EDIT: Sorry, this is really really long and I can't really give it a TL;DR, but there's a few points in bold to help you out!

1. Happiness isn't something you find, it's something you create.
   
   This is a concept that took me a while to understand. I could see all the people around me looking happy, people on social media posting about their amazing lives, and poor little me, comparing my sad shitty life to these amazing things.
   
   There's a few problems in there, though. One is comparison to others, another one is understanding what others' lives are really like, and a third one is ignoring the good thing. Let's start with the third point, because it ties back nicely to my first sentence.
   
   I firmly believe that you can change your mindset from negative to positive. I also firmly believe that it can be incredibly difficult to do, and it has taken me 3 months of therapy to work out how to do it. Sure, I could explain the theory, but having someone to report to every week is what really made a difference here.
   
   I believe that happiness is never too far away, but that you need to adjust your "happiness lens" to find it. If you've got a massive telephoto happiness lens, you'll spot others' happiness much more easily than the factors that could bring happiness to your life. Take a step back, get a smaller lens that won't do a great job of focusing on things too far from you and your life.
   
   I find gratitude immensely helpful in understand where I can find happiness. There's a few things in life that always make me happy: going to bed, eating a tasty dish, listening to a song I used to love. These are tiny, but if you look closer, your days can be made of those happy little moments. All it takes is becoming aware of them.
   
   Today, for example, I didn't wake up too early. Then I had a lovely warm shower, go to play the piano a little and enjoyed the sun on my way to the train station. I got a seat on the train, my book reached a really exciting point, I ate a very tasty croissant for breakfast. This was all before 10am. These are all pretty insignificant, in the grand scheme of things, right? But their magic is that they're happening all the time.
   
   Action point: start practicing gratitude by listing 3 things you're thankful for each day (it can be having drank less, having found a useful Reddit post, having watched a cool film).
   
   Now as I mentioned earlier, being aware of what can go on in people's lives is pretty important. In our era of social media, perfect people flooding Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc. it can be difficult to put up with the awesomeness of these lives, their travels, dishes, outfits, fitness, etc. What's key to remember here, is that 1) we only see a tiny sliver of someone's life, 2) they usually only show you the really good stuff, because they care about being cool, 3) we have no idea what might actually be going on in their lives.
   
   Keeping up appearances is a behaviour that's incited by our self-policing society, where you must look a certain way, be at a certain stage in your life doing certain things, etc. People will go very far to pretend everything is fine when they're hiding a lot of misery behind a thin veneer of happiness. An example that comes to mind is disgruntled Instagrammers who spend most of their day trying to find the perfect angle for the perfect shot - they have 100 versions of the same picture, but you only see one. They'll be thinking of the time they wasted, how another Instagrammer is gonna look better anyway, the numbers of followers they lost, etc. That smile in that picture might be incredibly disingenuous for all we know.
   
   Action point: Try to think of the big picture. That perfect couple you see all the time on Facebook might be in a terrible relationship. Your favourite Instagrammer could be hiding a drug addiction, someone who's being quiet around you may actually be having big problems that they just haven't told you about.
   
   As for comparison with others, it's very easy to look at what people seem to have, compared to what you do/don't have. There's an image that stuck to my mind, though, which was that if you spent your time looking at your neighbour's green grass, it was no surprise yours was patchy and yellow. So find your watering can, and focus on you, and you only. It could be that you feel like you need a life overhaul, and that's fine. Pick one thing and focus on it. You want to do 10,000 things and you feel overwhelmed? Start with one thing. Add another one when you're ok with the first thing, then add a third one, etc. Nothing comes to mind? Think of something you'd like to have achieved in your life, and work back from that. It might take a while, and the path might not be so easy, but work will help.
   
   Learn to build discipline and habit so you have a safety net when things go awry. I really like /r/theXeffect for that, where you have a simple goal, a card with days on, and you cross out each da you've carried out the action on your card. One of mine was to brush my teeth after lunch, and now I do it automatically and don't even think about it anymore. Another one was meditating every day - this is still in progress, but I'm on a 30+-days streak.
   
   Action point: Find something that interests you and will help you be fulfilled - a habit, a hobby, a more general life goal, and develop a system to progress towards it. This will keep you occupied and you will develop a skill that you can later focus on honing.
   
   
2. Practice compassion and self-compassion
   
   It sounds like you have a lot of contempt for yourself and others. This ties back to having such a negative mindset that's probably very deeply entrenched in your own psyche, but being able to relate to the human condition as a whole makes it easier to appreciate others and yourself. Yes, a lot of people are dicks. What really matters here is that 1) they don't do it because they hate you, they do it because their lives have guided them to act that way ("People aren't against you, they're for themselves"), 2) we're only humans, we all make mistakes and this is something to be more accepting of.
   
   If someone finds pleasure in criticising or judging someone else on say, their clothes, or appearance, or anything, while there might be subjective truth to it (they don't look great in that jumper), the simple act of criticising/judging shows that that person is likely unhappy with some aspect of their life and are trying to make themselves feel better by putting someone else down. It's a sucky attitude, and it reflects more on the person's character than on the victim.
   
   A good solution for that is self-compassion. Self-compassion isn't about lovey-dovey statements about how you're perfect. Self-compassion is simply being kinder to yourself - understanding where you come from, what you've been through and accepting that even if this isn't the situation you wanted to be in, it's ok to be where you are. Failure is part and parcel of human life, and learning to see it as a way to growth will make life easier for you.
   
   Action point: Pick up something by Kristin Neff - her audiobook is a list of meditations to help you make peace with yourself and be more compassionate towards others as a result. Her book is good if you want the science behind it.
   
   Ultimately, what I mostly see is a lot of insecurity and lack of self-confidence that you take out on people. As a result of this negative mindset, you're finding it difficult to see the good in people, situations and life, and it's no wonder you feel so stuck. But that's ok. Sure, it's a crappy situation you're in at the moment, but you were smart enough to identify there was an issue, and brave enough to go to a doctor. Maybe your challenge could be to call that number your doctor give you and give it a chance? It might not be exactly what you feel you need, but it could also be a step in the right direction. If you're in a place where you feel you could help yourself, I recommend Mind Over Mood, which has exercises on re-training your brain to shift your mindset. I also recommend Carol Dweck's Mindset a lot, simply because it's a bit of a game changer on understanding how our brain works and how we're wired and can rewire ourselves. I've mentioned Kristin Neff above, and the last thing I would suggest you look at is Overcoming Low Self-Esteem, which has the explanation as to why we suffer from it, and some exercises to improve it.

Okay here's the list. I spend some time on this. If you have any specific questions, let me know:)


***

On Composition:

Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies - Dennis DeSantis
Amazon Link
This is a fantastic book. Each page has a general idea on boosting creativity, workflow, and designing sounds and tracks. I recommend you read and digest one of the tips per day and really think about applying them.

Music Theory for Computer Musicians - Michael Hewitt
Amazon Link
Really easy to digest book on music theory, as it applies to your DAW. Each DAW is used in the examples, so it is not limited to a specific program. Highly recommend this for someone starting out with theory to improve their productions.

Secrets of Dance Music Production - David Felton
Amazon Link
This book I recently picked up and so far it's been quite good. It goes over all the different elements of what make's dance music, and get's quite detailed. More geared towards the beginner, but it was engaging nonetheless. It is the best 'EDM specific' production book I have read.

Ocean of Sound - David Troop
Amazon Link
Very well written and interesting book on ambient music. Not only does David go over the technical side and history of ambiance and musical atmospheres, he speaks very poetically about creating these soundscapes and how they relate to our interpersonal emotions.


***

On Audio Engineering:

Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio - Mike Senior
Amazon Link
In my opinion, this is the best mixing reference book for both beginners and intermediate producers. Very in-depth book that covers everything from how to set-up for accurate listening to the purpose of each mixing and mastering plug-in. Highly recommended.

Zen and the Art of Mixing - Mixerman
Amazon Link
Very interesting read in that it deals with the why's more than the how's. Mixerman, a professional audio engineer, goes in detail to talk about the mix engineer's mindset, how to approach projects, and how to make critical mixing decisions. Really fun read.

The Mixing Engineer's Handbook - Bobby Owinski
Amazon Link
This is a fantastic companion book to keep around. Not only does Owinski go into great technical detail, he includes interviews from various audio engineers that I personally found very helpful and inspiring.


***

On the Industry:

All You Need to Know About the Music Business - Donald S. Passman
Amazon Link
This book is simply a must read for anyone hoping to make a professional career out of music, anyone wanting to start their own record label, or anyone interested in how the industry works. It's a very informative book for any level of producer, and is kept up-to-date with the frequent revisions. Buy it.

Rick Rubin: In the Studio - Jake Brown
Amazon Link
Very interesting read that is a semi-biographical book on Rick Rubin. It is not so personal as it is talking about his life, experiences, and processes. It does get quite technical when referring to the recording process, but there are better books for technical info. This is a fun read on one of the most successful producers in history.

Behind the Glass - Howard Massey
Amazon Link
A collection of interviews from a diverse range of musicians who speak about creativity, workflows, and experiences in the music industry. Really light, easy to digest book.


***

On Creativity:

The War of Art - Steven Pressfield
Amazon Link
This is a must-read, in my opinion, for any creative individual. It is a very philosophical book on dealing with our own mental battles as an artist, and how to overcome them. Definitely pick this one up, all of you.

This is Your Brain on Music - Daniel S. Levitin
Amazon Link
A book written by a neurologist on the psychology of music and what makes us attached to it. It's a fairly scientific book but it is a very rewarding read with some great ideas.


***

On Personal Growth and Development:

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
Amazon Link
Although this seems like an odd book for a music producer, personally I think this is one of the most influential books I've ever read. Knowing how to be personable, effectively network, and form relationships is extremely important in our industry. Whether it be meeting and talking to labels, meeting other artists, or getting through to A&R, this book helps with all these areas and I suggest this book to all of you.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey
Amazon Link
Similar to the recommendation above, although not directly linked to music, I assure you reading this book will change your views on life. It is a very engaging and practical book, and gets you in the right mindset to be successful in your life and music career. Trust me on this one and give it a read.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Amazon Link
You know the feeling when you're really in the groove of jamming out and all worries tend to slip away for those moments? That is the 'Optimal Experience' according to the author. This book will teach you about that experience, and how to encourage and find it in your work. This is a very challenging, immersive, and enlightening read, which deals with the bigger picture and finding happiness in your work and life. Very inspiring book that puts you in a good mindset when you're doing creative work.

The Art of Work - Jeff Goins
Amazon Link
A very fascinating book that looks at taking your passion (music in our case) and making the most of it. It guides you on how to be successful and turn your passion into your career. Some very interesting sections touching on dealing with failure, disappointment, and criticism, yet listening to your intuition and following your passion. Inspiring and uplifting book to say the least.


***


Phew. That was a lot of work. Hopefully you guys get some usefulness out of this list. This is put together after years of reading dozens upon dozens of books on these topics.


Enjoy!

I tell people this a lot, and it really depends on the person, but I'll try to make a list! To focus on ourselves basically means to better our confidence and our general well-being. Focusing on ourselves is basically keeping busy while improving ourselves at the same time. Because at the end of the day, we can't rely on others to lift us up. It helps to have people there, but we will always have ourselves. Focusing on ourselves means just living our lives and not worrying about trying to find another person to help fill the empty void in our hearts, but at the same time, while doing our own thing and just living life, this is when we may meet other people or potential future partners along the way. So either way, it's a win-win situation.

• write, journal, let everything out. Hold nothing back. There's a lot of cool notebooks to choose from out there specifically tailored to give you topics to focus on, like writing prompt journals, or there's gratitude journals as well
  
• which leads me to my next point, write out a list of what your grateful for
  
• write out a list of your current goals or any improvements you would like to make, then look at it every day or post it somewhere you can easily see in your room
  
• Friends have recommended the book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" (I still haven't read it but I heard it's good)
  
• I also heard this book is really good too "You Are a Badass"
  
• hike, pick a trail, set a goal to make it to the top of a hill to help build your endurance (I have a friend who also loves to do this while making videos of himself talking to himself and just reflecting on life)
  
• go to social events like parties or shows
  
• focus on your career and work on that promotion, or if you still don't have one yet or you're unsure, this is the perfect time to figure that out and make a list of what you really love and have passion for
  
• remind yourself that you are awesome and deserving of the best, every day or at least once a week
  
• remain humble and never cocky
  
• depending on your age, go to bars and hang with friends and also depending on where you live, go to a barcade if you like video games or old arcade-style games while drinking
  
• hang with friends and have on one one convos with them about life (you really learn a lot)
  
• learn how to cook something that you can see yourself enjoying for the rest of your life (cooking is a great skill to have, and many women really love men that know how to cook)
  
• get a new hair cut, or buy some new clothes, a new video game, a new anything. Treat yo self
  
• become your own best friend (it's really not as lame as you think)
  
• pick up a new hobby, whether it's an outdoor or indoor activity, like photography
  
• if you're still in school, maybe join any groups or clubs
  
• definitely exercise since it helps build muscle, keeps you fit, and helps boost those endorphins making you feel better in the long run
  
• if you're the artsy type, go to art galleries, and if you feel so inclined, even invite a female friend to join you
  
• take a mini road trip with your friends if possible
  
• write a short story
  
• Dare yourself to try a new foreign dish for the first time and live life on the "edge"
  
• help volunteer somewhere
  
• pay a stranger a compliment
  
• do one good deed for someone every week or month
  
• visit some place you've always wanted to go to
  
  I know there's so much more you can do, but I hope some of these can help for now! Basically just go out there and live your life and have as much fun as possible.

I hope I am not too late.

You can post this to /r/suicidewatch.

Here is my half-baked attempt at providing you with some answers.

First of all let's see, what is the problem? Money and women. This sounds rather stereotypical but it became a stereotype because a lot of people had this kind of problems. So if you are bad at money and at women, join the club, everybody sucks at this.

Now, there are a few strategies of coping with this. I can tell you what worked for me and perhaps that will help you too.

I guess if there is only one thing that I would change in your attitude that would improve anything is learning the fact that "there is more where that came from". This is really important in girl problems and in money problems.

When you are speaking with a girl, I noticed that early on, men tend to start being very submissive and immature in a way. They start to offer her all the decision power because they are afraid not to lose her. This is a somehow normal response but it affects the relationship negatively. She sees you as lacking power and confidence and she shall grow cold. So here lies the strange balance between good and bad: you have to be powerful but also warm and magnanimous. You can only do this by experimenting without fearing the results of your actions. Even if the worst comes to happen, and she breaks up with you .... you'll always get a better option. There are 3.5 billion ladies on the planet. The statistics are skewed in your favor.

Now for the money issue. Again, there is more where that came from. The money, are a relatively recent invention. Our society is built upon them but we survived for 3 million years without them. The thing you need to learn is that your survival isn't directly related to money. You can always get food, shelter and a lot of other stuff for free. You won't live the good life, but you won't die. So why the anxiety then?

Question: It seems to me you are talking out of your ass. How do I put into practice this in order to get a girlfriend?

Answer: Talk to people. Male and female. Make the following your goals:
Talk to 1 girl each day for one month.
Meet a few friends each 3 days.
Make a new friend each two weeks.
Post your romantic encounters in /r/seduction.
This activities will add up after some time and you will have enough social skill to attract a female. You will understand what your female friend is thinking. Don't feel too bad if it doesn't work out.

Question: The above doesn't give a lot of practical advice on getting money. I want more of that. How do I get it?

Answer: To give you money people need to care about you. People only care about you when you care about them. This is why you need to do the following:
Start solving hard problems.
Start helping people.
Problems aren't only school problems. They refer to anything: start learning a new difficult subject (for example start learning physics or start playing an instrument or start writing a novel). Take up a really difficult project that is just above the verge of what you think you are able to do. Helping people is something more difficult and personal. You can work for charity, help your family members around the house and other similar.

Question: I don't understand. I have problems and you are asking me to work for charity, donate money? How can giving money solve anything?

Answer: If you don't give, how can you receive? Helping others is instilling a sense of purpose in a very strange way. You become superior to others by helping them in a dispassionate way.

Question: I feel like I am going to cry, you are making fun of me!
Answer: Not entirely untrue. But this is not the problem. The problem is that you are taking yourself too serious. We all are, and I have similar problems. The true mark of a person of genius is to laugh at himself. Cultivate your sense of humor in any manner you can.

Question: What does it matter then if I choose to kill myself?

Answer: There is this really good anecdote about Thales of Miletus (search wiki). He was preaching that there is no difference between life and death. His friends asked him: If there is no difference, why don't you kill yourself. At this, he instantly answered: I don't kill myself because there is no difference.

Question: Even if I would like to change and do the things you want me to do, human nature is faulty. It is certain that I would have relapses. How do I snap out of it?

Answer: There are five habits that you should instill that will keep bad emotions away. Either of this habits has its own benefits and drawbacks:

1. Mental contemplation. This has various forms, but two are the best well know: prayer and meditation. At the beginning stage they are quite different, but later they begin to be the same. You will become aware that there are things greater than you are. This will take some of the pressure off of your shoulders.
   
2. Physical exercise. Build up your physical strength and you will build up your mental strength.
   
3. Meet with friends. If you don't have friends, find them.
   
4. Work. This wil give you a sense of purpose. Help somebody else. This is what I am doing here. We are all together on this journey. Even though we can't be nice with everyone, we need to at least do our best in this direction.
   
5. Entertainment. Read a book. Play a game. Watch a movie. Sometimes our brain needs a break. If not, it will take a break anyway and it will not be a pretty one. Without regular breaks, procrastination will occur.
   
   Question: Your post seems somewhat interesting but more in an intriguing kind of way. I would like to know more.
   
   Answer: There are a few good books on these subjects. I don't expect you to read all of them, but consider them at least.
   
   For general mental change over I recommend this:
   http://www.amazon.com/Learned-Optimism-Change-Your-Mind/dp/1400078393/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324795853&sr=8-1
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Generous-Man-Helping-Others-Sexiest/dp/1560257288
   
   For girl issues I recommend the following book. This will open up a whole bag of worms and you will have an entire literature to pick from. This is not going to be easy. Remember though, difficult is good for you.
   http://www.amazon.com/GAME-UNDERCOVER-SOCIETY-PICK-UP-ARTISTS/dp/1841957518/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324795664&sr=8-1 (lately it is popular to dish this book for a number of reasons. Read it and decide for yourself. There is a lot of truth in it)
   
   Regarding money problem, the first thing is to learn to solve problems. The following is the best in my opinion
   http://www.amazon.com/How-Solve-Mathematical-Princeton-Science/dp/069111966X
   The second thing about money is to understand why our culture seems wrong and you don't seem to have enough. This will make you a bit more comfortable when you don't have money.
   http://www.amazon.com/Story-B-Daniel-Quinn/dp/0553379011/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1324795746&sr=8-3 (this one has a prequel called Ishmael. which people usually like better. This one is more to my liking.)
   
   For mental contemplation there are two recommendations:
   http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html . This one is for meditation purposes.
   http://www.amazon.com/Way-Pilgrim-Continues-His/dp/0060630175 . This one is if you want to learn how to pray. I am an orthodox Christian and this is what worked for me. I cannot recommend things I didn't try.
   
   For exercising I found bodyweight exercising to be one of the best for me. I will recommend only from this area. Of course, you can take up weights or whatever.
   http://www.amazon.com/Convict-Conditioning-Weakness-Survival-Strength/dp/0938045768/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324795875&sr=8-1 (this is what I use and I am rather happy with it. A lot of people recommend this one instead: http://www.rosstraining.com/nevergymless.html )
   
   Regarding friends, the following is the best bang for your bucks:
   http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/1439167346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324796461&sr=8-1 (again, lots of criticism, but lots of praise too)
   
   The rest of the points are addressed in the above books. I haven't given any book on financial advices. Once you know how to solve problems and use google and try to help people money will start coming, don't worry.
   
   I hope this post helps you, even though it is a bit long and cynical.
   
   Merry Christmas!

>“the scientific study of what goes right in life [and] those things that make life most worth living,”

That is an odd way to define Positive Psychology but I guess it's a fairly accurate summation. Positive Psychology was a reaction to the large amount of attention that has been paid on abnormal psychology- essentially what is "wrong" with people and how to fix it. This leads an absence in what people can do to better themselves beyond the realm of mental illness. How can we improve and enrich our lives, starting from a neutral baseline.

I actually find it very funny that I'm reading an article on religion and positive psychology as I took issue with Martin Seligman's position on religion in his book Authentic Happiness which is the primer for studying this branch of psychology. I don't have anything against having religion in your life (obviously) but I also don't feel like it's necessary. I align more with Daniel Gilbert's approach that you can get the same results when you fill your life with the same things that religion provides you regardless of whether or not you ascribe to any religious practice. A strong passion in something shared by others, closeness with a community, etc are components of religious practice that can enrich your life with or without religion.

All that being said, I do agree that Positive Psychology and Judaism go hand in hand very well together. I would say that as of the last time I really studied positive psych, the research was largely done on Buddhists. I'm very excited to hear about the merger of positive psych and Judaism which is another reason I'm excited to study Mussar.

If you would like to get acquainted with Positive Psychology, I will leave some recommendations below:

As I stated earlier, Authentic Happiness is the primer for learning about this branch. I do take issues with certain elements of the book but I still think it's an incredibly worthwhile read.

I would also recommend to you Stumbling On Happiness as it explores the more scientific approach to the study.

*I would also recommend you start studying it by studying yourself. Martin Seligman is still conducting research to this day. I would recommend taking a look at the Questionnaires section of his website. There's a ton of tests and surveys you can take but I recommend you start off with the Signature Strengths VIA Survey. Note, you do have to make an account but it's worth it. Once you've determined your top 5 character strengths, you can start trying to strengthen those traits and make them more prominent in your life.

Hey emyouth,

I'm so sorry for your loss, it must have been so very hard on you.

> How do I start seizing opportunities so I don't look back on my life with bitterness and regret?

So one path that I think could really work for you is called ACT. The principle is that a lot of the problems we experience come from fighting against ever feeling painful thoughts and memories causing behavioural avoidance. Things like withdrawing, staying in bed, eating etc. can be tactics to avoid pain.

The solution is counter-intuitive - its to become willing to feel pain so you no longer need avoidance and can start living a full life again. This book is full of exercises, its hard work but mind-blowing:

https://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life/dp/1572244259

This one is a bit easier going:

https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Living/dp/1590305841

> I've gained about 40-50 pounds

I've been there, and this might sound odd to say, but it presents a great opportunity. It might not seem like something in your control, but it is. Lifestyle changes are great things to play with and simply any form of change can start making things look brighter.

So I know diet evangelism is pretty annoying... so apologies... but I suggest taking a look at r/keto. Look at how many amazing success stories there and how supportive the community is. One theme you will see is how easy people are finding it. You might find another way of eating that attracts you more.

Eating keto can be a hard step to take, but after a couple of days you adapt and it feels like its cheating because its so easy - you become free of junk cravings so it doesn't need willpower once over the initial hump. One reason I suggest keto is that when you start, you get a big drop in water weight. This doesn't mean much from a fat-loss perspective but it is HUGE to the spirit. You get a massive scale shift and look visually different almost immediately which really helps kick-start that positive spiral.

As you continue to see the scale go down and start to see visual changes, you begin fuelling a positive spiral that will grow your self-worth. What is fantastic is that its so measurable. Even if you can't see visual changes immediately you can see the scale go down. You can start going to bed a winner and waking up with the promise of some good news on the scale.

You probably know that exercise has a dramatic effect on well-being and will also fuel that positive spiral. But its also hard to start so suggesting can be unhelpful. The good news is that I often see that once people have started feeling the energy improvement from dropping a few pounds, exercise starts getting attractive again, and once you add that BOOM, you are now stoking a fire that helps you live the life you want.

Best of luck!

The official story narrative is self-censoring for a variety of reasons most of them psychological based on nothing more than the desire to fit in and not be branded a heretic or a crazy lunatic. It's very cowardly yes, but it's also human nature, and it goes to show that a PhD doesn't have much clout in matters of scientific and historical scrutiny and analysis at it might have once had.

---

One of the best books i've ever read on the subject of mental and spiritual health and well being is called "The Road Less Travelled, A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth" by M. Scott Peck, M.D.. In it, he posits a few basic precepts as the foundational cornerstone to all human mental health, and by comparison, mental illness, of which "we are all mentally ill to a greater or lessor degree lacking perfect mental and spiritual health and well being" surrounding what he refers to as the four tools of discipline, and they are:

1. Delay of Gratification
   
   
2. Dedication to Truth
   
   
3. Acceptance of Responsibility
   
   
4. Balancing, or the ability to bracket or filter emotional reaction/responses and with absolute awareness choose that which is most appropriate in each and every circumstance, or right being, right thinking right action. How this relates to others obviously involves a rather high degree of very complex decision making, requiring of the balancer that they must continually work to strike and restrike the most appropriate balancing act, and thus it requires a great deal of work and effort where the possible payoff is much greater by far than the price in neccessary suffering to realize it.
   
   The will to use and employ these tools of discipline - is Love, where Love may in turn be defined as:
   
   "Love is the will to give of one's self for the sake of another's mental, emotional and spiritual growth and well being."
   (paradoxically this includes the self in the expanded act of moving beyond one's self and narrow self-serving agenda, in self-sacrifice and self-giving and leaving the self behind)
   
   This then leads to Peck's follow-up book called "A World Waiting to be Born, Civillity Rediscovered" which arose from the principals unearthed as if inspired by a Godly muse i should add in his first book "A Road Less Travelled" in which he further defines "Civility" or how we relate or ought to relate to one another within a societal and even a governing dynamic, as:
   
   "Consciously motivated organizational behavior that is ethical in submission to a higher power", or as he goes on to show is essential in such a context an imagined perfect observer where perhaps the new science axiom of to be is to be percieved, isn't entirely off the mark.
   
   So from this filter, we can then proceed to run a type of societal diagnosis upon ourselves "Doctor heal thyself".
   
   That the present state of affairs is so bad, isn't so bad in the final analysis because "for mankind, all happiness must arise exclusively only in relation to some unhappiness, already experienced" (Gurdjieff) and where "the more that sorrow and suffering has carved into our being the more joy we can contain" (Gibran).
   
   It's always darkest before the dawn, and what are we if not it's light at least in part.
   
   So our cause is still worthy and just, to help bring to light the dark ugly truth about 9/11 and what it really means in terms of the so-called "elite" who want to take over the world and in some ways already have right under our noses or in the case of 9/11 right before our eyes.
   
   It was not unlike a type of magic trick performed on the grandest scale, 9/11, and because the alternative hypothesis hasn't been completely able to unravell it, with questions remaining and absurd claims about space beams and the like, the official story narrative sticks in the collective imagination and unconsciousness and there corrupts the American mind if only because it is not true and simply cannot be believed.
   
   9/11 is like a chain that binds a historical beast of prey and casts him headlone into the abyss, which means, oblivion.
   
   Just one more generation to come along and take a good cold hard look at the evidence, and there it is.
   
   The buildings did not really "collapse" that's not what took place or occurred in reality and according to the immutable laws of physics.
   
   9/11 is leaking, and way to go 9/11 truth movement for keeping it on the table in order so that future generations looking back can get the story straight, which they will and can't not.
   
   In the very near future, grade 10 level physics students, armed with nothing but a bunch of youtube videos and a stopwatch, will not only prove 9/11 to be false, but their understanding of the course material to be true, and their teacher will have to give them an A without sending them to see the psychiatrist.
   
   It will happen eventually.
   
   But as to the current state of human affairs, i'd have to agree that it looks pretty darn dismal. It's not a good prognosis when using Scott Peck's filter to examine it. Makes for good comedy though, potentially, from the POV of the future looking back on this entire nightmare of historic insanity from 2001 to 2015 (and it's still going on, all justified in the name of 9/11, so it's still relevant as the documentary points out).
   

While I don't have any suggestions for specific rewards (I am in the same bind as you), I have a suggestion for the method of reward. (Disclaimer: This is not originally my idea - see the last paragraph if you want more information.)

Instead of picking a specific reward for a specific action, make it a game. Uncertain rewards are more rewarding, so the idea is to make the reward process a bit of a fun gamble. First, set up a rewards jar containing...

• 60%-65% motivational quotes/notes (i.e., non-rewards, but a bit more motivating than "please try again")
  
• 20-25% small rewards (something you can afford 5-7 times a week - e.g., going to Starbucks one morning, taking half the day off guilt free, etc.)
  
• 2-4% moderate rewards (around $20-$25 depending on income - e.g., a day off without worrying about school, getting a cheap book or toy, going out to a nice, non fast-food restaurant, etc.)
  
• 1% or so large rewards (a new TV, gaming system, expensive new game, etc).
  
  You can do this gradually (e.g., to start, every small-moderate reward you think of, throw in two non-rewards. Once you have a decent number of these slips, throw in your larger rewards, trying to generally keep to the above breakdown).
  
  
  Next, set up a point system. If you earn 1000 points, you can draw from your rewards jar. You earn points by completing activities that might not be inherently rewarding in the moment (e.g., boring homework, flossing), but that you would like to be able to complete.
  
  
• The more difficult the activity, the more points. Note: I mean difficult for you, including boring, anxiety-provoking, etc. If you have a huge paper you want to start early but it makes you sick to think about it, perhaps you earn 500pts or even a full 1000pts for just sitting down and doing 45 minutes of work. Similarly, if it is really easy, you earn fewer points.
  
• To further make it a game, you can set up challenges. For instance, if you have a scary/large paper to write, make an outline for the paper. The challenge: each line starts with a new letter of the alphabet, from A to Z. You have an hour (or an hour and a half). If you succeed, 1500 pts! This can make difficult tasks even more of a game, and at the end, you have an outline you can revise vs. a blank page.
  
• If you are trying to establish habits (e.g., exercise MWF), award yourself points for each successful day (say, 250pts - more or less depending on how challenging it is to make yourself exercise). If you do all of the planned days (here, M, W, and F), you get a bonus (say, 300pts).
  
  On the whole, if you're moderately productive, you'll be able to draw from your rewards jar a few times a week.
  
  
  This gets around a couple of problems I've personally encountered in rewarding myself: (1) Picking a reward: It has to be something you want now, otherwise it won't be rewarding. (2) Once you identified what you want NOW, it is hard to then do something else just to earn it (particularly if you tend to give in to those desires). Instead, this allows you to earn the chance to play a fun game that isn't rewarding to just play without earning the chance. (At least, I can't imagine just sitting and drawing reward slips without earning points - that would be kinda boring!) You also are being rewarded for gradual work, instead of the same rewards for tasks that change a lot in type and difficulty.
  
