Dear Diary...

[aaditya]

You are doing great brother and hope you reach great success on your podcast adventure. 

[BooksandTrees]

8 hours ago, aaditya said:

You are doing great brother and hope you reach great success on your podcast adventure. 

Thanks. We will see next month!

[BooksandTrees]

I feel better today after a good night's sleep and a nice breakfast. I also started today off by drinking a glass of water. I think it's important to do that and just get your system functioning nicely. 

[aaditya]

It indeed is important to drink water a lot. I start my day with an apple and one bottle water. (I forget drinking water the whole day lol). I need to work on sleeping early. I sleep late and it's not healthy for me. Great work. Keep going

[BooksandTrees]

2 hours ago, aaditya said:

It indeed is important to drink water a lot. I start my day with an apple and one bottle water. (I forget drinking water the whole day lol). I need to work on sleeping early. I sleep late and it's not healthy for me. Great work. Keep going

You too. Maybe you can set reminders on your phone every 2 hours to drink water if you forget?

[Pochatok]

On 6/15/2021 at 6:47 PM, BooksandTrees said:

You too. Maybe you can set reminders on your phone every 2 hours to drink water if you forget?

There is actually plenty of hydration-focused apps out there if you need to keep that H2O going:

https://www.healthline.com/health/hydration-top-iphone-android-apps-drinking-water#aqualert

[BooksandTrees]

Tomorrow I'll be 138 weeks free from gaming. It's frustrating sometimes. I feel like I've come a long way and sometimes the mind tricks me into wanting to play again. It goes to show you that even at 2.5 years without gaming you still face cravings. It's just a matter of control at this point. I remind myself of the unhappiness that gaming brought me and the stability I have now and it helps offset the cravings.

Work is going well. I'm enjoying it a lot more now than I was last week after changing some things that I had in mind. I'm also meditating after work a bit and just laying with my eyes closed without falling asleep. 

I think I just gotta work at meal prep now and I'll be in a better spot.

[BooksandTrees]

I feel kind of feverish for some reason and I don't know why. It concerns me with all the covid stuff. But I haven't really left the house much so maybe it's a digestive thing or an infection from something. Terrible. Hopefully it's nothing. 

[BooksandTrees]

I really miss video games recently. I'm not sure what it is.

[BooksandTrees]

9 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

I really miss video games recently. I'm not sure what it is.

It turns out I was really tired. I just went to a quiet room and did nothing and suddenly got very tired and went to bed and didn't relapse or anything. I find being tired can cause cravings. 

[Cam Adair]

If my cravings are bad I'm either tired, hungry or anxious about something completely unrelated.

[BooksandTrees]

6 hours ago, Cam Adair said:

If my cravings are bad I'm either tired, hungry or anxious about something completely unrelated.

Yeah. I agree. I had an issue with anxiety about my relationship and wanted to escape for a few hours and instantly my mind went to crave video games. But I was able to get into a new room and environment and clear my mind. I discovered I was tired. Cravings disappeared once I went to bed. 

[BooksandTrees]

I feel better now. I had a wonderful conversation with my girlfriend and feel happier.

Edited June 22, 2021 by BooksandTrees

[BooksandTrees]

I think I was upset because all of the people I went to school with are getting their licenses for engineering and I have failed twice. It really bothers me.

[BooksandTrees]

I struggled with cravings today but they were less than the past week. I decided to paint instead and I'm very happy with what I painted. 

[Amphibian220]

Glad to hear that. Your new activities are your safeguards. 

I don’t get upset about being late in life with certain milestones anymore and this is why. I professed the qualities of a “successful” university graduate, but there were serious issues underneath the surface. Conversely, I observed people that were much less capable in skills such as memorization, numeracy etc. but they had the morale and consistent approach to slowly fix all the issues. 

This kind of attitude carries over into fitness too. I would go into breaking my personal records to do more pushups, but I would sacrifice technique and lack consistency. I felt super excited, but my approach did not convert into meaningful results. Being pumped and excited is alright, but without a sound plan these impulses aren’t going to work on their own.

You are keeping in touch with your school friends and that is a great habit. Who knows, this can produce an career opportunity of sorts.

[BooksandTrees]

5 hours ago, Amphibian220 said:

Glad to hear that. Your new activities are your safeguards. 

I don’t get upset about being late in life with certain milestones anymore and this is why. I professed the qualities of a “successful” university graduate, but there were serious issues underneath the surface. Conversely, I observed people that were much less capable in skills such as memorization, numeracy etc. but they had the morale and consistent approach to slowly fix all the issues. 

This kind of attitude carries over into fitness too. I would go into breaking my personal records to do more pushups, but I would sacrifice technique and lack consistency. I felt super excited, but my approach did not convert into meaningful results. Being pumped and excited is alright, but without a sound plan these impulses aren’t going to work on their own.

