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John's Diary - Search for Discipline


ElectroNugget

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[ GameQuitters : 28 // Meditate : 17 // PornFree : 0 // NoFap : 0 ]

Very late post, I should seriously be in bed right now.

I'm really tired all the time and I'm acting out, staying up late, not abstaining from porn, not getting as much work done as I could be each day. I don't know if the whole exam season kinda left me burnt out or something but I feel like I'm out of oomph, and with the new semester starting up this is a bad time to be out of steam.

Very worried that this year will just be another 'same old me' year. More bad sleep. More failed commitments to change. Just feeling low.

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Hi!

 

I am so sorry you are feeling bad my friend. Change IS hard.  Our mind wants to keep us safe and comfortable and protected.  When you are growing you will always experience pain as well. 
 

From what I’ve read, you need to make 1 small change at a time. Focus on what is really a priority first. For you, that seems to be studying. Work on this shift for 30 days, and then layer another shift. 
 

I hope this helps. You are doing great. Don’t give up... just keep putting in the effort. 
 

Have a beautiful day my friend.

 

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@Icandothis Thanks for the kind words, they mean a lot. I think I need to re-engage in the forums a little more when I'm struggling. I've kinda withdrawn recently. 

[ GameQuitters : 29 // Meditate : 18 // PornFree : 0 // NoFap : 0 ]

Nearly missed posting again today. This is going to sound like a broken record but I am soooo tired. I can't really explain it. I feel like I've burned out a bit or something. I'm massively tired during the day, and struggle to sleep each night. And with the tiredness and sleeplessness I'm completely unable to resist porn. 

When I'm at ITU I'm very much enjoying what we're learning. I'm also very happy to be around my classmates again. This semester there's a lot more creative stuff going on now that we actually know enough code to make real things. It's really cool and satisfying. I made my first primitive android app today. It feels like the work is starting to pay off. 

At the same time, my habits at home are collapsing and I feel very mentally unstable. I'm not really sure what's going wrong right now. I feel like I started this year with big ambitions and pushed really hard to get there and now it's like I'm being whiplashed back into bad behaviour. It feels awful tbh. 

I just want to change these habits that are fucking killing me that I've been fighting for so long... Why is it so hard to get a good night's sleep?! Why is it so hard to stay away from porn? Christ. 

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1 hour ago, ElectroNugget said:

At the same time, my habits at home are collapsing and I feel very mentally unstable. I'm not really sure what's going wrong right now. I feel like I started this year with big ambitions and pushed really hard to get there and now it's like I'm being whiplashed back into bad behaviour. It feels awful tbh. 

I'm not expert on that, but sometimes I feel that my habits are collapsing too. A possible approach could be getting back on track with one habit at a time, and giving kudos to yourself in each step of this process. Stay strong bro! 

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[ GameQuitters : 30 // Meditate : 19 // PornFree : 0 // NoFap : 0 ]

So I deliberately slept in and took it slow today, only coding in the evening when I felt like it. It did mean skipping a class, which I want to avoid as much as possible, but this first week a lot of the classes are just introductory information. To be honest, it just felt like I really needed the sleep.

And it worked, I'm feeling a lot better today. Basically, I was just stretched so thin on resources between the past few weeks, a busy weekend before the semester started, and all the new information combined with continued sleep deprivation.

I've thought a lot about this and yeah, it's just really clear that perhaps the next most important thing to learn right now (if not the most) is how to finally control my sleep pattern and have good sleep hygiene. If I'm exhausted and grumpy all the time, all my other efforts WILL fall apart eventually and I will have some kind of migraine or stress meltdown before I get enough rest again. It was fine to walk around sleep deprived in my teens and early 20's, but not anymore.

So next month I think I really need to focus on that, and my studies at the same time, and as some have suggested, perhaps leave the other habits to the wayside for a little while.