  Source: I can't take credit for this idea! I got this from a very informative and useful interview with a graduate student who used this reward system to combat procrastination (found here). She based this on research cited in The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. (Specifically, studies have found that more addicts will stay clean for the chance to win an uncertain monetary reward than for a steady, predetermined payment, even though they get, on average, less money through the uncertain rewards).

This is an awesome question, and good for you for identifying what you need and reaching out to others. For me, it is so validating and encouraging to hear that I am not the only one struggling with my sense of self-esteem and self-worth, and I hope that you also feel less alone by reading the answers in this thread.

A year ago, my low self-esteem was debilitating.I couldn't work, I was living in state of fear that the people I loved would stop loving me, and I spent a lot of time being disgusted with myself. Today, I am slowly and deliberately learning to love myself more everyday, and I am seeing positive results in my life as a result of my efforts. For instance, my relationships are healthier, I feel anxious less frequently, I feel more competent in my work and hobbies, and I am more willing to take risks. Here are a few practical things that I have worked for me so far:

• Therapy. The first day I walked into my therapist's office, I told her I had anxiety issues. Within 15 minutes of listening to me, she was telling me to go buy a book on self esteem for our next session. Reading that book was like reading a record of my inner life; I couldn't believe how accurate it was. My therapist worked through the book with me and helped me reflect on my thought patterns. I can't afford therapy anymore, but the dozen or so sessions that I went to made a huge difference to me.
  
• Journalling. The process of writing down my thoughts forces me to turn them into logical sentences. This is important for me because a lot of the time, my internal narrative is illogical and not fully formed. Putting those thoughts down on paper helps me look at my thinking more objectively and wholistically. I also do things like make lists of things that I am good at, my positive traits, my accomplishments, etc. Making these lists gives me ammo when I feel bombarded by negative thoughts.
  
• Asking my friends for help. During a particularly low time, I asked my closest friends to write me a letter about why they liked me, ways I inspire them, etc. I read these letters regularly, which means that I remember their words when I feel low.
  
• Learning about Psychology. Learning about how my brain works, both physiologically and psychologically, has helped me look at my self-esteem more scientifically.
  
• Practice. This is the most important thing. Just like any skill, you've got to put in the time if you want to see results. This doesn't happen overnight. Whatever you do to help you love yourself and think more realistically (yoga, journalling, meditating, relaxation, reading, exercise, etc), do it regularly. Behaviours leading to unhealthy self-esteem are habits, and you've got to work to override those habits. The best way is to train your brain when you feel good so that you are stronger for when you feel low.
  
  Be patient with yourself, and take the time to find things that help you individually. Building new, awesome life-long habits takes a lot of work. The progress can feel really slow--I know it sure does for me. However, it's totally doable and lots of people have made this happen for themselves. You can do it! Here are some resources that have helped me so far:
  
  Breaking the Chain of Low Self Esteem. The book I read in therapy.
  
  The Upward Spiral. For learning about how your brain works. Highly recommend.
  
  You are a Badass. Quirky encouragement.
  
  The Gifts of Imperfection. Lots of practical advice in here.
  
  Excel at Life While this site is ugly and disorganized, the content is quality.
  
  The Power of Vulnerability TED talk by Brene Brown
  
  The Healing Power of Self Compassion A podcast about the science of self-compassion.
  
  
  Thanks for reading my giant post-- I'm really passionate about self esteem :) And as a general call-out: I don't know many other people who struggle with self esteem and self compassion, so if anybody wants message back and forth and talk about it, I'd love that :)

It sounds like you could really use what's in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive-ebook/dp/B019MMUA8S

It's called "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck". I think most type-A overachievers should read it. Give it a try -- you're not going to "win" at changing yourself without putting a little work into it, and a book, with lots of different ideas that will catch your mind and speak to you, is the best way to get started.

But right now, right this minute, I'd ask yourself what's underneath your desire to play. You're describing it as caring to win, but I bet a big part of it is terror at losing -- at losing something you value, feeling like a loser, feeling like you're losing control and power. That's okay -- we all want control and power. But that's not where you're going to get peace and happiness from. You will never, ever, ever have enough "winning" or success or money to calm that beast down -- if you keep feeding it, and not facing your fears of losing, it'll stay strong and you'll be stuck in it longer. You want to get into balance, and get some real happiness and peace -- that comes from presence in the moment, serving others, having strong friendships and relationships, getting out into the natural world, and having a few big goals in life that you're working towards. Gaming, and winning at games, can definitely be one of your big goals -- but it can't be everything. It can't subsume you, and it can't eat up the rest of life.

You're probably also afraid of sitting still -- when you sit still you have to deal with the concerns and anxieties that are percolating around in your head. Gaming, or anything else like it that eats up your mental energy, soothes you because it keeps you from dealing with all the things we need to deal with in life. But if you never sit still and deal with them, they stick around and sometimes get stronger, making you throw yourself even more into whatever you're using as a distraction (here, gaming). It's like a Chinese finger-trap -- the answer is counterintuitive. Try listening to a Tara Brach podcast, she's a clinical psychologist and meditator. Her podcasts are free, start with anything with "RAIN" in the title.

Basically, I think you just need to slow down and enjoy your life and accept that it's okay to "lose" sometimes. Trying to win all the time is a perfectionist trap and a distraction. Deal with what's going on underneath and it'll get easier, and then maybe get another hobby so your interests are stretched into a couple different places. A sport or something that takes you outside would be a great counterbalance (skating? running? Biking?).

Cheers, bud. You're going to be just fine! Good luck!

part 2 How I achieved my streak


The only way I was able to beat my masturbation addiction was to replace the bad habit with good ones. I devoured information, clips, books, articles anything someone recommended I checked out to see if it could help me. I developed exercise habits, I now jog regularly. I cleaned up my diet. I quit coca cola, I change to the Paleo diet, cutting out Gluten, and eating many more healthy fats. I started supplementing my diet and Ive turned my life around. Each success fuelled another success. Not masturbating, lead to Exercising. Running meant I eat heathily. A clean diet, free of brain fog meant I picked up a book. Reading lead to mindfulness. Being aware of my self image and my thoughts, lead to an increased confidence and lessened anxiety. This fuelled my desire not to partake in MO. The cycle continues. Each new habit compounded the others until I was a completely different person in such a short space of time.


I’m going to list a few of the key resources I used.


Some of you I’m sure will like reading, some prefer visual stuff so here are some of the things I use.


Jim Rohn-Best life Ever- (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwXxhgCbVLk)


Browsing one of the other subs someone mentioned this seminar as one of the most influential things they’d come across. As soon as I started watching it I knew I had to not only watch it but make notes. I now have it downloaded from torrents and as an mp3 on my phone. Please please don’t be put off by its length. Everytime I watch it I gain something new. This nofap journey is not something that you will conquer overnight, and if you cant watch the above lecture in a few sittings I promise you wont be able to abstain from wanking for 30 days let alone 90/200 plus. I cant cliff the lecture but I used it now, as jim states in the talk to alter my personal philosophy to my betterment. If I had watched this as a 21 year old I have no doubt that my life would be extremely different than is today.


A further inspirational Jim Rohn Speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFEqiDRwXcM)


If your still with me please now watch this clip. Internalise it and make it your mantra. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p13UFYTQG8)


When I was a kid, Will smith was the fresh prince and an absolute joker, but in my 20 years from adolescence to adulthood, he became arguably the biggest star in Hollywood. Although you may not respect him as a philosopher and he can come across somewhat corny, ignore your instinctual pessimism and listen to the message he says. Again I wish I’d heard this in my late teens.


Running


I started my No fap Journey weighing 230lbs or 105kg. I’m now down to 187lbs or 85kg. I was drastically unfit. How did I do this. I began running. Started off slowly, followed a program and was consistent. Running to me has always been something I thought I naturally couldn’t do. The program I followed was the Couch to 5k one. The beauty of this is that it everything is prescribed. You literally cannot fail if you follow each session. Every time you complete a week not only will your fitness increase to be able to take on the next week of the course, so too does your confidence in your running ability. I have to tell you the satisfaction I felt after completing the final week, was something I hadn’t experienced in over a decade. I liked that feeling so much it spurred me to help with other challenges. Since completed C25km, Ive also done my first 10km race. I now run 5km 4-5 times a week and honestly I love it.


Reading


One of the takeaways from the best life ever Jim Rohn, was his stance on reading. In it he asks the question “ how many books have you read in the last 90 days?” well for me it was the same answer as the last decade. ZERO. This revelation startled me. I knew this had to change. So in keeping with the other improvements I was making I decided to research the best books on personal development. Here are a couple that I would absolutely recommend that I have finished in the last 250 days. – Ive linked the wikis I would recommend each of the books to help with your own personal development
Psycho cybernetics
The Slight Edge
Happiness Advantage
Power of Now
Models
Learned Optimism
Furthermore I have compiled a massive library of books that I am planning to read. Again having not Engaged my brain in this pursuit for the past decade this has been a real struggle for me. However turning up and being consistent, making time for this instead of watching Netflix is an investment in myself and I cant emphasis how crucial to my success this has been.

I struggle immensely with self-hate. Mine came from past abuse, severe mental illnesses, and not getting proper care or addressing my trauma for many years until I was eventually hospitalized. The biggest thing I've done to work towards releasing the self-hate and moving towards self-love is the concept of self-compassion. Like, you probably wouldn't say the things you say to yourself ("You're not good enough" "Why did you fail at that task?" "What's wrong with you? Why aren't you more successful?") to a friend, a child, or even your younger self, right? We're incredibly unabashedly mean to ourselves. I think ISTJ's are prone to thinking this way, but really I think most people struggle with this to some degree. American culture is all about fend for yourself and your success are only measured by what others can see (how much money you make, your job, your education, etc). We don't live in a culture that fosters self-compassion or self-acceptance, so we have to work on it ourselves. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or ACT has been immensely helpful to me, as well as working with therapists who use ACT. One of the primary features of this therapy is self-acceptance and self-compassion. Give yourself a break! Sometimes life is really hard and we just expect ourselves to be able to handle it, and when we can't or don't, the self-hate creeps in and we begin to wonder what's wrong with us and then no compliment or achievement can make us happy or feel worthwhile. It has to come from within. Start today by simply talking to yourself as a friend or as a child. Instead of saying "This project I completed isn't good enough" and falling into a self-hate and shame spiral, say "This project isn't where I'd like it to be, but I'm really tired and it's the best I could do for now." Just re-framing those thoughts into more self-compassionate ones helps a lot. Talk to yourself kindly, even if you don't think you deserve it. The best advice I can give if this practice is intolerable is to fake it until you make it. Fake that you feel okay, fake that you can accept less than perfection. It sucks, but overtime the less you engage in the self-hate thoughts and move towards self-compassion thoughts, the easier it'll be to really be self-compassionate and to end the cycle of self-hate.

I also ride the ISTJ/INTJ line and am very pessimistic and very hard on myself. It's been a major struggle in my life, and unfortunately I've had to seek professional and even hospital level help on many occasions in order to... uh... at a very basic level stay alive. When self-hate is so deeply embedded into your mind, it's easy to go to a place where you consider that your life may not be worth it. Not insinuating that you or anyone else here could be like that, but it's where the years of self-hate landed me. Learning about self-compassion and that IT'S OKAY to be be nice to yourself, to treat yourself kindly, to be gentle with yourself has changed so much in my life and led me to a place of great stability and health. Consider purchasing or borrowing the book I linked above, it's my go-to resource for ACT and is accessible even if you never see a therapist. On that note, I'd recommend you see a therapist, especially one who is trained in ACT. I believe every single human, even without a mental health diagnosis, could benefit from therapy at any point in their life. As an ISTJ I find therapy to be a really excellent tool to helping me understand myself and gain better self-awareness.

Best of luck to you and I hope you're able to find peace and self-acceptance somewhere in your life. It truly is possible, speaking as someone who almost died to her deep self-hatred on several occasions, but who has come out on the other side victorious and practicing self-compassion daily.

> You might be thinking: then what happened before I started doing my homework? I didn’t develop IPT2048 and played other incremental games instead. After I published IPT2048 v2.1, for the entire week I was playing The Perfect Tower, NGUIdle, Almost a Hero, Scrap Clicker 2, etc.

Yo. Punishing yourself mentally for having anxiety about your cool little project you care deeply about isn't going to help you progress with anything.

My guess is: you're overwhelmed with the expectations you've set for yourself, and it seems extremely difficult to conquer your targets to the level of perfection that you can't possibly not achieve. You're anxious that you're not going to get it done perfectly, so instead of lowering your standards, you keep yourself from doing it at all, because then, you can't fail at all.

Problem is, you can't succeed that way, either. You're young. It will do you well to learn so early on that the reason you're anxious is because you want everything to work out to the utmost of expectations, because you care deeply about it. I think you know that it's a good thing that you care, but in your head, the tape keeps playing over and over of how some things can go wrong, and since it's louder than your desire to make it work, you stop yourself from working.

I've read an article in Scientific American about how one researcher considers addiction a learning disability. She was clever and learned things at a faster rate than most (I think this is your situation, as well). But then, when things started to get overwhelming — like after she got to the university or something — she started to find solace in drugs, because they helped her relax and not worry about things too much. At some point, she said, she was so attached to doing light drugs — like marijuana — that she'd forgotten to do the actual work of studying. She put it aside because it bothered her too much, and enjoyed drugs because they gave her the opposite.

Her thinking was: she got into drugs because she was clever. She learned all things quickly; she'd also learned quickly that drugs help overcome her fears — and it didn't matter at the time that she pushed the important work — the kind of work that made her a better person and a more capable specialist — aside.

I don't know whether it's true, but I certainly notice similar threads in my life. I learn well. I get things quickly that others struggle with. I excel. I also enjoy a lot of procrastinating and putting things off because they seem too difficult or are too scary to undertake.

As I got older, I came to realize how baseless those fears really are. It's not that the work is scary: it's that I think it would hurt me to do it, when there's no real reason for me to think that way. I give the negatives much more weight than I do the positives. The fear of failure, therefore, starts to rule my decision-making — and the only place I can possibly end up in when it's at the helm is in a rut, on the sidewalk of life, hoping that someone would come pick me up and help me get where I want to go.

Now, imagine this. There are two people in your life. You know both a little bit; you've spent some time chatting, so you kind of know where they're coming from when they say what they say. One day, one of them starts telling you about this cool new project they have the idea for. They describe it in great detail: all the cool features, all the awesome user interactions, all the potential — and then go on listing the reasons why they can't take it up. "It's too big!". "I can't make it all by myself!". "People would probably not like it".

The other person tells you about their current pet project too. It's not ambitious: just a little app that helps people in a small area. Maybe it's a shopping list app. Maybe it reminds users to take their medication. Maybe it sends autoreplies to certain SMS and emails. The person has some codebase ready, they've read the app store license agreements (for which they have some questions they mean to ask people who know something about it), they ask you if you'd like to test it once it's ready, to work out the kinks in design before official release.

Of those two people, whom would you rather help when they ask? The one that does nothing for themselves and always looks for the reason not to do what they think would be "really cool", or the one who gets things done and keeps things on the level where they understand it?

You might be tempted to start arguing the first person's case. Don't. You know what I mean, and you know I'm right.

You seem to be doing pretty good so far. People have spoken to the quality of your work — and to the nature of those who make "cool idea" posts. You actually accomplish things, and people respect that. So should you.

Take a step back. Leave the project to rest for a while. Take a deep breath, get what things you need to have done first so that nothing bothers you, and when you're ready, come back and see what you can do. There's no hurry, there's no rush, there's no expectations or a timeline. It's your project: you can, quite literally, do whatever you want with it. Continue it, scrap it, rework it, stop it — it's in your hands, as is the goals you set for yourself.

In the meantime, I'd recommend reading something on anxiety and productivity. I have no links for you, since everything I read is piecemeal: a little insight here, a little advice there, an overview from an unrelated book and a personal story from a videogame. That said, I would recommend Raptitude — a blog about mindful living and finding peace in a troubling world. David writes on a variety of issues, and you might just find something that speaks to you.

I would also have liked to recommend A Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck by Mark Manson to you, but I think you're not on the level to get as much benefit from it as I did. I started soulsearching when I was about your age, and it took me until now to come to understand life and living enough to be able to apply Mark's advice. Feel free to read it if you're curious, but I wouldn't expect much of it if I were you. It might not make much sense right now.

Take your time. Breathe. Focus on things you can do. Set the bar low and overperform.

Hey MisterEff, you're not the only one. I totally know what you're talking about. The swing from optimism & motivation in the evening to inaction in the morning, the anxiety, the putting off phone calls, the weird reflex-like turning away from the task in front of you. I've been struggling with it for years and years, too. Sometimes I do better, sometimes worse.

You've seen a few therapists, and you told them far more background than you've told us, and they're professionals, so I hesitate a bit to jump in here and give advice. But you're here asking, and what the heck, I've got ideas from things I've tried, so here goes.

First of all, you say that you do well and you get good reviews. I suspect you don't give this a lot of weight and you don't really believe it because you're judging yourself for not living up to your own expectations. I think that's deadly to your motivation. YOU DO WELL AND YOU GET GOOD REVIEWS, and that at a job that's important and helps other people. You need to let this soak in and let it boost your self-confidence. YOU DO GOOD WORK AND OTHER PEOPLE APPRECIATE YOU. Let it sink in. Engage with it. Regularly, until you start to believe it.

Anxiety: I've gone through periods of high anxiety, to the point that my whole body seemed to be vibrating with it. I've done meditation, tried hypnosis and guided relaxation, and tried an anti-anxiety med for a while. In the end, here's what I think: my anxiety is mostly produced by my thoughts. I think about what I need to do, and how I'm failing to do it, and how I should have done stuff differently, and other doom thinking about stuff that's wrong. The thoughts produce the anxiety. Really engaging with cognitive behavior therapy helped immensely. It got to where I could notice it happen: notice I was feeling more anxious, notice what I'd been thinking about, and sure enough, I'd been driving it up through thinking. It took a while, but I've managed to get rid of that cycle and my anxiety is down 90%.

Aside from reading about CBT, meditation has been a big help in getting better at catching what's going on in my head and how it affects how I feel. I do mindfulness meditation. Started it through a local Insight Meditation center.

My current "thing" is to try to understand that habit of looking at a task to be done and turning away from it, seemingly by reflex without really thinking about it. Something goes "uhm, nope" inside me and reaches for something else to do... reading the news, going to Reddit, etc., you know how it is. I'm trying to catch that moment and not move to the procrastination behavior, but just hang out in it and see what's really going on. I think mindfulness meditation provides the skill and awareness to catch the moment, but also to observe what's going on. Outcome TBD. :)

I get a lot out of social context. If I have stuff to do that no one else directly care about, it's often hard to get going. On the other hand, if I have a meeting, agree on a plan of action, and have a meeting planned to discuss progress, then I'm often very effective. Social contact helps me, consensus helps me (no self-doubt on how to proceed), and having to meet expectations helps me. Is this true for you? Can you use it to help yourself? The simplest for of this for me is "buddy sessions", i.e. sitting down with someone else in one room with the agreement that neither of you will procrastinate while you're there.

A few more things I recommend reading/looking at:

• watch this TED talk on Power Poses. It's a short-term tool, but it may help you get over the hump to make those phone calls or do other tasks that make you anxious.
  
  
• Read The Willpower Instinct to learn more about how willpower/discipline works and where its pitfalls are.
  
  
• I think building new habits in very hard for us with the motivation challenge we have, but I'd recommend reading a bunch about habit-forming, using X charts (/r/theXeffect/), the Lift app, etc. You said you tried pomodoros and they worked a bit but didn't stick. Combining pomorodos with these techniques that work across days and weeks should help.
  
  Remember that there is a payoff from procrastination. Turning away from something that makes you anxious gives you immediate relief, and that's really powerful. Recognize that this is a challenge and that it's understandable that you're struggling to overcome it. It's going to take some engagement, balancing, insight, and motivation to overcome it.
  
  Remember, MisterEff, YOU DO GOOD WORK AND OTHER PEOPLE APPRECIATE YOU.
  

Be prepared: long read ahead.

The exercises I do are based on the premise that thoughts affect emotions which in turn can affect our actions. This is the basis of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and a lot of other therapies that grew out of, or were developed after, CBT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy comes to mind). So if thoughts are the “root” it’s probably a good place to start.

Start writing down the thoughts you have, particularly the negative ones that trouble you. "I'm stupid", "I'm worthless", "No one cares about me" etc… Sometimes it helps to start with an event that troubles you and work backwards from there. An example:

• What was the troubling event? (e.g. my boss yelled at me)
  
• Why is that bad? (e.g. It probably means my work isn't good enough).
  
• And what's bad about that? (e.g. It means I'm not good at my job).
  
• And what does that say about you? (e.g. I'm worthless)
  
  Keep drilling down until you feel what I call a punch in the gut, an internal feeling or sensation that says "yep, this thought feels very real to me". 90% of the time the root thought is something about yourself and can be verbalized in the form of "I AM ___"
  
  Now start challenging each thought in turn. Is this really true? How do I know for sure? Is there some objective measure or have I used a subjective measure? Who said this is true and are they an expert? Is there any evidence that supports this thought? Am I over-looking other evidence that could lead to other conclusions? What other conclusions can I draw? Is this thought true everywhere and all the time?
  
  Look for cognitive distortions in your thoughts. Here’s a helpful PDF with some cognitive distortions.
  
  Here are some free worksheets that describe the process better (which they call ABCD Analysis):
  
  
• Thinking and Feeling
  
• Analysing your Thinking
  
• Changing your Thinking
  
  Here’s a link to a comment I made a while back where I give more links to CBT material. If you're interested.
  
  If you’re happy with the results, you can stop here. However just to add on, I’ve been doing some Mindfulness Meditation & Exercises lately and have also been reading up on Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). For those interested in a practical introduction to ACT for the layman check out The Happiness Trap
  
  Anyway, I have personally found it helpful to bring Mindfulness & Acceptance into the ABCD Analysis. When doing the ABCD Analysis there is a strong human tendency to make certain thoughts & emotions "bad" while holding other thoughts & emotions as "good". The problem with using such polar opposite labels is that the natural human tendency is to run away from the "bad" thoughts and chase after the "good" ones. And we do all sorts of things to run from the bad and chase the good: get angry or frustrated when we have a "bad" thought, repeat positive affirmations ad-infinitum, pump ourselves up with motivation, "plow through" with positive thinking etc...
  
  I'm not saying any of this is wrong or ineffective, I'm just speaking from my personal experience: running from the "bad" and chasing the "good" is tiring!
  
  With Mindfulness & Acceptance, I'm seeing that my thoughts have no inherent power or meaning. A thought like "I am a failure" is a bunch of letters on the screen. Or a disembodied voice in my head. Or an image in my imagination. It is the same with any and all thoughts. They have no inherent meaning or power other than what I give them. This also means that I cannot label some as "bad" and others as "good"; only if thoughts had meaning can I do that.
  
  (On a sidenote, The Happiness Trap has some very good exercises to help separate the thought from the meaning we’ve given the thought)
  
  When I'm running from "bad" thoughts and chasing "good" thoughts, I'm doing so because of the inherent meaning I've given them: "bad" thoughts are "bad" while "good" thoughts are "good". Can you see that the meaning I myself gave these thoughts is what's really running my life? (no pun intended)
  
  If all thoughts are empty of power and empty of meaning, they are in a sense "equal". And there is a temptation to say "since they're all equal, it doesn't matter what thoughts I have so I'm going to choose the ones I like". In my opinion, this is still giving meaning to the thoughts because I will likely choose the thoughts I've labeled "good".
  
  So now what? Here is where I pull out my list of life projects that are meaningful to me. If you’ve never spent time thinking about what would make your life worth living I encourage you to start. And write stuff down. Call it your Life Project list, Dream List, Bucket List.... whatever. This is your personal list of goals, milestones, achievements and projects that will leave you fulfilled.
  
  Pick one of your projects, any one of them. Then ask "who do I need to be in order to progress towards this goal by the end of the day?" Then take action and write reminders for yourself if you need it.
  
  As an example, I did the ABCD Analysis this morning and here are the major thoughts:
  
  
• I am an embarrassment
  
  
• I am disgusting
  
  
• I am hated
  
  
• I am prey
  
  The ABCD analysis alone would've been sufficient but applying Mindfulness & Acceptance I chose that I wanted to experience Joy by the end of the day. A life without joy doesn’t sound like much fun to me :)
  
  I build websites for a living and work from home. So I wrote the following on a Post-It and stuck it to my screen where I'm likely to see it:
  
  "What is 1 thing I can be joyful about in ____?"
  
  The blank is for whatever activity I was doing when I saw the Post-It. So it could read:
  
  
• What is 1 thing I can be joyful about in building this website?
  
  
• What is 1 thing I can be joyful about in writing this documentation?
  
  
• What is 1 thing I can be joyful about in typing this Reddit post?
  
  So does all this help? Well, I’m pretty happy this evening. Is this all just a self-fulfilling prophecy or priming? Maybe, I don't really know. But living my life fulfilled is important to me that as long as I'm doing it in accordance with my value, and I'm not hurting anyone in the process, then I think it's a pretty sweet deal.

Hi, 31M, fighting depression, acute social anxiety disorder and suicidal tendencies. I am doing good now. Had a scare a few months ago when a close family member fell really ill, and I really started to put in the effort to turn my life around. It is a work in progress, but I am doing well. My advice:

1. Realize, first and foremost, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you, everything is okay. If you are an Introvert, that is perfectly fine, in fact that is a cause for celebration. You see the world runs on profit, on selling you shit you don't need and is actually harmful to you, and you being introvert is bad for business. Being calm, self-aware, introspective means no more impulse purchases, no more stress-eating, no more constant sugar rush, and most importantly no more addictions. Good for you, horrible for selling you supersaturated soda, processed junk food and drugs.
   
   
2. Realize that being shy and socially awkward is not the same as introversion. These often rise from our deep rooted emotions and conflicts, sometimes we are not aware of them. I'll give a simple example, I have lower back pain since childhood. I recently started exercising and found a fantastic fitness channel on YT. I realized that the cause of my pain was that my Glutes are terribly weak, and my Abs are weak too. My back hurts not because there's something wrong with it, but because it is overworked. My back has to put in 3 times the effort just to stabilize my core and help move my spine. Similarly, The real cause of all your emotional distress can be found, and healed, only when you start to exercise. Which means:
   
   
3. Meditate. Common sense, buddy, just as nobody but yourself can gift you with a healthy and athletic body, only you can find joy and happiness in yourself once you clean out all that fear and anxiety in your mind. Of course, a good teacher or a good book helps, just as with exercise. Simple breathing meditation. Sit comfortably. Take a deep breath. Exhale. Focus on the flow of breath. The mind will wander. Gently bring it back. Try it, start with what I did: try to perform just 3 perfect cycles. If you want to understand the scientific basis for why Meditation works, read: The Mind Illuminated | John Yates, Matthew Immergut, Jeremy Graves
   
   Some more reading: If you want to know how meditation helps the mind, read the best book on cognitive therapy:Feeling Good | David Burns.
   
   For instructions on breathing and mindfulness meditation, there are many great resources online. Also check out /r/Meditation.
   
   
4. The one thing, the one attribute that defines us and helps us most in time of need is Willpower. There is this reservoir of strength inside you, an untapped fountain of energy that will sweep away all the uncertainty, fear and pain once you tap into it. Read this: The Will power Instinct | Kelly McGonigal.
   
   
5. Develop some good habits. Wake up early. Keep tidy. Meditate. Exercise. Eat healthy. Read. Habits play a crucial role in forming us, and many of these habits are critical to our success or failure. Read this: The Power of Habit | Charles Duhigg.
   
   
6. Finally, find a goal in your life. A goal that fulfills you, gives you purpose, and makes you whole. We have a word in Sanskrit: 'Samriddhi'. It means physical, mental and spiritual fulfillment. An observation: your financial well-being is a key factor in your happiness, because it directly affects you and your ability to care for and help others. Understanding how money works and how to enjoy a steady and growing flow of income is a key skill that is often neglected. Yes it is a skill that can be learned and trained just like exercise, with just a bit of help from our old friend willpower.
   
   
7. Lastly remember you are not weak, fragile, pushover or any of these silly things. You are good. You are beautiful, strong and confident, and don't you dare think otherwise.
   
   I leave you with this song: Get up! Be good. PM me if you need anything.

Optimists may seem unrealistic to someone in the pits of depression, but there have been studies that have showed that optimists are far more successful and effective.

You can choose how to see things. When I react to something, my mind goes right to the negative. Let's say my boss criticizes me. My mind goes right to: I'm going to lose my job... I'm going to be homeless... I never get anything right... etc. This is assuming a lot of things that might not be anywhere near the reality of a situation.

An optimist might choose to see the criticism as a good thing - a chance to grow and learn - and not extrapolate to predicting doom. This is a far more productive course.

You can do "all the right things" on paper, but that is no guarantee of happiness for many reasons.

• What makes you happy might not be what makes everyone else happy.
  
• You may need exercise to be happier, but perhaps you aren't doing exercise that you enjoy. If you are doing exercise that you even loathe, it certainly wouldn't help.
  
• If you have a social life that isn't satisfying to you, it also won't help.
  
• The nature of depression can also mess with your enjoyment of things. You may no longer enjoy the things you used to love.
  
  There are lots of good books out there about this kind of thing. You can go to Amazon and look up books on happiness.
  
  I liked ["The Happiness Hypothesis"]. (http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Hypothesis-Finding-Modern-Ancient/dp/0465028020/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1317856948&sr=8-5). My husband liked ["Stumbling on Happiness."] (http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/1400077427/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1317856948&sr=8-7) I am currently reading "The Happiness Project" and loving it... a friend recommended it.
  
  All that said, the most effective way to treat depression is meds combined with therapy. Even with all the best books in the world, a wounded mind might not be able to do anything helpful with the information.

"Just stop giving a fuck" is something that gets parroted around here quite a bit. It's not bad advice, but it's a bit like telling someone who aspires to be a guitarist to just start learning guitar. It's not wrong, but it's not very useful advice on it's own.

In the context of seduction, not giving a fuck really boils down to not caring about the outcome of a given interaction, or overcoming the fear of rejection. If you think about it, if you didn't fear rejection, picking up women would be a walk in the park.

So yeah, it sounds great, but it's not something you can just decide to start doing on a whim. The fear of rejection is pretty deeply rooted in a lot of guy's minds, and the usual way to get over it is by doing. Going out there, hitting on women, getting rejected, and going through a lot of pain and discomfort.

