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BooksandTrees

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@seriousjay I understand now. Sorry.  I agree. I've been very kind to coworkers which helps but also I get taken advantage of in situations. I'm trying to find that balance. I agree about the mom thing. Our relationship will always be different unfortunately. The forum thing is different. I can explain that in private later on. 

Hopefully this year brings some more balance and clarity to my approach. 

The ear plugs won't work since my bed frame shakes. I'd still feel these issue. I got dampers for the legs to stand on to absorb vibration and am having the furnace examined. 

Thanks for your advice. 

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43 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

@seriousjay I understand now. Sorry.  I agree. I've been very kind to coworkers which helps but also I get taken advantage of in situations. I'm trying to find that balance. I agree about the mom thing. Our relationship will always be different unfortunately. The forum thing is different. I can explain that in private later on. 

Hopefully this year brings some more balance and clarity to my approach. 

The ear plugs won't work since my bed frame shakes. I'd still feel these issue. I got dampers for the legs to stand on to absorb vibration and am having the furnace examined. 

Thanks for your advice. 

Believe me, I know what it feels like to give so much of yourself to people and get nothing back. I used to get very frustrated with that as well.

I think the willingness to invest so much of yourself to helping others is a very positive quality. If you can temper your expectations, this will serve you extremely well in attracting high quality people into your life. Those that will appreciate what you do without you having to say or do anything to call attention to it.

There will always be those who try to take advantage of you-I actually feel very sorry for those people. That their lives are so miserable that they feel they need to do such things to find happiness. In time, those types of people won't bother you anymore. You will give of yourself and if they continue to take and take without adding value back to your life, you'll be able to walk away from those people without any resentment. And it IS OK to say no when you really don't want to do something for someone. That is something that took me a very long time to come to terms with. You deserve to be happy and appreciated.

Hope that helps!

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Use all sorts of techniques man, interdicting and distracting desire, 

but dont. relapse. 

This community gets annoyed at that,

I want you to be a fighter. Do whatever you like, use dumb action like Cam Adair advised. Heck, predict and pre-empt situations that can tempt you. Attack with many more weapons, do low energy tasks when you are on super low energy, program your brain by writing down very detailed plans, but pay attention to the process of doing them also. Ambush your bad desires

Alexanderle keeps impressing me with his plans

good luck

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Today I'm 63 weeks free from video games. I woke up this morning with no brain fog or depression symptoms. My heater woke me up again at 5 AM. Even as I write this my room is shaking a bit. I'm going to perform some tests, but it seems to me that every 5 hours or so it shakes the most and on warmer days it doesn't.

I didn't stay up late last night like I had been. I didn't even put pressure on myself to do hobbies because I needed a day off from that pressure. Hobbies can be stressful because we can sometimes treat them like work. It's nice to break hobbies up with fun activities. I scheduled some time this coming week for board games, movie night, and recording a podcast with my friend. 

I relapsed with porn again yesterday as I mentioned, but I'm learning that I did it because of waking up in the middle of the night. Last night when I woke up I remembered that and didn't watch porn because I remembered how it made me feel worse. So this time I fought hard to remember the dream I was having and pulled myself back into it with ease. Victory for me. 

I've learned to handle so many triggers for porn. I didn't realize that basically everything is a trigger for porn though lol. I've blocked YouTube channels, gotten ads blocked don't watch commercials on TV, and lots more. Heck, even if in indulge in creamy desserts I get aroused. I'm not fat and don't have that connection to food, but certain desserts crush me. I've been able to pull together lots of 4 day and 5 day stretches without porn and I think eventually I'll be able to string them together to get over a week without porn. I believe in myself. 

I also followed my daily tracker for 5 days this week and felt good about it. I forgot to mention I am down to 176 lbs today. I've lost almost 15 lbs since leaving my mom's house where I gained about 25 lbs. All diet. 

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I signed up for my Professional Engineering exam in April and for an online review class. Very expensive, but this will be the biggest and hopefully final step in my career for testing and certifications. For people who don't know what this means, if you ever see a doctor who has "M.D." after their name, P.E. is the engineering equivalent. You can't construct anything in the world without a stamp from a licensed engineer or else it is illegal. It takes 4 years of experience to even begin the application. I was stressing out about this, but now I'm locked in and feel good about it. Passing would be a great accomplishment for me and allow me to finally relax regarding my career. I've gotten my bachelors, masters, passed the FE, worked for 4 years, and now am eligible for this exam.

