ConstantlyLost

Day 2 - March 20, 2020 Man it was a slow day being indoors. Did about half of my essay which I plan to finish tomorrow. Alot of course changes. Went outside ot the park to do my workout at the bars. Starting to feel really dizzy being inside. I think I'm going to make some warm tea and do some of my essay outdoors. Going to practice some better sleep habits. Going to read 15m before allowing myself to shut my eyes. I find that I wake up kind of anxious because I don't have a cooldown period for my mind beofre going to sleep. Need to refill on meds tomorrow so I have a reason to leave the house! Woohoo 🙂 Goals Finished: Fitness Progress towards essay

Hey everyone! The city I live in is being locked down, we're told not to leave the house, most non-essentials are closed. I need this log to document my life for the next two weeks at least, although reports indicate we might be stuck for much longer. How quitting games has changed my life :) So I've tried to quit games now for years. I quit starting January 2020 and my life has been made several times better. My grades shot up from a 3~ gpa to a 3.8 sessional. I am stronger than ever before, my mind feels more sharp and I've managed to stay much more on top of things. I have much more focus than ever before and real life has become much more interesting. I have general anxiety disorder with some signs of depression, but since quitting games, I've sought out the mental help I needed. So if you needed some brief inspiration to quit games, there you go, another success story in the making. The only reasons I have to leave the house are apart from emergencies: Groceries Walks in the neighbourhood (suburban area, lots of distance) For the past few days, I've done nothing productive. I've devised a list of tasks to have a routine. I don't want to waste the next 2-8 weeks of my life. Fitness: I can't do deadlifts, bench or squat in my house, but I have bands and a pull up bar 5 x 20 dips 3 x 15 push ups 10 x 1 minutes of planking 5 x 5 pull ups (weak pull ups) 15 minutes treadmill 5 x 10 curls 5 x 15 tricep extensions 5 x 10 side lateral raises Studying: I'm going to finish the year off strong. Classes are all cancelled and most of my friends have told me that they've been lazy because the stress has been removed haha. Still have a lot of assignments left and a few tests/exams. My mind doesn't feel like it's still university season. Final essay #1 - March 21, 2020 Response Journal #2 March 22, 2020 Final essay #2 - March 24, 2020 Final Essay #3 - March 27, 2020 Response Journal #3 March, 28, 2020 Exam #1 Studying - March 30-31st Final Essay #4 - April 1st, 2020 Thankfully some exams have been cancelled, but others are TBD, so that's the outline for the time being. Chores: Organize closet and drawers - March 22nd, 2020 Return amazon hat - not sure if postal office is open Figure out alarm clock set up - prior to returning hat Clean bathroom - March 27, 2020 Enjoyment: Pervert's Guide to Ideology Read at least one book of interest Watch two good movies Check in on friends

Day 20 of Game Quitting - Results Wow the last three weeks have been quite a journey. My mood is still really off and on, I honestly don't know why that is. I think I need to sleep at a consistent time every night, but right now that's just not an easy task to ask and you'll see why! Job Yup, I got hired as a charity fundraiser and my boss and supervisors LOVE me. They wanted me to work a day after the interview. They like my charm, how I dress and how articulate and on feet I am. I get above minimum wage and the work is really rewarding. I essentially go door to door asking for monthly donations. So far I'm hitting my quotas and again I love the people I've met and my work as a whole. Time seems to fly on the job. Workout At the lowest weight I've ever been in months, lost a lot of weight because of my work, I average about 14K steps from work alone and then another 6k or so from daily commutes so about 18k-22k a day which is a lot of calories. Church Been amazing. Had a totally killer sermon today from a guest pastor and wow he said everything I NEEDED to hear. Essentially that we shouldn't see our past failures for the causes of our current problems. Rather to see our current problems as stepping stones into God's plan for our lives. He spoke on patience and acceptance of our current problems which is a message I definitely agree with. Amor fati. It was a great blend of Nietzsche's philosophy and modern Christianity. It demanded being humble and allowing God to work in our lives rather than trying to control the world and outcomes. Very cool sermon. In the end, I felt so compelled that I raised my hand and accepted Christ. I honestly never thought I would ever do that again. But this time, God's got me. The people are amazing, the environment is amazing, and I've honestly seen changes in my life. Relationships I've been spending so much time with friends. We go out to eat, we study, I see them at work and church. It's great. I need to spend more time with my mother, but it's not easy because I'm not home as often anymore. I usually leave the house around noon or sooner and don't come home until the late evening. But that's a work in progress. School Honestly, been slacking so much in school. Just don't feel the motivation for it right now. Finals are coming up and I really need to start hauling ass, but I work 18 hours a week with a 6 hr total commute so it's going to be a mission. Mood It's honestly been better than usual, but I still feel down a lot. I can forsee an upwards trend, but I'm learning to be patient with myself and my mood. Life's been going so well, but still a lot of days I come home or wake up and it's a battle to leave the room. Thank you Thanks to everyone that's been reading. It means a lot that some of you have given your valuable time to read my ramblings! Best of luck to everyone and thank you again.