Another option is to adopt a philosophy at a core level. That is, adopting the core belief that shit like picking up women is insignificant compared to some other big belief you have, be it spiritual or otherwise. For example, believing that your existence is a result of endless random things going perfectly right, and the very fact that you're alive is a god damn fucking miracle. You live your life in fucking AWE, thankful for every moment that you're able to breathe air and live a life. If you adopt this at a core, fundamental level in your mind, you open yourself up to endless joy, bliss, happiness, and you better believe that being rejected by a woman won't faze you in the slightest.

Obviously it takes time to get to that point, but that's essentially the philosophy of Stoicism for you. There are exercises (much like meditation, which in it's own right is extremely useful for not giving a fuck) that will help bring you to that point. If you're interested in the stoic philosophy, I would be happy to recommend some great books. This is seriously life-changing stuff, but it's not something that happens overnight.

Edit: Here are a couple great books to get started with:

• Stoicism And The Art of Happiness
  
  
• A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
  
  I recommend reading those in order (Art of happiness first). It is a fantastic introduction and high-level overview of stoicism and introduces you to some exercises to start adopting the philosophy. A guide to the good life is also a beautiful book, but gives you a lot more history on stoicism, which isn't necessarily required, but it's extremely interesting and gives you a lot more context to the subject material.

Ya know, you can have what he has without the woo.

1. Start a meditative practice. There's nothing mystical about the benefits of meditation.
   
   
2. Try to approach everything you can on as best faith terms as possible. Optimism and pessimism are actually learnable traits. Pessimists are more realistic (there' research to demonstrate that, but I don't care enough to find the link at the moment) but optimists are happier and do better. Honestly? Be an optimist.
   
   
3. Develop a pace by which you do everything. A rhythm. Concentrate on trying to keep that steady pace in everything you do, from getting up to brushing your teeth to going to work to dealing with the kids. It makes it easier to get into a flow of life.
   
   
4. Establish your flow. Learn to get into that relaxed state of mind where working on something feels like a pleasure.
   
   
5. One of the best exercises we can ever do: write down on the left side of a piece of paper (with several lines of space between each one): work, friends, romantic relationship, hobbies, career, community service. On the right side next to each, name some goals. Now take all of those goals and ask yourself, "what positive qualities would I need to achieve these goals? Patience? Courage? Sacrifice? Compassion?
   
   Now take those qualities you've focused on, and find 2-3 ways of applying them in your life every day. Bonus: keep a journal. Right it down. Over time, you train yourself to become the person you want to be.
   
   You can do what your friend did without sacrificing your intellectual integrity.

i am not going to give you a diagnosis because i am in no way qualified to tell you what is up.

but if you feel unconfident, then i guess you should work on that. maybe the problem is your worthiness, it sounds cheesy as shit, but if you believe you aren't worthy to be around women, well you will act as if you are not, and women will see that, and boom! fucking self fulfilling prophecy.


anyway, what worked for me, to gain more self esteem and confidence is a book called the road less traveled i can't recommend this book enough!

it truly is a wonderful book, i felt like it was talking to me when i read it, i felt relief to be honest, i felt like shit for not realizing it early that, shit takes time to accomplish, but bit by bit you will have to work at it you'lll get there.


there is a segment in the book which is really empowering, that talks about ownership of problems,

now this may sound fucking obvious to some people, like "duh if you want to solve a problem you have, nobody is going to do it for you, its your problem!" its so logical right?

but when you don't feel worthy of having that weight in your shourlders, that you have power to change what you are, where you are, and where you want to be, that is PERSONAL POWER man!

the book makes you see that.

hey you were poorly diciplined as a child? well its ok, understand your parents they fuck up too, but it shouldn't burden your whole existance.



thing is that BY Taking responsibility for your problems you are doing two important things in self esteem.

1-stop seeking validation from others- aka if you have a goal and are solving it well people are always going to discourage you, you try to lose weight? well guess what some people will see that change and will try to get you back at being a fat person. but you taking charge of your situation is what counts!


2- investment of time in you- if you have a problem and take time to do shit, say read a book, or like in this case asking help on the webs, well you are taking charge towards driving yourself to be better. congrats, investment in self is important, because you wouldn't invest in something that isn't valuable, when you hold your opinion of yourself to be in a higher regard, WITHOUT BEING DELUDED!, its so empowering, because inside you know you are cool, you are special, you know you can have fun and enjoy people's company, even if you don't have the "record" to show it. but who ever does at the begining!?

this is important in regard to rejection, because say you approached that cute girl you find attractive, but say she flips out, (unlikely to happen unless you are RUDE!) but say she flips out and calls you a fatfuck, unatractive and a wimp.

well with this new concept, of self investment, you can quickly dimiss toxicity, you know that even if what she said was true, say you are in real life a fat person, there is no real reson to be a dick, plus, its only her opinion, an opinion of a stranger, but now since you are no longer validated by strangers, you are independent of both positive and negative critisism (obviouly you want constructive critizism but not shallow critism)

what i am trying to say is you will have more self esteem if you were validated on your standards over people's standards, because if you wait on peole well because simple you are the one that knows what you've been trhough over a stranger who only judges a segment of your life! see what im saying?

i really love the segment on problem ownership, you own your problems, no one will tell you or even help you, but as long as you have that responsibility and accountability of problems you are empowered to change.

haveing that drive to not feel like a victim and blame other people for your shortcommings is so great! it feels good bing in control over feeling powerless and dependent on other people.

maybe i am not explaining it correctly which is why i recommend you read this book so you get the 1st hand experience and take out what applies to you and what not applies to you.



i really love this book and if people want to be more confident, this book has very good bits that will help you, maybe even after reading the book you'd probably feel better. just one thing i recommend is that you recommend this book to other people if they need help just like i've "helped" you by maybe reading that book.

its all really up to you if you want to order that book, and invest time in yourself by reading it.

Just a few things that come to mind:

Self-Awareness> There are a lot of ways to work on this and most of them are worth trying. An effective goal might be to find some things that work for awhile, and prepare yourself to seek out other options when those don’t offer the same effectiveness. I’m pretty sure that when we dedicate the time to it, we provide ourselves with information that empowers us to make the decisions that bring about our idea of success.

Expectations> Most of us don’t want to fail. A lot of us feel like if we don’t meet the expectations that we’ve set for ourselves then we’re failures. This often causes some of us to avoid things that we feel we won’t “succeed” at. Hey, I’m not saying we shouldn’t set high goals for ourselves... but when we don't meet our expectations, maybe we could slowly get better at treating ourselves with the kind of love and encouragement that we would extend to our most loved of loved ones when they "fail."

Exercise> God damn it I hate exercise. I wore a button in fifth grade that said: I’m too out of shape to exercise. I’m thirty-nine now and I’ve still never had a consistent workout regimen. For a lot of us, this shit is probably harder than everything else we’ll consider in this thread. But there’s plenty of evidence to show that when the rest of our body is functioning at a more optimal level that we have more tools to work with, and that our tools are more effective. I hate exercise.

Group Discussion> Last year I attended an intensive outpatient group therapy program. This was my first experience with group therapy and I freaking love that shit. I learned that the gems to mine from this experience have very little to do with whoever is leading the group or which organization is providing the facility... as long as you feel like everyone is given the opportunity to share without reproach. Empathy is what it’s all about. The more courageous you are about sharing your struggles, the more empowered your fellow group members will be to do the same. When empathy is flowing freely most people are able to recognize some of their own cognitive distortions, AND help others find their own. Not every group is going to function well, but I think it’s well worth the effort to find on that does. You might start with looking into a DBSA group near you. My advice would be to look for one with 10-15 attendees. If you've got insurance that will cover it, you might check into an Intensive Outpatient Group Therapy program offered by a local hospital.

Books> These are just a few that have offered me some help—and a few that I just acquired but haven’t read yet.

Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy



Also, this is me patting you on the back lovingly and then turning it into a hug:



Did you feel it?



Disclaimer: I’m currently doing pretty poorly at all of these things.

Tldr: stop comparing, create your own path and be your actualized self.

you need stop comparing. True humanity is being humane. Nothing more. All those things you just listed are things people do to get some satisfaction and in the process we have made them ideals and therefore unreachable standards. Just think about how much ads we see a day, how we are trying to impress the others to look above average. The classical ideals of fame and fortune are utopian.

The thing to realize is that 90% of all humans are average in every aspect, 5 % exceeds expectations and meets the actual standards, the other 5 % is below average and don't have that great odds to get a more humane live. I am talking about genetics here, not about external factors like culture and location. This is evolution.

Where others don't have adhd, the chances are pretty high that they lack in other areas, think handicaps or other health issues or anything that one can hinder in being his true self.

I believe we need be proud to be average this makes us humble and thankfull for that wich we do have. Even the smallest things like seeing or thinking.
It can be hard to strive to those standards we are always trying to reach, for if not those ideals what else has meaning in life?

A tree. A tree is a tree, and nothing more. A bird is a bird nothing more. A amoeba is a amoeba. That's how nature works. Humankind is the only species among with a few other primates that strives to change its self into something else, something more. Why? Why should we do that? No one ever got happy from it and only suffered and made others suffer. That's what's most sports and war is all about.

So I say let us practice the 'modern' stoic way. Don't say I am in it to win it. But internalize your goals. Make it. I am Going to try to do my best. And what is your best? That's being the truest form of your self. See the difference? When you are in it to win it your serenity depends on something you don't control. It's better to put it somewhere you do have control over, like your expectations. Your own personal standards.

Humanity is being human. And you are you. So stand in it. Practice your actual self. With your abilities and disabilities. As is. Accept that. Do not compare it against society. Think of it like you are the only one on earth. How would you feel about your actual self if this was the case?

This is not something I figured out my self but the ancient Greeks and Roman's already lived this way thousands of years under the movement of stoicism.

I mainly got these techniques and thoughts out of this book wich I really recommend, it's a bit though but if are interested in the history is a good read else you can skip to part 2 or 3 of the book the guide to the good life - the ancient art of stoic joy by William Irvine

An other more modern take on certain aspects of stoicism is the subtle art of not Giving a fuck - an counterintuitive approach of living a good life

Note: self help books only help if you are open to them and want to read them, not if you are urged by an external peer to read them

especially for people with adhd these really help and give some solid techniques on how to handle life. It made me so much more confident in my self. From being a shy r/niceguys pushover to an independent man who knows how to love himself and not get upset by daily life. All the while being actually happy, content and innerly calm and serene.

The existentialism is real in the wake of losing your worldview. All the pep-talks in the world about "go live your life, the world is amazing!" meant nothing to me. I didn't know how to move forward. For some of us, the loss is huge and the existential dread (with its accompanying anxiety and depression) is absolutely consuming.

Ultimately, the study of philosophy and the nature of existence was the way out and the door to a meaningful post-Mormon life for me. I read and studied a bunch of stuff, but the below list was some of the most helpful. I ultimately chose to go with a personalized form of stoicism to fill the void left by Mormonism. Others prefer secular Buddhism, etc. If you still like Jesus as a moral guide (like I do in a lot of ways), this is a great short podcast about Jesus as a moral philosopher.

Anyway, I found the below very helpful in my transition:

• Philosphize This! podcast. Start with episode 1 and just listen all the way through. It's great and he even mentions Mormonism a few times.
  
  
• The Power of Now by Tolle.
  
  
• The Happiness Trap by Harris.
  
  
• Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl.
  
  
• Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning (A follow-on of above--focus on the later chapters in this book.)
  
  
• The Alchemist by Coelho.
  
  
• A New Earth by Tolle.
  
  
• A Confession by Tolstoy. Free download.
  
  
• What I Believe, also by Tolstoy and a follow-on to the above Tolstoy book. Free download at link if you look for it. Auido book here.
  
  If you're interested in stoic philosophy as a replacement for Mormonism:
  
  
• Start with this easy article for a nice overview. The rest of this blog can be helpful, too. For example, here's a great recent article.
  
  
• This book. It can be a bit long in places, but it's an easy read and gives an awesome overview.
  
  
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. The Audible version of this is really good, too, if you have a daily commute, etc.
  
   
  
  Finally, it gets better! Take it a day (or a month) at a time and keep searching and you'll eventually land in a good spot! Good luck, and stick with it!

Over the past several years I've personally gravitated toward a blend of stoicism and "secular Christianity." I know many others go the route of secular Buddhism (Noah Rasheta, who is also an exMo runs secularbuddhism.com which you might want to check out) and others (most?) simply go the route of ethical hedonism.

I personally gravitated toward stoicism because it isn't a religion and has no real religious underpinning. Instead, it's normally referred to as just a "philosophy of life." It has worked well for me as a backfill to religion. You'll also find that different people have different views of what it means to "practice" stoicism, so it's nice in that you can kind of adapt it to fit your personal preferences.

Here are some recommendations if you want to look into it:

• Start with this easy article for a nice overview. Then continue to read other articles on the How to be a Stoic blog. It's a great resource.
  
  
• I'd recommend this book as well. It can be a bit long in places, but it's an easy read and gives an awesome overview.
  
  
• Finally, you should also read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I have an audio version from Audible that's excellent and I enjoyed listening to it much more than reading it, but there are free copies all over the place to download and read in Kindle if you just Google it.
  
  Aside from stoicism, studying and learning about philosophy in general has been a huge cushion for me in dealing with the existential crisis that often follows losing belief in Mormonism. Google the Philosophize This! podcast and start at episode 1 if you're interested. It's great. I also really enjoy the Philosophy Bites podcast. Other than the above, the following were also very helpful to me in finding a approach to life without "God" and without religion:
  
  
• The Power of Now by Tolle.
  
  
• The Happiness Trap by Harris.
  
  
• Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl.
  
  
• Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning (A follow-on of above--focus on the later chapters in this book.)
  
  
• The Alchemist by Coelho.
  
  
• A New Earth by Tolle.
  
  
• A Confession by Tolstoy. Free download.
  
  
• What I Believe, also by Tolstoy and a follow-on to the above Tolstoy book. Free download at link if you look for it. Auido book here.
  
  All of the above combined with a few long years of figuring things out got me to a good place. But everyone's journey is different, so do what you think will work best for you...and good luck!
  
  
  

Brett,

Congrats. You've made an amazing first step in the right direction. Change is a road, and the only thing that matters is that you keep making progress toward your goal destination, no matter how small.

People in this thread have given you great advice on what changes to make, and I'm sure this has gotten you thinking about the idea of making choices. All of this will be helpful as you start identifying the ways you want to improve your lifestyle.

I'm a behavior designer: I design programs and services that help people change behavior, and what I'd like to offer is something slightly different. I think one of your biggest priorities should be how you think about change. Or rather, if choices and changes are the "what", what I want to talk to you about is the "how". Change is hard, and you're going to need an army of "how" on your side.

Willpower (aka, the ability to choose the "what" in the moment) is a fickle thing, it tends to dwindle as we move through our day, making it extremely easy to fall back into old habits. The good news is that there are ways we hack our tendency to self-sabotage. Here are some things you can do to tackle the "how", to make sure the changes you're trying to make ultimately stick and succeed.

1. SMALL > BIG : As you start to make changes to your lifestyle, you should be looking for things that are small enough that you can do them consistently. They should find a place in your daily routine where they can thrive. Unfortunately, our natural tendency as humans is to take on changes that are big and ultimately unsustainable. Let's use exercise as an example. When we're trying to change, we have a tendency to create an aggressive exercise program that matches our motivation at the moment (like trying to do a 2 hour gym routine). But we burn out: a two hour gym routine isn't sustainable when we're sick, tired, or just not feeling it. Truthfully, the changes that make the greatest impact are the small ones that happen consistently over time. The changes we can sustain, even on or worst days. Keeping with the exercise example, my recommendation is to do something simple, like going for a 30 minute walk, every day before breakfast. Designing and playing the long game is true discipline. Your daily behaviors are the glacier that create the grand canyon of your life! Take them seriously!
   
   
2. HOW > WHAT: After you identify changes you want to make, the next question you should ask yourself is "how am I going to make that happen". You want to drink less soda? Make a plan. Stock the shelves with tea and sparking water, carry a water bottle with you to resist temptation, etc... Plans help us by using foresight to make our goals EASIER to pursue in future situations.
   
   
3. REDESIGN YOUR HABITAT to REDESIGN YOUR LIFE: The things we have around us serve as visual triggers for certain behaviors. Having our work out on our desk reminds us we need to get it done, having our running shoes by the door reminds us to go for a walk, having a bowl of candy out triggers a sugar craving, etc... Think about adding more positive triggers and eliminating negative ones. One of your goals should be to have an environment that illustrates your best self, and helps you accomplish your goals.
   
   
4. SUCCESS REQUIRES SUPPORT: Weight watchers built a company around this idea. While you don't need to pay your way through a group weight loss program, you should be thinking about friends and family who can help you accomplish your goals. There are two parts to this: one is having someone who can keep you accountable, like doing a weekly weigh-in with a family member. This helps you stay committed on days when you're not feeling like doing the work. Second is having someone who shares a goal with you. If you can find a friend who's also interested in getting active and making healthier choices, it can be a powerful way to stay motivated and on track. No one should have to go it alone, and most people have health-goals they don't readily talk about. Keep your eyes peeled for people around you who can fill a "coach" and "teammate" role in your journey to change.
   
   
5. LEARN FROM YOUR BAD DAYS: Let's get real for a moment. You're going to have bad days. You may even have bad weeks. I bet you'll have a bad month. I sure have. The biggest gift we can offer ourselves is to learn from these mistakes, because they will happen. Spent a weekend in the basement playing video games eating junk food? Take it apart. How were you feeling? Were you tired? Depressed? Frustrated? Ask yourself hat triggered that behavior. Would there have been a more productive way to self-soothe as a response? Was there a point where someone or something could've intervened? Was there a less damaging version of that event that could've taken place (say eating healthy snacks but still being a basement vampire)? The best thing we can do when this happens is to forgive ourselves, and pay it forward: developing a plan to make our future selves more successful when that situation presents itself again.
   
   If you get into this idea, there's a ton of great resources out there to help you learn more about the "how. Try BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits, read "Willpower" and "The Power of Habit". Take a look at The Gospel of /u/Ryans01 - a reddit post on change that's better than what I read from most behavioral scientists out there.
   
   Finally, remember to stay positive, and know there's an army out here who's proud of you and ready to help in whatever way we can!

Hello 90-dayers!

I think this is a great initiative. I was previously at /r/BTFC, which I found extremely useful to get focused on goals. As there will be many changes for me in the next months (taking a leave of absence), good to have a place, community to track my progress and focus on my goals. This is my first 90 day challenge, so I'm somewhat lost on procedure, I'll wing it!

++++ Stats ++++

• M/35/183cm
  
• Current Weight: 88kg
  
• Highest Weight (2012): 93kg
  
• Lowest (recent) Weight: Either current, or need to go back in time to when I was 17, as I've been putting fat on progressively (thus my username of becoming_dr_slump).
  
• Current Body Fat: 25%
  
• Diet: Mediterranean, with too many sugary snacks.
  
• Exercise: YAYOG (Currently 1st class, week 4) + occasional biking + some running + occasional Kettlebell
  
  ++++ GOALS FOR FITNESS & DIET ++++
  
  Diet: Clean eating. Quit sugary snacks. I eat more or less cleanly, except for chocolates on sugars. By October 22, I am extremely proud that I've eaten sugar free on 80 of the 90 days.
  
  
  Fitness - Sprint 1: July 15 - August 13: I am feeling strong as I'm on Week 7 of Yayog 1st class. Also, I feel the burn from doing Enter The Kettlebell 3 days a week.
  
  Fitness - Sprint 2: August 19 - September 17: I am walking tall and confident as I've finished 1st class. To celebrate, I ran my own sprint triathlon on rest week.
  
  Fitness - Sprint 3: September 23 - October 22: I am strong and generous as I'm in the next 10-week program, week5. I can complete a Turkish Get Up with my 16kg Kettlebell. And do a pistol on either leg without it.
  
  I have no goals on dropping weight, as long as it remains around current level or lower. But I'll be tremendously pleased if body fat goes down to 20%.
  
  ++++ GOALS FOR SPIRITUAL CARE ++++
  
  In the last six months, I've become aware of a lot of crap heritage I carry on my shoulders from growing in a narcissistic family. I need to do a lot of cleanup as I choose to (1) have a good life, (2) stop the cycle of narcissism so I don't become narcissistic myself and (3) build an alternative mindset for me and my family. The narcissistic circle finishes with me.
  
  
• By Oct 22nd, every single week, I've taken time to review my goals, the blueprint for the life I want to build, plan action and adjusted my plan. And taken time to care for my mindset and goals.
  
  
• In sprint 1, I feel liberated and full of energy, as I complete all the exercises on The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT: Russ Harris, Steven Hayes:
  
  
• In sprint 2, I'm a generous and happier recovering nice guy, as I've completed all l the exercises on No More Mr Nice Guy: Robert A. Glover. Plus another difficult book.
  
  
• In sprint 3, I've read 4 more difficult books and done exercises. Books to be determined based on needs I determine in the next month.
  
  ++++ GOALS FOR PROVIDER ++++
  
  By Oct 22nd, I'm confident on my future as I've built a local network of work contacts of 50 people, and identified 10 new positions I'm going to apply to for my next position.
  
  ++++ OTHER ++++
  
  I need to clean up a lot of my psychological heritage, as it's negatively affecting my relationships and life in general.
  
  I start a leave of absence this summer, to recharge batteries and reconsider next career moves.
  
  I will travel to my country for one month with my kids (source of fun and stress), which will allow me to better understand where I come from and how is my family working.
  
  
  ++++ Let's Be Friends ++++
  
  I'm on Fitocracy. I invite you to friend/follow me/message me!
  
  Also, if anyone else on Europe time, support PMs & checks are an option. PM to discuss (never done this one before, seems like a good idea).
  
  Good luck, everyone! We can do this!

Granted it was written from a Christian/spiritual perspective, this book was very helpful to me and has great insights into how having boundaries in your life can protect/build your emotional wellness.

https://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-When-Take-Control-Your/dp/0310247454/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498238099&sr=8-1&keywords=boundaries

I still think that any person, regardless of their belief system, will be able to glean useful principles from what is written in it.

My thoughts and experiences

I discovered that I used to be overly compliant for fear of controlling unpleasant emotions in other people's lives (whether or not the emotion is directed at me or not). Although it appears charitable, being overly compliant is just as much a form of controlling people's emotions for things that they should be responsible for. A part of stopping the over-compliance is by being okay with seeing people suffer the consequences of their actions even though you are ideally able to alleviate their pain.

While having loose boundaries makes you effective at putting out short-term fires in other people's lives, what happens is that your emotional well-being smolders from being exposed to so many fires and you begin to get emotional "burns" over time. It is certain useful in the short-term, but damaging and unsustainable for an individual in the long-term.

As far as I know, this kind of behavior is difficult to troubleshoot for an INFP because their compliance is a natural emergent from the wonderful care an INFP can have for other human beings. It's basically learning to learn to turn off a part of you by realizing that standing up for yourself does not always spell the end of relationships, and it is necessary in the care of self. In fact, it works as a great filtering mechanism for keeping unwanted people out of your life because healthy people will still stick around and respect your differences and the manipulative people will leave when they realize they can't control you.

I think one of the most useful ways for an INFP to look at the conflicts that emerge from setting boundaries and limits on others is that conflict can be used as an opportunity for self-expression. It shows where one person ends and you begin, and an INFP should generally be excited for any opportunity for self-expression (lol!).

The personalityhacker podcast has recently had some interesting information on setting boundaries, an I'm sure most of the information I've shared has been from my experiences of considering the advice I've heard on that podcast and the book I linked before. I still have a lot more work to do, too.

This is the podcast:
http://www.personalityhacker.com/podcast-episode-0177-setting-healthy-boundaries-with-merja-sumiloff/

You seem to be an ENTJ who is doing a good job at being yourself—you understand the end-result of a behavior and that is a good enough reason for you to establish boundaries without a care otherwise. Your INFP friend, however, needs to have the reason for a change in their behavior build from the bottom-up, from an authentic place. It's not as effective of a process at yours is, but it'll bring a lot of health into other areas of their lives in processing it in the way an INFP needs to. So thank you for looking out for your friend and seeking out help on their behalf.

Empathy plus economics.

I'm nonreligious, but my parents required me to attend church every Sunday growing up, regardless of my belief. I suspect that the pastor may have not believed entirely, because regardless of how much I believed in God, I could always take something away from his sermons. This (plus, perhaps, natural disposition) left me extremely empathetic to the plight of the less fortunate. I'm not sure how I'd be if I'd been brought up differently, but I certainly remember feeling strong emotions about reducing suffering in that Sanctuary.

What happens when you reduce the price of something? Well, it depends. There's a whole song and dance involving indifference curves and maximizing a utility function, but coming at it intuitively: it might be such a better bargain that I spend more money on it. Or, I might buy more of it in total, but since the price is reduced, this means I'm spending less money on it. Or, it might be a Giffen good, meaning that I buy less of it, since I can now afford to buy other things that I want more. Because of my background, my reaction to finding out there's incredibly effective charities with funding gaps means I have the first reaction.

I should probably also mention [flow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology), since Csikszentmihalyi's book has lead me to believe that maximizing happiness tends to be very inexpensive. Biggest example: I don't own a car because I prefer biking to driving. The biggest difference between what I do and frugality is that my not spending money is a result of happiness-maximizing, which means it has exceptions. In particular, I play a classical instrument which costs about as much as a used car, if I performed more, it'd cost as much as a new car. But, beyond that, I spend almost nothing because doing things that cost money incurs a utility penalty, since I tend to find them less fun than freer stuff.

Oh, and the 10% comes from this blog post. When I reach extremely high levels of financial security, that number will likely increase to 50%, because of how charitable deductions work in my country.

tl;dr: after seeing how much good the best charities could do for so little, my natural reaction was to throw large amounts of money at them. As a bonus, it's literally impossible to make me feel guilty for not giving money to anything else or not being politically active.

So, we have an enlarged amygdala because of our thinking. Our ancestors learned to fear everything, this caused the over evolution of it. So yes evolution is environment and biological mixed, you can’t have one without the other. The first single called organisms that sensed light (from the environment), did better than those that didn’t. However if there wasn’t any light they wouldn’t have. If we as a people all started working on neocortex growth this would eventually trickle down. The biggest issues in our society are caused by our failure to evolve as quickly as our society has. We no longer have to fear lions, triggers, and bears, but our amygdala is operating on this old fear system.

However we very much can learn to chill the fuck out, and it starts with addressing our thoughts. The best way to do this is through mindfulness. I personally have in depth understanding of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and mix it with mindfulness. It work so well I wanted to learn where mindfulness originated from. This lead me to Zen. So I would recommend anything mindfulness related to start you on your path. Crazy enough you’ve already been exposed to it through some of the red pill (they are good about using wisdom from others and dressing it up like there own). Two really good books are the subtle art of not giving a fuck and everything is fucked both are by Mark Manson. He is very good at mixing eastern philosophy and psychology in a way that makes it very understandable.

You seem to view her as an extension of yourself and your own status. This is faulty logic. She (like you) are complete and whole on your own. See in life when it comes to sexual relationships we have three choices. Don’t have any experience, have an in depth experience, or have a breath of experiences. None is better or worse than another, they are just different. Choose going alone and you avoid having to ever compromise anything but you’ll always feel like an outsider on some level. Choose an in-depth experience and you lose out on variety and can get boring, but you have a real chance at true intimacy (I say chance because a lot of relationships don’t make it, because it can take 15-30 years to get there). Lastly choosing a breath lets you have a lot of experience and never gets boring, but you have no chance at true intimacy.

So for most of human history women were only allowed to choose between no experience or in-depth. This lead to a lot of suicide, early death etc. Now women are as free as men, but unfortunately not all men have evolved past women being property or just an extension of self. They can’t see that everyone is playing their own game.

I use the analogy of broad games. Everyone is playing their own board game and thinks everyone else is playing the same one. However they aren’t we are all playing different ones, and can never see others persons game. So say your playing monopoly and I am playing chess. I look over at you and get mad that your not moving your pieces like chess, your not playing by my rules. Yet how could you? Your playing a totally different game. This is the truth of everyone no matter how much you love them or how long you’ve been together. I am my husband are playing different games and that just fine as long as I respect his, and he mine.

Having multiple partners isn’t god or bad. It’s just having more partners. What I mean is do you like your girlfriend now? Because if you do you must thank all her past experiences, sexual or not. This is because we’re all just our accumulation of our past experiences. You take away any experience you change the person.

I would humbly suggest you start viewing your girlfriend as a complete person worthy of love and respect like we all our regardless of past. Also stop putting your worth in external things like status, ideas, beliefs. I am no less worthy of my husbands love because of my past. He still loves me and see me as equals because he respects my humanness. He doesn’t believe my past has any bearing on our future (because it doesn’t). He especially does not see me as an extension of himself.

Try the books they can really help.

I'm a serious introvert myself, so this is a topic of some considerable interest to me. :)

Introversion is not necessarily associated with anxiety, in that the traits are not that highly correlated and lots of introverts are not anxious. However, many people who are both introverted and anxious find that the two are intertwined. When that is the case, then getting better at coping with the anxiety can help you be more flexible in being introverted. There are a million self-help anxiety books, and most of them are pretty good because they are based on cognitive-behavioral principles. Personally, however, I am more intrigued by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy ideas, as described in books like Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, The Happiness Trap, and The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety.

While we're on the topic of reading, if you haven't found it already, I'd suggest The Introvert Advantage -- a great book focusing on accepting, accommodating, and even feeling pretty good about your introversion.

Introversion appears to be very genetically-based and resistant to change, so accepting being an introvert will be an important first step. Introversion is not, in and of itself, healthy or unhealthy, although when you are surrounded by extroverts and a culture that values extroversion, it sure can feel like being introverted is unhealthy. IMHO, traits are only a problem when people are inflexible about applying them... that is, when they can only behave one way regardless of the situation. When people are interested in changing who they are, I often suggest, instead, trying to change how flexible they are about how they display the trait they are interested in changing.

To do that, you could think about the situations in which you are less introverted, and trying to figure out what it is about those situations that allow you to be less introverted. For me, I do better in situations that are structured, familiar, and relevant to my interests -- in those types of situations, you literally cannot shut me up. So, I can be more extroverted when I'm with a small group of good friends, or when I'm meeting a new therapy client for the first time (which is structured because I know exactly what I'm going to say), or when I'm commenting on reddit, or even when I'm teaching a large class or giving a talk to a huge audience. In contrast, in a small group of people I do not know well, when meeting a new person socially for the first time, or when doing something spontaneous that would cause a lot of people to pay attention to me (e.g., something terrible like karaoke), I am not able to be extroverted. But, if I wanted to be more extroverted, I could work to make those types of situations more structured, more familiar, or more relevant to my interests. Does that make sense?