If I pass I just feel like I'll have more freedom to date and buy a house eventually. It's difficult to have a relationship and study for stuff like this unless you've already been in a committed relationship. If you're just starting off it's difficult to tell someone you're going to be busy every weekend for 3 months, which is why I avoided dating this year. It's also distracting if you're closing on a home. So that's why I delayed buying a home as well. 

Most importantly, I'm doing this for me. Being a Professional Engineer means the world to me. I grew up in poverty and had a small percentage chance at a good future. My comeback story is noted in my introduction, but if I am able to pass this exam it would cap an incredible run for me and make me feel very proud. I was semi-proud for finishing my master's degree, but I knew I still had this examination to pass. I'm so proud of my career and am excited to study for and take this exam. 

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Sounds like a big achievement and a good challenge to come! You can do it. 

4 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

Most importantly, I'm doing this for me. Being a Professional Engineer means the world to me. I grew up in poverty and had a small percentage chance at a good future. My comeback story is noted in my introduction, but if I am able to pass this exam it would cap an incredible run for me and make me feel very proud. I was semi-proud for finishing my master's degree, but I knew I still had this examination to pass. I'm so proud of my career and am excited to study for and take this exam. 

You can be proud of yourself for this. I imagine it takes a lot to climb out of poverty. I hope things continue onwards and upwards!

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So proud of you. To accomplish the pinnacle of your career in your 20s is really brilliant. You have got this text. You have the experience, education and studies. We believe in you. 
 

This is my humble advice, but yes I would hold off on dating until your test is over. Take some time to heal from your childhood trauma. Unhealed trauma will be repeated over and over again in relationships until it is fully healed. 
 

Have a beautiful day my friend. 

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Thank you! I agree. I don't want to date for a while. Healing will be important.

I am not done with the day, but I got to go home. I think I found out a stressor at work. I'm in charge of people for certain tasks, but I'm not the overall project manager for the project. I sometimes worry about higher level things regarding budget, hours, and project management. 

My assignment is to do higher level tasks (mid level), answer questions from the lower level task members, report to the project manager, and just do my job. When I stress about other people's budgets and them wasting time it makes my work worse. So I'm just going to do my thing, assign people their work, and if they don't do it then I just deal with it properly. This will help me not stress at work when doing my work.

Good news from yesterday is I got very happy doing my 3D modeling class. I'm extremely eager to learn more and wish I was better at the software. This feeling sort of causes anxiety because I have so many ideas in my head to create stuff. Once I sit down and start the tutorials to learn the software and create stuff this anxiety goes away completely. I become immersed in the software and enjoy learning it to the point where I don't really want to stop. I spent like 3 hours doing it yesterday and really had fun.

This is a good sign and I'm happy again to have found a hobby. I'm getting a lot better at it. I'm working on a helicopter animation that I'll post on here once I'm done.

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11 hours ago, Icandothis said:

So proud of you. To accomplish the pinnacle of your career in your 20s is really brilliant. You have got this text. You have the experience, education and studies. We believe in you. 
 

This is my humble advice, but yes I would hold off on dating until your test is over. Take some time to heal from your childhood trauma. Unhealed trauma will be repeated over and over again in relationships until it is fully healed. 
 

Have a beautiful day my friend. 

Yes, many people repeat the same patterns over and over again and never realize that something about THEM is causing that. In order to change your circumstances, you must change yourself first.

3 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

Thank you! I agree. I don't want to date for a while. Healing will be important.

I am not done with the day, but I got to go home. I think I found out a stressor at work. I'm in charge of people for certain tasks, but I'm not the overall project manager for the project. I sometimes worry about higher level things regarding budget, hours, and project management. 

My assignment is to do higher level tasks (mid level), answer questions from the lower level task members, report to the project manager, and just do my job. When I stress about other people's budgets and them wasting time it makes my work worse. So I'm just going to do my thing, assign people their work, and if they don't do it then I just deal with it properly. This will help me not stress at work when doing my work.

Good news from yesterday is I got very happy doing my 3D modeling class. I'm extremely eager to learn more and wish I was better at the software. This feeling sort of causes anxiety because I have so many ideas in my head to create stuff. Once I sit down and start the tutorials to learn the software and create stuff this anxiety goes away completely. I become immersed in the software and enjoy learning it to the point where I don't really want to stop. I spent like 3 hours doing it yesterday and really had fun.

This is a good sign and I'm happy again to have found a hobby. I'm getting a lot better at it. I'm working on a helicopter animation that I'll post on here once I'm done.