Day 6 of Game Quitting No complaints man. Life has been... great. Got things I need to work on. But seen a large upward trend since quitting games. Less nihilistic, less depressed and wondering what the meaning of my life is. Really enjoying the moment a lot more and more in focus again. Still have anxiety though, but it's getting much better. Gym has been incredible. I'm close to being as strong as I ever was, less back pain and more shoulder congruency. Gaining a lot of size. My tighter shirts barely fit! Starting to believe God again, which is so strange. I was a hardcore atheist and philosophy helped solidfy that. Man, life is bizarre. Enjoying life, wishing you all the best ?

Day 0 of Game Quitting - I'm Back and This Time with a More Concise Plan Welp, I got banned from my MMO game. I'm pretty glad actually. Not even upset. Been playing that game heavily for the past week and I have to say that I wasn't nearly as happy - let alone fulfilled. The reason I wanted to play again was because I missed the instant pleasure dopamine hits and thought I could have both games and all the progress. The first thing I noticed was that my overall muscle mass dropped significantly in the last week. I was training about 33% less, eating about 40% less protein a day and sleep quality plummetted. All that equalled no gains and a lot of loss of muscle mass. The second most obvious change was my mindset and mentality. Time was passing so quickly and I was rarely ever in the moment which meant I was stressed out a lot more. So less working out, worse diet, garbage sleep and more daily stress. Yeah, it wasn't a good time. Plan! When I started this project up top, I had a lot of self-doubt. I felt like I didn't deserve anything good and thus I could never really get it. I thought of myself as selfish and arrogant to think I could change myself around and be exceptional. But this time around, I just want to do what I can and I'll get what's coming to me - that's life. If I stayed playing my MMO game, I would have lost way more than a week of gains and a week of stress. But if I work, I'll get the product of my work. I have only two major sub-sets of goals right now as I've established a pretty good social life in the last three weeks! Crazy how things changed when I put effort in. Strength and Physical Health: So about 3 weeks ago, I was at 174-175lbs, today I weighed in at 172.8. Not a bad lose, but I want to aim for a lb a week while adding 5lbs a week to each lift. I've got the little details kept to myself with meal timing around my workouts, new program etc. Studies and Savings Essentially, I want to study to the point where I am confident with the material. This is going to take a lot fine tuning, but eventually, I'll have found a sweetspot. In terms of savings, my goal right now is to cut down on spending. In the past 4 days, I've spent exactly $0 and I'm pretty happy about that.

Day 0 of Game Quitting It happened, I caved in on Day 14. Haven't really been playing much, something like 20 minutes a day. I don't know how to feel about this to be honest. I don't feel guilty in a sense, I'm glad with the progress I have made and it's not getting in the way of my life anymore. But again, I'll have to see for myself. I'm working through a couple of things in my head, mainly I'm discouraged about the direction of my life. I don't really know why I'm in university, I don't have a goal to do anything with my degree and I'm not sure if I want to switch degrees. I started questioning my direction and then I realized I didn't really have one. I understand that I'm 20 years old and it's okay to be confused about my career choice. Better to make a choice later than to make a poor choice I suppose. When I was in high school I really wanted to be a lawyer, but since last year I don't honestly think I have what it takes to get there. I can't tell if I'm not psychologically cut out for it as I am more neurotic, or I just haven't grown into the mindset yet. I can make good arguments for both sides, but I can't seem to find my motivation with just, I might be able to be lawyer, but I also might not be. My plan for the time being - despite not having a clear long term goal However, I can also recognize that just because I don't have an exact idea presently, doesn't mean I should be throwing away my present progress. I need to remind myself that this is NOT A ZERO SUM GAME. Even if my future career has nothing to do with my present degree and what I've learned from my textbooks, the values and skills I've learned as a byproduct of my degree will certainly be important. I've become more hard working and mature because of my time at university and I definitely feel closer and closer to the person I want to become. I've been doing research on law school and how people succeed through law school. One thing I've realized with a lot of graduates is that they've always felt immensely inferior to their counterparts in class. I think one of the skills I need to develop is just to not be bothered by feelings of inferiority. There will always be people, even a lot of people in my classes and friends that are better than me at something I care about. But that's not important, what matters is my own personal progress and whether or not I'm satisfied with that pace. The only issue I see with that thinking is that in the legal environment, there is always competition. There have been things recently that have really been getting me down like not being able to find a part time I enjoy. I don't want to work anymore in an environment I don't like because I've tried that and each time I hated it. The mental cost wasn't worth it because it affected my schooling. I really feel like a piece of crap because I'm not working. At the same time I was thinking I could do real estate part time with my mother, but I also want a job that expands my social circle. I think a heck of a lot and it does get in my own way sometimes. Going to church tomorrow. I was considering just dropping this journal because I felt weird and a fraud because I didn't make it to my goal of being clean. But I'm going to keep journaling for my own sake. Back to studying for my big test on Monday. Thanks guys for reading and the support so far, it's really been more helpful than you all could realize ?

