ceponatia

Yeah that really hit me yesterday. I am absolutely terrible at piano... I can only play one-handed, can't keep count in my head, and have to write the letter next to the notes on sheet music to be able to play them. But I have so much fun doing it. It doesn't matter to me that I'm bad and because of that I keep coming back and learning more. If I cared so much about how good I was, I'd probably quit. In fact, I know I would because that's how I used to be: a complete perfectionist. I gave up so many hobbies because I wasn't a pro right off the bat. And I know exactly what kind of person you're talking about when you say "a complete nerd and offends people". I've known many of those people, I think all of us do since they're rife in the gaming community. They're good at one thing so they have to insult and demean everyone else who isn't as good as them. I can attest to the power of being laid back and friendly. I'm the one at my office that everyone comes to for advice and help because they know I'm going to listen to them and make them feel better. Kind of the opposite of how I am on the internet. For some reason I'm just a raging dick here. Lol

Yeah. When I first heard about NoFap several years ago, it was all about the pseudoscience aspect and it made me cringe so hard. It wasn't until just a few weeks ago that someone on Reddit showed me a sub where it was just used as a way to stop porn addiction. That said, someone simply forcing themselves to stop without any sort of therapy or lifestyle change probably isn't going to work. I didn't understand porn addiction either but my therapist explained it to me. I watch porn maybe once every couple of months but it doesn't do much for me... it often makes me depressed, actually, because I think "here is this beautiful woman just being absolutely ruined physically and mentally and I'm here all alone" lol. But when you're perpetually single, even a smile from a cute girl can fling you into depression. I also think that I'm just at the age where my hormones are dying off, lol. I mentioned in a different post here that I just don't feel attracted to women the same way I used to. It's been years since I had that "so in love with her" feeling, and more often than not even masturbating just feels like it's too much work to get into. Lol

Made several breakthroughs in sheet music last night, I'm really excited to keep studying. It's nice because it's been such a long time since I've been genuinely interested in anything besides gaming. I'm stopping at the music store by my office on my lunch break to find out how much piano lessons would cost. Learning on my own is fine for the basics but if I truly want to become good at it I'll need instruction and feedback, like with anything.

What's helped me with that sort of feeling is to try not to think about the future at all. I mean, I still have long-term goals and plans but I don't think about what might or might not happen. When I do that, I think that I'll be alone for the rest of my life, will never have a good job, etc. etc. Just not helpful especially considering those are distorted thoughts and most certainly inaccurate. If you're like me and find yourself obsessing about the negatives when you think about "what if..." just try to not do that. Easier said than done; takes practice. It's good that you're being positive about your relapse though. That's the key!

There are different kinds of hobbies, I think. There are those that supplement our career goals such as engineering for you and coding for me. Then there are hobbies that really don't matter, we just enjoy them. I think speedrunning falls into that category... long before Twitch existed people did speedruns just because they enjoyed the competition, not because they wanted 100k subs on their channel. In a similar vein for me is music. I play music pretty much all day now that I've given up gaming but I have no desire to be a pop star or paid musician. There's no monetary or social gain for me doing this, I just enjoy it. I think those kinds of hobbies have value too. Although now that I think about it, I could set up a Twitch stream for people to watch me learn music. 😉

Good advice, guys. I left all the Reddit subs except for the music one because it's still helpful for questions... fiding an in person music community would be ideal eventually but I've had no luck so far. I'll keep looking! Changed it up a bit today. Still studying the music theory course I bought on Udemy but I'm also practicing reading sheet music. Turns out if you learn the basics of music theory, you don't have to pay for one of those crappy subscription apps to learn... just print out some basic beginner sheet music and learn that way. I'm learning Jingle Bells which is stupid hard for such a simple sounding song.

Became a bit disillusioned with the "stopgaming" community on Reddit lately. For the most part it's just entitled kids who need to stop whining and start doing something with their lives. Very few of them are actually serious about quitting, they just want the rush from getting replies to their posts. Same thing happened when I frequented the alcoholism subs too. The same questions over and over and over. "What could I possibly do besides play video games all day?" Jesus Christ there's an entire world of things to do. But I digress. I had a great week and the weekend is above average. Saturday I normally cave and game for an hour or two but instead I started learning music theory today; found out I'm pretty good at it, too. I suppose it helps that I've already been writing music for many years so even though I don't know what things are technically called or why they're the way they are, I somewhat know how it all works. Actually studying it has filled my head with ideas though. Still on my meal plan, feeling great. I've saved so much money thanks to it! I can live off of like $100 a week now including gas to go to work and some snacks. Probably will end up funnelling that money into the studio. Paying off all of my debt with tax refund still, probably said that above but I don't remember. I'm going to have a pretty clean slate in March.

Nofap fluctuates between purely allegorical pseudoscience to a genuinely supportive community for porn addicts. İt's hard to take seriously because of the former. I wish the porn addicts of the world would divorce themselves from the term, it's really hurting them.