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[ GameQuitters : 31 // Meditate : 20 // PornFree : 0 // NoFap : 0 ]

Super late post as is the trend lately, had my first real shift at the boardgame cafe tonight and it was fucking awesome. So many millions of times better than sitting at home playing videogames on a Friday night. Can't wait to do more and get even more great hobbies!

Thinking a lot about how I want this year to go and how I'm gonna get there... Will write more tomorrow. But it's straight to bed for me now.

PS: One month clean! Woop!

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[ GameQuitters : 33 // Meditate : 22 // PornFree : 0 // NoFap : 0 ]

Hey all, my bad for missing another day, I had an absolutely packed weekend! A short summary:

Friday: University, homework ~ 3 hrs, then board game cafe till 1AM.

Saturday: Sleep in, homework ~ 3hrs, then Dungeons and Dragons untill 1AM.

Sunday: Early morning, Twilight Imperium (6 player space war board game) from 10.30 AM to ~8PM, homework ~3-4hrs.

So yes, there was a lot of a particular form of gaming this weekend, but in doing so I managed I spend time with 3 different groups of friends, run all over Copenhagen, and meet my step count every day. Not to mention I now feel massively recharged from all the fun, social energy and friendship I experienced this weekend. Compared to how I normally would feel after spending a weekend alone at home playing video games... Well, honestly there just isn't a fair comparison really. It's night and day.

All that said, I know I can't just play board games all the time. I have studies to pursue, weights to lift, and so on. This can't be every weekend. But that's OK, I'm comfortable with that. I actually can't wait to explore some other, more outdoorsy hobbies soon. But this was a very welcome respite and felt like the 'me' time I needed to reward myself with after that brutal exam period and my mini meltdown. It also showed me just how much of a difference it makes to spend time with people you care about face-to-face, rather than through a screen. There really is absolutely nothing like being together in person! I need to pursue more things in life like this.

With my batteries up and running again, I think I can start getting my sleep and studies sorted out now in February. I'm looking forward to it! 

I'd also like to post around on other diaries more again. I didn't really have the steam for it this past week, but hopefully you'll be seeing more of me around here again soon. But now, I must sleep! It's already past my new bedtime. 😛 

Edited by ElectroNugget
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[ GameQuitters : 34 // Meditate : 22 // Pomodoros: ~5 ]

Alright, so February I want to focus on studying properly and getting enough sleep. To start with, I figure that I need to try and hit a daily hourly input for studies. So I'm going to be using pomodoros (25 minute working sessions followed by 5 minute breaks) to track that. I'd like to get between 6 and 8 pomodoros of studying done every day, outside of my time at ITU. Lectures usually take 2-4hrs a day, so that should be doable. In order to reach the target I'm going to have to start getting up earlier too.

I'd like to be getting up at 6AM, since I have classes at 8AM some mornings, and I need about an hour to get started every morning with breakfast, coffee, showering and meditating to do. This is way earlier than I'm used to, which will also mean moving my bedtimes forward, to about 10 or 11PM... That's going to be interesting. I think I might decide to universally block the internet on my devices at that hour or something to encourage me to get off my phone/PC and read instead. I'll be experimenting with that going forward this week.

Hoping I can make this work as it would definitely be very good for me. I'll start tracking my bedtime/morning time and pomodoros each day starting tomorrow!

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Congrats that you passed the big exam!

On 1/14/2020 at 1:06 PM, ElectroNugget said:

It's nice to feel like I actually achieved something after the past few years of failure.

  I believe most of us here all trying to rise from ashes, making achievements from failures. 

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[ GameQuitters : 39 // Meditate : 0 // Pomodoros: ~4 // PornFree: 5 // NoFap: 5 ]

Hey guys, been a while again. 😛 Sorry about that.

This past week has been...weird. I have started trying to get up earlier which has been a real struggle. I also started tracking my daily pomodoros, and to be honest that has been largely quite successful. I'm still a ways from where I'd like to be in terms of daily productivity, but the sort of gamey nature of trying to get big pomodoro numbers daily kinda spurs me to get a lot more done every day, even if it's just a few pomodoros on the weekend for example, that's a lot better than nothing.