I have a few gripes about online dating in general. Like it's really hard to have a successful date. I'm pretty good at keep a conversation going, but sometimes my dates are really quiet or they're really loud and won't let the other person talk. You don't really know these girls, you have no idea who they are, no idea what their voice sounds like, their manuerisms, etc. My thinking is rather than wasting time swiping and making the best profile or taking the best pictures, I'm going to just be more social. Meet more people and eventually it'll happen and if it doesn't, well I would have come a long way anyway. I've been on three dates this week, and honestly I didn't click with any of the girls. I admired one, I thought the other one was cute, and I couldn't stand the third. It's just a numbers game dating online. Go through as many dates as possible and eventually hope to have one good interaction that leads into a relationship. But again, a few good dates doesn't mean you're compatible. My best dates where there was chemistry were with girls that I could never or should never date long term. Either party girls (like my ex) or really anti-social and nihilistic - actually they're both kind of similar haha. Day 13 of Game Quitting I have been so busy lately, really haven't had time to journal everything. Day 12, yesterday, I bumped into one of my friends I met through my ex. Later that day after working out, we smoked some pot and talked about her. Turns out she's back to full blown smoking and drinking and is still trashing me. I had dinner with some mutual friends also and from everyone I've spoken to, she just lies and lies and never takes responsibility. Kinda pisses me off, but whatever at this point. Been working out downtown and wow the city view while pumping iron is a serious boost in energy. The girls there are also incredibly beautiful and the dudes are jacked as hell. Super environment, I am loving it. I plan to work out downtown whenever I can. Switched to a new program and man my muscles are exhausted everyday which is great. I thought I had been losing weight, but I actually gained a few pounds which is unfortunate, but I've been eating high protein consistently, so at least I got that going for me. Won pre-screening tickets to Ford v. Ferrari and man it's a fucking good movie. Loved the entire thing. Very good energy, very much a bro movie. Really felt it because Ken Miles was a pretty good male role model, optimistic, hard working, good husband and father. Definitely watch it, especially if you like cars. Studying a hell of a lot more than before. I can actually focus on my work now! I can literally study for twice as long and have so much more mental capacity. I actually enjoy reading my study material! Again same trend of doing more, living more, being more social, more productivity, and damn just being much happier. Didn't expect to see results so soon, but I'm sure glad I am! That being said I got two assignments due mid day tomorrow, so in about 12 hours and 17 hours respectively, so I need to haul ass. Just writing here to dump some mental space.