This is such a great thing you've realized! MANY people suffer from worrying about things they have no control over. It is the ultimate energy sapper because... you have no control over anything except your worrying! Consistently feeding that worrying only exacerbates the problem.

Well done!

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On 1/5/2020 at 1:35 PM, BooksandTrees said:

I signed up for my Professional Engineering exam in April and for an online review class. Very expensive, but this will be the biggest and hopefully final step in my career for testing and certifications. For people who don't know what this means, if you ever see a doctor who has "M.D." after their name, P.E. is the engineering equivalent. You can't construct anything in the world without a stamp from a licensed engineer or else it is illegal. It takes 4 years of experience to even begin the application. I was stressing out about this, but now I'm locked in and feel good about it. Passing would be a great accomplishment for me and allow me to finally relax regarding my career. I've gotten my bachelors, masters, passed the FE, worked for 4 years, and now am eligible for this exam.

If I pass I just feel like I'll have more freedom to date and buy a house eventually. It's difficult to have a relationship and study for stuff like this unless you've already been in a committed relationship. If you're just starting off it's difficult to tell someone you're going to be busy every weekend for 3 months, which is why I avoided dating this year. It's also distracting if you're closing on a home. So that's why I delayed buying a home as well. 

Most importantly, I'm doing this for me. Being a Professional Engineer means the world to me. I grew up in poverty and had a small percentage chance at a good future. My comeback story is noted in my introduction, but if I am able to pass this exam it would cap an incredible run for me and make me feel very proud. I was semi-proud for finishing my master's degree, but I knew I still had this examination to pass. I'm so proud of my career and am excited to study for and take this exam. 

Congrats on getting signed up! That's pretty exciting, I wish you the best. It's nice to see that you're so close to accomplishing your goals. That takes a lot of self control and determination. Seems like everything's all lined up, test, house date. 🙂 Sounds pretty exciting.

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24 minutes ago, Sashiku said:

Congrats on getting signed up! That's pretty exciting, I wish you the best. It's nice to see that you're so close to accomplishing your goals. That takes a lot of self control and determination. Seems like everything's all lined up, test, house date. 🙂 Sounds pretty exciting.

Thank you! I'm determined to keep improving and having a good year.

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Just to update with my 3D modeling with Blender, I have created a helicopter following my tutorial class. It's much more advanced than the snowman and table I made last week. I'm so happy that this hobby is sticking. I spent another 2 hours today modeling. I downloaded blender 6 months ago and never used it. I bought a tutorial class on Udemy 4 months ago and never used it, but now I'm using it every day. It's a 25 hour class and I'm over halfway done now. I can't believe I just did this for 2 hours after engineering all day. I'm so proud of myself.

I also did an hour of yoga today. I am trying to be more social so I'm rock climbing again on Thursday and seeing Star Wars on Wednesday. I already read the spoilers, but eh, fuck it I'll watch it I guess.

Here's a helicopter. It's not colored in yet because I'm learning subdivision and the instructor is going to teach us how to break things down to color and make materials more complex.

 

Helicopter Model.jpg

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Today was an oddly satisfying day. I worked for 15 hours to get my project up to where it needed to be for its eventual due date. Someone I assigned work to did not come remotely close to doing a good job. I'm not going into detail on it. I took care of it and covered my end and had 4 people help me. Great team effort. This meant I didn't get to work on 3d modeling, but I am fine. I watched hockey yesterday and got free dinner today so I'm fine. I still enjoy my job so it wasn't brutal staying late. I'm actually in good spirits considering I worked 15 hours today. I think it just shows I'm changing a bit.

I talked to my therapist yesterday. He thinks I'm still getting baited by my mom and that I should just limit contact with her for once a month for the next year or so. It's just something I'll need to do in order to mend that relationship without finding triggers to argue with her.

I got all my bills paid as well and signed up for everything for the next year. I'm pretty much dialed in on work, studying, hobbies, eating well, saving money, and relaxing. I'm gonna keep it up.

Oh! For everyone struggling with waking up in the mornings and hitting snooze or sleeping in, I found a solution this week.

I've been sleeping in later and later and using that as my "me time", but it stresses me out because then I'm showing up later for work and staying late, etc. My solution is that I set my alarm later than the initial alarm, but not as late as the amount of snoozes I've been doing. I then sit up instead of laying down, wrap up in blankets, get cozy, and either read, look around my room, or watch a funny video for 15 minutes and relax. It's made my mornings much better.