For some reason I kind of tapered off the meditating, and I can feel that it's negatively impacted my mental health. I'm very preoccupied with a kind of impostor syndrome right now. This second semester is very challenging with four subjects now, two of them even more technical than the stuff we were learning last semester, and here I am still having to study discrete math so I can resit that exam and hopefully not fail. 😕 I am also feeling lonely as usual. I know on a certain level that a relationship won't automatically fix all my problems, but I am not very happy with how much of my 20's I've spent single. I don't think it's going to get any easier the older I get.

All that said, pomodoros are going good and I've also made some progress with porn in that I finally decided to just...block nearly everything on my phone. That's gone down better than I expected it to. I also have a 24/7 porn blocker on my PC, and now it's a lot easier to avoid. Both blockers are painful enough to work around that usually my temptation passes as soon as I realize what it would take to actually fulfill the urge. Like gaming, changing my environment seems to be the trick.

I've also had some... interesting conversations lately when discussing life with all the other nerds around me. I'm pretty open about the fact that I quit gaming, and being around IT people means that those kind of questions come up a lot, "what are you playing right now", etc. And almost every reaction is incredulity followed by reasoning for why I should get back to playing games. This can be pretty annoying. I like to compare it to someone encouraging an ex-smoker to take up smoking again. People don't take me seriously when I say that the behavior that hardcore gaming encourages is problematic and perhaps even destructive. Instead I get pitches for the latest game, or LAN parties, or why gaming is meaningful to them.

In particular I've noticed that some people get very defensive when I start to explain my reasoning... Almost as if they have perhaps suspected the same things, but don't want to admit it (this is far more noticeable when you discuss porn with men). I was in the same space for a long time, so I know how it feels, but it's nonetheless frustrating to have to keep explaining to everyone why I no longer partake in the hobby. 

Edited by ElectroNugget
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8 hours ago, ElectroNugget said:

I've also had some... interesting conversations lately when discussing life with all the other nerds around me. I'm pretty open about the fact that I quit gaming, and being around IT people means that those kind of questions come up a lot, "what are you playing right now", etc. And almost every reaction is incredulity followed by reasoning for why I should get back to playing games. This can be pretty annoying. I like to compare it to someone encouraging an ex-smoker to take up smoking again. People don't take me seriously when I say that the behavior that hardcore gaming encourages is problematic and perhaps even destructive. Instead I get pitches for the latest game, or LAN parties, or why gaming is meaningful to them.

In particular I've noticed that some people get very defensive when I start to explain my reasoning... Almost as if they have perhaps suspected the same things, but don't want to admit it (this is far more noticeable when you discuss porn with men). I was in the same space for a long time, so I know how it feels, but it's nonetheless frustrating to have to keep explaining to everyone why I no longer partake in the hobby. 

I suppose that is a rough spot to be in, because you are in an environment where gaming is expected to be a part of your life, but it's not. It's quite a riddle to incorporate the few good things we got from gaming excessively into our new life. In my case, I wrote articles and talked a lot in English while gaming, so I took it up as a direction I want to slowly develop in and not forget. Computers and English don't necessarily need to share a lot of things, but computers and IT are basically the same thing.

It's interesting that while all addictions are by definition harmful in the same way they ruin health and waste time/money, they get a different reputation. Heavy coffee drinkers are hardly ever noticed and nobody notices gaming addicts for obvious reasons. Smokers and alcoholics are socially accepted (even some illegal drugs), but I think if a masturbation addict started jerking off on the street, they'd get caught and arrested.

I think that the levels of "shame", "visibility" and "social acceptance" are correlated. It's not obvious that obsessively eating a tulip every two hours is better than obsessively having a cigarette every two hours.

Keep on doing your thing and don't mind those who are trying to camouflage their own demons out of shame.