Oh, and one more thing -- please join the Neuropsychology Book Club I am trying to start... I'm hoping it will be really interesting, especially for us voracious readers!!

I found Jordan Peterson's future authoring program helpful. It's nothing too complicated. It just helps you make a vision for what you want your future to be like and set about 8 specific goals for the next few years. It's $15 to use online which I think is a little more than its worth, but overall I think it's worth it. It will probably take about a few weeks to complete, but I think it's time well spent.

https://www.selfauthoring.com/future-authoring.html

Jordan Peterson is a psychologist that posts a lot of lectures and interviews on youtube. A lot of No Fappers find his perspective helpful. Here's his channels if you're interested.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCodkb-qBktJI5NrUsPYpf7g

https://www.youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos

Learning Acceptance and Commitment Therapy was helpful for me too. There are lots of therapists that use this method, but the book I read was, "The Happiness Trap" by Dr. Russ Harris.

https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Living/dp/1590305841

It's a pretty simplified approach, that teaches you the thinking patterns and habits that allow you to live more in the present and future oriented towards action in the direction of your values, rather than stuck in habits of escapism and avoidance whenever you feel uncomfortable from things like boredom and loneliness.

I also think is very helpful to set habits that put your daily life into a healthy rhythm and balance. Simple things like waking up early and going on a walk in the sunrise can make a big difference. Circadian rhythm plays a huge role in balancing hormone and neurotransmitters, so the more time you can spend outside in the brightness of the day the better especially in the morning.

Making sure you have regular positive social activity is extremely important for satisfying the brain's need for oxytocin. If you don't get it through healthy social experiences, the brain can sometimes come up with some dysfunctional ways of obtaining oxytocin release like preoccupation with porn and fantasy. So whatever you can do to make your life social. Do it. It's really not optional for humans.

>Where do you draw the line between religion and superstitious nonsense? Frankly, I'm having a difficult time separating them at all. Too many people say, "I don't understand how that works, therefore God."

There are principles for reasonable belief. The three I can think of are:

1. Faith must not conflict with what you know. Faith exceeds knowledge, but it cannot bypass it.
   
2. Make sure your beliefs are internally consistent (you'd be surprised how many Christians ignore this principle)
   
3. Your faith must be living: transforming you into a better person. A faith that makes you into a worse person is a bad faith.
   
   >Assuming that Christianity is correct, how can one know with a little more certainty? I'm willing to make a leap of faith, but without some credible evidence, it's like trying to ford the Mississippi river. Can we bring it a little closer to "caulk the wagon and float it across?"
   
   Short answer: yes. Long answer: yes, but it's going to require some research on your part, and by research I don't mean a few google searches. Books can be a good friend. Some others here may be able to recommend good books about the historicity of Jesus and the church, but I tend to favor the philosophical and metaphysical.
   
   >Assuming there exists some evidence sufficient to convince me of Christianity's veracity, which version is correct and how can one know? Or does it really matter, since every Christian church agrees on the most important points?
   
   It's incredible unlikely that any given church is correct on every single point of doctrine. The best you can do is take up the protestant ethic by studying for yourself to see which doctrines appear to be the most reasonable. Looking for the "correct" church is a red herring, in my opinion.
   
   Examining your faith can be a very rewarding experience, even if you end up becoming atheist/agnostic. Just don't take in more than you think you are ready for.

OMG -- you want to start a photography business? Honey, let's make that happen! I can tell you that this is where you begin.

If you are going to kill yourself, I want you to put the plan on hold for five years and focus on the photography business first.

First, let's get some stuff out of the way...

1. What city are you in? PM me if you don't want to post it here.
   
2. Let's name your business! What do you want to call it? (I'm great at naming things and I can help if you want.) Then, research that name to be sure it's not also a porn shop or human trafficking business or some other thing you don't want to be associated with. ;) If your research pans out, buy the url.
   
3. Depending on your state, you'll need to register as a sole-proprietor, and LLC or a corporation. The cost is usually minimal. Look here to get an idea: www.legalzoom.com (If you got SSI, you can form a business. It's very little paperwork.)
   
4. Then you go to city hall and get a business license. It's like 20 bucks if you don't have employees, which you won't. I cannot TELL you how GREAT you will feel when you walk out of City Hall having done this. You are now a BUSINESS OWNER, and a professional "creative." Yay, YOU!
   
5. Let's get you a tumblr and choose a great photo template from theme forest. If you want, I'll help you with the copywriting and give you some art direction if you feel you need it. If not, just have at it.
   
6. Samples. Pick your best photos and put them online!
   
7. Start small while you build your confidence, and capital. Put an ad on Craigslist or Facebook local. Take on one gig at a time, and kick ass at them. Leave space in between gigs for reflection, and move at your own pace.
   
8. KEEP GOING.
   
   There is that saying, "When you're going through hell, keep going." It is so true!
   
   Believe me, you are AHEAD of the game. You are 28, which you don't realize right now is very young. You ALREADY know your parents are fucked up narcs. I didn't know this about my parents until LAST YEAR and I'm 40! But my life is still awesome.
   
   I've been working through my procrastination, perfection, self-esteem issues, etc. in therapy for five years, and am only now just starting to feel very chill about everything. But despite not having it figured out, guess what? I was able to make huge strides creatively, in marriage and in my career. I worked at NPR, founded a huge annual art event that just celebrated it's 12th anniversary, worked in theatre, and have established an independent business that I'm super-proud of -- without getting my family shit figured out until basically just now. So if I can succeed at shit anyway, you DEFINITELY can, because you figured stuff out so much younger than I did.
   
   Also, the last time I moved back in with my parents, I was 27. I immediately thought: holy shit, what have I done???
   
   Anyway, I can SO SO SO help you if you want to start a photo business. I know all about getting something like this off the ground, because I've done it the wrong way, and the right way. If you'd like, we can have a 20 minute phone consultation and I can help you get started with all of this.
   
   Bottom line is this: there is hope. TONS of hope. You deserve love, happiness and creative fulfillment.
   
   Get this book and you will feel better as soon as you start reading it: http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Badass-Doubting-Greatness/dp/0762447699
   
   Who gives a shit what your small-minded parents think. You walk your own walk, and carve your own path. It's up to you and you can do it! We are here for you on this sub. We want to help you succeed and be happy!

I’m really sorry for what he’s put you through. You didn’t deserve to be lied to or disrespected. He definately left out A LOT of context by excluding his history of bad finacial choices.

I know this isn’t /r/ relationships but I’m going to give you the same advice that I’ve given to people over there: Date someone for who they are right now, not for who you hope they’ll turn into one day. Most people don’t make major changes in lifestyle, personality, or behavior. People only make big changes if they genuinly want to make a change for themsleves. They certainly don’t change just because someone else wants them to, not even a significant other. In other words: Don’t date a project!

If being more financially responsible and being honest was a priority for him than he would have taken steps to do those things by now. He hasn’t because they’re not priorities for him. And if he comes to you with promises of change now that you’ve broken up with him I can’t tell you wether or not they’re ones he’ll follow through on. You know him best. But don’t be surprised if you take him back and after a few weeks/months he gets comfortable and goes back to his previous behaviors.

> But I'm a total giver. ... I will buy them whatever they need. I love them. I help bc I don't want people to ever feel like I felt when I was a kid. This is a personality flaw. My ex owes me $1k, etc. I'm a sucker.

It sounds like you need to learn how to set and maintain boundaries with other people when it comes to money. Generosity is a virtue, but if you are being so generous that you are enabling other poor financial choices to the point thah its hurting your finances or mental/emotional wellbeing then it crosses the line into a problem. And yes, you were eneabling your BF, just like his mom does, by loaning him money whenever he runs out.

You need to learn how to say no to people- being a kind, generous person does not mean being a doormat. I’d encourage you to look into a few theraphy sessions to go over this issue (though I totally understand that not everyone can afford that). If that’s not an option the book Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life and it’s companion workbook are good reads (it has some religious undertones but the lessons on setting boundaries can apply to anyone).

Tynap- you sound like a kind, honest, hardworking, responsible woman who has her life together. Don’t sell yourself short by settling for a life partner who doesn’t live up to the standards you hold yourself to.

Of course! It’s long though 😂 I (28f) was in a toxic relationship (29m) last year which heightened my insecurities and how hard I was/can still be on myself in general. I met with a therapist who I worked with before; I previously broke my leg playing roller derby and essentially had PST trying to play the sport again but about two years ago he got me through it so I was completing at the mental level I was at before.

In the relationship, I started noticing how down I got, I question my actions and feelings, and my overall neediness was out on control (I’m pretty independent normally). I would cry and get anxiety attacks about the smallest disagreements and changes in my BFs attitude and actions. Most of the time these things were triggered by him being a dick because I was being too needy which led to our relationship essentially being a never ending circle of these two things filled with alcohol and great sex 😂. Super healthy.

I also had 0 support from my friends at this time. I had one friend that HATED my BF and would take out her dislike for him on me. I realized I wasn’t getting the support I needed from my group of friends so I asked to meet with my therapist again. We started meeting around June or July 2017 after my BF and I had been dating on and off since January 2017.

It was really hard to open up to him about everything, but when I eventually did, he told me I’m suffering from anxiety. Plus, I lacked self compassion which heightened the anxiety. He recommended Headspace and this book called Self Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff . He also mentioned starting a gratitude journal and setting goals for myself to help me move through the anxiety. I took it a step further and would write out my feelings and insecurities as a way to work through them.

I starting to implement the book, meditation, writing, and therapy (quadfecta) into my life but I wasn’t ready to heal. In September 2017, my BF broke up with me for good. I was sad but knew it was for the best because we both made each other miserable despite how much fun we had together. I continued the quadfecta but I still wasn’t ready. I was taking it seriously but mentally wasn’t ready take it to the next level and change. I hit rock bottom at the beginning of January 2018.

I did a 30 day yoga challenge and as I type this I realize this is what got me on a healthy routine and track. I had one thing to centralize my life around since my BF was gone; I personally thrive on overly dedicating myself to one thing. I then got more serious about the quadfecta.

I was able to better incorporate techniques from Headspace such as being present during tasks, stopping to thing what I’m grateful for, setting meaningful intentions, etc. My meditation practice increased and was coming easy to me as it finally was a standard in my routine. I had regularly been meditating maybe 15 days in a row and then one weekend would throw me off. I decided I wanted to set a goal to meditate like 120 or 90 days in a row. I never completed it. I got to day 59 because day 60 was too busy. It was full of fun activities with my friends, yoga, and laziness. I was walking home around 11 pm like oh I can meditate once I get home so I don’t mess up my streak but I told myself no. It wasn’t a no out of laziness but a no out of confidence and awareness. In that moment, I knew I hit a unset goal for myself. I’m an over achiever and have to be perfect at everything, but by accepting with ease I wouldn’t meet this goal, I knew it meant I had improved my mental state.

I continued therapy until July 2018. I was finally at a place where I didn’t need to have regular sessions. It was really hard for me to admit that but my therapists door is always open.

Today, I honestly don’t use the quadfecta anymore 😩 which is totally fine because when I start to get anxious thoughts I breath through them to clam my mind and “note” what I’m thinking or feeling; noting is a technique from Headspace. I also am not hard on myself for having a bad day. For example, I did or said something (I can’t remember... this is how much it mattered 😂) and I was freaking out about it. My mind was so crazy with anxious thoughts. I tried to calm my thoughts with techniques from before and it just wasn’t working and I said okay. I let my mind and thoughts lose control (for an hour or so) to get it out of my system and once I did, I went back to the techniques I learned to prevent anything further.

My mind isn’t as calm as it was before and I miss it so I started meditation again. Today’s day 5!

Hopefully that’s relatable or gives you some insight! If you have specific questions, let me know!

I don't have a device to measure HRV, but studies point out that if you slow down the number of breaths per minute, you increase HRV. Higher HRV is also linked to more willpower, according to Kelly McGonigal in her book:


https://www.amazon.com.br/Willpower-Instinct-Self-Control-Works-Matters/dp/1583335080


This post summarizes her point:


> Pause-and-plan gives you a few precious moments to bring your higher brain back on line and increase your heart rate variability. Not just lowering your heart rate/blood pressure and returning to a calmer baseline, but increasing your heart rate variability -the capacity of the heart to respond to changes in input from the body in a flexible way. Higher HRV allows people to better ignore distractions, delay gratification, persevere with difficult tasks, tolerate critical feedback and resist temptation. Psychologists consider heart rate variability a key predictor of willpower.

> One technique to apply the pause-and-plan response and improve your heart rate variability is to slow down you breathing to four to six breaths per minute. Ten to fifteen seconds per breath rather than the normal ten breaths per minute (or much faster when we’re stressed). One or two minutes of breathing at this slower pace can shift the body and brain from a state of stress to a mode of self-control with more capacity to handle cravings and challenges to our willpower. (One study found that a daily 20 minute practice of slowed breathing increased heart rate variability and thus willpower reserves among adults recovering from substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder.) There are even apps such as Breath Pace to help you slow down your breathing.

> https://lindagraham-mft.net/strengthening-willpower-a-key-step-in-strengthening-resilience/


There's also this video:


Improve Willpower in 5 Mins | How Heart Rate Variability helps Brain Functio


So, it seems to me that, perhaps, slowing down the frequency of your breaths might be a good pre-meditation practice.

You can only play the hand you were dealt. You cant change that. The good news is that you can stop feeling sorry for yourself and start working on yourself. Change your mentality, read more (especially self help books...good ones as there is alot of trash out there), learn new things, pick up new hobbies, change yourself physically by hitting the gym, grooming yourself (if that's an issue), dress nicer (if you don't already), attain goals, set new goals....live for you and only you, man. Improve yourself. Stop comparing yourself to others. You will always fall short if you do that and quite frankly, other people are irrelevant when it comes to your life. If it is girls you want, there are "plenty of fish in the sea", this I am sure you've heard thousands of times, but although these girls all have different tastes/interests, they are, in general, not so much attracted to looks per se, but rather behavior and attitude. Girls of course are not opposed to a good looking guy, but good looks will only get you initial interest from them, but if a guy doesn't have a good personality, attitude, self esteem or confidence, then Brad Pitt himself would not be able to attract and keep women. You would be amazed how successful "unattractive" men can be. I'm sure you have seen it. Forget about women for now, work on you. Get your self esteem and confidence up. That should be the goal. How you negatively feel/view about yourself projects to people. It turns them off before you can even open your mouth. Good luck man!

Edit:
If you have a moment, check out the book "The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life" by Mark Manson. It's a great book and it will hit probably hit home in alot of areas. It (and others) helped me when I needed some help. Its a good read. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062457713?ref_=ams_ad_dp_asin_2

Ha, do your thing man. I'm only a few years older, so I've not got the wisdom of the ages, but I can share a bit from our experience. I'm sorry he's been behaving as a jerk. My wife's folks have ranged from mildly supportive of our marriage at times, to generally negative mostly, to downright subversive at others. It sucks, but after 6 years I think we're sloooowly winning them over.

Told my wife about yall, here's a few points of advice that we think would really benefit you both if you choose to move forward with marriage:

• You're going to be starting a new family, and in the beginning it will have only two members. While you'll have strong connections to your former families, and you'll bring a great deal of the respective cultures of those families into your new one, you're not melding two larger families together into one (as others have suggested). The latter idea is a nice one, but is way beyond your capacity as a couple, and would be highly unlikely to succeed. How well your former families mesh is up to them, and the only thing you can really control is the boundaries you establish around your own new family - your ability to influence them is not assured.
  
• seek premarital counseling, make sure that among topics like finances, sex, children, careers, etc., your dynamic with your extended families is also explored. It's one that will likely affect you for the next 20 years or so.
  
• Read Boundaries in Marriage, by Henry Butt & John Townsend. Speaks directly to the kinds of issues you're having and will face. Additionally, the original Boundaries is likewise good, though more broadly applicable to life not just marriage.
  
• Knock your debt out within the first year of marriage. With two full time incomes, this should be a cakewalk - the only downside is you live modestly for a year, and that's not a bad thing at all. I highly recommend Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps plan - its a simple road map for getting out of debt, saving for goals (home-buying, newer cars, etc.), and building a stable future that takes all of the worry and guesswork out of money. My wife and I DID NOT follow this when we started out, and instead got pregnant quickly and have been digging ourselves out slowly ever since.
  
• Seek a mentoring couple, older than you, whose marriage your really respect and admire. Look for folks who have the kind of dynamic, kids, achievements, etc. that you desire. As far as possible, emulate them.
  
  Exciting time in life to be at dude! Lots of adventure ahead!
  
  One further thought, this one a bit dark, apologies. How attached to her family is your girlfriend? Would she be able to make a clean break from them if that's what it took for the two of you to have a healthy marriage (not saying it is necessarily at all, but it is a possibility)? We've seen a few young marriages implode when fights got ugly and one spouse or the other ran home to mom&dad instead of working it out.

Hey, I'm 29 too and I have a book about the research on happiness that changed my total outlook on happiness. I want to stress that this book is not a "self help" book. When I was an undergrad psych major this book was recommended by an admired faculty of mine. Upon rereading it years later it influenced me to pursue a totally different career field that I was on the fence about (dentistry). One point from the book that I want to mention is that the best way to predict how happy you'll be when deciding, for example, a future career is ask those in the profession how happy they are when they are on the job. So if you google top ten professions dentist is up near the top and if you shadow a dentist you'll realized how fulfilling it can be (don't believe that increased chance of suicide that's very old data and the professions changed). You seem bright and I guess my commit is starting sound like I'm recruiting you to try dental school but I seem to be okay with that so yeah...you should be a dentist I suppose...maybe. I'm still in dental school and I can tell you it is very challenging at times but it is already obvious to me that it is so worth the struggle. ANYWAY the book is great an I could recommend more but this one gives really good insight into the "mechanisms" of happiness. What it is not is a "self help" book and the author describes it as the book you read after the "self help" book to figure out why you're still miserable. I think it will really answer your questions on your lack of felling satisfied with life. The book does tackle some really big questions and it is all based on research. I highly recommend it if you want a no nonsense yet humorously written explanation of how people cope with challenging events in there lives and why people who get what they want are often unsatisfied. Hope this helps and wish you the best friend.


His book [Stumbling on Happiness]
(http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/1400077427)


his TED [talk]
(http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy?language=en) is okay but is a little hard to follow.

TL;DR
Book about the research on happiness written by researcher/Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert told me to change careers and did.

For me, my advice comes from my mistakes...

Idle hands really can be the devils workshop. Keep yourself busy. Find things that interest you and keep chipping away at your progress. Find something that you stay hungry about: guitar, sports, gym, reading, hiking ... something that's constructive, gets you around different kinds of people and doesn't give you too much time to think about things.

This is the long game. It's a grind.

Book recommendations:

• He's Just Not Into You
  
  Don't let the title fool you. This book has a lot of wisdom for anyone powering through their insecurities in any relationship.
  
  
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck
  
  The author isn't who you'd expect to be writing a self help book but this is a great way to have someone else talk about things that you might not be able to put into words for yourself.
  
  Keep a journal. Get your thoughts and feelings down. This is a great way to come back to how you feel or think about something with fresh eyes as well as some hindsight. Your self awareness and emotional intelligence are what will dictate your success in relationships and your career.
  
  You have to be able to be happy when you're single before you can be happy in a relationship.
  
  Same thing for love; you can't love anyone in a healthy relationship until you love yourself.
  
  Don't Panic. Drink more water. Skip soda. Get exercise.
  
  Good luck.

This was an amazing write up. One that certainly warrants are response of some depth. It should be noted that my reponse will be limited to my readings / knowledge from over the years, and I look forward to some back and forth. Also, you should check out /r/psychonaut as well for some great discussion. Your questions are a bit imposing in their gravity, but I'll try my best to answer them. That being said, let's get started, shall we?

The problem you have stumbled upon is one of the largest issues with the standard model of what "heaven", "God", and "you" are. It is intimated that there is a seperation between these places and beings. This paradox that you have stumbled upon shines a light upon the results as improper. If the answer you find is not correct, that means you either need to change the question, subjectively view your findings, or re-examine the elements of your quesiton. In this case, we are going to do the later.

It is important to note at this point that there is a difference between conciousness and the ego. The ego is the voice inside your head you hear all the time, the fear you feel in a fight, the satisfaction from winning an argument, and has gone out of it's way to prove that it is you. A good book about this topic can be found here and is highly recommended. This acknowledgement of the seperation between your being and your ego is a concept that is very important, and requires a great deal of attention. This is a heavier book, and should only be read when full dedication can be given to the text.

Alan Watts has a significant body of work on the Ego, conciousness, and other illusions of our existance. It would also be a great help to you.

Honestly, I am having issues with putting these thoughts into words. Know that anything and everything you have experienced in your life could only happen because of your physical form. Everything you have ever seen, smelled, touched, heard, or tasted has all been happening in a pitch black container within your own head. This experience of life is temporary, and there is only the now.

This feels like it is a bit scatter brained, and for that I apologize. Unfortunately, you can never be told what it all means, you can merely understand from within. By having someone explain things like this to you, a relationship is developed of teacher and student, intimating a better knowledge of one over another.

Life is a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves. We are the Universe experiencing itself subjectively. On a more scientific level, we exist within an illusion.

Again, I apologize for being unable to impart onto you a full and complete thought process. Please pursue these thoughts, keep pushing for new concepts and ideas. If you look into fractals, it may connect a few different concepts together for you.

Thank you for getting my mind to focus on these topics this morning. The day just became infinitely more interesting.

Remember, perception is based on perspective.

TRAINING

As for training, if you are really against going to puppy class, I'd pick up a book. I think an easy to read/follow book is; 51 Puppy Tricks. It's well written and easy to follow--... it does a great job of explaining tricks in levels, and has some cool ones in there. I have this book and I refer to it for ideas. There is also '101 dog tricks'

Some tips about training;

• Training should ALWAYS be fun. This is how you get a puppy to be happy to do it. Do not yell, scold, or get frustrated with your puppy. If you find yourself getting frustrated, stop training, take a break.
  
  
• SOCIALIZATION. From 8-12 weeks, this is when a puppy is most open to being socialized. You need to teach them everything, but because they don't have all their shots, you have to be safe about it. The dog will need to meet children, meet black people, fat people, asian people, white people, skinny people, tall people, short people, tall dogs, small dogs, medium dogs, people with sunglasses, people with hats, skateboards, bikes, wagons, loud noises, kitchen noises, STAIRS, STAIRS, STAIRS, elevators, cars, moving cars, MOVING CARS, SERIOUSLY, MOVING CARS-- you don't want a border that wants to herd cars. That will not end well.
  
  Socialization is the most IMPORTANT PART of a dogs life. From 8-12 weeks you should be DEDICATED to socializing your puppy. DEDICATED. There is nothing worse than a dog that was not socialized properly and now is aggressive or scared. These are the dogs that get surrendered to shelters. SOCIALIZE YOUR PUPPY -- with everything. Now, socialization does not mean your puppy has to interact, just that she needs to be exposed to the item.
  
  
• Chewing: Puppies are chew monsters. Do not YELL at them for chewing. That doesn't TEACH them anything. It tells them chewing is bad, but not what they should chew on. With my puppies, when I catch them chewing on something I tell them a firm 'NO' and then GIVE THEM SOMETHING they are supposed to chew on. This teaches them to chew on their TOYS and BONES and that it's not appropriate to chew on furniture. This is a hard battle, but be persistent. You will eventually win out. Blue chewed for 4 weeks on anything and everything and it never felt like I was getting through-- but then one day it was like 'BOOM, I GET IT' and I haven't had a problem since. Providing plenty of toys in different areas will also help motivate them to chew on the toy and not the furniture. Don't be afraid to change out toys. Toys that have been down for 30 mintes-- put those away, and put out new ones. Engage your puppy in play with appropriate toys.
  NEVER, EVER, EVER use something as a toy ou don't want your puppy to eventually chew one. This means that OLD SHOES, TOWELS, ETC are out of the question. Do not use them. You can't give your puppy and old shoe and then get MAD when they chew on your new shoes :) ...
  
  
• Come: One of the most important commands. Never, EVER, EVER get mad at your puppy when they come to you. Seriously. You want your dog to think coming to you is the best thing in the world and every time it's a PAAARTAAAY.
  
• Potty training: See "Buy a Crate" under Items. It has useful potty training advice.
  
  
• Start training your dog as soon as you get them. Puppies can learn. They aren't "too little". After giving them a few days to acclimate, start working on some basics like 'come', 'sit', 'touch', 'loose-leash walking', 'lay', etc. If you don't know how to do this; PUPPY TRAINING CLASS/BOOK and or YOUTUBE. :)
  
  If you have any more questions, feel free to ask me. I would be more than happy to give you advice, and/or make a video for you on showing the training.
  

I understand the 'put my foot down' mentality you're going for, but from what you've written it comes off as coming from a place of insecurity. Yes you have to establish boundaries for what you consider to be acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, but more importantly you have to recognize when you're doing things reactionarily to others or if you're truly acting out of self respect. The author Ayn Rand discusses this concept in Fountainhead,

>"Others dictated his convictions, which he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them. Others were his motive power and his prime concern. He didn’t want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn’t want to build, but to be admired as a builder." Fountainhead Chapter IX, Part 4, pp. 605

Are you doing things to show others you have self-respect and boundaries, boundaries which are defined by reactions of others, or do you have self-defined boundaries developed out of self-respect.

I hope you'll take this as constructive criticism rather than an attack on your person.

Ok let's be real for a second. You were fairly invested in her and she didn't reciprocate. She sent some signals of disinterest that you picked up on 'acting distant and not making an effort to message me', then she sent a soft rejection, 'I'm busy' (I'm guessing she didn't propose another time by saying something like 'I'm busy but I can do this Saturday').

Because you were still invested in her, you pushed through the indicators and tried to get her to return investment in you by [demonstrating value] initiating conversation, cracking jokes and being nice. She didn't respond for a few weeks and then you 'put your foot down' and unfriended her. That's not establishing boundaries, that's acting reactionarily out of a place of insecurity.

Let's talk about what you could've done differently, and the underlying mindset behind what you did in comparison.

• I don't know how the date actually went, clearly there was a different perception of how the date went. Let's skip that since there's no way of figuring it out.
  
• She said she was busy and didn't make an effort to reschedule. This is often the biggest hint you will get, you can't blame girls for doing this rather than being upfront because A) EDIT: Most guys take rejection poorly, and some guys are actually psycho B) You expect them to be confrontational exclusively your benefit. By continuing to message her, and demonstrating value, all you're doing is sending the message 'I'm socially tone deaf. I'm needy and invested in you so I'm trying to show I have value so you return investment'. Instead you could've said "Hey I had a great time with you, you know how to reach me if you wanna meet up again.' then just walked away. That comes from a place of 'This genuine, I have the social grace to recognize your disinterest and respect it, I value myself and haven't invested too much into you but I think you're interesting so let me know if you change your mind, otherwise I'm doing my own thing".
  
• When she becomes unresponsive after a 'I'm busy', it's 100% clear she's not interested, You 'put your foot down' and unfriended her... what you really did was try to show her that you have boundaries and 'punish' her by unfriending her in a, quite honestly, petty juvenile way. If we're brutally honest, she probably didn't have you on her mind during those few weeks, and you unfriending her is you making yourself feel better about the whole situation in a vindictive manner that she probably didn't notice. You already wasted your time by brushing past her disinterest signals, that's on you.
  
• In a comment below you said 'There’s a girl there who is cute and she asked to hang out with me and I said I was busy even though I wasn’t 😅'. Seriously dude? That's a little cringy. You're playing games and being disingenuous to demonstrate value. It's a move that comes out of insecurity, 'I'll pretend I'm busier than I actually am."
  
  Here are a few books which I think may be helpful for you to read.
  
  Subtle art of not giving a fuck
  
  Models: Attract Women Through Honesty

First of all, I want to say that it speaks very well of you that you are looking to use your time in prison to your advantage. Most people would see this as a catastrophe, but you see it as an opportunity. If you want to make this a full-time, in-depth study, this is the plan I recommend.

I would first start with a good introduction to the entire Stoic system. A great one is Stoicism by John Sellars.

Then I would start reading the source material. We are fortunate enough to have the lectures of one of the great teachers of Stoicism, Epictetus. I would go with Epictetus - Discourses, Fragments, Handbook translated by Robin Hard.

After reading Epictetus, you can move on to Marcus Aurelius, who was directly influenced by the Discourses. Robin Hard has also done a translation of the Meditations.

To fully appreciate the Meditations (and to better appreciate Epictetus), next read The Inner Citadel by Pierre Hadot. This is an incredible analysis of the Meditations which explains Epictetus' influence on Marcus Aurelius and his work.

Finally, you must of course read Seneca. Two good sources are this book of his essays and this book of his letters.

Between the footnotes in these translations and the detail given by Sellars and Hadot, you won't need Wikipedia to get clarification on any points. You'll have the expert knowledge in your hands.

I don't think it's necessary to read one of the modern how-to type books before you begin reading these, but if you think it would help to read something lighter first to become acquainted with the core concepts ahead of time, I recommend Stoicism and the Art of Happiness by Donald Robertson.

There are other sources, such as Musonius Rufus and Cicero, but these are the three most people start with and the three that I recommend first. You can look at the FAQ for more ideas if you'd like.

Find out how many books you are allowed to have at one time, as this may be an issue in prison.

As others have said, it's a very good idea to keep a journal of your thoughts, both on what you are reading and how you relate what you are reading to your life.

I know that I am 7 days late, but I just read your comment and I just… Can’t.

What? You're a girl? Your argument is completely moot, then! This absolutely holds zero weight now that I know you're a girl.

The fact that you just dismissed everything I said because of my gender, really demonstrates your lack of objectivity and logic. In case you haven’t figured this out, gender is not a black or white thing. You can be Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Pansexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Intergender, Asexual , etc. Not to mention the fact that you can be a straight, cisgender person who does not conform to most of, if any of the stereotypes attributed to your gender.

You have no idea what it's like to be a guy

You just put almost 4 billion people into one category. Good job on sounding like a dumbass. You have no idea what I’m like, and the fact that you think every male is like you shows that you have zero objective reasoning skills. Travel the world a bit and you’ll realize how much “being a guy” differs from culture to culture, not to mention from person to person.

I’m not even red pill

Your labels mean nothing to me, and furthermore, you've already proven that you’re ignorant as fuck. You’re also sexist since you dismissed everything I said because I have a vagina.


You aren't a guy. You don't have the male libido. Unfortunately, you can never understand this because you don't think about sex every 2 seconds. Yes. We are prisoners to our libido. For most guys, it's fucking torture to not have sex for a month or longer.

