actually not true! I am SMASHED. I've been in motion since I left for the interview in the afternoon. I'm content, I got some experience. Tomorrow I'll get the school project done on top of some studying for an exam on Friday.

Analytical and interesting. My two cents on that would be that I told my ex in the beginnings that I am not sure if I can love her, after not having a romantic relationship before. I got proved that I was very wrong in that statement. As for acts of kindness, I've observed 2 types of them in myself: 1) manual state - you purposefully do/buy/make something nice for your girl, generally you can take a good stab by going for something general (flowers, plants, chocolate) or something she has interest in (knitting, modeling, gardening), but that might be a bit rougher, as she's likely knowledgeable in the field and you'd need to figure out what she'd like specifically to make your gift relevant 2) state of flow - that's the state you are happy with how your day is going 100%, you feel like you could do anything, your head is sparking with ideas and you really spontaneously find something amazing, be it a gift, activity or whatever else

Indeed, talking from experience, my ex also suffered from mental-induced self-worthlessness, low self-esteem and low self-confidence. She would never say "I love myself". Frankly, my answer on the question "Do you love yourself?" back then would be "well, I kinda like myself", which wouldn't be very convincing either. I would tell her she's beautiful and she would just brush it off, yet I can't even begin to fathom what would happen if I told her she was ugly! I'm fap-free until Monday myself, so good luck! Nicely done on 29.

Day 16: I feel thoroughly tired. After groceries, visiting grandma and teaching, I got into Location Rebel again and I was just busy researching what does it take to run around my country like a freelancer. I also had to set up my exam schedule. I feel like stuff is hectic, but honestly, has it ever been less hectic? I think not!

Hi Radtech! No, by "releasing" I mean releasing sperm or masturbating, just making it a bit of an euphenism ? It feels good to fight whatever life brings with full strength. I remember the deep division in myself when I wanted to game even just a month ago, when something inside was telling me I should focus on other things too. I will persevere. I'm confident I'll make the full 90, thanks for your support! ?