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[ GameQuitters : 42 // Meditate : 1 // Pomodoros: 7 // PornFree: 1 // NoFap: 1 ]

Today I talked to a friend of mine at ITU who seems to be struggling with severe anxiety and depression. This was someone who, to me, appeared to be a very productive student who had all her life in order. She has been friendly and outgoing in groups that we've worked together in, as well as hardworking and organized. She has a husband and a good marriage going on at home apparently, as well as a part time job and good jobs before she came to ITU. In other words, she seemed to have a lot of things that I wish I had right now. And yet, today she opened up to me and revealed just how badly she is doing, that she missed 3 days of school recently because she's terrified to leave the house, that last year she missed a week or two for a similar reason, and that she has suicidal thoughts.

In our discussion, another student from my year joined us and spoke about her crippling anxiety and her recent hospitalization to deal with it. This was another individual who seemed to me to be a student performing to a very high standard. And yet, she's also dealing with something extremely difficult in her personal life. 

In a long (several hours) discussion with the first girl, I relayed some of my experience with depression and anxiety, and tried to give good advice for dealing with them (we agreed she needs to see a doctor immediately and made plans to do so). As odd as it might sound, this was a great experience for me because even though I still score moderately depressed most of the time (25/100 on a good day on the Beck's Depression Inventory), having - so far - survived the worst parts of depression, I am now able to try and use my experience to help others. I found it a very meaningful and gratifying thing to do. I sincerely hope that I can use my experience in future to help more people deal with this awful condition.

Not only that, but I was really surprised by the number of my colleagues who opened up in that moment about their own struggles, and how severe some of them were. It's funny, but I live in this mental head space where I assume that I'm the most fucked up guy in the room, and that 90-95% of other individuals just don't have problems like I do. Obviously, when I see it written down like that the idea is completely nonsensical. But it is something I have clearly held as a rather deep belief for a long time. A belief that is very unhelpful.

I really need to remember this day. Many of the people around me are dealing with some really serious shit, but nobody talks about it. I don't tell most people about my struggles quitting games or porn, and maybe to some other people I seem like the strong one, when I feel like the worst individual in the room. It's funny how our perceptions of reality can be so different when we sit right next to each other every day.

Lastly, I am still not doing great with the getting up on time, porn, and meditating. A lot of habits have flagged. BUT, my pomodoro technique has been wildly successful this week. I use an app called 'Forest' which has, dare I say it, gameified the process of being productive, and it's really worked! I like to 'hit big numbers' every day in terms of putting a lot of time into studying or doing homework, and as a result I am ahead on my studies at the moment. I guess manipulating those pathways that were once so unhelpful to motivate me to do good things isn't necessarily a bad idea. 😂 Now I just need to figure out how to apply the same technique to quitting porn, meditating and exercising.

All in good time.

PS: I also got a job offer from LEGO yesterday... That's a whole story. I guess I'll try to write about it tomorrow, but this post is long enough as it is!

Edited by ElectroNugget
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Double-post but hell this is my journal, I can do what I want.

I just want to write this out separately as I think I need to remember this.

I've of course considered something like this before, but it struck me today just how lucky I am to be at ITU, and how strange and interesting a path my life has taken me on in the last 4 years to end up here. A little under 5 years ago, I lost a close friend to terminal cancer and my girlfriend of five years (who I now see as perhaps the love of my life) left me, in about the space of a month. After that, I struggled from one job to another, suffering acutely from anxiety, grief, and overall poor mental health, which was further exacerbated by low job security, poor working conditions and a gradual withdrawal and isolation from the world that I enforced upon myself (thanks videogames :P). 

For many years, life only seemed to get worse as each month rolled on. Being an artist seemed to be a terrible career choice. I had brief ups, minor projects that seemed to be going somewhere, but they always ended in disappointment, after which I often felt like I had less energy than when I started. Things seemed hopeless and futile. My social life was non-existent and dating life was dead on arrival. My career was in a seemingly permanent downwards slide - taking my self-esteem with it. Money was a constant concern. I felt as though I had zero prospects for a better future. With all this in mind, I felt that ahead of me was only more pain and suffering.