You are keeping in touch with your school friends and that is a great habit. Who knows, this can produce an career opportunity of sorts.

I really like this take on things.

[Pochatok]

9 hours ago, Amphibian220 said:

Glad to hear that. Your new activities are your safeguards. 

I don’t get upset about being late in life with certain milestones anymore and this is why. I professed the qualities of a “successful” university graduate, but there were serious issues underneath the surface. Conversely, I observed people that were much less capable in skills such as memorization, numeracy etc. but they had the morale and consistent approach to slowly fix all the issues. 

This kind of attitude carries over into fitness too. I would go into breaking my personal records to do more pushups, but I would sacrifice technique and lack consistency. I felt super excited, but my approach did not convert into meaningful results. Being pumped and excited is alright, but without a sound plan these impulses aren’t going to work on their own.

You are keeping in touch with your school friends and that is a great habit. Who knows, this can produce an career opportunity of sorts.

I second this so much! 

Only focusing on milestones often hurts the process, and picking the right milestones, too, is quite important. For me, my gaming addiction was severely difficult to overcome until I changed my goal from "not playing games" to "doing something instead of playing games". Making sure that I am focusing on quality before/prior to quantity in all activities (that is, learn how to do something efficiently and then move onto improving productivity) is one of the most important and yet difficult things in shaping my own success and career heh. 

 Some author (Kettl, if you're curious), once said that "the mission drives behavior", and focusing on results is more important than the process. However, I believe that some (simpler) goals require a focus on the process to be achieved (such as "I want to run a mile in 6 minutes"), and other (more complex) goals themselves modify your process as you focus on them (I want to become a Musician). 

Sorry for flooding your personal journal, this was a thought that I really wanted to add to 🙂

[BooksandTrees]

Last weekend I hit 139 weeks. It's been a pretty up and down set of weeks regarding work and hobbies. I'm really doing a lot better now. Painting has become a prime stress relief although I now have too many paintings lol. Maybe I'll make an etsy store or something. 

 

I've had issues with eating too much ice cream to deal with stress so I've switched to buying cool whip. I know it's stupid but it's about 10% of the calories so if I end up struggling once per week I won't be reading 1500 calories. So I've actually lost a pound because of it.

 

I'm going to try animating this weekend. I'm taking 9 days off so I'm excited. 

I'm also going to start working 2 days in the office per week so I can not be as isolated. I think isolation is making me more depressed. My middle finger will be healed soon so I can rock climb again soon. 

[BooksandTrees]

On 6/23/2021 at 1:27 PM, Pochatok said:

I second this so much! 

Only focusing on milestones often hurts the process, and picking the right milestones, too, is quite important. For me, my gaming addiction was severely difficult to overcome until I changed my goal from "not playing games" to "doing something instead of playing games". Making sure that I am focusing on quality before/prior to quantity in all activities (that is, learn how to do something efficiently and then move onto improving productivity) is one of the most important and yet difficult things in shaping my own success and career heh. 

 Some author (Kettl, if you're curious), once said that "the mission drives behavior", and focusing on results is more important than the process. However, I believe that some (simpler) goals require a focus on the process to be achieved (such as "I want to run a mile in 6 minutes"), and other (more complex) goals themselves modify your process as you focus on them (I want to become a Musician). 

Sorry for flooding your personal journal, this was a thought that I really wanted to add to 🙂

No worries! I love your input and agree. There's a difference between process and progress. I like this approach a lot better. 

[BooksandTrees]

This weekend I hit 140 weeks without gaming. I'm relaxing a bit and took the week off. I'm going to do some animation or writing tomorrow. Work has been boring. I have kind of lost my interest and wonder if I should be a teacher or something. I'll keep investigating. 

[BooksandTrees]

I also realized I'm almost at 100k views in my diary. I'm really appreciative of all of your support over the years and wouldn't be here without you. Thank you. 

[BooksandTrees]

I've been 3d modeling, writing, and drawing this week while relaxing on vacation. I'm slowly building courage in doing these hobbies without anxiety or perfectionism. 

[Pochatok]

On 7/8/2021 at 4:54 AM, BooksandTrees said:

I'm slowly building courage in doing these hobbies without anxiety or perfectionism. 

Ohhh I feel this struggle so much haha. Any projects worth sharing at the moment? Sharing my work with others has helped me greatly with the perfectionism anxiety since I see that no matter how flawed I perceive my work to be, others will find it beautiful. 

[Amphibian220]

The coolest thing for me is you are going to start rock climbing again! Sport is such a morale builder, its like air for us.

I’m hoping you are going to get good sustained momentum with this.

Edited July 10, 2021 by Amphibian220