I was waking up at 7 and snoozing til 8:30. Now I wake up at 8, sit down for 15 minutes, and get breakfast at 8:15 and leave for work.

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1 hour ago, BooksandTrees said:

Oh! For everyone struggling with waking up in the mornings and hitting snooze or sleeping in, I found a solution this week.

I've been sleeping in later and later and using that as my "me time", but it stresses me out because then I'm showing up later for work and staying late, etc. My solution is that I set my alarm later than the initial alarm, but not as late as the amount of snoozes I've been doing. I then sit up instead of laying down, wrap up in blankets, get cozy, and either read, look around my room, or watch a funny video for 15 minutes and relax. It's made my mornings much better.

I was waking up at 7 and snoozing til 8:30. Now I wake up at 8, sit down for 15 minutes, and get breakfast at 8:15 and leave for work.

Interesting solution! How do you deal with getting up on weekends/days off? Do you do the same?

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On 1/9/2020 at 12:58 AM, Ikar said:

Interesting solution! How do you deal with getting up on weekends/days off? Do you do the same?

I do the same thing on weekends. It helps me not sleep in for hours and waste the day. It's temping to just sit there on weekends and sleep in because it's a safety net, but that's also escapism. I now just wake up instead of snoozing. I wrap myself up nice and warm and just zone out a bit. I don't meditate because I personally think meditation is a waste of time after trying it for over a month. I think it's only good if I exercise or do yoga before it so I'm fully committed. I also enjoy doing it guided. I don't really enjoy doing meditation alone or after doing nothing. Other people have different results and I'm not here to debate it since some people will lol. 

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Today I'm 64 weeks free from gaming. I'm disappointed today because I spent a lot of time watching porn this week. I had a long week at work. I had lots of doctor appointments and need to have my wisdom teeth removed and two fake teeth put in, one of which needs me to have braces put on my back 4 teeth to make them more vertical. My teeth aren't crooked, but I have a missing tooth and due to the pressure of me chewing my back two teeth have slightly rotated towards the gap since there's no tooth to support it. 

All this really means is thousands of dollars being spent and that kind of bothers me because of how expensive my year has already been. I can't get over one hurdle. It's the apartment, then it's the car, then it's my health, then it's some exam, then it's my apartment, then my car, then my health, then some other bull shit. I just want to save my money. This has made me stop visiting my friends or going out for communal activities because I want to save my money. I get so angry staying in the same financial situation every year. 

I don't want advice on the money situation since I know how to properly save money. If I didn't, I'd be in debt right now. 

If you work overtime you can't charge sick time with it, which is nice so I got to save my 8 hours of sick time for another day later this year. I still managed to get an extra day of pay on top of the sick time saved. So there's a positive. I was thinking if I stay healthy this year I might take some random mental health days to feel better during the week or something if I'm feeling bogged down. I didn't get a chance to do that the past 3 years and it burned me out a bit.

On the good side of things I have been waking up a lot better with my new routine. I want to 3D model and grocery shop today as well.

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2 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

Today I'm 64 weeks free from gaming. I'm disappointed today because I spent a lot of time watching porn this week. I had a long week at work. I had lots of doctor appointments and need to have my wisdom teeth removed and two fake teeth put in, one of which needs me to have braces put on my back 4 teeth to make them more vertical. My teeth aren't crooked, but I have a missing tooth and due to the pressure of me chewing my back two teeth have slightly rotated towards the gap since there's no tooth to support it. 

All this really means is thousands of dollars being spent and that kind of bothers me because of how expensive my year has already been. I can't get over one hurdle. It's the apartment, then it's the car, then it's my health, then it's some exam, then it's my apartment, then my car, then my health, then some other bull shit. I just want to save my money. This has made me stop visiting my friends or going out for communal activities because I want to save my money. I get so angry staying in the same financial situation every year. 

I don't want advice on the money situation since I know how to properly save money. If I didn't, I'd be in debt right now. 

If you work overtime you can't charge sick time with it, which is nice so I got to save my 8 hours of sick time for another day later this year. I still managed to get an extra day of pay on top of the sick time saved. So there's a positive. I was thinking if I stay healthy this year I might take some random mental health days to feel better during the week or something if I'm feeling bogged down. I didn't get a chance to do that the past 3 years and it burned me out a bit.

On the good side of things I have been waking up a lot better with my new routine. I want to 3D model and grocery shop today as well.

Congrats on 64 weeks!

Ouch, wisdom teeth. I hope you get your health all sorted soon.