Just a few months

I've been seeing a therapist for about a year and a half as part of my rehab aftercare. First I did group sessions for a year which I kind of miss because there were always new people to meet (which is kind of a bad thing because it means everybody was relapsing and leaving lol). I've definitely noticed an improvement over the last year though. The fact that I can even worry about relationships instead of all the other stuff that was making me miserable is a huge change.

I don't want to get all "trendy" on you, but have you seen that Netflix show with Marie Kondo? Lol. I personally haven't seen it but I read her book a few years ago and it totally changed the way I look at organization and cleaning. Might be worth a look if you think that changing your environment will help you a great deal.

I don't know if I'm depressed or just getting old, but I never get aroused anymore. Haha. A bit depressing, really. I still am attracted to women and would eventually like to get married but I haven't "fallen in love" with a woman like I used to in years.

I've noticed an improvement on my procrastination as well, especially regarding university. I've already finished all of my assignments for the week and have plenty of time to study extracurricular things like programming and music. I'm also learning piano but a bit slowly... I'm doing it using apps and haven't paid for the full version yet so I only have one song to practice over and over, lol. At least I'm getting good at that song I guess!

Had the same results yesterday as the days prior... lots of energy and motivation. I didn't even have to take my third Adderall in the afternoon because I wasn't even remotely tired after work. Despite only being the second day of my school week, I have most of my labs and both quizzes done. I'll be finished well before the weekend and will be able to relax. This is a harder class, it turns out. It's prep for the A+ Certification exam so lots of technical terminology to memorize. I've always been great with computers but didn't know the actual industry names for things like RJ45 connectors and molex ports. Still having trouble confusing DVI and DisplayPort specs but I'll get it down.

Yesterday was one of the best days of my life, bar none. Just in terms of how much energy, focus, and positivity I had. I already wrote a pretty lengthy post about it on my personal blog so I'll just leave it at that here. Eating better definitely works.

Korg Volca arrived today. It's fun! I already have tons of ideas for what to do with it but I need some other equipment in order to integrate it into my setup. Still usable to learn from, though. This diet is amazing so far. I have so much energy I don't even know what to do with it. I crushed work today and now I'm studying my new course and my A+ cert book. Going to cook dinner in a bit and then play some music. Easy night.

Good progress made on income, I get being worried about the fast paced environment but I think you'll acclimate fast. I'm kind of in the same boat... I don't make enough to support myself at all but fortunately I'm able to live with my mother for now so I make just enough to pay my bills and have a little bit of fun... especially now that I'm not buying $200 worth of video games / dlc every week.

Love is strange, man. I used to think that some day I'd find a woman who just loved me for who I am and all that jazz but as I've gotten older I've started to see love for what it truly is. It's like an exchange. I have to have something to offer a woman... I used to think that was unfair but, realistically, I feel the same way. I'm not going to date or marry a woman who has absolutely nothing that I want. Right now I have nothing to offer at all... it sucks but it is what it is. I'm 38 and live with my mother, don't have a very good job, am recovering from alcoholism and game addiction, and although I'm in better shape than the average man my age I'm far from healthy. What woman in her right mind would want to be with me? Not one that I'd want to date, lol. So that's what they mean by love yourself, I think. Make yourself into someone that other people can love. It sounds shitty and I'm not trying to be mean but nobody is going to love us just because we're nice guys with emotional wounds and compassion. The worst advice my mother ever gave me was "just be yourself".

I've been thinking about volunteering more and more, too. Today I'm going to make a point to look up some opportunities in my area. I put on my LinkedIn profile that I'm available for volunteer work but nothing ever came of it. I think most people on LinkedIn are just looking for free employees instead of actual volunteers.

Just remember that only 20 years ago people went on EVERY trip without a laptop and you'll be fine, lol. Just had a conversation this morning with someone who wanted advice on how to stop using their phone so much and I said "wellll... just don't bring it with you. People used to never have cellphones with them" and it was such a bizarre idea to her, haha. Ikar is right though, you'll at least have your phone with you.

Good amount of steps!

Thanks! I'm already a respawn user, that's how I found this forum. Meetups continue to be a good idea I just haven't been able to find any in my area that don't revolve around alcohol or being a 60 year old single woman. Lol

My next synth arrives today, pretty excited about that. I'm going to have to buy an actual mixer now because my Maschine only has one line-in. Those are fairly expensive but they have a lot of added bonuses. Good ones have microphone preamps built in so I can start recording live sounds. It'll also help me realize my goal of building a totally analog studio without the use of a PC to record and mix on. You can't do as many tricks on fully analog equipment as you can with a PC (not easily, anyway) but it'll go a long way toward helping me learn production. Deleted all the online dating apps and accounts. Have been very good about my new meal plan so far although today I forgot to bring the pita to put my salad in... I still have the salad. No biggie. I do feel loads better now that I'm eating 3 super healthy meals every day. I wake up earlier than my alarm and have tons of energy. Made it back to the gym this morning before work and did a full workout. 3 personal records, too. Good day so far.

Congrats!

Sometimes when I feel like I'm too drained and depressed to do anything, I force myself to go for a walk with the idea that all you have to do is put one foot out the front door and you'll be off.