The “male libido” is not a thing lol. Men’s libidos fall into a wide range, and contrary to what the media told you, not every male has a high libido. If this were true, there wouldn’t be millions of women complaining that their sex drives are higher than their partners. All of my best friends have been male since I was about 3 years old. 5 of them have told me that they do not have a high sex drive, that they can go a long time without having sex. Of course, this is not something that they publicize to everyone which further perpetuates the stereotypes. Two of my exes had lower sex drives than I did. I’m sorry that you live in a bubble and haven’t had enough experience to realize the wide variety of sex drives out there.

"Spinning plates" is way fucking better than not spinning plates, by a large margin.

How do you know this? You have just proven what I said in my previous post, that those who have not experienced something and crave it, have many grand illusions about the fulfillment that the object of their desire will bring to them. I have dated some super hot guys who had been having tons of sex since the day they hit puberty; they have all confirmed that it does not fulfill them at all. I have many friends who are male models, they have told me the same thing. You will however dismiss this and choose to believe a bunch of guys like yourself whose years of desperation have warped their whole perception of true self-esteem and fulfillment.

That is not an exaggeration, we think about sex every 2 seconds. It is on our minds all the time.

Wow, do you ever stop projecting your own experiences onto everyone else? Also, how do you know that I do not think of sex all the time? You don’t know a fucking thing, you’re just a silly hamster trying to rationalize your own obsessions and desperation. Guys who have a very easy time getting sex do not think of sex every two seconds, I know this from experience. In fact, it turned out that I thought of sex more than my ex did, and his sex drive was very high. It makes sense though that you think of sex every minute, because the lack of it has caused you to become obsessed with it. I feel your pain though, because when I went long time without having sex, I thought about it all the time too. Meditation might help you.

See, this doesn't hold any weight in the argument since you're a girl.

Again with the sexism; do you ever stop trying to put everything and everyone into little boxes? There are much healthier ways to deal with the uncertainty of life than to dull your existence to that level. I am the kind of person who others open up to, and I often have very deep conversations with people. This is something that most of my very hot “alpha” male friends and exes have told me, not to mention basic psychology.

You don't understand that guys do not receive the same amount of attention from girls as vice versa.

You clearly don’t know many guys, because two of my best friends (male) get checked out constantly. I can’t spend a night out with them without little girls obsessing over them and walking by our table 10 times. Just because you haven’t gotten much female attention, does not mean that other guys don’t.

Plus, if you're as attractive as you say you are, you probably have at least 4 male friends in your phone contacts right now, that if you asked them for sex, they'd come over and fuck you within the hour.

This is another myth. If this were true, I wouldn’t have had periods where I didn’t have sex for months at a time. Also, my very good looking female friends wouldn’t complain to me constantly about how horny they are and how there’s no one to have sex with. Contrary to what you think, most attractive guys are not animals who will fuck someone after knowing them for a few hours, or run out to fuck someone just because they got a text. It takes time for them to get comfortable too. My best friend is gorgeous and has turned down girls who he feels want to use him for sex, in fact, he is very selective for precisely this reason. Everyone is different, and most intelligent people have their own views and beliefs about sexuality that are not dictated by the hive mind.
It would make sense though that you would jump at the chance to fuck a girl if she booty called you because you’re desperate and have been desperate for a long time.
Anyways, good luck to you dude and I hope you find happiness in your life.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Earth-Awakening-Purpose-Selection/dp/0452289963

I have found that becoming happier is the key to achieving more:
(Here's a highly-recommended book about that very topic: http://www.amazon.com/The-Happiness-Advantage-Principles-Performance/dp/0307591549)

• Smile more often. Smiling releases endorphins and serotonin. Even fake smiling. Smiling begets more smiling.
  
  
• Start and/or end your day by writing about the positive things that happened to you that day. Many people write a list of things they're grateful for. Personally, I just write about the positive things I encountered each day. I prefer to do this at the beginning of each day. It puts you in a positive mindset to start your day.
  
  
• Start each day with a 'win'. Achieve or overcome something early in the day, especially if it's something you didn't want to do. This can help put you in a positive mindset to start your day.
  
  Read self-help books. As people, we know very little. Accept that and revel in the fact that you can spend your life learning from other people's mindsets and perspectives.
  
  Some recommendations:
  
  
• How to Win Friends and Influence People (Learn how to deal with people better. Maybe the Holy Grail of self-help books. Having better interactions with people makes you a happier person and boosts your confidence.)
  
  
• The Power of Habit (Work on building good habits. This book also talks about an important principle, a "keystone habit" - a strong habit to adopt that shows you that you can make other improvements in your life and as a result motivates you to do so.)
  
  
• Think and Grow Rich (Become more motivated and believe more in yourself. Not just about becoming rich.)
  
  
• The Happiness Advantage (Learn more about positive psychology and the power of happiness as a motivational factor in your life.)
  
  
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
  
  I have found that most things I've read in these books are things I already "knew", but didn't really internalize until reading about them.
  
  You can use an app/website like Blinkist to get the key insights of many of these books summarized for you. I find that doing that in addition to reading/listening to the book really helps you absorb the information better.
  
  
  
  

The biggest thing I've done for my productivity/follow through is reading books about willpower, habits, productivity, etc. As an INTP that needs to really understand things and feel like I'm making my own decisions, rather than follow some advice a parent or whatever gave me, I love books because they give me a deeper understanding that makes sense.

Thus, I recommend reading these books:

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
Changed the way I think about productivity and life changes. They key to accomplishing goals isn't developing pure willpower, but developing habits that help you achieve what you want. However, I'd still recommend...

Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister
Just a very interesting book about willpower. Will shatter some misconceptions and teach you some new things.

Zen to Done by LeoBabatua
A practical approach to setting the habits and structure necessary to be productive.

Also read The 7 Rules of Highly Effective Habits, which is just a blog post so it wont take long.

I still can't sit down for hours and concentrate at will, but by implementing some of the stuff I've learned from these resources, I've set up a good system that works for me. As a very simple idea, are you familiar with the Pomodoro technique?
Basically, it goes like this. When you want to work on something, set a timer for 25 minutes and know that you only have to sit down and focus for 25 minutes. Don't worry if what you're doing is great or sucks, if you get in your 25 minutes it's been a success (expecting to spend a certain amount of time on something rather than get a certain amount of quality work done has been a game changer for me). Then, after 25 minutes, take a 5-10 minute break... and put in another 25 minutes. Then, repeat... or not.. depending on if you're feeling up for it.

A few books on personal relations don't hurt either. My younger self needed to stand up for herself more, and in better ways.

Edit: Several people are asking for recommendations. These are some I have found extremely helpful:

I have a few I really recommend:

Thanks for the Feedback is one of the best I have read that incorporates info I have heard from other books all in one place with practical examples. If I could give a copy of this book to every person on earth I would. (The same people wrote a book called Difficult Conversations, but I have yet to read that.)

Edit to add Consious Business. This is the one I meant to add as the second recommendation; it is mostly about working with others in business but really applies to working with anyone in all relationships.

Emotional Intelligence is another I recommend, giving guidance on how to understand emotions. (Read this, then go re-watch Inside Out.)

10% Happier is an exploration into meditation as a non-spiritual thing. See Dan's video.

59 Seconds is about little things we can do to make our lives better (all science study based).

And Stumbling on Happiness is about understanding our own motivations better (also research study based).

Some of these books are clearly about "self help" but understanding ourselves is a key to understanding our interactions with others. And I try to only recommend books that are based in science and research.

I also like Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, Incognito by David Eagleman, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, How Children Succeed by Paul Tough, The Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam, Nudge by Richard Thaler, and Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnerman. Oh, and anything by Malcom Gladwell; I may not always agree with him, but he is thought provoking and well researched. (I have an Audible account and have found that a good way to get through books while doing other things like exercise, long car trips, or cleaning the house.)

More Adds; Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz, Nurture Shock by Po Bronson, My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel, Far From The Tree by Andrew Solomon, The Charisma Myth by Olivia Cabane, How We Learn by Benedict Carey, and I generally like anything by the Freakanomics guys.

Edit: And thank you kind stranger for the gold!

If anyone would like to make recommendations to me based on the above list, please do so! I always have a growing reading queue :-)

> I am sure that this question pops up frequently.

Indeed it does, so it is in the FAQ.

Edit:

I have an abbreviated version here. The longer version in the FAQ is better, though.

quoting it (the abbreviated version) for the lazy:

> Good options are:
>
> The Enchiridion of Epictetus is short and easy to read. It was written as a "cheat sheet" of sorts for Epictetus's Discourses, reading the Discourses as well can be very helpful for clarifying what is being said.
> Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, a personal journal. There are several out-of-copyright translations online, none of which are very good. Hard and Hays both have much better translations popular with readers here.
> Selected essays and letters by Seneca the Younger, particularly De Tranquillitate (On Tranquility of Mind) and De Brevitate Vitae (On the Shortness of Life).
Moses Hadas's [The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca](http://openlibrary.org/books/OL13549785M/The_stoic_philosophy_of_Seneca) is a good printed source for these and other writing by Seneca.
> De Officiis (On Duties) by Marcus Tullius Cicero.
>
> Recommended modern accounts include The Stoics: A Guide for the Perplexed by Andrew Holowchak and A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William Irvine. The later is notable for being popular, easy to read, and controversial; some (including myself) find that he departs significantly from several fundamental elements of Stoicism (see here and here).
>
> I think any of these can be a good starting point, and any of them can be valuable on its own, but each only offers a partial glimpse of Stoicism as a whole.
>
> Most of the ancient sources above are good for browsing, picking random pages and reading a little bit here and there. Each has its own distinct character. A good approach may be to find copies of the Enchiridion, Meditations, and a selections of Seneca, and spend a little time browsing through each, and then focusing on the one that appeals most. Then, pursue supporting material to help give context, unpack references, and otherwise improve interpretation. For the Enchiridion, the best source for this would be the Discourses, and Long's Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life is also helpful, in different ways. For the Meditations, Stephens' Marcus Aurelius does a good job of explaining context, references, and interpretation.


Edit 2: This book, more recent than the FAQ, is also with reading, and the author posts here sometimes.

I also want to talk about your definition of "made it in life." To me, that sounds like you probably mean "rich and/or famous", which I don't think is a sound yardstick by which to measure yourself. I'm pretty successful by the traditional yardstick - I've got a good job and a good house. But I don't really care about that stuff, it just enables me to do what I want to do - to be successful at what I care about. Which is my relationship, my dog (3 months old, woo! A dream 8 years in the making), and woodworking.

You're invested in Psychology, which is an amazing field with so many interesting twists and turns! I've loved books like 'Thinking: Fast and Slow', and it seems like a fantastic field! But you're probably not going into Psychology with an aim to make money - you're probably doing it because it interests you, and you love the idea of being a Psychologist. That's your success measure, not anything extrinsic.

On that note - before I went to University I wanted nothing more than a Ph.D in Physics, and to become an academic. For me, that didn't work out - I started again after finishing my second year in Physics, and started again in Computer Science. I then went on to start a career as a Software Engineer type person. At the time, I thought myself a massive failure for not managing to achieve my dream - but I'm happy now, and I've got no regrets. It didn't take long to get that way either. Remember your yardstick can change, as long as it stays yours.


I'd thoroughly recommend reading "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck"
It taught me how to care passionately about specific things, and see those goals as successes. And to tune out the rest of it.

I also absolutely loved "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelious which talks about our place in the world, and our duty to it.

Here are my favorite positive training book

The Other end of the Leash: this one is a really fantastic book on understanding dogs, dog behavior, interacting with them, building a relationship with respect versus dominance. Anything by Patricia B. McConnell is going to be solid advice and techniques.

101 Dog Tricks - just gives a really good guidelines on luring your dog into tricks versus forcing them, plus a lot of good tricks that help with mental stimulation.

Play with Your Dog: Just another really good book on good training, playing, and positive relationship building.

Ahimsa Training manual: This is the training manual from one of the best training facilities in Seattle. There are really good positive trainers.

BAT Book: Behavior Adjustment Training by Grisha Stewart: This book was a life saver for me. Shibas are prone to being really reactive and sometimes have issues with aggression and predatory drift issues, and this book really digs deep into understanding your dog and helping them make the right choices and building them up for success. I personally don't think you need to have an aggressive/reactive dog to get a lot of good info from this book.

Anything by Cesar Milan will NOT be positive training methods. He very much does not follow that philosophy. Positive training techniques do not use force, aversion, do not believe in alpha dominance theory, no physical punishment. It is a give and take type of relationship. Cesar Milan style tends to not do well with primitive breeds especially the Japanese dog breeds.

Congrats on your new pup-to-be! And thank you for doing so much research, there aren't nearly enough people who do their homework first :-)

My favorite potty training resource:

Why Crate Train

ABCs of Crate Training

Dos and Don'ts of Crate Training


I, too, highly recommend The Other End of the Leash

Books I also really like:

Training Your Superpuppy - it's pretty basic but it covers a little bit of a lot of topics

My Smart Puppy I really like this for a puppy training book- it comes with a DVD as well which I found very helpful

101 Dog Tricks - For some fun training and bonding exercises. There is a puppy version, but I found that my Border Collies have been able to keep up with the 'adult' book just fine. I also really like Kyra's Do More With Your Dog, just a fun book if you're looking for more activities with your dog or just to learn about other canine activities.

The Dog Wars - It's not a training book but more of a dog politics book, but it should be required reading for any Border Collie enthusiast IMO

If you have any interest in working livestock...

A Way of Life

Top Trainers Talk About Starting A Sheepdog

Herding Dogs

Talking Sheepdogs: Training Your Working Border Collie

Stockdog Savvy

Also-

Collie Psychology - I just found this book online while looking for links for the others. I know nothing about it, but reading the description looks like it could be interesting (anyone know anything about it?)

Edit: Really... once again, I'm the only comment here with a downvote?! If you've got a problem with the things I post, say it to me. Raise an issue, start a discussion. Christ.

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature - evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics. (probably most interesting from a Freudian perspective, deals with many of our unconscious instincts)

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces The Shape Our Decisions - Unconscious decision-making, behavioral economics, consumer psychology. Fun read.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Most popular book on the psychology of persuasion, covers all the main principles. Very popular among business crowds.

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships - Social neuroscience, mirror neurons, empathy, practical stuff mixed with easy to understand brain science.

Authentic Happiness - Positive Psychology, happiness, increasing life satisfaction.

Feeling Good - A good primer on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Also widely considered one of the best self-help books by mental health practitioners.

The Brain That Changes Itself - Neuroplasticity, how experience shapes our brains. Some really remarkable case studies that get you wondering how powerful our brains really are.

The Buddhist Brain - The practical neuroscience of happiness, love, and wisdom from a Buddhist perspective.

That should give you more than enough to chew on.

Assertiveness might be more straightforward to address than an inner monster. There's more material available on it; it's better understood in the popular discourse as something that anyone who doesn't already have it needs to develop.

Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life. I can vouch for this one personally. It's a pretty comprehensive treatment of how and why people don't develop or respect healthy boundaries and what you can do about it.

That book comes from a Christian tradition. Much of it is secular, but some of the motivating statements and theoretical framework is in terms of Christian theology. I'm agnostic leaning atheist, but I actually found that part of the book opened my eyes to the fact that there are some Christian people in the USA who use their beliefs as a basis to do some hard work on themselves. A useful experience on its own, for what that's worth.

Supporting skills:

• Mindfulness of bodily sensations. Peterson has spoken in a bunch of different videos, referencing Carl Rogers, about how you can feel it in your body when you're saying something that you know isn't quite right, something that misrepresents your interests or what you know to be the truth. Well, feelings can also be the first thing to tell you when you're giving away power that you shouldn't be. Learn to recognize that feeling more quickly and reliably by making a conscious effort to notice and pay attention to it as it comes and goes.
  
• Recognizing it is a separate step from acting on it. Pick something that comes up for you repeatedly, walk yourself through what you want to say, what happens when you don't, what it feels like to continue not getting what you want. Resolve yourself to say something about it the next time it comes up. Realize in advance that this could be terrifying. You will feel in the moment like what you had ready to say is no longer the right thing, like you're being rude, taking what isn't yours, bullying. Standing up for yourself when it's not something that you've done before is by definition outside of your sphere of normal experience, so it is very likely to present as the kind of paralyzing unknown that Peterson speaks so eloquently about. Realize that if you're serious about changing this piece of yourself that you can't let that stop you.
  
• Extend out. Once you've done it once, it might or might not get easier to do the same kind of thing in other situations. You'll probably have to try it a bunch of times across a bunch of different issues before asserting yourself respectfully starts to feel more like a natural part of your being.
  
  That is the obvious and straightforward path, the one that in my experience and opinion is most likely to get you to where you want to be. If the language of the Jungian shadow appeals to you, you can also try approaching it in terms of facing up to who exactly it is that you don't want to be - but think about trying that after you've given the straightforward approach a fair shake.

Yea, I just got home. I'm bored, mini rants incoming.

When I first heard of The Four Agreements, I was in detox back in 09 or something. And this tweaker chick kept going manic. She'd be happy/sad/angry/empty... just over and over. She was throwing chairs, and freaking out, but she kept telling me to read that book. So I had to, because she had excellent chair throwing skills. It was a great read, ... very very interesting take on spirituality but it is pretty applicable. It's a feel good philosophy warrior book thing.

The Power of Now. I had what AA would call a "spiritual awakening" and it really wasn't much like a burning bush, but A LOT like this guy talks about in this book. When I was about to kill myself with a teener of dope, I had this very very strange experience where I couldn't identify with myself anymore. .. "Who is this person that wants to die so badly?... Who am I?" It really changed things. The power of now was the most powerful thing I've read.

The New Earth is pretty interesting. I have to disagree with some points, because traditionally, you can't really get rid of the ego. The ego is necessary to survive. But it's interesting. It's worth a read, especially someone stuck in a facility with only their remorse and addiction to keep them company.

I personally LOVE Gabor Mate. This guy deals with the most tragic cases of addiction in Vancouver, and he's a neurologist and he has some pretty good insights on addiction. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. It's partly where I came up with my flair.

Rational Recovery was another I would suggest. It's a lot like those Allen Carr Easy Way to Quit Smoking. But the basic idea is disassociation from the "Addictive Voice". That it's not ME that wants to get high, but my addiction. That shit rocked my world when I learned it, and I immediately integrated it into my first step in Narcotics Anonymous.
EDIT, Rational Recovery, and Jack Trimpey are VERY AGAINST 12 step ideology. He HATES IT, and he hates the God idea. I get that, but I cannot and will not deny the therapeautic value of one addict helping another. Nothing compares. Even Bill W. in AA wrote about it in his memoirs and grapevines and the Big Book. "When all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic saved the day."

Tao de Ching really helped me. Although it may be missattributed, the whole "Living in the Past is living in depression, living in the future is living in anger and fear, living in the now is living in peace."

So, as you can see, I really like the "now" concept, but it's helped me stay clean and be happy about it. Non-fiction would probably be great too. But these are very spiritual new agey ideas.

This reminds me, I need to read The Spirituality of Imperfection.

THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS THOUGH:

I highly recommend the NA Basic Text, and I love the Step Working Guide.

>I'm expecting this to be ignored, because people DON'T want to hear this. But I'm hoping, deep down, that this issue will be addressed, because this problem is VERY REAL, and it's happening to me RIGHT NOW.

C'mon dude, I think you gotta accredit more to this sub :P

There is all sorts of inconvenient information upvoted on this subreddit that people don't wanna hear deep down. How about the very fact that we are all PMO addicts? That's a pretty unpleasant truth if you ask me.

But regarding your very problem:

Look, sometimes it's perfectly fine to not feel any motivation to do anything. If you say you are a few days in, what do you think it is you are experiencing right now? It might be very well the flatline. The first indicator that you are distancing yourself from hypercharged material that corrupts your reward system. Sex/Porn spike your dopamine the most from any activity out there. Once you abstain long enough, you will find new hidden pleasure and motivation behind the seemingly mundane and tedious tasks. You will find new passion for life, you can be DEAD SURE about that!! Just keep moving forward.

It is very commendable if you still manage to pick yourself up and push through, but it is important to not beat yourself up too much. When you are trying to build a new life, you should not pick up too many new goals and habits. Because at first you will rely on nothing more other than willpower until you have repeated those actions often enough to build a new habit. It is only then that it does not require any more thought and effort. The thing is that willpower is a limited resource; a well that runs dry at a certain point of continuously forcing yourself to get stuff done.

You feel like crap? Then rest and take a nap or something. Do something relaxing for a limited amount of time. Incorporate a conscious break within your daily routine in which you allow yourself to absolutely nothing for a change. Now that does not include or mean that you should cultivate other easily identifiable dopamine addictions like surfing the net for countless hours, using websites with endless scrolling and novelty mechanisms or video games. Forbid yourself to use the computer in those times if you must and just lay on your bed like a corpse. Use the time to think and to reflect, not to fantasize about a better or easier life.

>.. but I still feel very inefficient - in complete contrast to my usual self.

Instead of beating yourself up and comparing yourself ( even if it is your own self you compare yourself against ), take the positive view point (there is always one, no matter what). Instead of saying your are inefficient in contrast to your former self see it like this: You are back, somewhere at the start of the journey and you are forcing yourself to make the best out of it. Tell yourself: You are currently doing the best you can. You are working to the best of your own capabilities in the PRESENT TIME. Forget about past and future, because all that counts is the present moment and your current self.

You wanna hear an anecdote from my own life? When I first started out this self-improvement journey back in 2015 I was doing nothing more in my life other than: waking up - wasting some time - hitting the gym - wasting some more time and going to bed. Rinse and repeat. I felt so DEAD, as you put it yourself, once I got back home from the gym. It was that period at the start of my new habit that required an immense amount of willpower and pushing myself to get going. I remember this one image very vividly lying on my bed, trying to read a couple of pages in my new e-book, I barely managed to read something between five to ten pages, because I was just not used to reading regularly. Sounds very unspectacular on paper and summed up like that, of course there were more thing going on surrounding that, but the very core was that. I had that one goal I set for myself and I went after it with no excuses, nothing fancy.

Looking back I would not say that any minute of that year was wasted, even though I had so little going on for myself. A precious year of the prime of my youth in my early 20s. Who cares? I don't regret it one bit, because I know that even though I took very small steps, I lay the foundation for something greater. Sacrificing a year for it it close to nothing.

But YOU!!! Who are YOU trying to impress? Who is the judge of you? It is about time to realize that there is NONE! You mustn't, you must NOT compare yourself to anybody or anything other than your present self. Ask yourself genuinely: Can I do better than this? Or am I scratching the borders of everything that possible. Give yourself a break sometime.

I often like to imagine that I am under IMMENSE time pressure. Sometimes, I feel like the world is going to end in a couple of days, and its very existence depends on me getting work done within an abstract, inconceivable and unknown timeframe. I fear not only that but also about my fading youth and death. Maybe some of these thoughts occurred to you as well!

Those fears and thoughts are just as much nonsensical. Dude, you got your whole life ahead of you. If make sure of ONE thing, then make sure that you go one small step in the right direction, no matter what. This entire essay is in no way an easy excuse for someone to postpone his duties until the day after tomorrow. Neither do I try to say that you can go on happily fapping because you still got every opportunity to start over another time. NO!! Every relapse equals to three steps in the opposite, and thus wrong direction of your life goals. Keep that in mind.

> I'm miserable because my circumstances suck.

No, you are miserable because you tell yourself that your circumstances suck. A part of your brain attached a label to your circumstances (not as good as you would like) and then another part of your brain took that label and decided it was the sort of thing it ought to produce misery over.

There are essentially 2 possible paths for you to stop being miserable in such a situation:

1. Change your circumstances so that you no longer label them as sucky.
   
   
2. Stop labeling your present circumstances as sucky.
   
   (1) is probably possible, but if you set the bar at becoming a multimillionaire before you allow yourself to stop being miserable, I think you are in for a rough ride. The way your mind is presently, I think even if you made it to being a millionaire you would find new reasons why you ought to be miserable. Hence better option...
   
   Option (2) can be difficult until you realize that there is nothing objectively true about the suckiness of your circumstances. Sure, in some respects you may be worse off than some other people but that is actual true for everyone except maybe one person. Are we all supposed to be miserable unless we stand at the literal apex of our species? You are probably better off than most humans, you just chose to compare yourself against a highly unusual sample.
   
   I hope you can see there is a certain irrationality at the root of what you are currently feeling. Someone with positively oriented thinking might have come out of the meetup thinking "What great luck! I got to meet all these successful people and hangout in this awesome house!"
   
   I find negative emotions are much easier to deal with if you find they lack validity in any objective sense. The subjective labels are arbitrary, so the instrumentally rational thing is to choose different labels make you feel good (or at least, don't make you feel bad). Obviously your conscious mind doesn't have absolute control all the time, and this sort of thing takes practice, but if you push yourself in the direction of being positive, over time I think you will see significant benefits as the rest of your brain starts to get with the program.
   
   This isn't to say you shouldn't be trying to improve your circumstances. Personally I would recommend pursuing both options—try to improve your life both in external reality and at the same to create habits of positivity in your own mind. There is also a bit of synergy between the two—optimists tend to be more successful.
   
   Your life is good just as it is and nothing you say could possibly disprove that.
   
   
   (For further reading I recommend Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman and the classic A Guide to Rational Living by Albert Ellis.)

I strongly recommend the book The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck by Mark Mansen (blog post)(Amazon link)

Your script could literally be the most beautiful thing ever written by the hand of man or woman, but to have a long career in Hollywood, psychological resiliency is going to be essential. As somebody with an anxiety and eating disorder who has worked for 15 years in the industry, I'm telling you this from experience.

Also, coverage / advice from random internet people is barely useful at best. For example, my last script was a SEcond Rounder at Austin Film Festival. The coverage was glowing. But the reader who kept us from becoming a finalist also provided their coverage and it was the exact opposite of what the previous reader had said. And these are the AFF readers, some of the best in the biz.

So who was right? Was my film a game-changing thriller, or a tired cliche?

Who the fuck knows?

I am proud of it and it's generally done well enough that I can trust it's a good enough script to justify my being proud of it.

Another story: I just recently got notes on the first draft of a script I was hired to write by a production company able to finance the whole film. In the room, it was very complimentary, all the things they liked. Then we discussed what didn't work, but it was still pretty positive. Then they sent over their written notes and it was harsh as fuck. Was I freaking out? Sure, for about ten minutes, but then I remembered that this is part of the screenwriting process. It takes multiple drafts, multiple rounds of notes, and a whole lot of "this sucks" before we get to "this rocks."

At the end of the day, you have to trust yourself and your instincts AND be able to take the punches that will absolutely come your way.

Read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Then stop giving a fuck. Stop faking anything. Everything you wrote sounds like you are constantly adapting your words and actions based on what you think other people will react best to, but that only makes you seem fake. I admit, it's a vicious cycle, a negative feedback loop.

Be genuine. Learn to love yourself. But that's not just a switch you can flip, you have to become a loveable person, and you will naturally fall in love with yourself. Be genuinely interested in people: just listen to them. Stop thinking about what you will get out of the conversation, be selfless.

Another note: There's an opposite positive feedback loop that you want to start rolling. Think about it this way: Exercise makes you look better. Exercise makes you feel better. Exercise improves your mood. When your mood is improved, you are more interesting to other people. When you look better, you have more self-confidence. When you have more self-confidence, it comes off attractively to others. You don't crave their attention anymore. When you have more self-confidence, you feel better. When you feel better, you are more motivated to exercise and go to social events. When you go to more social events, it improves your mood. And on and on and on: they all build on each other. You have to jump start the process, force yourself to do one of these things and the others will follow.

My humble opinion... it sounds like you judge yourself even more than others judge you, and you need to address that more than your pronunciation (especially if you're already B1!).

I'm a total beginner in Polish, and whenever I speak I totally butcher the language with my Neanderthal skills, but I still always get the feeling that people are very friendly and smile, even if I just somehow puzzled together a few words with no declination or anything. The worst that can happen is that they don't understand, and while that might be a bit bad on the self esteem, I'm always sure the universe still doesn't mind much. And the best thing that can happen is that they understand, but I think that regardless, they always appreciate I'm trying to make an effort to communicate in their language.

Think that you wouldn't judge a kid for making mistakes while speaking, but we do it with adults (and ourselves) all the time, as if it was fine.

I'd say read a book that can help with your self confidence, whilst I don't know many on that specific topic, I'm sure you can search on Amazon and just pick one with lots of 5 star reviews.

Sort of related, on the topic of performance and not being judgemental: "The Inner Game of Tennis" by Timothy Gallwey. Outstanding, and whilst using tennis as an example, it's not really about tennis but about performance, and you can apply it to any field. It spawned a series of "Inner Game of..." other things, but I'd stick to the original. Such a great book.

Also, a quick Amazon search tells me "You Are a Badass®: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life" has almost 5,000 five star reviews - might be an interesting read, even if the subject might initially sound a bit too cheesy for you.

Sorry if I'm going too off topic, hope this helps!

Basically, never feed your dog out of a bowl again. Every meal is an opportunity for mental stimulation!
Use:
Frozen Kongs - these are super easy to prep in advance. I usually have 3-5 in the freezer at any given time.
Puzzle toys like these are good for treats: 1, 2, 3

These are good for kibble: 1, 2, 3

For training, an easy way to get started is to go through the 101 Dog Tricks book. It's 101 tricks/skills to teach them with step by step instructions. Super approachable, and the tricks range from simple stuff like sit and down to more advanced skills like leg weaves. Any of the Do More With Your Dog series is good. I think they have a puppy specific book as well.

If your dog likes learning new tricks or skills you might consider getting into a dog sport like agility or nosework or even obedience. They're fun and challenging for both you and your dog - plus it's a great way to strengthen your relationship in general.

I would suggest a few things:

• Implement a Nothing in Life Is Free Policy.
  
  Dogs don't know that there is a thing called "obedience training". They don't know why we ask them to come when called, or why we like them to sit to greet us instead of jumping. So, NILIF is a training philosophy that tells the owner to have the dog "ask" or "work for" everything he wants, including pets.
  
  If he wants to go outside, he must sit before you open the door. If he wants his dinner, he must do a task(sitting is an easy starting task)
  in exchange for his food.
  
  My own dog does sit stays and down stays for everything. He sit stays until I allow him to leave when I open to door to my house or car, or when I give him food, etc.
  
  Start small here. The dog has probably not been asked to do all this before, so if he doesn't listen, just back him up from the door and ask again or pick up his food and ask him to sit again.
  
  When you get good at NILIF, you can start asking for more complex behaviors.
  
  Now, it's important to understand that although NILIF will help him listen to you in all circumstances, it will not curb his aggression. His aggression is a matter that is completely separate from your leadership.
  