And yet here I find myself, today, in Copenhagen, slowly building a life I could never have even begun to imagine for myself even just a year ago. I live in a completely new environment, making new friends, meeting new women, learning a new and exciting trade, opening a myriad of unseen avenues into the future. Oh how quickly things can change! As I just discovered today, even my god awful experience with depression can perhaps now be turned into a tool to help others.

Whenever I feel down I must remind myself of this. Of how lucky I am to have a chance to reeducate myself, and start somewhere new. Yeah, it's really fucking hard sometimes. Yeah, my dating life still sucks. Yeah, porn is still really hard to quit. But I am immensely grateful to be here at ITU and meet all these wonderful people, and have a chance to learn all these cool things. In a strange way, no matter how much I regret losing my friend and my lover way back when, they were part of the story that led me here. If all this hadn't happened to me, I would never have met my friend who told me about her depression today. I wouldn't have been here to help her. Maybe that alone makes all the pain, fear and anguish I've experienced worth it.

Perhaps with that mindset, I can finally learn to be at peace with the past.

Edited by ElectroNugget
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On 2/13/2020 at 7:02 PM, ElectroNugget said:

Double-post but hell this is my journal, I can do what I want.

I just want to write this out separately as I think I need to remember this.

I've of course considered something like this before, but it struck me today just how lucky I am to be at ITU, and how strange and interesting a path my life has taken me on in the last 4 years to end up here. A little under 5 years ago, I lost a close friend to terminal cancer and my girlfriend of five years (who I now see as perhaps the love of my life) left me, in about the space of a month. After that, I struggled from one job to another, suffering acutely from anxiety, grief, and overall poor mental health, which was further exacerbated by low job security, poor working conditions and a gradual withdrawal and isolation from the world that I enforced upon myself (thanks videogames :P). 

For many years, life only seemed to get worse as each month rolled on. Being an artist seemed to be a terrible career choice. I had brief ups, minor projects that seemed to be going somewhere, but they always ended in disappointment, after which I often felt like I had less energy than when I started. Things seemed hopeless and futile. My social life was non-existent and dating life was dead on arrival. My career was in a seemingly permanent downwards slide - taking my self-esteem with it. Money was a constant concern. I felt as though I had zero prospects for a better future. With all this in mind, I felt that ahead of me was only more pain and suffering.

And yet here I find myself, today, in Copenhagen, slowly building a life I could never have even begun to imagine for myself even just a year ago. I live in a completely new environment, making new friends, meeting new women, learning a new and exciting trade, opening a myriad of unseen avenues into the future. Oh how quickly things can change! As I just discovered today, even my god awful experience with depression can perhaps now be turned into a tool to help others.

Whenever I feel down I must remind myself of this. Of how lucky I am to have a chance to reeducate myself, and start somewhere new. Yeah, it's really fucking hard sometimes. Yeah, my dating life still sucks. Yeah, porn is still really hard to quit. But I am immensely grateful to be here at ITU and meet all these wonderful people, and have a chance to learn all these cool things. In a strange way, no matter how much I regret losing my friend and my lover way back when, they were part of the story that led me here. If all this hadn't happened to me, I would never have met my friend who told me about her depression today. I wouldn't have been here to help her. Maybe that alone makes all the pain, fear and anguish I've experienced worth it.

Perhaps with that mindset, I can finally learn to be at peace with the past.

I think that's the right mindset. You're in a rewarding career and can do art in your own free time if you feel. I think, unfortunately, it makes more sense to do a job that will provide you with a better life and do things you enjoy in your spare time. A better life puts you in better situations to meet like-minded people and women. It also gives you more opportunity to be happy and struggle less. Struggling less means less need for escapism and video games.

Sorry for the loss of your friend. While I was a gaming addict I had a friend of 6 years pass away from a very severe case of cancer that went away after 4 years but came back and killed her. It made me realize how special life was and that depression doesn't have to last and I shouldn't be hiding from life. You shouldn't either. Keep going.