Day 11 of Game Quitting Oops didn't post anything for Day 10, no I didn't relapse. Cravings are still here and they are rather strong - I have dreams of playing games now. Been having a great last two days. I went to Church on Sunday with a friend from my classes and it was actually pretty fun. Met some great people and we had a nice lunch afterwards. It's a huge church with a lot of youth members, it's very involved and overall it's a great community. Not sure if I want to be religious again, but we'll see. Got a ton of school work to catch up on, but now I'm able to actually focus a lot better. My overall mental focus has increased minorly but noticeably. Occasionally, I'll have moments of immense focus, usually when writing my journal entries. Again, I'm doing so much more than I ever would have when gaming. I've visited more locations in the city to study, I stay at campus longer, I've met more friends and hung out more with old ones. Overall, I'm living less in a bubble and my time has begun to feel much better spent. Days progress more slowly and at a reasonable pace. I don't just have large gaps of time that disappear due to gaming. Hopefully I won't give into the cravings. It's also been two days since I've quit vaping entirely and this time all the systems are out of the house and irretreivable. No vaping cravings so far. Also got a 82 on my first quiz - worth 20% of my mark! Next quiz is worth 40% and it's also in a week so I gotta haul ass for that. Dating Compatibility vs Chemistry - I'm doomed haha So I've been on a decent amount of dates lately with girls I admire. They're responsible, they study, they aren't trashy, they're smart and hardworking. BUT and it's a big but, I don't feel anything for them and I mean anything. There is no chemistry between us. I've realized that I'm not romantically interested in these relationships. These girls aren't exciting to me. It's unfortunate because they're what I want in terms of value. I don't feel anything for these successful girls, I guess I want someone more chaotic, liberal and open. It's too bad that value wise, those kinds of girls won't work long term. So basically, I'm looking for a really spontaneous and somewhat chaotic girl who is also wholesome, fairly successful/smart and fiscally intelligent. This is going to take a miracle...

Day 9 of Game Quitting I feel like I'm not doing enough. I've substituted gaming with YouTube, porn, movies and the like. I've watched some incredible moves that have changed my thinking and I've learned a lot, so I don't regret that time. But a lot of YouTube I watch is still gaming related, also don't regret that, it's a good way to destress, but I think I can do something better like laying on the grass in the backyard or going for a walk. Been much much more social lately. I think I've had more density in social interactions after I quit gaming since I was a child. I remember my friends would invite me to the park and most times I would be playing games and didn't go - I was about 10. Going to eat lunch with family friends, then a date for 6pm later tonight. Also going to church tomorrow at 10:30 with my university friend. I'm not religious, but this friend is so admirable, I want to just be closer to him and his lifestyle. He's around 24, I forget exactly, but he's married to a beautiful wife inside and out. They're both going at the world and not relying on their parents as much as they can. She works full time I think and he works part-time and studies to become a professor. They attend couples bible studies together every Wednesday and all that. He is incredibly zen and she's just the most positive high energy girl. I can honestly say, I've never met anyone like them before. So yeah, I'm going to their church and I'll see how that goes. Dating I have deleted Tinder and all my online dating apps. I had some fun, met some okay girls, but none of them really sweeped me off my feet. The only exception being my ex, but none of that was real sweeping. I realized I've been on these apps about 6 months total? I get matched with physically attractive girls, but they tend to more flaky because they have a ton of guys asking them out. More importantly, the girls I've met have never been very successful. Many of them are barely doing well in school, they have that Gen Z/Milennial nihilistic attitude, and honestly aren't happy in their lives. Sounds kind of like myself and I don't want to date myself! If I was a girl, I would date myself in the future assuming I get my life in more order. And so with that in mind, I removed all those apps from my phone. Last date via online means in about an hour, but after that, I'm done. Less phone time should also be a great help too. Tomorrow: I would like to formulate a plan for the end of the year. What do I want to achieve in the last bit of 2019? I like to set short timelines rather than 5 years down the road because short timeframes are easier to navigate and work with. Sleep This is a big topic. I've realized that around this time of year I always become less productive and I think it's mainly related to my sleep. School just starts, I'm sleeping late, waking up early and always really tired. I also need to take vitamin D pills due to the lack of sunshine.

Also a decent fan of JP. The part where he talked about acting on your nihilistic and downward thinking will only make things worse really spoke to me at various points in the past two years. I've realized that even when it's hard, to push through it, you will be fulfilled. Studying for my real estate license and doing university at the same time was the hardest studying I've ever had to do, but now I'm a certified broker and still did 80% of my second year. Still proud of that ? I haven't researched much into addiction, if you can provide me some resources on where to read into that, I'd appreciate it. And yes, self-discovery is brutal. I think Nietzsche said something along the lines that most people never endeavour into self-discovery because they don't want to witness the awful aspects they have within themselves. I should probably read his books, I book most of his works at a book sale on campus, but didn't read most of it yet.