  
  
• Establish bonding.
  
  Dogs who don't know you are less likely to listen to you, especially if they've been put in an unfamiliar environment. From his perspective, a lot of stuff has changed lately. His parent went away. The people he knows aren't there as often. Don't take him not listening personally. Instead, offer your sympathy. Hand feed him from now on, and while you are hand feeding him, pet him. This will help with the food aggression a bit and it will make him trust you. Get the book Mine! by Donaldson that I linked in my other comment to improve his aggression.
  
  
• If you can, start clicker training him.
  
  Clicker training is fun training for the dog and it will encourage him to listen to you because it's fun. Also, it will help him feel bonded to you and you can use the clicker to help deal with his food aggression-teaching drop it and leave it, etc.
  
  You can either take a clicker class at a local pet store like Petsmart, or buy a clicker and practice tricks in your home for 10 minutes each day. This book is pretty fun

OK, now I am flying.

Introduction

Let us go on a journey, then, shall we?

Let us get a nice soundtrack first.

I recommend something relaxed, but heady.

Try PsyAmbient / Deep Trance Mix - "The Final Dimension" or Epicuros Interstellar (Chillout) on for size.

The journey

On this journey, I will introduce you in two sections.
These sections are Physics and Self improvement and understanding
The most preferred route will be first Physics, then Meditation.
After that we recommend the other way around.

After that, and I stress AFTER THAT,
You either retry, OR if you feel you have an understanding, try the other order.

AFTER THAT, again, I am serious.
You can try to intersperse them. Reading all of physics, one chapter of each a week, contemplating on their significance for each other.
But I can promise you will go back to the prior level more than once.

Gravity and Magnetism

Let us take a look at gravity and magnetism.

Magnetism

Google for [source of magnetism],
Look at the very first link provided:
Sources of Magnetism

That read is a trip, enjoy.

TL:DR

There are several sources of magnetism, but none of them have to do with mass.
There are ridiculously strong, small magnets.

Let us take a look at their strength

The magnetic force is much stronger than gravity.

Gravity

You can go on and learn about [gravitational waves] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave)
or and now it gets juicy after learning about gravity, go into the actual research, not the scifi esoteric crap, but real research on anti gravity.

Meditation, Fitness, Productivity, Creativity, and Happiness

With the head full of ALL that, we take a completely different direction, and go into our selves.

• Meditation
  
• Fitness
  
• [Productity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity versus Creativity versus Happiness
  
  

  Flow
  

  But if you really want to round it off, with actually becoming succesful go and learn about the concept of Flow by Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi
  
  In his book flow:the psychology of optimal experience no affiliate link, don't worry
  
  

  Good Luck
  

  
  Alright, I think I have you covered for a while, there.
  
  Contact me, if you need to.
  
  Feel free to pester me with questions.
  
  I am actually beginning (again) with this, too.
  
  Maybe we can learn from each other.
  
  Deal?

> Do you have any recommendations on motivation and feelings of accomplishment? Nowdays I have zero motivation to do anything and I don't get any feeling of accomplishment or joy from accomplishing what I had thought were my goals.

> I got the same feeling from getting a promotion as I did when I just slept and stayed in bed all day.

This may be a case of every problem looking like a nail when you've got a hammer, but it sounds like philosophy could be beneficial. Motivation is something that I've always struggled with, and there's no effective way that I've found to really manipulate it. What did work is really thinking about what I want out of life, what my goals really are, and what I value. After I figured that out (on going process), motivation was a lot easier becasue I had a clear target and knew what I wanted to do.

I didn't get any joy from practising the guitar because it wasn't what I really cared about. But when I know what I'm doing is getting me closer to what I really want in life, then the sense of accomplishment comes easily. If you're not getting a sense of accomplishment from getting a promotion, then that's likely becasue you don't think that that gets you closer to living the life you want.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us could be a good starting point, and then I'd follow it up with The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck for an easy introduction to stoic philosophy.

EDIT: Stoic philosophy is what helped me, but that doesn't mean it'll do the same for you. I did a fair bit of reading on other subjects before finding something that worked. That's why it's important to just put the time in; it's the only way you'll find what works for you.

It's perfectly normal. In fact, if I were you I'd worry more if you didn't have those feelings.

It sounds to me like you're sort of stuck in a rut, man. That sucks. Is there anything else you could be doing, job-wise?

> The thought of getting married and having kids scares the shit out of me.

You are under no obligation whatsoever to get married and father children. Some people choose to do it, some choose not to. I for one, choose not to. It's up to you and what makes you happy and feels right.

> This isn't what I expected life to be like. My outlook on life has become very bleak and the things I used to enjoy has become boring.

It's only just begun, and that's a good thing. But I get what you're saying, though. For example, I've played guitar since I was around 12. For a couple of years I just didn't feel like it.. Didn't play a single riff for months at a time. This year I met a woman who just started a year ago, and we had a blast playing together. Jammed on old classics and taught her a couple of tricks. Bam! My enthusiasm for my beloved instrument was back. Point is, your passion for the things you used to enjoy can strike back just like that, given that you're in a good mental state.

> I'm just going through the motions, nothing matters. Does life get better after your 20's?

Speaking of a good mental state. Yes, it gets better when your 20's are over. At least for me, that decade was a fucking ordeal. I came to terms with who I was and what life is like, be it fucked or not. Giving less fucks about shit that didn't actually matter helped a great deal for my overall well-being. The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck pretty much sums it up.

Best of luck. Your best years are ahead of you, not behind you.

I can see that just like me, you are also trying to make lot of changes in your life..

1. Fitness ie. C25k
   
   
2. New skill ie. Jiu-Jitsu
   
   
3. Quit smoking
   
   
4. Get over breakup
   
   But to make any dramatic change you have to keep pushing the wheel everyday till it starts moving. Afterwards it's only a question of steering & refueling. But that 'consistent everyday pushing' is the most difficult & challenging part. You can use that 'Emotional Energy' like anger, frustration, realization etc to push that wheel for few initial days but like 'Sugar Rush' it will quickly crash down, especially if you are trying to make many & major life style changes. What you need is a simple but sound strategy w/o much overhead that you can implement daily till you form a habbit of doing it unconsciously.
   
   Good staring points for habbit creation would be:
   
   

• r/TheXEffect : You can make 4 cards of above changes & in every card, you mark 'X' for a successful day. Challenge is to mark 49 consecutive X's.These simple X's can encourage you to keep going & to make the chain a bit longer everyday. They also have online website & apps for digital tracking of your habbits. Check out their wiki for details.
  
  
• The Willpower Instinct, by Kelly McGonigal
  
   
  
  
  On "All / None" thinking : I think it shows that you have good 'Intent' but bad 'Judgement'. Don't get me wrong because I also behave in similar way. But now I have realized that being Tortoise is more optimal & practical strategy for solving long term problems. All / None strategy often leads to procrastination & abandoning the project altogether. Slow & steady, if not 'wins' the race then atleast 'finishes' it!
  
   
  
  I can't help but comment upon your breakup. I am sincerely sorry to hear about that. But they say that "Rejection is better than Regret". Love is not life but only a 'part' of it. Life can offer you literally infinite more adventures. And with every adventure there will be good days & bad days. It's the journey that we must learn to appreciate & enjoy. Because happiness is not a 'State' but a 'Skill'. I am glad that you are moving forward with positive changes. You will cycle through many emotions like anger, depression, hate, envy etc. due to this breakup. Don't let any of these transient & harmful emotions drag you back to that vicious spiral. Pay attention to the emotions but don't interact with them. Keep yourself engaged in more fruitful activities & passions like running, jiu-jitsu, work, reading, traveling etc. Focus on youself & your family, on the Present & never the Past. It's a tricky situation, so be vigilant and may the force be with you!
  
  Sorry for the ramblings. All the best... :)

That's called imposer syndrome. Look it up. Literally every graduate student has it. It's very normal.

Creatine is a substance found in high end red meat and fish that most people are deficient in. It's usually taken by bodybuilders as a workout supplement but many people take it for their brain. It's pretty much like taking a vitamin. You can find it at mist pharmacy's or on Amazon. People who are deficient in creatine, which is most of the population, can see about a 5iq point boost. It's one of the most well studied substances that exists, there's 0 downside to it as far as I can tell. (Omega 3 is good as well, but it's less dramatic and more well known)

Depression can also lower your iq by a good few points. Although if you already exercise you're probably doing most of what you can to manage it. A dietary change can help a lot with your overall brain power too. Look into a keto diet, or read an experiment to find a good diet, and you'll have a lot more energy to get things done. You said you have a healthy diet so you're probably good on this, but if you're still feeling bad the diet might not be healthy enough even if you think it is. Many people react differently to different things and there's a ton of misinformation as to what constitutes healthy.

Being a graduate student is a miserable job. You're working absurd hours for bad pay and expected to do amazing things with low odds of success. It's normal to feel the way you feel. Maybe get a therapist. Even if you're not depressed, just talking this stuff through will help you feel better and thus be more productive. Happy people tend to be significantly better at their jobs than unhappy ones so if you can learn to be happy it'll help quite a lot.

I'd recommend the book feeling good, as well. It's basically a guide to doing cognitive behavioral therapy on yourself. I disagree with the philosophy of the book, it maintains that its irrational to be unhappy regardless of circumstance. It's something Jordan Peterson is completely opposed to. However the methods of the book are scientifically sound and Peterson has vouched for the utility of cbt and uses it himself depending on the patient. It'll help you notice a lot of bad and irrational thought patterns and counter then with thoughts more congruent with reality.

Like someone said, you are incredibly self aware and mature in many ways it seems.


I'm 32 and people my age and older are not as self aware as you are... they are the most difficult people to try to assist and also I think it will be a much tougher road to self-improvement for them. The road will be tougher because they can't even read their own minds, spirits, bodies... they can't read the signs that are coming from.. themselves... they're at a great disadvantage.


Feel confident that you care and have goals.



Feel confident that you are MANY steps ahead of others and are going places.



Keep getting your hands on self help books/podcasts in certain topics of your choice and continue on the road to self improvement.


Find people/friends/mentors in your life who appreciate YOU for YOU. Who are better than you, too, so you can grow. We literally become like the people we surround ourselves, in time. The pathways in our brain form similar paths to the people we are with. Find people who make you want to be better and who want to see you achieve.



I stopped caring about what people thought when I realized that I'm a bit more put together than many.



I stopped caring when I realized that I try my best and there is nothing more than that, that I can really do.


Learning about "Boundaries" has really helped me.


I can only control MY actions, I can't control other people's actions...


Example:If someone says something to me that rubs me wrong, the best way to manage that moment is to let it go/forgive them/carry it no-longer with me. Because, why would I? I was doing my best in the moment and that's all I can do. When I make a mistake, I can say I'm sorry, learn from it, and do better next time.


I hope this helps!

I found an antidepressant that worked for me (I had to try a few, figuring out what drug will work for a particular person is a bit of a guessing game). That helped me regain some perspective on life and remember what it feels like not to be depressed and hopeless all the time.

Then I started changing some habits. I exercised more (both weightlifting and cardio) and found that it improved my mood even more than my health. I ate better, fewer refined sugars, more vegetables, etc. I worked to incorporate things I really enjoy into my normal routine. I like to read, so I made sure I took the time to do it even when busy with other things. My mood is better when I'm with friends, so I made more of an effort to get out and be social. I watched less TV, which tends to dampen my mood.

A lot of people are depressed for a reason. Even if a big part of the problem is how you respond to certain kinds of pressures and disappointments, you can make things easier on yourself by looking for things in your life that make you depressed. Is your job demoralizing? Look for ways to make it better or try to find a new one. Are you in a relationship that's giving you more stress than happiness? Maybe you should address some of the things that make you unhappy with your SI, or get out of the relationship altogether. Big changes can be stressful, which can make some people depressed, but they can also be empowering and remove unhealthy elements from your life. It takes some self-knowledge and serious thought to know which is which, but it's worth it.

After making the lifestyle changes, I started to think about my mental habits. I learned through research that cognitive behavioral therapy is the most effective form of "talking cure." I'm more comfortable working things out by myself, so I bought self-help workbooks based on that method (e.g.).

I started researching the science behind neuroplacticity, or the degree to which your brain can physically adapt to habits of thought, and learned that what seemed to be hardwired can actually be changed through effort and practice. That was empowering, and motivated me to change the way I think about things.

I read books like Flow and The Chemistry of Joy, in order to understand better what being happy looks like in practice.

I used the antidepressants as a crutch to help stabilize me while I got my life together, and to keep me from falling into the crippling despondency that goes with my depression. After I had built some healthier habits, both mental and behavioral, I decided to get off them to see if I could sustain myself without them. Remember that getting off of most antidepressants can bring on extremely painful withdrawal if done too quickly. Taper down slowly with the help of your doctor. Remember also that there's some evidence that after going off of a drug, it can be less effective when you go back on, so focus on improving your mental outlook and habits for a while before jumping off your meds. I still have bad days, but I'm better equipped to cope with them now, and I don't get caught in depressive cycles the way I used to.

Finally, remember that just like everyone responds differently to different medications, everyone will take different things out of the books I mention and the techniques that worked for me. Look around and see what appeals to you. The important thing to remember is that you can change your mental health with practice, and it's not as hard as it seems when you're depressed.

I wish you the best of luck.

I know that self-help books are hit or miss, at best, but I’ve been going through my own relationship struggles. While reading about attachment styles & boundary creation here on Reddit, the list below are some of the books (on Amazon) that kept popping up in Reddit discussions. Haven’t read them yet, but I did order them, & they’re supposedly arriving today - I can update w/ my thoughts & feedback, if anyone is interested.

Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, 20th Anniversary Edition

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805087001/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_7gE4BbB2R5DZY



Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help YouFind - and Keep - Love

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1585429139/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_giE4BbJ3RKFRN




Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553386395/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_VhE4BbQ84219T


Another name that I’ve seen referenced a bunch here on Reddit is Mark Manson - he has a ”Guide to Strong Boundaries,” which I’ve also included a link to below

https://www.google.com/amp/s/markmanson.net/boundaries/amp

Mark Manson is famous for this book, amongst others

*The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life**

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062457713/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_mrE4BbHBCFCS6


Dunno if this may help, but I do know that learning about one’s own attachment style, love language, etc can at least be a great start to a better relationship with yourself. As for the relationship with one’s partner? Boundaries! Boundaries are crucial.

...man, do I suck at boundaries!

These are the books I read! The training the best dog ever was probably my favorite as it focusses on manners commands like recall, stay, leave it, drop it, yours/mine as well as socialization methods. Puppies for Dummies is a lot about the first week/month/year of dog ownership and includes training but also health info, nutrition, supplies, budget, etc. 101 tricks is basically a party tricks book, not focussed on manners more on obedience training/showing off to house guests. I think it's always good to read a book about your dog's breed too so that was my last one.

Training the Best Dog Ever: A 5-Week Program Using the Power of Positive Reinforcement

Puppies For Dummies

101 Dog Tricks: Step by Step Activities to Engage, Challenge, and Bond with Your Dog

The Australian Cattle Dog: An Owner's Guide to a Happy Healthy Pet (Your Happy Healthy Pet)

I don't know what would surprise you, but something I learned that surprised me is that apparently it's actually true that nobody will push you to drastically change the way you live your life for the better. It's up to oneself to do that. One book we read before attending was The Road Less Traveled. The idea (discussed in the book and at the bootcamp) that life is difficult, and that you must accept responsibility for your problems because they won't solve themselves or go away on their own or be solved by others is you just ignore them, is very true. I thought it sounded kind of cliche, but now that I've been home from the bootcamp over a month I'm realizing how true these messages are and how important it is that I accept them and keep them in my mind if I want to succeed at living the sort of life I want to live.

It's practical if you want it. One participant at the bootcamp with me was from India. He was also participating in Startup Chile, and for that he needed to upgrade his visa from is tourist visa. The Chilean government made it very impractical to do this, so he had to take a 2 day trip to Bolivia for the sole purpose of getting the new visa. Very impractical, but this didn't stop him, so I'd say don't let your citizenship hold you back from a desire to be an international entrepreneur.

Many of the people I met were like no one I had associated with before in my life (I'm 22; recently graduated college). I would say these people were the most exciting aspect of the experience, and they undoubtedly opened many doors for me. I didn't jump through any of the doors immediately, because it wasn't my intention to start a company immediately, but now there are a lot more great people I know who are now in my network, and they know me. They are giving me constant access to certain doors, which I may need in the future.

As much as I want to agree with this, I've always found the whole dictum of 'discipline' to be kinda... lacking. Let me tell you an anecdote.

if I'm good at anything in my entire life, it's probably programming. I've been doing it for 15 years or so. I've made popular games, websites, worked for multiple companies, gainful employment, open source projects with hundreds of thousands of downloads, blah blah blah. Not trying to brag, just trying to get across the point that I am indeed competent.

Anyways, I hear people on Reddit saying that you need discipline and that you should just force yourself to do it even if you don't want to. Thing is, did I use discipline to get as good as I am at programming?

No.

I do programming because I enjoy it. Programming is one of the most fun activities that I do. Heck, I was programming just now (at 2AM) before I switched over to Reddit to troll some people - err, I mean respond to your post. :) Just doing some fun little side work, and enjoying myself. There's nothing disciplined about what I was doing. I didn't force myself to open up my IDE. I just did, because it's fun. This is 100% the essence of what makes me a good programmer.

And so when I see everyone on Reddit saying that discipline is the way to enlightenment, I get sad. Because if I had followed that ideology instead of doing the stuff that I enjoy, I wouldn't be who I am today.

Humans aren't robots. If you take a guy and force him to do with discipline an activity he isn't really enjoying, he's still not going to enjoy it. He'll feel bad that he doesn't like it, and he'll get distracted and disappointed in himself for getting distracted, and etc etc.

If you take a guy and let him do an activity he wants to do, you won't have to force him or make him disciplined. He'll just do it automatically and get good at it.

The great thing about it is that you can really learn to enjoy almost any activity by learning how to get into flow state while doing it. There's been a couple of good books written on it.

Now if Reddit had chosen to focus on flow, rather than discipline, as the way to get good and steady improvements, then that would have been awesome! But they didn't, and that makes me disappointed. Not to write off discipline entirely, as it's important to know that not every time you do something is going to be as amazing as the first time. And discipline can sometimes lead to flow states.

The problem is that Reddit seems to celebrate 'forcing yourself to work'. That, to me, is incredibly dumb. If you're not enjoying your work, that means that something about your workflow is incorrect and needs to be fixed. It's like trying to continue to drive with a flat tire. Eventually you could cause damage if you don't figure out what's going on.

Anyone who does that is going to get rapidly surpassed by people that don't need to force themselves to do anything because they do it for the love of it.

Welcome to the fun, fringe, uncharted territory of esotericism, spirituality, and cosmic consciousness! If you’re anything like me, perhaps one day these elements were invisible to your awareness, and then the very next day these things became very interesting. It’s funny, I feel like when I flipped “on” a couple of years ago I wanted to hungrily devour any and all pieces of writing that dealt with unseen realms.

Just know that you’re going to come across an incredibly large buffet of esotericsm and sometimes it is mind-bending, other times it is questionable, sometimes it can be purposeful disinfo or sometimes info may come through what I like to call a “muddy channel,” or a person who has clairvoyant talent but carries a lot of personal distortions that influence/color the information.

Some resources that I have bookmarked:

• /r/Holofractal - I love this subreddit because it lays forth an idea of the universe being a simulation and how or why this “consciousness hologram” might exist.
  
• Rupert Sheldrake’s “The Science Delusion” TEDx Talk - This was a great 18 minutes that TEDx found too controversial to keep part of their roster.
  
• Spirit Science YouTube Channel - This is a great place to start for beginners looking at esotericism.
  
• A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle - Illuminating, enlightening, and uplifting, A New Earth is a profoundly spiritual manifesto for a better way of life—and for building a better world.
  
• Long list of book recommendations - Check out this SoulNexus post from 4 months ago. It is a treasure trove of books.

Love and respect are what relationships are built on. Love means sacrificing your needs and wants for hers. Sounds like you think she's great (respect) and that's a good start but you have to let her be herself and have friends and relationships other than with you.

That said, there are a few different things you can do. First be honest with her about how you are feeling. And don't be angry just be honest that her hanging out with this guy gives you anxiety. Ask her if she would be willing to set some boundaries with this person like not meeting one on one or inviting you to hang out with the two of them so you can get to know him and get more comfortable with the two of them being friends. One question though, is this guy an ex-boyfriend? In my opinion, if he's an ex it's fair to just ask her to stop talking to him altogether. But regardless, don't freak out, just gather more information and calmly ask your SO to set some boundaries.

edit: also, read the book Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud it is amazing and it will change your life and relationships for the better. https://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-When-Take-Control-Your/dp/0310247454

It's very difficult to get around it.

You have to stay very focused on a goal. For me, since ROM7, it's been to finish every match I play. Has that happened? No, but I understand the situations it has not and I'm very pleased with how things have been going.

It also helps if you read autobiographies or books on sports psychology (or psychology in general) to get ideas & techniques on how to better your mentality.

Here are some that have helped me immensely.

• Golf Is Not A Game Of Perfect
  
  
  • Currently reading this. It's obviously about golf, but it's about the mental game of golf. It's applicable to Smash, or basketball, or most competitive subjects. One of my favorite take-aways thus far is to look at an error such as an SD or a missed tech and think of it like "Well, there was a percentage chance that this would happen. Odds are it wont happen again. Just gotta trust my tech skill and stay sharp."
    
    
• Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength
  
  • This goes into exactly what the title states. It gives a history of research into willpower, or ego, and describes how people can behave different based off their current situation. Sleep deprivation, poor diet, getting a burst of motivation and deciding to change everything (think January 1st) can all be detrimental to your mental state. It also discusses methods of improving your willpower which can be related to habitual actions.
    
    
• The Power of Habit
  
  • This is a book that goes into habitual responses and how one can better understand them/change them. Useful information across all parts of life.
    
    
• Thinking, Fast and Slow
  
  • This is one I've revisited multiple times. It's quite a long read, but there's much to learn. Specifically it goes into two systems of thought. Your system 1 is your implicit (unconscious) system. It's what tells you the answer to 2+2 as you read it even though I didn't ask you to solve it. System 2 is the system that takes over when I tell you to give me the answer to 72 x 103. (Mathematical examples are great for conveying the ideas of these systems) It later goes into more economic psychology and decision making.
    
    
    PS. I'm not telling you where, but if you don't want to create a book collection PDFs of each of these may or may not be online.

Huskies, especially when young - require a lot of engagement to avoid the behaviors that people would associate with a bad dog/badly trained dog (chewing, using the bathroom inside, barking/howling incessantly, and other attitude problems). It's important that you give them things to do every day both physically and mentally, sticking to a schedule will help everyone involved - the dog will know something is coming and can wait instead of flipping out.

They're very smart dogs, work on obedience training (if you've never done this before, look for a local trainer and take some classes or buy a book - Training the Best Dog Ever is a decent little book by the person who trained Obama's dog among others - it focuses entirely on positive reinforcement, and then there are things like 101 dog tricks.)

Get them toys, use a puzzle feeder for meals, take them on as many walks as you feel like you can and reinforce the proper behaviors you want on every walk.

Huskies are working dogs, and like working dogs (and most all dogs) they want to know their job/role in the pack, trust you and your decisions, and do things that make you happy. They are your number one fan, and always down to ride or die.



^^^dog ^^^tax

tl;dr take it on walks a lot, play with it, positive reinforcement for behaviors you want it to continue, don't hit it or yell at it for 'bad' behaviors, make sure it has physical/mental things to engage it every day and it'll be your best friend for the rest of its life.

I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad evening and that you felt the way you did. Certainly those are difficult emotions to deal with, and can cause a lot of problems.

I applaud your choice of giving the situation some distance and looking for some help. It's great that you recognized and were mindful of your situation. Not everyone can identify and express what they are feeling and why, so good job you for knowing yourself.

So lets go thru what you said, and I'll try to give you a different perspective.

"When i tried to sing, she sang over me with her improv and everyone just played & laughed a long with her."

I think a lot of people would feel invalidated if someone else monopolized the room. Especially if they were trying to contribute and share. Did you ever try to actually speak with her directly, or to the room in general, and say, 'Hey, I'm trying to sing here too, could you not sing over me? I'd like a chance as well." (check out DEARMAN in order to communicate what you want/need) Now I understand that social anxiety can block you from addressing this (which would be something you'd have to practice and work on.) It's possible 'robot girl singer' didn't realize that she was doing. People tend to be focused on themselves, their own experiencences and are not always paying attention to others. It's very probable that everyone there had no idea that you felt that way, or if you left abruptly, why you left. You need to communicate your feelings, which I know can be hard. Practice is the only thing that makes this easier.

'I feel like, why don't he just leave me & spend his life jamming with this person who is confident & talent since he's obviously not bothered by my absence any way??"

Again, your fiancee may have no idea why you left if you said nothing to him about how you were feeling and why you were feeling that way. You need to start challenging those automatic negative thoughts about yourself.

Again, I'd like to congratulate you some great things you did.

1. You recognized that you were having these thoughts about being invalidated, and feeling insecure and jealous. (some people can't do this so, it's great that you did!)
   
   
2. You recognized and thought, "I don't want to burn bridges by making a scene." (again, great job here, because you were mindful to recognize, 'Hey, I might be acting impulsively and these feelings aren't going to last forever.")
   
   
3. You took action. You removed yourself and then you looked for help. You were skillful and engaging in self care.
   
   
4. You followed through. You took a break, wrote it all out on your phone, distracted and calmed yourself down.
   
   All of these are positive things that YOU did. You obviously have some negative feelings about yourself, and you need to start challenging those. You must have some great qualities. Try to think about what those great qualities are and own them. Sure, other people may be better at some things but that doesn't mean that what you bring to the table is worthless. Practice some self compassion and self love.
   
   A friend of mine who struggles with social anxiety, found this book to be helpful, you may too! (your mileage may vary!)
   
   The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life The author, Mark Manson, also has a website with some articles as well.
   
   You may also find these links about overcoming jealousy helpful.
   
   And remember, for any change to work, you need to work it. It will take time and practice for you to change those thoughts and beliefs.
   
   -hugs- take good care!
   
   *edit - grammar - spelling (it's monday)

mostly meditation, exercise, and a positive journal. i try and meditate twenty minutes daily and i also write one page in my journal everyday. i also exercise for a half hour every day (alternating running and body weight training). my journal entries start with three things i am grateful for and/or make me happy, followed by one in detail description of something positive from the last twenty four hours. both range from large things to small, as long as they make me happy. both of these train your brain to scan the environment for positive things.

all of this is stuff i learned from The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor, whom i discovered via his TED talk.

if you like i can send you the ebook version that i have. that book really changed my perspective on my own thoughts. overall a hugely rewarding read. i think i liked the book so much because it was exhaustively cited. Achor himself is pretty accomplished in the field of positive psychology.

In my opinion, there is a certain element of giving up the idea that you can control what he will do. That's a big part of understanding boundaries (Part of the reason I recommend the book Boundaries - it has a religious viewpoint I wasn't expecting, but even if that isn't your thing the lessons are valuable).

The advice from /u/anjie_bee above is a good plan in general. The boring / barely responding method gives you a little bit of a slow fade that lessens the risk of him going on the attack. The next few times he messages you, don't respond immediately either. Give it 10-15 minutes, then out to half an hour, then an hour. Don't schedule any dates or meet with him in any way. Come up with boring excuses to get out of plans he wants to make.

The reality is if he's not getting the attention he wants from you, he will either lash out like the pictures threat, or move on to someone else. The Al-anon motto applies here: "I didn't cause it, I can't control it, I can't cure it."

The upside: his threats will likely be empty. Steps you can take if he does try something like the pictures - don't shy away from being honest about him and his actions. If by some small chance he does send those pictures to your work or someone you know, then be up front. "I dated this guy for a short period, and obviously I ignored some red flags early on. I ended it, and he responded by threatening me with those pictures. I appreciate your understanding, and I'm just moving forward."

Longer term, there are a few things that have helped me grow personally in this journey.

1. Taking care of yourself mentally and physically. A couple of years before ending the relationship, I started paying attention to nutrition and then later a dedicated exercise routine. This resulted in losing weight and generally feeling better inside and out.
   
2. Therapy, yay! Talking to a professional can really help you understand the thought processes that influence the choices you make. External perspective is very helpful too, my therapist asked the questions that made me understand how much energy, time, and emotion I was putting into changing someone else who had shown no signs of changing for years.
   
3. Meditation. Can't recommend this highly enough. I've gone the mindfulness route, without the spiritual aspect, and it has made a huge difference in my ability to remain calm in the face of stress, to be more aware of my body, mind, thoughts, and emotions.
   
   Final thought, one that I shared on here recently that struck a chord with me. Happiness is not a place, it is a compass. What will bring you happiness is each day making choices that bring you closer to your goals - what you truly want for yourself personally, in work, romantically.

1

As you meditate more, you may come to realise that it's the identification of yourself with an emotion which causes a significant amount of suffering (not the emotion itself). For example, I suffered from quite bad anxiety when around large numbers of people (lectures, meetings, etc). Pre-mindfulness, I would become anxious which leads to a freight train of thoughts such as: "what if this gets worse?", "what if I have a full-blown panic attack in front of all these people?", "I can't cope with this". Notice how all these thoughts have an I in them; it's all self-referential and believing that this emotion is you. I found depression is similar but the thoughts are more like: "why do I feel like this?", "I'm more depressed than everyone else", "I'm not normal; I'm going to be like this forever".

The aim of mindfulness is to accept our emotions, but probably more importantly is to also change how we relate to our emotions and this is the aspect which takes time, patience and persistance. So please, please, please, keep on meditating!

> I almost don't want to accept my sad emotions

I understand this and is extremely difficult. To completely give in to your emotions is almost an art. Try it as a sort of "experiment" if sadness comes up in meditation; try to completely let the sadness in. See how it feels in your body, if it creates any tension, where it sits, if there's a change in breathing, if there's a change in temperature etc.

2

This probably will happen to a certain extent, but I would argue that this brings a freedom that the majority of the population is unaware from.

The next time you're on a train/bus or at a party, have a look at the people around you. A lot of people going to work are grasping for that next step up the career ladder or that pay rise, hoping it will be them happiness when they are at the top or can afford those new, more expensive shoes they've always wanted. People are driven by thought processes which ultimately won't make them happy. Again with people at a party; how many people look at ease? You have people desperately trying to fit in, which is fueled by feelings of anxiety and fear of failure. You have people desperately trying to be "cool", to fulfill this story/narrative that they are cool and popular. If not, their identity crumbles and they are miserable.