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[ GameQuitters : 47 // Meditate : 2 ] 

Hey all, just a short post. I really need to get back to posting daily, but I feel like I would just be repeating myself. Same moods, same struggles, same thoughts. I feel a bit embarrassed about how long this fight with porn and games has gone on, and how I seem to cycle in and out of the same phases. Why is it so hard to change? 😄 It makes me not want to post because I will just be repeating myself. I feel foolish. 

I have been extremely tempted to go back to games recently which has come as a bit of a surprise. I've been thinking a lot about old favourites etc. Luckily with my shitty laptop now it's basically impossible for me to justify buying and playing anything at the moment. 

At the start of the month I said I would focus on studying and sleep. I think I have been moderately successful in improving my study hours: I am doing many more pomodoros every day and keeping up with the lectures and extra material better than I did last semester. That said, sleep is still a big problem area. I am very bad at getting to bed on time, and I haven't really taken the steps I know I need to to correct this. I have moved my phone and sun lamp across the room so that I actually have to get out of bed in the morning to turn off my alarms, and some mornings that has helped. Other mornings I get up and go straight back to bed. My nightly routine is also still very poor, I tend to stay up late watching crap on YouTube or surfing Reddit... So yeah. Still work to do. Feeling frustrated but carrying on. 

Edited by ElectroNugget
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Hey man listen. I am in the exact same situation like you right now. First of all: I am not a fan of the whole day 1-, day 2-, day 3- structure. And I think that it is not really a noteworthy post to basically write the same things every single day. Why even bother? I only write, when I feel like I have something to say. So just for your information that you are not alone with that "struggle".

Change is always hard, as long as one is still someone attached to games and to a certain degree a "gamer". Your goal is not to get rid of games, but to become someone else. Someone who enjoys self improvement, maybe sports, maybe programming. Whatever! So keep focusing on that. 

About sleep: Just very recently, like the last two weeks, all the sudden, I had problems with my sleep patterns again- struggling to wake up early, struggling to not check the phone, struggling to just go to sleep without distractions. But today, I did wake up as early as I used to and my morning routine was excellent again. Certainly a little motivation kick. I experience that not really motivation, but a goal and desires can be helpful, since it is a difference, whether you wake up with some energy, because you have things on your plate, which you want to do, instead of having to force yourself because it is just another grey day as usual. Goals can be incredibily helpful. Not only as direction, but also as boost. 

Also check out the 5 second rule by Mel Robbins. Helps me here and then. For me it is more like a 10 second rule though. xD Furthermore, instead of watching some crap on youtube, you could also try to watch something more meaningful. This could be better than watching nothing. Babysteps you know. Maybe you could listen to a video of positive affirmations. I do this daily: This dude just keeps talking, how wonderful I am and how beautiful the life is with some nice sleepy music. Far better way to fall asleep than googling bullshit. Since I am not ready to listen or watch nothing yet, this is a good intermediate step. Maybe try it out.

And don't be frustrated! You just have to keep going. Maybe tommorow I will fail miserably again with waking up early. So, I will just try the day of tomorrow then again. This is, why it is a process of ups and down's, but just a one-way street where everything is handed to you. Not the people, who need something, will get it, but those people, who deserve it. 🙂

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Hey @ElectroNugget!

I just joined gamequitters and I've found, that your story is almost same as mine 🙂

I'm an embedded systems engineer and I like my job a lot, but when I came home, I did same things as you did: watching netflix, youtube and twitch (and weekends also). Today is my second day, and I've been doing some progress with my projects, I did immediatly cut out of youtube, netflix and twitch.

I've a question for you: what is your favorite subject at the university? There must be at least one 🙂

When I was studying for my Bachelor's degree, I did not like most of the subjects: there were too much excess math and tables, I did not see the purpose of those.

When I got a job in electronics design, I was beginning to see the applications and then I've began to undestand, why I was learning all those things 🙂

The breakthrough I think was, when I begin to really enjoy science - it was when I found the book (there is also an audiobook)

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"

It's an amazing book, and I absolutely recommend it.