I dont quite understand your last paragraph, maybe you can elaborate it more. But I agree with a lot of what you've said. I only started to fix my family dynamics after I quit gaming, I would even say I used it to escape this issue. Some of my friends do the same thing, they use gaming as an escape and it became more clear after I stopped. I don't try to convert them, but they do know I'm quitting. I respect my friends and they're a smart group, so I don't want to badger anyone. Many of friends, including myself, are in famlies where there isn't much love or they're from single parents. We all have low-esteem, but we do build each other up and we're improving over the years. Some of us are on career paths, others are just finding new passions and it's really touching to see. I'm watching Blow, the movie from 2001, and man I must have some sort of PTSD or something because seeing dysfunctional relationships, even in a movie, make me go into a panic state. I should get that checked with a therapist at my college. Moving out of your home can be good, but we often forget the bitter comfort of being at home too. My ex moved to the dorm and her life became so much worse and became a smoker and an alcoholic. Just be careful if you do move man. I moved out my second year of college and boy it wasn't easy. I always cook and clean for myself anyway, but again I played games all day so I lacked a social life and that was very depressing. The winters are bitter in the city too, it's dark at 5pm, the wind is immense and it's freezing. I would be lying if I said I love myself or even like myself half the time. I don't know what it is, maybe the lack of sleep at times, being exhausted, or just past trauma, but sometimes I use my addiction to nicotine and gaming because I just don't think I can do better. Sometimes I think "this is it" and "just accept it". It's getting better, but I feel a lot of emptiness and self-hate too. I think I'm going to adopt some buddhist philosophy because I realized a lot of my desires were making me unhappy. I want more girls, more money, more experiences etc. But again, once the experience is over, the sex is done, I am not mentally better off. Slept really late last night so I'm really in sad boy mindset right now haha.

Day 8 of Game Quitting Weekends are rough. I only have 4 days of classes, so from Friday to Sunday, I need to figure out ways to spend my time and keep myself occupied. I'm still not the kind of student that can study an entire day, maybe I never will be, but I think what I'll do is to plan my extended weekends on Friday morning so I have a rough idea of what to accomplish. I won't post that here, because it'll just look like long laundry list and that's no fun to read, even for my own reflection. I want to set up a note taking system in my laptop via Google Drive. I use a Chromebook, but I want to organize the documents I have because it's just a pure mess right now. I want to transcribe my hand notes into online documents. Another goal of mine is to not think, talk, or reference my ex the entire weekend. This should be a fun experiment and we'll see how I feel after the weekend. Really don't have much planned today in terms of going out, but I got a few responsibilites and a hankering for a small adventure ?

I would agree to the parents' remark. Despite what we might say about how we want our partners to be like this or that, we also need an outside perspective or at least introspection about the realties about our own relationship. We also must be weary about acting like our parents in our relationships. When we spot the flaws in our parents' emotional communication skills, we should try to inspect if we have those same qualities so as to not repeat their mistake. Looking back, I put too much pressure on my ex to quit smoking and drinking. I may have had good reasoning, but that doesn't negate the fact that I should have been more sympathetic at times when I was more critical. This was how I was raised, I wasn't given much leeway until I was in my teens and that stuck with me. Being more empathetic in the right scenarios is something that I'm working on. I've since had many talks with my mother about how I felt emotionally neglected in my upbringing and we're working on fixing that going forward. My mother was always busy, but I know she cares, we've figured out it was just the lack of time. For my ex, she wasn't able to detect when her partner's needs weren't being met because her parents didn't checked in on each other. One of them may have been incredibly upset, but the other wouldn't ask the reason. Things usually had to become a catastrophe before a problem was brought up and apologies were short in supply. So when she did something obviously offensive and hurtful, like demeaning my job, she wouldn't apologize. Even if she knew or felt that she had hurt me, she would just carry on as if nothing was done. I would always have to tell her I was hurt and still she would just brush it off with a swift "Oh, sorry". Again, this is how her parents were with each other. When they apologized, they never said why they were sorry, or interpret how the other was hurt. It was just a swift "Oh, sorry" and acting as if everything was okay - even if the arguments led to door slamming, swearing and screaming. Her parents had a very co-dependent relationship and there was very little communication and they didn't know how to communicate. Whereas my mother and I have high quality communication, but also very little amounts of it. So whenever her and I would communicate, she didn't understand how to hear another perspective. Both her parents were very strongheaded and would never see or admit a mistake. I told my mother that I felt she did this sometimes too, and she was at first defensive, but she soon told me that she would be weary about this in the future and I realized that I am guilty of this too. Sometimes we all fail to realize when we're wrong. The difference was that some of us look for the possibility of being incorrect while others don't. My ex didn't like to consider herself ever being wrong and so whenever I brought up an issue her first response would be, "That's just how I am", or "I don't need to do that because that's not how I work". Once I asked her if we could develop a sleep schedule together, and she basically said, "I don't need sleep". Meanwhile she's falling asleep two hours after waking up at noon. Introspection and self-awareness are incredibily important skills!!!