Mindfulness helps us step out of our own narrative and truly live. Instead of focusing on money, status, intellectualism, athleticism, etc, you can simply be here now. This will generally make you more compassionate as well.

I would argue that the less we identify with the self, the more freedom we have. I had a similar crisis of identity when I started meditating. I was a keen athlete and was always striving for better and faster. After meditating for a while though, I realised that this was primarily driven by anxiety and feel of failure. All of a sudden I had zero motivation to train and compete! What was the point? To me it didn't matter anymore. This was problematic as exercise really helped my mental health. The solution I found was to carry on training/exercising, but this time the aim was to simply enjoy the process. Be present in my training sessions. Explore how my body reacts during training and racing. Fully give in to the process of competing, while trying not to identify which the outcome/results too much (I'm still not great at this last bit, as I still place a lot of my self-worth in how I perform. I'm slowly getting better though).

What I'm trying to say is that you can carry on doing the hobbies/activities you enjoy, but approach them with a different outlook.

3

I've experiences space distortion (e.g. the floor underneath me falling away which was very weird and intense) but never hallucination so I can't really help you there. However, if you want to systematically and carefully explore meditation further step-by-step, then I cannot recommend enough The Mind Illuminated by Dr John Yates (which is completely free of religion and jargon which is refreshing). In my opinion, Eckharte Tolle's book is a waste of space and there are better books on being mindful:

• Wherever You Go, There You Are
  
• Mindfulness In Plain English
  
  
• Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World
  
  The first two books are more about the essence of mindfulness and the third is more of a step-by-step guide to mindfulness written by a brilliant researcher here in Oxford. Russ Harris' books on ACT are fantastic :)
  
  Edit: One last thing I wanted to say about the negative effects of mindfulness is that my motivation to work towards my PhD also took a hit when I started meditating. Again, a lot of my motivation for my PhD was anxiety and fear or failure, and once I identified with these emotions less and less, the less I worried about working hard. This again is slow progress but I'm trying to switch emphasis in my work from achieve, achieve, achieve, to enjoying and savouring the process. It's difficult though with periods of high-pressure and deadlines!
  

Disclaimer: A down-vote is NOT "I disagree", but this post adds nothing interesting.

First, you'll probably want to read last year's thread:

• What's the most important thing you've learned about UI design?
  
  My speciality is Graphics, Fonts, User Experience, and User Interface. I don't have any portfolios / demos (ATM) but I can give some advice. Here are my thoughts & wisdom I've collected over 20 years. (You may notice some of this in the above thread -- I'll try not to overlap too much.)
  
  IMO, there are 2 levels to UI:
  
  

  Low-Level code
  

  
  Traditionally, UI was given to the "junior" programmers because it wasn't as "sexy" as the main game development (Physics, AI, Rendering, Audio, Networking). Translation: It wasn't "mission critical", plus you couldn't really 'screw it up'.
  
  Casey Muratori (Handmade Hero) has an article on UI called Semantic Compression that discusses how to write clean UI code. You'll notice that UI design & implementation using OOP, DD (Data Driven), and/or DOD (Data-Orientated-Design) are pretty boring to most people.
  
  The best way to understand UI is to
  
  

1. Implement it.
   
2. Analyze it
   

• What are the strengths?
  
• Weaknesses?
  
• How rigid is it?
  
• How flexible is it?
  
• How many hacks did you use?
  
• How much did you over-engineer it?
  
• How simple it?
  
  UI isn't just about the parts though -- it is about the sum of the parts. Which leads me to my next point:
  
  
  

  High Level Psychology
  

  
  This is a huge topic -- I'll go over the basics.
  
  0. Purpose of UI
  
  The zeroth rule of UI is:
  
  

• The sole purpose of UI is to get out the way and empower the user to do what they want.
  
  Far too many people focus on (useless) Form over Function. A great UI can't save a bad game, but a great game can be hurt by bad UI.
  
  1. Frame-rate
  
  First, IMO, if you don't understand the difference between 120 Hz, 60 Hz, and 30 Hz, you shouldn't be doing UI. Go buy a 120 Hz "gaming monitor". Learn about micro-stuttering -- when a solid 60 Hz momentary drops down to 30 Hz for one frame and then back up. I'd recommend starting here: DF Retro: Daytona USA and Why Frame-Rate Has Always Mattered
  
  Second, if you aren't targeting at least 60 Hz in your UI, you're doing it wrong. Nothing says amateur hour more then crappy 30 Hz -- it tells people you don't a) know, or b) care about the fundamentals. Again, I'd recommend watching these videos demonstrating judder:
  
  
• OWE my eyes @ 24 fps
  
  
• Silky smooth @ 60 fps
  
  Third, learn about blending, or easing equations. Robert Penner's easing equations are the classic, badly written, buggy, unoptimized ones, but they are good enough to get you started.
  
  2. S:N:~N
  
  The secret to good UI is understanding the S/N/~N ratio -- Signal:Noise:Anti-Noise.
  
  What are these?
  
  
• You've probably heard of Signal -- that is the actual text or UI elements that the user can interact with. You could think of this as: Function.
  
• The Noise is all the non-interactive stuff. "Fluff" such as backgrounds, etc. You could think of this as: Form.
  
• What you probably haven't heard of is "Anti-Noise". You could think of this as Whitespace. Without whitespace all the signal and noise would overlap!!
  
  IMO, it is the contrast between signal-and-noise that makes for good UI. What do I mean by that? Here is an example -- a plain data table.
  
  |Foo|Bar|
  |:--|:--|
  |Key1|Val1|
  |no background contrast|makes it hard to read|
  |Key2|Val2|
  |blah|blah|
  |Everything blends in|... yuck|
  
  The problem is TOO much signal effectively becomes noise. Hmmm.
  
  Compare and contrast, literally, with a table that has alternative background colors for even & odd rows. We have effectively added in Anti-Noise. We have used "pacing" or "flow" to the signal so that it is no longer monotonous. I'll add a link about flow in a minute.
  
  This is the kind of thinking that entails good UI:
  
  
• How can you present information to the user without overloading them?
  
• How can you make the non-obvious intuitive?
  
  To learn about UI you'll need to play games. Start breaking the UI down.
  
  
• What feels natural?
  
• What feels "hard" and takes longer then it should?
  
• What would I change? Why?
  
  
  3. Flow
  
  Most games have a crappy UI because the user's experience from their POV was never a focus -- it is, sadly, usually an afterthought.
  
  I'm not talking basic widgets such as:
  
  
• Text entry
  
• Radio buttons
  
• Drop drown menus
  
• "Flashy" 3D menus
  
• etc.
  
  I'm specifically talking about "Flow" -- what is the psychology of the gamer. That is, what are they thinking and feeling when:
  
  
• Your game starts up?
  
• How many useless splash screens do they have sit through before they can get to the main menu? Why do they have to watch them ... every .. single ... bloody .. time at startup???
  
• How many clicks does it take for them to actually get back into their game from a save game.
  
• How many unskippable cut-scenes do you make them sit through? Why do you not respect their time???
  
• Are things laid out logically and consistently?
  
• Does your game have a HUD?
  
• If so, is it cluttered?
  
• Are users able to re-arrange it to their needs?
  
  World of Warcraft was of one first triple AAA game to take UI serious. That was the pivotal, historical, moment when games progressed from stage 2 to stage 3.
  
  
• Hardware -- Can the raw hardware do what we envision? Mobiles have more then enough "horsepower" these days.
  
• Software -- Can we implement the algorithms? Yes, we've "solved" most of the "hard" problems like photo-realistic rendering, "good" AI, good physics, minimizing lag, etc.
  
• User Experience -- UI is not only about empowering the user -- but about the converse: What can we do to not piss off the user? i.e. Why do we make them click 4 times when 2 will do?
  
  IMO UI really is the last frontier in game development. It is about the level of polish that takes a good game and helps turn it into a great game.
  
  Hopefully this has given you some ideas to explore, to research, to learn about !
  

Man, I'm so late to this thread but hope this doesn't get buried--what you talk about is covered at great length alongside a TON of other empirical evidence and research in a book I love called "The Happiness Advantage."

The argument there is: we think achieving goals makes us happy, but in reality, achieving a state of happiness in life helps us achieve goals. It's a ton of eye-opening research, advice, etc. that I've passed along to others as well as the book itself. Cheers!

/u/jugglegod, are you female? I ask because female ADHD plays out a lot differently than what has been generally assumed/stigmatized as typical symptoms. Here is a helpful article discussing the gender bias in diagnosis & how many go undiagnosed under the radar-- like I had!

To answer your question, I am an ENFP with diagnosed female ADHD. This was a good read for me yesterday that /u/sonofkratos submitted to the subreddit-- its about ENFP but you will be able to draw some similarities between behavioral attributes in this article and attributes of female ADHD.

I wasn't formally diagnosed until 2011 (age 21), so I have only been on medication for it since then. It has been extremely helpful in addition to methods I use to approach my symptoms.

• I am somewhat glad that I did not take Adderall during my teenage years-- although I would have greatly benefited from it with regards to my academics, home relationships, goal setting, and depression; stimulants are pretty hard on the body, fuck with your sleep/eating habits, and can be easily abused. As an adult I am able to distinguish my personal limits and truly use it for my disorder, and not just heavy studying/partying :)
  
  
• I'll add that if my child were to have it too, I would focus on more cognitive therapy in place of initial medicating during their developmental years. (my opinion) Not only to encourage healthy coping mechanisms, but there are none, if any then not enough, long-term studies that have been released about ADHD medication (stimulants) and the effect on the developing brain/body.
  
  A really important point I want to make clear is that in NO way did a diagnosis give me an excuse to use in my interactions with others for the way I am. It empowered me to approach my behavior (INTERrpersonal reactionary & INTRApersonal empathy) with cautionary methods to keep me on track.
  
  The diagnosis helped me understand WHY I was frustrated/depressed--
  
  
• I wasn't reaching the goals/expectations in work/school/extracurricular that I had all intention and motivation to complete because of my inability to focus and stay on track.
  
  
• I was negligent in my friendships with others (has to do with ENFP qualities too) because it was hard to organize myself in a way that kept my committed plans and maintained reciprocal contact
  
  
• I learned to map out micro-goal setting on a structured timeline, and to be forgiving with myself if I still didn't reach it-- more focus on staying on the track, not as much on hitting benchmarks
  
  
• A lot of post-it notes, scheduling reminders (Apple iOS Reminders app is super annoying, but annoying in a way that is effective for me-- features that remind you of certain things when you arrive at certain destinations)
  
  TL;DR I guess my coping methods are ways of constantly nagging myself-- but my biggest gain has been in developing personal empathy and emotional intelligence. As an ENFP, we're highly emotional/passionate, overthink things, and have trouble with relationships by reacting poorly to those that are close to us when we hold them to our often high (and perhaps unrealistic) expectations.
  
  These two books (here) and (here) have recently helped me a lot in the areas where my ADHD and ENFP collide.
  
  Good luck and sorry for the lengthy post!
  

> Thanks for the advice! Any specifics about the cover you don't care for and wouldn't mind to share?

Look, design is a skill the same way writing is a skill. Most people think they can write perfectly OK cover letters or blog articles or whatever, but the results will generally not be as polished and effective as they will after they've been through an experienced, professional editor or put directly into the capable hands of a pro writer.

Same for design. Your cover is readily identifiable as homebrew, which given my original point about credibility, is a mistake. The three colour combo looks like crappy powerpoint, the clipart icons are low-rent and grody, and the font selection is a complete absence of typography. It is better than a lot of DIY but it is transparently DIY. (Contrast with this, which is also very simple but vastly better and more professional. And sold like hotcakes, as well.)

Flood Sick has a better cover on the strength of the type selection alone -- at least it looks like someone made a conscious choice about it, and it is nicely matched to the genre -- and it is probably an absolutely fine cover for the niche.

With this book, though, I do think the cover needs to look like you spent money on the cover for positioning and credibility purposes.

My dog knows a variety of functional commands. They are really helpful! The ones that are especially good are below. (She is a border collie, so she learns quickly and can apply old words to new similar situations. Like she understands that 'kennel' can also mean 'go under the table' if that is where I point. Ymmv.)

Ones that are helpful:
Kennel: go in the kennel/hole
Bed: go into your bed.
Wait: we will let you out soon, do not push past me to the door, hang out where you are, we are coming. It is less strict than 'stay' (don't move a muscle).
Off: get off something, such as a bed or person. Different than 'down' as that is the lay down position. So I can have her on a bed and tell her down so she lies down on the bed, or off, so she gets off the bed.
Leave it: don't pick that up/mess with it. It is good for not her toy items and the cats!


We also have done bells on the door knob for out and in. Better than barking! We took them down though because she loves to go in and out all day and it was getting on my nerves! She also knows 'it's a fried, say hello' for strange dogs because she is a bit shy, and that might help with meeting baby, especially when baby cries. My cousin with twins taught her dog 'baby toy' to help him navigate baby plush and rubber squeak toys from his! I think we'll add that for our dog since she loves to take the cat toys!

I just trained her by being consistent with the word, often a sign, and the context to get her to do it. I used happy voice and some pets to reward her, she was never really into treats. This book provided great training guidance: 101 Dog Tricks: Step by Step Activities to Engage, Challenge, and Bond with Your Dog https://www.amazon.com/dp/1592533256/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_m7Qxyb2G15Z05

Have fun!

> why wait?

Why wait, indeed! Good for you.

I've been reading The Willpower Instinct, and I know it sounds cheesy to turn to self-help books, but it's made quitting this time around a breeze. Granted, it's only been one day since I 'officially' quit, but the book made working my way down from half a pack to half a cigarette a day pretty simple.

A few great tips from the book:

• Apply the 10 minute rule. When a strong craving comes on, tell yourself, "ok, but in 10 minutes." Then at the end of those 10 minutes, do it again.
  
• Write down all the reasons you quit, then, just before a craving is scheduled to hit (like before your drive to work, or whatever triggers you), look at it the list and tell yourselves you'll have all those things (good health, better skin, easier time breathing, etc), or you could have a cigarette. Generally, your brain will side with whatever reward you promised it first. I usually chew Nicorette at the same time - just before the craving is due.
  
• Don't think about what you deserve (ie: I've worked hard, I deserve a cigarette). Instead think of what you want (I don't want breathing to be a labor).
  
  Anyways, here's the book. I'd recommend listening to it on tape, CD, Audible, or whatever while you're in the car, if car smoking is one of your triggers.

I'm an artist and I struggled with food for many years of my life. I used the food as a distraction from my problems and the fat that I put on as a protective shield of sorts. I also had anxiety about leaving the house for a few years. I've had a fear of failure in regards to my art almost my entire life. Just this year I got over that(and sold my first painting shortly after!).

There was so much that I did to get out of my funk. The first step was realizing that I was in an unhealthy relationship with food. Then I realized that I had an unhealthy relationship with my body. I began to read books and articles about nutrition, healthy body image, relationships, states of mind, psychology, sociology. I youtubed and googled a lot. TED talks are good too. You can get books shipped to your house.

After a while I decided to cut out all people in my life that hurt me or were continuing to hurt me(whether they knew it or not). I realized that I deserved better than what they were giving me and how they were treating me. I decided I was through with toxic relationships. It was hard at first and I felt guilty but I realized that me and my happiness should be my number one priority, not the happiness of others. What really opened my eyes was, once I cut those people out of my life without even telling them I was going to, I never heard from them again. It just showed me how much I let people use me.

As for my family, most were cut off(I was tired of the screaming, the manipulating, the drama) and I limited my interactions with the ones I kept in contact with. I decided I needed to be with myself for a while and worry about me.

I went through my belongings and got rid of anything tied to anyone that had caused trauma in my life. I donated clothing. I burned pictures, letters, papers, cards, etc. Then, I just went through my things and donated stuff I didn't use anymore. I felt a HUGE weight lifted after I did this.

Shortly after, I began journaling in a text editor on my computer. I still dealt with crap at work, so I had lots of stuff to say. Plus, taking care of myself was a new thing and I had lots of thoughts about that. I just wrote out whatever my feelings were and then deleted them immediately after writing. I didn't want to keep it around.

A few years down the road I was jobless. I also began to fear leaving the house. I had lots of time on my hands and began a spiritual journey and soon realized that my body and interactions were outwardly mirroring issues I had inside myself. My husband suggested trying Deepak & Oprah's 21 day meditation challenges. They are free while the challenge is current and a new one pops up every few months. Just sign up for free. You don't have to buy a single thing. You just need to give a real email address so you can keep up with your journals if you choose to do them.

During the first year that we did those meditations I found a book called Conversations with God. It was very interesting and soon after I found an Eckhart Tolle book. Which lead me to another book. He has some amazing things to say about life, thoughts, all kinds of things. Some other books I came across were by Deepak. He's a medical doctor but also speaks about meditation, food, spirituality, etc. His most famous book is this one. You might find this one on addiction helpful. I saw Iyanla Vanzant speak once and found that she had some books that would be of use to me. They might help you too.

To get myself out of the house, I started with one day at a time. I would do one errand every two weeks outside of the house. I would have to force myself to get up, get dressed and get out but I would do it. I would bring someone along with me most of the time. Then, after a few months, I changed it to going out once a week and alternated whether or not someone would go with me. Next was a few times a week. Which is where I'm at currently and I'm completely happy with this and can leave the house whenever I want if I have a car without any worries.

As far as exercise goes. You can do seated exercises and desk workouts.

It might help to give yourself a time line or a calendar for getting things done. I find monthly calendars with my days broken down into activity times work for me. I use different colored pens or markers for different things. Going out of the house is black, taking care of my animals is blue, doing projects is green, working on something with someone else is pink, reading books is silver, meditation is light blue, doctors appointments are purple.

Remember that the change is probably going to be gradual but you CAN do it. Be gentle with yourself, especially when things don't go the way you want or are harder than expected. The work you put in will be worth it when you begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel my friend. Imagine what it will be like when you are out in the light! Good luck.

I know it can feel like you're trapped when you fall into a depression. Have you sought help from a psychologist? CBT is very effective for anxiety and depression.

If that's too much at this stage, you could start with a couple of excellent books. This first one shows you how to take control of the negative thought and emotional patterns that usually precede depression, and it helped me a lot:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindful-Way-Through-Depression/dp/1593851286

The second one is an awesome guide to increasing self-control, based on current psychological research:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Willpower-Instinct-Self-Control-Matters/dp/1583334386

(By the way, both books recommend meditation, and I've found meditation to be a very powerful way to master thoughts and emotions, leading to better self-control and a more peaceful form of happiness which isn't subject to the ups and downs of everyday life.)

I know it's tough, but it's important to make an effort to add a range of rewarding activities to your life; this will decrease the urges to fap. The second book by Kelly McGonigal provides a helpful list of rewarding and stress-relieving activities, which I've copied here:

Exercising/playing sports;
Praying or attending a religious service;
Reading;
Listening to music;
Spending time with friends or family;
Getting a massage;
Going outside for a walk;
Meditating or doing yoga;
Spending time with a creative hobby.

All the best.

Hey brother,

First; reading about your experience truly touched me. You seem like a good, honest guy and it makes me really sad to think of you suffering.

Secondly, you're not alone. My name is Joe, I'm 20 years old, from England (my brother is called Daniel too). At points over the last three years or so I've experienced some pretty serious anxiety too. I dropped out of school when I was 18 with no prospect of going to university and it was during the first few months that I began to feel very unwell mentally. It was almost exactly as you described - horrible unstoppable thoughts all the time, total alienation from my family and friends, I felt incapable, my digestion totally stopped working, I worried about my future constantly. Although I was never suicidal, at its worst I began to lose a sense of my own identity. Like you I was also at the point where therapy and professional help were the next option. The only reason I'm telling you this is that I saw quite a few similarities between us and I want you to know that, although I don't know you or your problems, there are lots more people coping with anxiety than you think, you're not alone.

You're gonna be OK. Mental illness is so confusing, but the fact that you've written here, the fact that you're searching for the answer, for the solution, is what's going to get you through this. Don't give up.

I beg you, please get this this book: "Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world" by Mark Williams and Danny Penman.

It’s an 8-week course on Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, a technique developed by the authors to treat patients with schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder using Buddism-inspired meditations. I still remember, after a week or so of following the course (20-30 minutes of meditation a day), the first time I finished one of the guided meditations and I could no longer hear my thoughts. It was a relief like none other I’ve ever felt and since that moment, whatever I have been doing and whatever mental state I've been in, meditation has always been the foundation of mental wellbeing to which I return. I credit this book - alongside some other lifestyle changes - to my recovery, and I have recommended it to everyone I know who so much as thinks the word ‘anxiety’. Through this book I learned the power of meditation and through meditation I have come to Buddhism, both now cornerstones of my life. Please, please get this book, read it, and do the course. After a few weeks of the guided meditations, you may start to see some improvement. Even if it’s only enough to encourage you and help you persevere, it’s worth it.

As for your question about medication; my best friend became depressive just over a year ago, and he committed suicide in March 2017. His illness was far worse than what I had gone through and he had been hospitalised and was severely delusional. In that instance, medication was definitely the right way to go and although the pills affected his personality a bit, he was transformed from being unrecognisable and delusional to being slightly subdued. He stopped taking his medication for some weeks before he died and this allowed his illness to return stronger than before. In serious psychosis or anything approaching it, don’t take any risks, seek professional help and follow the doctor’s instructions.

However, when I was unwell medication was not the right way. I was also wary of professional help so I quit my job, stopped studying to retake my exams so I could focus on getting better. I started going for a walk with my Mum every night and told her everything about my drug use and how I was feeling mentally, which helped so much. I spent more time doing things I liked, like making music and cooking. Exercise, sleep, healthy food, social contact will all help. 18-20 is a common age for mental illness, but don’t let it tie you down, think about all the stuff that’s important to you and start living for it, even if your brain is pulling in other directions. You will find your way through this Daniel, I think your intuition has served you well if you’re looking into meditation. Get the book (please).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-practical-guide-finding-frantic/dp/074995308X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506362269&sr=8-1&keywords=mindfulness+a+practical+guide+to+finding+peace+in+a+frantic+world

I’ll stop here anyway.
Much love and keep going,
Joe

Another book for understanding how your words can mean more than what they sound like in your head is Emotional Intelligence by Dan Goleman. I read it at about your age and it changed my life.

I'd say that How to Win Friends... is more relevant for getting to know new people and generally how to be pleasant in everyday interactions. Emotional Intelligence gets at a more basic understanding about what it's like to communicate your needs and desires, especially with loved ones. I read the original book (https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Intelligence-Matter-More-Than/dp/055338371X) which was more theory based compared to the newer books released about the same subject that tend to be more oriented towards business.

Also, regarding How to Win Friends... it's not really how to win friends, it's how to develop superficial familiarity with people. Don't use it as a guide to how to develop intimate friendships or people might eventually think you've prematurely turned into a middle aged businessman.

Hey there. It's always great to tackle problems with willpower; ultimately it's you that is going to need to put the methods you learn about into practice, and these books may help give you hope, and a strategy as to how best to apply it to depression.

What gave me the sense of "good fortune" (more an exercise in positive writing) was the diary experiment in the Happiness chapter of 59 Seconds.

I would recommend Learned Optimism for anyone wishing to supplement therapy with self-help, but keep in mind it may not work for everyone, so keep on pursuing other routes until you find one that helps. The book contains quite a lot of information explaining the scientific validity of the claims it makes, so you might want to skip that and dive in to the bits that will help you the most.

Looking at the book, I'd say reading all of Part One of Learned Optimism is crucial, as well as Chapters 12 and 15.

Good luck, PM me if you need any help.

I know that feeling so exactly, it's hard not to get emotional just knowing and reading that other people are there now. I have a bit of constant anxiety at the moment because things have been going so well for me for what I think is quite a long time, and I'm just waiting for that smack in the face. But then I breathe and remember to live day by day, be in the moment, enjoy the moment. It'll happen, I'll get into a slump. But we'll all make it out. I know for some people (me), the longer the slump goes on, the harder it is to deal with every day. I just hope that during those super struggles, you find an outlet of some sort. A friend, a doughnut, gas money to drive to a nice place for a day, just something to remind yourself that this is not the end. This is never the end.

For me, I just looked for (and usually received) little reminders. When it didn't happen on its own, I'd usually bust out some Buddhist related book because it's just SO accurate about how life works. My favorite lately is Buddha's Brain: The practical neuroscience of happiness, love & wisdom -- because I'm incredibly logic oriented and need science and "facts" to help me understand the most. Getting a neuroscience view on how happiness works and realizing it's not just this magic thing you can't count on, it helped me really practice making happiness a choice, no matter my circumstance. And then there's the whole wave mechanics that I depend on to get me through, too.

Just remember that you are loved, appreciated, and there god damned will be an upswing.

By this point, I've tried them all, and I don't want to overwhelm people. But here are a few of my favorites:

Surfing the urge (MP3) -- An audio-based exercise from the University of Washington that helps an individual develop the practice of dealing with cravings or urges to behave in a certain way.

The Happiness Trap -- This is a good intro to Acceptance and Commitment therapy.

Mixmax -- Among other things, it allows you to delay email delivery--which can help you control your inbox.

Sanebox -- They analyze your email habits to determine future email importance and auto-filter/organize those emails so that the most important ways get the attention they deserve. It also comes with the SaneBlackHole feature that ensures you never see emails from a particular address ever again.

X.Ai -- An AI personal assistant who schedules meetings for you.

Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator -- A personal favorite, and it does what it says it will do: makes your newsfeed disappear, so you can use the best of Facebook without getting pulled into the vortex.

Distraction-Free YouTube -- Similar to the Newsfeed Eradicator -- this scrubs ads and recommended videos, so you watch what you came to watch on YouTube.

That's just a few, and I'm happy to share more if people would like!

A therapist is going to be able to help you with this way more than anyone here (especially since apparently half the people here are suicidal). They're specifically trained for this kind of thing and can give you techniques, behaviors, medications etc. that are tailored just for your situation.

That said it sounds like your problem is concentrating on negative things. There are a lot of options to help with that. Mindfulness helps a lot and can be worked on with meditation. Keeping your life in general good order is another important step (exercise, sleep, nutrition, being social, keeping an active mind). After that I think the important thing is to identify what you really care about (your values) and stay busy working towards them. It's hard to be so negative when you're in the moment and things are going well in your life.

There are tons of books that can help too. Here's a fairly simple one that I enjoyed. Otherwise I'd recommend books on ACT therapy (e.g. "The Happiness Trap"), Stoicism (this one is good), Meditation ("Mindfulness in Plain English" is good and free), and CBT therapy (I like this one, though it's kinda long). "The Happiness Hypothesis" is another good overview type book.

You are not alive so that you may entertain yourself as much as possible and then die. You are meant for more. The search for more- discovering, then rediscovering why you're here, what your gifts are, this will last your whole life.

Discipline helps you accomplish something. But you need to figure out what to accomplish. The good and bad news is nobody knows. This is yours, and everyone's internal journey.

Use your gifts, involve other people. Are you a good singer? Sing for others. Are you a good cook? Cook for others. Are you strong? Help people move. Are you smart? Create an app, invest wisely, cure a disease. Are you really good at shooting a rubber-band from your fingers? Make youtube videos about it. Perform for sick kids in hospitals. It doesn't matter how big or small your gifts are. Share them.

I will give you an example from my life. I'm in my early 30's. I'm a good writer and speaker. My goal in life is to help others feel less alone. My strong social senses are insight and empathy. I like making others laugh, I like challenging regularly accepted ideas and tinkering with fringe ideas. So- I write friends letters, emails, Facebook messages to connect with them. I write funny personal essays and read around my city/online. I exercise to be confident/attractive (enough) to the opposite sex. I volunteer at Special Olympics coaching soccer. I seek out people going through hard times and connect with them, look them in the eyes and allow them to be who they are. I volunteer at the skid row mission. All of this helps and strengthens my soul. But for money, I program. I chose programming because I can enter Flow states during it, so even though it's work and can often suck, it can be really rewarding. Read Flow and design aspects of your life around it: https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202. It's taken me my entire life to figure all of this stuff out about myself, and I'm still learning and growing. One day I may hate all of this.

Let me give you some examples of where I lack discipline: I wanted to write a book 5 years ago. I started it, never finished. Discipline will help me finish it, but knowing myself was what allowed me to know I had the ability to write and something worth saying. Also, some days I just play video games for 10 hours. I ignore everything. Discipline helps limit/reduce those days.

I want you to think about the idea of production and consumption. When you watch TV/Youtube, you are consuming. Reading a book, consuming. Eating pizza, consuming. If you make your parents spaghetti, you're producing. Paint a picture, producing. Arrange flowers into a bouquet and then give them to someone, producing. Find a good balance in your life between these things. Everyone is different. The fact that you wrote this post makes me think you're a little high on consumption and a little low on production. Decide how you're going to change, then use discipline to execute those changes.

I can relate to this topic so badly. I can't tell what works for everybody, but I can share what worked for me and what I wished I did way earlier in my life.

Many of these answers suggest that you just go out to public places. I disagree. It may be a cultural thing, as I live in a very introverted culture, but in my experience, this does very little if your mindset is not right. I believe in the mindfulness approach to conquering your thoughts, which in very few words is by not fighting bad thoughts, but accepting them, knowing that you are not your thoughts. Some great books on this subject is Get Out Of Your Mind and Into Your Life and The Happiness Trap. If you like these books, find a psychologist who works with ACT. It gave me so much to see one myself and get his perspective on things.


Now I am going to make some assumptions. If these are wrong, I am sorry, but I hope that you can at least get something out of it.

I would guess that you feel that people wont be able to relate to you or won't find you interesting. Maybe you also suffer from perfectionism and judge yourself really hard. These were the things holding me back. And still are sometimes. Whatever it is, you're probably not sharing yourself with others. People don't know what you're about and that makes it hard to talk to and relate to you.


There's always an uncertainty whenever you open your mouth and express something that isn't neutral. Everything is open to judgement. You have to be completely okay with that. You're probably not right now. Do people like each other and socialize because they are in complete agreement and they think of each other as perfect? No. On the contrary, you become interesting when you have your unique features, good and bad. Unless your bad traits are really dominant, but for most persons they're not. First and foremost, you have to have positive expectations that people will want to hear what you have to say and act like believe it. If you try to stay neutral until you're sure that people like what you have to say, you're going to come of as weird.

I could write a lot more, but I don't want to go of a rant if this is completely unrelatable to you. Please tell me if this is helpful :)

Good luck and stick with it. Keeping them learning is the best way to settle them down, in my experience. I've rarely been able to get the actual energy burned out of either of mine, but mentally stimulating BC's through training them, teaching them new tricks, and just generally making them think works wonders. It may even help with the jumping, but that would just be a lucky side effect, not necessarily expected.