For the sleeping problem: there is a quick tip, that helped me get asleep very fast, and I'm using it almost always for several years:

It's on youtube, so please quit the page as soon as you watch it 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j730idKdAiw

 

 

 

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Hey guys, thanks for the responses.

@Alexanderle, you are right, I am trying to become someone else. 🙂 I recently realized I am becoming familiar with the idea of calling myself a programmer. Even though I am still very new to it, I can actually make things now. Perhaps in time that relationship with computers will replace my old one.

@Timelocker Thanks for the sleep tip man, I'll give it a try this week! Quitting YouTube is something I am on-and-off about. I clearly waste way too much time on it. Buuuut I also find a lot of very useful programming tutorials there. As for my favorite subject, right now it's probably algorithms. I'm not a huge mathematical mind, but I love the idea of writing very efficient code.

[ GameQuitters : 53 ] 

Last week I started using an app called Habitica to try and encourage myself to follow through a little more on my habits. It is quite literally a gamificiation of the idea of habit-generation, with your daily habits rewarding xp and gold for a little rpg hero, and if you fail to perform the habits your hero takes damage, and can eventually die and lose levels. That's about all the game there is to it, but I've found it very motivating. I've studied more this week, been more stringent about prepping breakfast, brushing my teeth, drinking water, etc. For once, my game-addled brain can be tricked into serving much more important goals. In time I'd like to move more daily goals into it so my daily process will become more refined and productive. I think it might just work.

In a side-note, my pomodoro app notified me today that I've now spent more time studying in February than I did in all of January. Considering that I was supposed to be studying for exams in January, and that I've had classes (which I don't count towards my study total) on top of social events in February, this feels like a nice sign of a slowly blossoming productivity. Maybe I can keep pushing this number up.

The bad new is that I've been absolutely craving videogames recently, with much more powerful urges in the past few years than I've ever had this year. I had to buy a new laptop when my old one died on Saturday, and I even installed Steam and momentarily looked around on it before I got back to my senses and uninstalled it. As usual, I think my life just hasn't really built the new habits I need yet... But I don't really have that much time for new hobbies right now, and my downtime is usually at home alone. Being single means that I just don't have much to do at home without using my computer. It sounds lame to say 'I just don't have the energy' to go out after a long day at ITU, but I really don't. It's fucking cold, wet and dark half the year here in Denmark, so in these darker months I often just go home most of the time. And when I'm home with nothing to do, I seek distraction.

Distraction is the keyword here. If my current relationship with YouTube is anything to go by, I will happily continue to waste huge portions of my life just being distracted if I don't eventually get a handle on whatever it is that ultimately drives me to behave this way. My relationship to videogames, the internet, porn and media are just symptoms of a root issue I think. Since I was very young, I have spent perhaps the larger portion of my life on some distraction or another... No wonder things eventually ended up so fucked.With time I hope I can get to the bottom of whatever this problem is.

Edited by ElectroNugget
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@ElectroNugget Hello, glad to hear you're building good habits with apps. What's the Pomodoro app called? I would checkout the habbitica one too, but it sounds too much like a video game for me to use. I just have my little habit counter on my journal here all low tech like. I think if you just keep abstaining from games and nofap if you're doing that. You'll eventually get down to your deeper issues. Maybe therapy and meditation could help as well. For a long time I was fighting to find a hobby. I felt hopeless quite often, like I was grasping at straws trying to find a hobby. I'm also single, I have no friends in the area and spend a lot of time alone at home. I started looking on Meetup for potential hobby groups to join. What I've found so far are poetry, fantasy writing and guitar. Maybe I could look into hiking, but that group had hikes going on like 1-2 hours away. Anyways! What I found was by having a few meetups in mind I became much more motivated to do those particular hobbies. I have an upcoming poetry group on my google calendar and I'm starting to read and write poetry more. I'm trying to spend more time reading and less time watching tv. Hope that helps. 

Edited by Erik2.0
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