I agree with you 100%, both people need to be happy and independent to have a healthy and fulfilling relationship. Imagine two relationships: Couple A: Both people live lives that they personally enjoy, they have their own strong values and boundaries. They feel complete in their individual single lives and eventually, after much trial and error, finally find themselves with someone who shares their values. They never settled out of insecurity and a feeling of incompleteness. They are both self-sustaining, but are able to give each other extra support when it's needed. Both people are reliable and love themselves. Couple B: Both people rely on each other for happyiness and identity. They've become jealous of each other at the slightest sign of success out of fear that the only will leave them. They secretively, maybe even unknowingly to their own consciousness, suffocate the other person. They bring each other down, because it's better to be sad together than to be single. To couple B, being with anyone, even a toxic person, a loser, an abusive, is better than being single. Couple B believe they need validation to feel good about themselves. Of course this fulfillment never happens. They will either stay together, co-dependent and unhappy or they will break up. IF they break up and they don't change, then they will go through cycles of the same relationship happening again and again. I was definitely in couple B. Thankfully, once was enough for me. You really learn alot from one bad relationship. And if your ex hasn't, be thankful that you have. It is never your fault or responsilibty to save someone else. People need to save themselves because no one else can.

Day 7 of Game Quitting One whole week of quitting! The cravings have been rampant. I just have vivid short video visions of my character clearing my weekly bosses and daily bosses. The weeklies just reset and I have to say the temptation was there to jump back online "JUST to do the bosses". But I know myself better than that, I would immediately be back on my old habits. Been feeling a bit off a lot these past few days, no more so than usual. My mood is very inconsistent largely because I'm very sleep deprived. I slept a straight 9 hours last night like it was nothing and almost passed out in my car on the way home. I went to my date's house to give her back her umbrella which she forgot with me since I was carrying it. I was waiting for her in the driveway and she texted me "Are you gonna come up lol". Not sure if she wanted to hook up, but it was her parent's house, but she was the only one home. Whatever, if she's that interested, she'll make it clear later. I think I want to write briefly on being clean from hook ups too. I'm starting to remove a lot of the empty pleasures in my life. Empty calories from junk food, empty purchases, and empty expereinces. Basically, those things in my life which ca nbe categorized as: Quickly obtainable Offer a sense of pleasure and relief Ultimately do not improve quality of life Yes, having casual sex may be a decent confidence boost, it may have some health benefits, but it's also very empty. I have used sex for validation to a small extent, but I want to entirely cut that out. The way I look at, whether or not someone has a lot of sex or not, it doesn't make someone any better or worse. My ex had sex with 35+ people in one month, that means two different partners a day. It wasn't safe, it wasn't good sex. So why did she do it? Because she felt unvalidated and deeply deeply insecure about her sexual "value". But still, even with all these encounters, she still felt very unattractive. We can talk about our subjective preferences for people with lower body counts or whatever, but from an objective point of view, more sex didn't equate to a more fulfilling life. None of these people loved her, none of them cared about her and therefore they never entered her life in any capacity greater than casual sex. I think many of us around the age of 20 today have felt and done similarly. Maybe not to the same extent, but we've all had the same mental framework of using sex and, by proxy, other people for vaildation. But again, itis an empty pursuit. Your sex life might be better, you might experience new kinks, but that's all there is. I've come to conclude that having more pleasure and more things doesn't make me happy. What makes me consistently happy is living a personally satisfying life and living by my own values, asssuming I don't harm others. I take greater satisfaction when I journal and do my assignments than having sex with someone I don't love. All fleating experiences, those that occur when the three conditions are met, provide a great hit of dopamine and make us feel good. But they are like drugs. We have to keep taking it and taking it to return to that state of bliss. But when I eat a healthy planned, high protein diet, when I journal, when I do what I planned on doing, the feeling isn't some great dopamine hit. It's a long lasting pleasure that's stable. I feel the same amount of pleasure the entire day and I'm satieted from it. When I am productive and living by my own plan, I finally feel that I don't need an escape, no video games, no porn, no vaping and especially validation. Tomorrow I want to write more about validation because I realized I use external validation too much for my self-esteem and pleasure. I want to remove that from my system in time. Working out later today, doing my laundry and basic maintenance stuff. It's getting super cold now and it's quite tiring with no sun. I'm going to take 5000 iu of Vitamin D each day in order to feel more energetic. Thank ya for reading! Have a great day!