Housing is a pain. The only reason I can afford to live where I live is because it's subsidized housing. I can't afford anything that isn't. Not sure if you have that where you live or if you'd qualify, but that was my solution. 

Glad your new routine is working well for you.

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3 minutes ago, Sashiku said:

Congrats on 64 weeks!

Ouch, wisdom teeth. I hope you get your health all sorted soon.

Housing is a pain. The only reason I can afford to live where I live is because it's subsidized housing. I can't afford anything that isn't. Not sure if you have that where you live or if you'd qualify, but that was my solution. 

Glad your new routine is working well for you.

Thank you! I'll find a way through it, especially when I feel better. I gotta stop binge watching porn. It's like a self pity phase or something. I don't know. The area where I live is strange. The nice apartments are all subsidized living units and the normal apartments are either too expensive or pieces of shit. I make too much money to get low subsidy housing and not enough to pay 2 grand per month on the good apartments. So I just get shafted. I think the middle class gets fucked in America way too much, regardless of who is president. I'm determined to find my spot though. I've already gone from poverty to middle class and I'm determined to get to upper middle class in the next 5-10 years. If I pass this exam I'll be there.

 

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13 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

Thank you! I'll find a way through it, especially when I feel better. I gotta stop binge watching porn. It's like a self pity phase or something. I don't know. The area where I live is strange. The nice apartments are all subsidized living units and the normal apartments are either too expensive or pieces of shit. I make too much money to get low subsidy housing and not enough to pay 2 grand per month on the good apartments. So I just get shafted. I think the middle class gets fucked in America way too much, regardless of who is president. I'm determined to find my spot though. I've already gone from poverty to middle class and I'm determined to get to upper middle class in the next 5-10 years. If I pass this exam I'll be there.

 

Good! I know you can do it. And hey, don't beat yourself up for your failures. If you slip up and watch porn, instead of getting angry at yourself over it, try positivity. I go to a personal development class and one of the first things our teachers taught us is to practice positive affirmations. In example: Get a sticky note or a piece of paper and write down something like (my mistakes don't define me) or something similar, but in a way that it will mean something to you. Then stick that piece of paper somewhere that you will see it in your weaker moments. I have been practicing this somewhat but to be honest my apartment was way too messy for actual sticky notes until now, I just put them on my computer, in the sticky notes program or on a sticky note extension for google chrome, and stuck them to the google home page, where I saw them every morning. I intend to use actual paper now that my apartment is cleaner. ^_^

ANYWAY, sorry, I sorta got away from my point. My point is, encourage yourself to do better, don't berate yourself for your mistakes. Being negative to yourself won't help you in the long run, it will only hinder you, trust me, I've been there. Plus, you are a kind person and even though you make mistakes, you keep trying and that in my opinion is a great quality.

Sorry my reply was so long and my intent wasn't to be a know-it-all, I just wanted to share some things I learned myself not so long ago. You got this, keep up the great work. 😄

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1 minute ago, Sashiku said:

Good! I know you can do it. And hey, don't beat yourself up for your failures. If you slip up and watch porn, instead of getting angry at yourself over it, try positivity. I go to a personal development class and one of the first things our teachers taught us is to practice positive affirmations. In example: Get a sticky note or a piece of paper and write down something like (my mistakes don't define me) or something similar, but in a way that it will mean something to you. Then stick that piece of paper somewhere that you will see it in your weaker moments. I have been practicing this somewhat but to be honest my apartment was way too messy for actual sticky notes until now, I just put them on my computer, in the sticky notes program or on a sticky note extension for google chrome, and stuck them to the google home page, where I saw them every morning. I intend to use actual paper now that my apartment is cleaner. ^_^

ANYWAY, sorry, I sorta got away from my point. My point is, encourage yourself to do better, don't berate yourself for your mistakes. Being negative to yourself won't help you in the long run, it will only hinder you, trust me, I've been there. Plus, you are a kind person and even though you make mistakes, you keep trying and that in my opinion is a great quality.

Sorry my reply was so long and my intent wasn't to be a know-it-all, I just wanted to share some things I learned myself not so long ago. You got this, keep up the great work. 😄

Lol don't apologize. I appreciate the words. I sometimes tend to stay away from sticking positive affirmations up in my house because my mom has them littered around her house. She messes up so much I just view them as a joke and they piss me off. I think things that help me remind myself of positive things are positive self reflections when I can detach from my stresses and let downs. It's just difficult for me to do this most of the time. Maybe I can give it a better shot. I tend to just drown in self pity and misery sometimes and it derails my whole day.

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