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17 June - 30 June: These are the activities I did in no particular order: reading "Getting to Yes", finishing Black Mirror with my girlfriend, taking the car to the mechanic, exercising and going for a running race last weekend, visiting my girlfriend's family and mine, going for a trip to the mountains, cycling, working on my grandma's kitchen with my friend (finished), playing (and winning) our local table football tournament with the same friend, working on the new website. -  I've been a bit stressed the past few days, mainly due to the work around the kitchen, the problems around our car and some misunderstandings. I feel better today though. The summer season also means I will have more time for myself and my personal projects. 

DAY 36: I've been super busy these past few weeks so I haven't journaled much. I did end up implementing a schedule in google calendar along with goals in Notion so I have measurable targets to work towards. It has been helpful to help myself stay focused throughout the day and to actual take action towards completing these things I want to do.  I've made good progress in the coding book I'm working on and I am even onto the third game, the first two were a log cutting game and a clone of pong. At first it was kind of tough to stay focused on the book and I felt like I always would rather just skip it and go watch you tube or play games, but now that I have a schedule it is a lot easier to stay focused on my work. While I haven't fully cut out games yet, I have made good progress in limiting them to only for social occasions when friends are on, and only in the evenings after I have made what I feel is good progress for goals I set this summer. This has helped me from falling down the rabbit hole of spending full days just grinding on a game solo, or even worse, getting sucked into a competitive multiplayer game like league of legends. I now limit myself to 2hrs a day max, and some days I find that I don't even really feel like playing. Since I've started this journey, my average hours played on my steam account has gone down from 45+ every two weeks to just 15 hours these past two weeks, so less that two hours a day. This has made it so that the gaming is less of a problem that is taking away from my productive time, and now it is more of a hobby that I can use socially at the end of the day to wind down, without feeling the urge to play competitive games for hours straight.  I want to continue making progress at limiting my gaming and hopefully fully limit my time spent on it altogether. I am hoping that I can find a job sometime soon, but the market is so difficult right now in Canada and just finding simple part time jobs to get a little bit of money is so difficult. so that's a bit depressing, but I am just trying to power through and keep applying. It sucks that I am slowly burning through my money, but since I live at home and have all my expenses paid, I am really just burning all my money on entertainment (drinks, going out, getting food, etc) so I want to also look to actively limit that. In terms of school, I was able to register to all my uni courses and this was the first time I was on top of the selection process and got all the time slots and electives I wanted, so it felt good to have that in order. But it also made me worry because some of the courses sound really hard and I find that I doubt myself and my skills a lot since I havent done well historically with any of the math courses and one of the courses I am taking is data science next term. My parents told me to stop thinking about the future but it still makes me really nervous and I have a hard time sometimes trying to stay calm about it. Anyways, this was another long post. Will hopefully remember to check in tomorrow too.

Entry 30.6 Weeks until average life expectancy: 2771 (80th birthday) What comes top of mind this week of my life that I made progress on Talking with Gareth Popkins regarding studies to progress German learning Doing tasks for Veronica Increasing my weekly runs Finishing Gain and loss statement Day 166: No Useless Videos Day 998: Sticking to Food schedule Day 601: Eating Only between 06:30 and 19:00 (Last bite before 19:00) Day 149: Being in bed before 23:15 3 Things I did well, no matter how small  - 4 pomodoros - evening workout - finishing my tasks for veronica ( Watch clutch videos and exams ) 1 Thing I could do better - Tell Alejandro to let go of this and accept whatever will be, if I'll want to know how to stay in spain I'll ask him ( I guess, this is no obligation, just a thought) Gaming (Death, Slavery, Regret, Disease) - 5 Yan (Life, Individuality, Freedom, Purpose, Self-Fulfillment) - 166

Week 1, Monday: There were a couple of choices open to me by late-morning, and I chose the short-term satieties. But I felt discouraged from not reaching my father in the moment - he has a partner (not my mother, if y'all could tell) who may have made it easier to be offline and more or less unreachable today. I don't blame anyone except the (even bigger) man upstairs, or rather, my own imagination. I'm not even angry or disappointed, just weary. I'll probably have to remind the hiring staff to register my proposed shifts before the days actually arrive, and Dad even pointed that out, but all I read/heard in his meagre text was 'I guessed the day and your meaning wrong, and you should be punished for my mistake' (old trauma). I did what was necessary, but I'm always going to know that the offline world is worth more. I just need to understand and be understood. See you tomorrow, as it's already darkening up for a few days of rain - and I'm tired from my own expenditures. Don't black out could be today's advice to anyone self-punishing. Don't worry as I do; it's unhealthy. Peace, ~ Matt

Week 1, Monday: So of course, I slept well because the plan not to sign into games this week was front of mind. Then, I made several small conscious decisions, like keeping the lights off until I was naturally awake. Fine, but then some sounds, and remembering my dad's recent solution to a skewed toilet seat being 'push it back', simply set me off into a rumination trip. I almost can't help it, that it's so natural for me to rapidly thought-hop as I go about my (morning and other) routines. Online gaming was 'enforced focus' from day 1 of discovery, and it somewhat addressed that - I'd include my original gameboy games, but they were gifts from my parents that I happened to get hooked on (Pokemon), plus back then I was a bit more forceful with objects and would shut those games off sharply when I thought I had to. I discovered my truly addictive game in a moment of boredom when its music emitted from my brother's room, and it was almost 'game over' for real world pursuits at that point. But I didn't want to come on here just to complain a load about the past, only because of a few facts of today's matters: -> Mindfulness (win), rumination (forfeit, or loss), the outdoor world (neutral as of yet). I may update my posts, but during my detox I often didn't unless I was already considering gameplay, and felt that things just didn't matter enough while away from them. Also, edits don't bump - is it foolish to suggest partial bumps in forum mechanics? I'm just after some momentum that won't land me in water that is too hot. Gratitude ~ This is really difficult right now, but I guess I progressed in the form of both new and old book-reading for a few hours yesterday ~ Some heavy metal played during the final fix of my game ~ Partial understanding of when people have had 'proper' moments of livelihood (like letting doors shut in a certain fashion but footsteps casual) ~ Actually gazing at my unwashed dishes and positive regard for them Peace, ~ Matt