Another tip I'd offer is pick up a trick book. 101 Dog Tricks is what we used with our first. Just picked out something that looked fun and made it a week long project. You will calm him down, and have the added benefit of a dog that can do awesome tricks! lol

Have been in the exact same boat and I feel like it took me a lot longer to work through it than most. Also went from being very focused to not being able to focus on anything at all, worried about my job performance, unable to get out of bed on weekends, etc. Prior to my learning that Mormonism was false, I had never experienced a day of depression in my life, but after my world came crashing down it became a long, dark tunnel. Anyway, it's called an existential crisis if you haven't read up on it already. Give it time and keep working on things and I promise it will eventually improve. For what it's worth, these four books were game changers for me (check them out if you're interested:

• A Confession by Tolstoy. In it, Tolstoy describes how he navigated his own existential crisis. It's a short read and the link takes you to a free downloadable e-book.
  
  
• The Power of Now by Tolle. It provides an excellent approach for developing mindfulness and learning to accept life as it is.
  
  
• Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning by Frankl. This is a heavy read, so if you don't like the first half, just focus on chapters 6, 7, and 8. It covers the intersection of religion and meaning in life.
  
  
• A New Earth by Tolle. Similar to the above "Power of Now." Focuses on being present, overcoming the ego, and accepting and finding peace in life as it's given.
  
  You may not agree with everything in the books above (I didn't) but they provided me with a lot of invaluable perspective in working through my own loss of faith and the existential vacuum that followed. Stick with it and know that you're not suffering alone! And I promise things will get better.

16.) Alternative Medicine (speak to a dr!!

There are a few alternative medicine options out there for depression and are currently being studied as cures for depression.

I am not a doctor and I cannot give medical advice. Please speak to a doctor or professional before considering any of these options

A lot of these can’t be mixed with medication because it can cause serious harm and make things worse. You can get serotonin depletion and all that. I am not trying to scare you all but I want people to be safe. Please talk to doctors and and research

St Johns Wart

st johns wart is natural and there is a lot of conflicting info online about a proper dosage. A word of caution talk to a medical professional about the dosage. I found a dosage after extensive research online that I thought would be good. and after speaking to a dr it was way too much. The issue that came about was the dose I was taking gave me heart palpitations. Pretty much your heart skips a beat or something. What it feels like? mini heart attacks when I was sleeping. Scared the sht out of me. So talk to a doctor. Also get a good quality brand.

I did take this for a bit and did see a good increase in mood but I did stop. It does increase anxiety a bit too which was too much for me. and you can’t mix with alcohol and I believe you can’t mix with caffeine.

5-htp

From what I read it can also help and people usually move on to this after trying st johns wart and not getting a result. I didn’t move on to this, and forget most of the research. But do your own research and talk to a doctor.

Magic Mushrooms

psilocybin mushrooms is being studied a bit for treatment of depression and may be an option. for you. it was a conflict whether or not to include it or not because it is illegal and looked down upon by most. but it did help me greatly. actually pretty much cured my depression even though i still have anxiety. so leaving this out would be just as bad in my eyes. again I can’t recommend and will not give advice. but do your research.
erowid ( not a typo) is a good place to get some research but don’t believe everything you read, and approach with caution. there is a great amt. of people on there who try and push the limits which is not good. just cus someone else did it doesn’t mean you should.

not all shrooms are the same and each dose will be different from the last. some strains are much stronger than others. and just cus 1gram is good does mean 2grams is twice as strong. it doesn’t work like that and gets strong and intense quick. And if abused can be dangerous. I have had friends take too much and go to a psych ward. There is no rush take your time and go slow. To avoid getting hurt. Theres a great deal of info online and people you can talk to with advice. do tons of research. start small. its not a game and each trip is a learning experience, even bad ones. Ive had bad ones. Just please be safe!



16.) additional resources

Theres are tons of resources out there forums hotlines and the such doctors that kind help. Do your own research and sees what helps you. The point of this lengthy post is so that you don’t have to do all the searching and sifting through the noise like I did. So that maybe you can spend less time searching for a solution and focus on working on overcoming this battle. Now I do want to note that what works for me may not work for everyone. That everyones situation in itself is different and unique. That medications may work for some and not others. I don’t dismiss and look down upon on anything that may help someone overcome depression.

If you do choose meds or alternative meds start small and work your way up to to the dose. don’t just dive into the deep end. and when you start to feel better slowly work you way down decreasing the dose and not just go cold turkey.

Suicide Hotline —> 1-800-273-8255
offers confidential help for free

School counselors

Also I would like to list a book that has helped put things into perspective greatly and I think many people suffering any time of depression and anxiety can benefit from.

https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Living/dp/1590305841

I do recommend reading through it slowly and work through the exercises as you go. I rushed through it and didn’t get to get the most out of it so I’m reading it again (:

Disclaimer** i do not receive any compensation for the book or referring the book
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Do I still feel depressed at times?

Yes. It is now more infrequent and less intense than before but it does still happen. To describe it... its just one of the days where you wake up and are just like "ugh" about everything. Idk if that makes sense. But what has happened is that the depression has been replaced with more anxiety. Like yesterday I just woke up and had bad anxiety all day. Idk why either. Nothing bad or stressful is occurring in my life at this time and I just have to realize it happens and Ill fully heal over time.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Why didn't you ever try prescription meds?

I never went to speak with a dr, because I was afraid they'd just shove pills down my throat. ( I want to clarify that theres nothing wrong with medication, it does to wonders for some people but thats not the route I wanted to go). And that it is covering the problem rather than fixing it. At a young age, 12 i think, I remember have a school lunch monitor who was always super nice and friendly but at times she was very airy for a lack of a better word. One day I spoke with my mom and she basically told me she was on medication. I believe antidepressants if Im not mistaken. A lot of kids and adults talked about her at the school. So I never wanted to be that guy. There is also the bad things Ive heard that stuck out in my mind that you have a couple people snapping off of antidepressants in the pas tthat scared me, and then I had a cousin who I was not so close with going through through depression, which I found out at a funeral. But what turned me off was that he carried around all these pills and he was taking so much of them and thats literally all he can talk about was his pills.

Which is not a big deal. I understand now that he didn't have a very supportive immediate family, he wasn't working, didn't have any hobbies, and all he really knew was the pills so that was his way of talking. In a different light I think its similar to the guy who always works and when you meet up with him to catch up, work is all he talks about, because thats all he's around all the time. Finally, theres the whole business aspect of me where I know big pharma are ultimately companies and need to make money and don't care about the lil guy scenario.

Hey maybe this is a bit late to comment on, but I'm currently reading a book called The Willpower Instinct, since I'm also interested in willpower and ADHD. My current hypothesis/understanding is that willpower is possible with ADHD, but it's hard. It's easier with medication, but in my experience, you also have to be proactive, and practice willpower with medication.

Eventually (hopefully), this will slowly change the brain so that the new, good habits you implement won't require so much willpower anymore. Exercise, getting good sleep, eating right, and all that other healthy stuff helps too- and in my experience, mindfulness meditation is huge. Meditation helps me to pause a bit more before making decisions than I would normally, where I would just act automatically- or in other words, actually allows me to make a decision, and not just act on instinct haha.

The Willpower Instinct is a great read if you're open to it. It's not very long and can help you understand your urges and habits which is the first step to getting more control over them, instead of them controlling you.

It sounds like what you're doing is emotional eating, and the best way to stop a bad habit is to replace it with a good/healthy habit that will increase your dopamine levels. Commit to something like light exercise each night, you can try out different youtube videos until you find ones you really like doing. If you aren't into exercising at night, try out some creative hobbies(knitting, drawing, photography, woodworking, etc). These help calm your mind and also increase dopamine levels. Ask your parents if they can stop buying special k for a few weeks if this is your comfort food. Be open with them about how you have been feeling, and they can help you too.

You've made a big first step reaching out for help and admitting that you don't want to do this anymore. Don't give up, even if you do it again one night. Just start over the next day and keep trying.

Have you heard of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713 ? I really recommend it!!!

You are a great person, you have ambitions and goals! Majority of people don't have that, believe me!

To me it seems like you are trying to meet someone else's expectations (you parents? your friends?). You don't have to be the best to be happy! That opinion, that happiness comes with uniqueness has been around for way too long. That's not true :)
You don't do stuff with a goal to become really good. You do stuff because you like doing it! And when you enjoy doing it and do spend a lot of time doing it, then you become really good! See, it's not a goal, it's a result!
It's all in that book, it's worth time and money, read it :)

Meditating and giving less fucks.

You can search up introductory meditation videos but here is one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPpUNAFHgxM

As for giving less fucks this book is pretty good: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019MMUA8S/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Cutting deep to the heart of the issue. Barring all the spiritual connotations, the core of meditation is getting your brain to calm down/shut up for a bit. If you can't stop thinking for even a second, meditation can help you chill out.

Giving less fucks is pretty much that. Worrying less, accepting that your mood can change, not wanting what you can't have, not worrying about what you can't control, it all ties into that.

Hope that helps :)

Also if you DM me I can probably hook you up with a pdf of the book I mentioned if you have a (throwaway) email

Check out this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713

There's a really good anecdote early on in the book. It tells the story of this guitarist who got kicked out of his band just before they record their first album. He was completely devastated. On his way back to LA from New York, he decided that he would start his own band and be bigger and better than his old band. He practiced constantly, assembled a new band and recorded an album. The band became successful and actually reached global fame. His new band was Megadeath, a relatively popular and well known band. Most people would be very happy with this accomplishment. Unfortunately his previous band was Metallica, and they were much more popular and successful than Megadeath. The guitarist (Dave Mustaine) later admitted in an interview that he was still upset about being kicked out of Metallica and doesn't consider himself to be a success.

It then tells the story of Pete Best. He was the drummer who was kicked out of The Beatles and replaced by Ringo Starr just before they made it big. For years he was depressed, suicidal, and pissed off at the world. But later, he met his wife, started a family, and lived a happy and satisfying life. Eventually, he accepted the things in life that he couldn't control and took responsibility for those that he could.

The point is that you shouldn't worry about the things in your life that you can't control. Don't compare yourself to your friends or set arbitrary benchmarks like "I should be making $X per year". Don't measure your progress in life by how much money you have in the bank or how many fancy toys you have. Find what makes you happy and do it.

>Do you do this after you read the book, or during?

I'm actively doing this while I'm reading the book. It helps that I'm usually reading a book with my laptop in front of me, but if I don't have my laptop I'll usually just jot down some notes in the margins/highlight/write on scrap papers and then put it in my mindmap later. I see this as being a tool for me to go back and absorb information quickly months down the line so I don't have to reread a book a bunch to pick up ideas again.

> Is the software just for desktop/laptop use or smart phone too? (And how do you use it?)

It's opensource so I don't think they have an app. However there are a bunch of mindmap softwares out there so I'm sure there is one that links to mobile. I just happen to like this one because it's free! As to how to use it, there is a fairly good help page in the software once you download it and you pick up how to use it after reading it for ~30 minutes or so.

> I'd love to see your completed one if you want to post it!

I'll make a post about it or link to it here once I have a good one. Currently filling one out for this subreddit's current reading so I'll post it in a week or two.

I really enjoyed Shawn Achor's books on happiness:

• The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work
  
• Before Happiness: The 5 Hidden Keys to Achieving Success, Spreading Happiness, and Sustaining Positive Change
  
  Edit: Typo.

Since the object of non-fiction is mostly information or opinion to bring certain views and objectives to light in your mind, it's not as relevant as a fiction tale, but a book was left on a counter for a retail outlet I was working for with a note on the inside cover:

>Dear (name),
>
>I really think you could use this book. I really wish the best for you and you are so caught up in the small things that you can't find happiness. I love you and care for you and it pains me as a mother to see you like this.
>
>With love"


The book was Echkart Tolle's - A New Earth

So, I read the shit out of that book the next two night and it really got me interested in reading a lot more books like it and others on the mind, personality, spirituality, and all that. I also still don't know who the book was for, or if he ever read it and I've always been curious as all heck to know the story behind it. I brought the book back to work and no one came back to claim it.

>I feel like setting any boundaries for her makes me controlling.

This is an absolutist view that is just going to get in the way of your being able to set healthy boundaries in the future: I admit that I haven't read this book myself yet, but I see it recommended a lot, so maybe try it: Boundaries

It sounds like you're also having some anxiety about your significance, and could do with some reassurance from her.

She originally put the work in to stop partying and taking drugs once she knew it was a condition of dating you, which would of course have made you feel valuable, but now she's stopped. & now you've just mentioned that you feel like you're subtracting fun from her life if you reiterate that the drugs boundary is important to you. Sounds a bit like you're worried you're not exciting enough on your own.

Basically try and learn about boundary-setting so you can be self-aware about it, but you probably need to sit and have a talk with her.

I completely agree with whoever in this thread said that her choices are her choices: I completely understand why you're concerned about her not applying herself to studying to be a surgeon, you want the best for her, etc, but that really is her problem and not yours. The drug-taking as a personal value of yours should be the only topic when you talk to her.

When I left at 24, I told my parents that I didn't want to discuss religion. I effectively shut down the conversation. By that point I was a fully self-supported adult and had been for several years, living on my own. No one, including my parents, have the right to come in my house and talk about things I don't want to talk about and I made that clear. There was no discussion about how I felt about the religion because there was no discussion about religion at all. I love my parents like you do, but there are boundaries in this world that everyone, including JWs have to respect. This is a secular idea, not a religious one. This book helped me to figure that out.

After several years of having a relationship outside of the religion, it became less weird and more normal, to the point where my parents felt comfortable asking again how I felt about the religion of my youth and my answer was: "I don't believe in the Bible." This is an easier answer for JWs to accept because apostasy in their mind really does actually mean actively working against the organization and particularly in the context of taking up another religion. When you simply say that the basis for their religion is the reason that you leave, they actually have no good response. The WTBTS doesn't deal with that issue very effectively (because they can't). The WTBTS spends the great majority of its energy explaining why all other religions are shit and their interpretations of the Bible wrong.

It's been 18 years now. They have accepted my decision, they chat about going to assembly and stuff like that but that's just their life, it's no big deal.

One thing I would definitely recommend is NOT going to Memorial or doing any kind of token service. Don't drag out the inevitable. Take a stand, be kind but firm. You are a human being, you are an adult. Even in the context of this fucked up religion, you have the right to stop going if you are discreet about it.

Any standard GP should be able to help her try a different anti-depressant. Her fatigue may be a sign of atypical depression which could help guide medication choice.

Some evidence-based non medication based interventions include that are easy to acccess:

Cognitive behavioural therapy

• Beating the Blues Online free counselling programme, requires GP to give you access. NZ based.
  
• Sparx NZ designed 3D role playing game that counsels you.
  
• MoodGym Free Aussy online counselling programme. There is also E couch and MoodJuice
  
• For a book I recommend The happiness trap. Not CBT but a related one called Acceptance Commitment Therapy which is also effective.
  
• For face to face, this will depend on her and what kind of person she wants to open up to. If you don't have a good connection with the counselor it's a waste of time. Therefore it's difficult to make a blanket recommendation.
  
• If she works at a large company they may have "EAP" (employee assistance programme) where you can normally get free counselling.
  
  Meditation
  
  
• Calm website Free Auckland uni based
  
• Headspace Not free but pretty good. There is also a free trial.
  
• For face to face, there are plenty of courses around.
  
• For a book I recommend mindfulness in plain English
  
  Exercise
  
  
• Shown to be effective. No links other than proof http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depression
  
  And remember, in a crisis call 0800 800 717 for 24/7 urgent mental health help.
  
  Source: am a doctor.

I've also been struggling with liking myself, my identity, and generally how to live my life the best I can. Hopefully some of my experiences can help you out.

I am currently undergoing CBT and have been reading a lot of psychology-type books to supplement becoming a better person. I would highly recommend Emotional Intelligence as that was recommended when I starting seeing my therapist. It's hard to summarize but it's mainly about learning to work with your emotions and how to work with them effectively.

I would also recommend Learned Optimism if you want to have a more positive outlook, which I assume most people would want.

Finally, I'm reading The Obstacle is the Way right now and I'm really into it. It's mainly about Stoic philosophy and how your perceptions affect your emotions. I've been getting more into Stoicism lately because it's very much about focusing on what you can change and accepting what you can't. Yes, I know we've all heard this before but hearing someone lay it all out with examples really helps you to embrace a healthier way of thinking.

Those three books together have fundamentally changed my outlook on life for the better.

Psychoanalytic theory isn't going to give you much insight into the mind, sadly. It's outdated by almost 80 years at this point. The main psychoanalytic theories on personality and structure of the mind are the common ones in pop-psych that most people know. Freud believed that early experiences were sexual in nature, and failure at any stage of psychosexual development resulted in being "fixated" on that stage (Oral, Anal, Phallic, or Genital), which lead to problems later in life. It's not a testable or falsifiable theory, so it's been abandoned since before WWII as a serious area of scientific inquiry, though many practitioners of classical Psychoanalysis were trained through the 1980's.

Various Behaviorist concepts now dominate the practical applications of psychology, but don't often give much in the way of insight into the mind as it is considered little more than a processor of stimuli. Neuroscience is left to fill in the blanks of how the mind processes that information, and that's how the vast majority of the modern work on it is done: fMRI studies on stimulus-response patterns creating activity in various sections of the brain. for the most part it's working quite well so far and some people have recently begun having human brains directly transmit information/commands through an electronic medium.

If you're looking more for the internal experience or organization of the mind, there's a very wide variety of authors and theories to choose from. The ideas of Schemas and cognitive development by Jean Piaget are still taught and utilized today as they provide a useful foundation for understanding how the mind learns to process information. Similarly, Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development is also still taught and prominent because of the foundation it lays for understanding the basic information processing that's going on in us all the time, usually without our awareness.

For book recommendations, I would have to go with Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence as a good start for laymen in the field to understand where much modern theory is pointing. Goleman's explanation of the slow and fast processes of perception and cognition (one conscious and slow, the other unconscious and fast) are largely responsible for the Freudian phenomena of the "unconscious mind." The ideas of id and super-ego have been largely replaced with neuroscience regarding behavioral reward pathways in the brain (especially relating to addictions), impulse control, and social influences on behavior (taboos, mores, laws, etc).

Personality theories get complex because just defining what a personality is (or agreeing that such things even exist to define) has proven to be problematic. This site gives a pretty good overview of personality theories in psychology and is very well sourced.

Defense mechanisms are part of the out-dated psychoanalytic model, but are still mostly recognizable today as maladaptive behaviors. They're as varied as the people that come up with them, though some are common across populations and cultures (dissociative fugues, Stockholm Syndrome, Munchausen Syndrome, etc.). I don't really have much recommended reading here for informational purposes, sadly. The idea of a coping mechanism or maladaptive behavior is somewhat nebulous and could be almost anything done cognitively or metacognitively to reduce overall stress on the self, including various addictions, self-delusion, repressing a memory completely, rewriting a memory through repeated story-telling, or just ignoring something stressful and hoping it goes away.

Hope I managed to help a little here, even if I didn't give you exactly what you asked for. Good luck in your search!

Seems to be fake - the profile ID doesn't come up, nor does the name. There's no proof of this anywhere else, is there?

Even if so - who cares? This is the reason this sub gets a bad reputation, because of garbage posts like this.

I mainly lurk here (and get criticized for subscribing, which I find hilarious) but felt compelled enough to comment on this, considering I see it so often.

When you want to claim you're a man going his own way, and that you want nothing to do with women, you only show just how much you still care about them by harping on the bullshit they do all the time. It's a circle-jerk, and anyone who doesn't see that is deluded in the fog of pack mentality.

Take a step back and think for a moment, because this isn't meant to be an attack on the user who posted the thread, or any individual. It's about the general atmosphere of this subreddit, this community, this brotherhood, whatever the fuck we decide to label ourselves as (except a fucking movement, christ).

Don't give them the cerebral real estate by dwelling on how they can be, on their nature; it only weighs you down. The point of being "MGTOW" at its core is doing your own thing. Turn this sub into a discussion about interesting things that you do with your time, see who has the same hobbies as you, motivate one another in your endeavors, in your pursuits which have a positive impact on your wellbeing.

In other words - take care of yourselves. Focus on the good things. Positive psychology is a thing. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the term and wants something good to read in the layman tongue (popscience books), check out:

Learned Optimism

Other books that I believe could help encourage or inspire people in this thread are:

Mindfulness In Plain English

Flow

The Brain That Changes Itself

A good way to reduce anxiety is to use mindfulness practice -

"MINDFULNESS reveals a set of simple yet powerful practices that can be incorporated into daily life to help break the cycle of unhappiness, stress, anxiety and mental exhaustion and promote genuine joie de vivre. It's the kind of happiness that gets into your bones. It seeps into everything you do and helps you meet the worst that life can throw at you with new courage. The book is based on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). MBCT revolves around a straightforward form of mindfulness meditation which takes just a few minutes a day for the full benefits to be revealed. MBCT has been clinically proven to be at least as effective as drugs for depression and it is recommended by the UK's National Institute of Clinical Excellence - in other words, it works. More importantly it also works for people who are not depressed but who are struggling to keep up with the constant demands of the modern world. MINDFULNESS focuses on promoting joy and peace rather than banishing unhappiness. It's precisely focused to help ordinary people boost their happiness and confidence levels whilst also reducing anxiety, stress and irritability."

Here is a link to the book, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-practical-guide-finding-frantic/dp/074995308X. It is fantastic.

So, I looked over your posting history before making this list. It seems like you have a confident head on your shoulders and understand women reasonably well.

1. You do mention masturbating to porn 3-4 times a day, which is on the high side. I don't have any particular resources for that, and you said you didn't see it as a problem or affecting you at the moment. In a relationship, I've found that high masturbation levels means that I'm not romancing my wife, and am less affectionate. This causes relationship stress. It also affects how much I enjoy sex, so if I masturbate less I enjoy sex more. For me porn is also an emotional crutch - because the pron mimics feelings of extreme sexual success, so there's often an emotional need that is being met (not just horniness) that you're fulfilling with porn. Some deep personal introspection and self reflection can help identify what is really going on inside of you. Just a thought. ;)
   
2. What women want when they test men by Bruce Bryans. Hands down one of the best resource for identifying women's various tests, whether you're just dating or in a long term relationship.
   
3. Sex God Method by Daniel Rose. Hands down the most useful book on sex ever. Reading it instills a cockiness in me that can't be matched by anything else... And drives my wife completely nuts in bed.
   
4. Athol Kay's various resources. I like this six part video series where he breaks down 6 aspects of relationship.
   
5. No More Mr. Nice Guy. I thought I didn't need this book and that I was doing well, and then I read it.
   
6. Emotional Intelligence. Goleman is the seminal guy on this, and there are many other good books.
   
7. Management Courses. No joke. I went through a simple cert via my local CC and it blew my mind.
   
8. Charisma Courses. I've attached the link to the program I've tried, it worked pretty well, but a bit pricey. they have a good youtube channel... But the program actually forces you to practice the lessons so it's a lot more useful.
   
   Whatever catches your interest. :D

Fantastic post. Your concept of “gas” has actually been written about in great detail by one of my all time favorite books.

https://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human-Strength/dp/0143122231

The premise is that “willpower” is a muscle that can be strengthened and also depleted by “life”

You only have so much willpower each day. Eating certain foods can replenish willpower, sort of like refueling a gas tank.

Concepts such as “autopilot” are discussed in great detail.

A main point that I particularly related to was how to utilize willpower efficiently. This is done by using willpower to break bad habits and using it to form new ones. Crafting this habits until they feel natural.

AKA replacing pornography with healthy activities such as basketball.

A highly recommend this book to everyone here who is straining their willpower by pursuing no fap. If anyone has read it, please chime in with some of your favorite parts of the book.

Good luck boys!

INTP/ENTP "spiritual person" here. Your routine and motivation is not the root issue. The self-hate is the root issue. The way you view yourself and how you relate to yourself (and by extension, the world) is very very dysfunctional, and I guarantee it's fucking up your life in more ways than one.

The negative self-talk is not reality, not objective, and not who you really are. The voice in your head is not only wrong and destructive, it's not even you.

You have a disconnect between different parts of yourself. You hate being "grounded" because when you're in that state, your ego isn't in charge, and you're forced to look at everything inside you you've been fighting. Learn to sit with that pain and not fight it... just let it happen, and watch it swell and then recede. This is, in essence, mindfulness meditation.

Try reading some of these, based on what stands out to you. They are all helpful.

• The Power of Now --A book about the true nature of self and reality. Heavy Eastern influence. This book has influenced me the most out of the list, and maybe even altered the course of my life.
  
  
• Radical Acceptance --A Buddhist book about loving yourself fully and completely. You are worth it!
  
  
• 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos --A book by a brilliant man about how to live in a world defined by pain and suffering. Heavy Jungian influence. Quotes and references the Bible a lot, but from a Jungian/Campbellian perspective. Occasionally questionable politics.
  
  
• Iron John --A sort of esoteric book filled with poetry and fairy tales about how to be a man. Heavy Jung/Campbell influence.
  
  
• The Enchiridion by Epictetus --This is one of the best introductions to Stoicism, and it's free. Written circa 125 CE.
  
  
• Feeling Good --CBT book clinically shown to be as effective as antidepressants. Your post is filled with things this book addresses directly. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
  
  
• The Happiness Trap --A book about ACT, which is similar to CBT with more mindfulness. Basically CBT tries to get rid of/replace the distorted images of yourself and the world, and ACT tries instead to see them for what they really are, which are meaningless ramblings of an organ using evolved mechanisms to protect its host, and as such are safely ignored.
  
  Tl;dr: Learn to be kind to yourself, love yourself, and accept yourself just as you are right now, flaws and all.

Awesome self-awareness and an important first step toward greater overall peace and contentment. But you probably don't have to look anywhere for happiness, though growth and change are likely to be part of the process. I enjoyed A New Earth and it was a very popular framing of the sort of inner work that goes into overcoming many of our misconceptions about who we are and what's really important. All the best with your process!

A few I've gotten into recently:

https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Intelligence-Matter-More-Than/dp/055338371X - Emotional Intelligence - it's about the difference between your brain's rational/logical/analytical processing and emotional/intuitive processing, and why they both matter.

https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/B0032COUMC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1541098584&sr=1-3&keywords=drive - Drive - it's about how motivation works, particularly in the workplace but also in personal life, and how freedom, mastery, and a sense of purpose can motivate people to do greater things than classic rewards and punishments will.

https://drgabormate.com/book/scattered-minds/ - Scattered - it's mostly about ADHD, but it has some really interesting stuff about the psychology of sensitive minds and how they can be damaged by childhood stress. The book focuses mainly on the psychological aspects of ADHD, and less on the medication and how-to-fix-it stuff that the more self-helpy ADHD books talk about.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034 - How to Win Friends and Influence People - it's an older book with a weirdly folksy tone to it compared to modern books, but it still has some great advice. It doesn't dive deep into psychology, really. It's mostly about how little changes to how you approach social situations can have big effects on how people feel about you and whether or not they'll listen to what you have to say. For example, people unconsciously feel better when they hear their own name, so it helps to deliberately remember and use the names of people you meet.

Real quick. I’m 27, and I’ve personally got SA, GAD, and Depression. Probably dealt with them all in differing levels of intensity for the past 15+ yrs. I personally feel just putting myself out there (exposure), buddhism/mindfulness, and a couple self-help books ( Self Compassion & Radical Acceptance ) all really helped, but learning self-compassion and acceptance were the real game changers.

I feel one of the biggest reasons we are so hard on ourselves is because we fundamentally feel unworthy. The reason we’re scared isn’t the simple act of talking, it’s the fear of judgement/rejection. Compassion helps me be gentle with myself, and acceptance allow me to accept what is, and not what I wish was. If that makes sense.


Also, mindfulness. This teaches me to be present in the moment. Not in the future worrying about some conversation I’m going to have, and not in the past worrying about a convo I think I messed up on. Mindfulness teaches me the beauty of the now. Meditation specifically helps teach mindfulness, and is something thats helped me, but I’ve heard has really helped others.


and CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Basically retraining my brain. Teaches me to reframe and re-approach my negative thoughts, in a more compassionate and realistic light. In all honestly, I’ve got my good days, and I’ve got my bad. I’m not 100% recovered, and maybe not even 50% but I feel much better, and I have some great tools at my disposal.

To refrain from writing an entire book I made this really brief. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Thank you for taking the time to discuss this intelligently. Btw, I 100% agree with your last sentence. We should take everything we read with a grain of salt, and use our own critical thinking instead of getting married to certain authors or ideologies. I appreciate that you think this way.

Anyway, back to topic.

I happen to agree with 90% of what you wrote. The place where we diverge, I think, is this:

> your original post seems to be implying that because we can't control something 100%, we can't control it at all, and thus we should start daydreaming about how to scrap for food in the streets.

That's not the point I tried to convey. This will be a bit lenghty, I'll include a "Too Long, Didn't Read" summary in the end in case you don't wish to read this whole thing.

The point is that when you cannot control 100% something, there is absolutely no point in having the slightest attachment to that thing per se. You can still work on it and influence it, sure, but if you develop a clear understanding of its possible outcomes and realistic expecations, you will be free from unnecessary suffering.

Let me give you a simpler example: Tennis.

A friend of mine used to have lots of trouble playing tennis. He'd play really well... until he made a mistake. Then he would start thinking "I shouldn't lose against this guy, he is a newbie... what will others think of me if I lose this match? I cannot lose!". Then he'd spiral down out of control in a tornado of anxiety. Quickly losing focus. Quickly making more mistakes. Thus generating more anxiety. Boom. Instant loss + misery + depression.

What was his mistake?

You might think "Caring about what others will think"... but in my opinion that's just a side effect of something more fundamental.

Can you spot the mistake? (saying "mistake" is kind of subjective, I am referring to the cause of his anxiety)

I talked to him, and explained that focusing on winning was foolish. Because while he can influence the outcome of the game... it's not 100% under his control.

Does this mean he should go to his next Tennis tournament wearing a Pikachu costume and throw all balls to the referee's face?

No. He should still play as usual.

The shift I suggest is the reframing of the goal.

I suggested him to focus on giving his very best. To play like fucking crazy, to have laser-like concentration, to push his physical limit until he cries if necessary. To GIVE-HIS-BEST. That's all.

—What about the result? What if I lose?—he asked me.

And I responded:

—I don't give a shit. For all I care, go ahead and lose your next 100 games. Just give your best. Don't you see? That's a smart goal. Something you can fully engage with, a challenge that's not too easy, but achievable every single time. It's conducive to Flow.

He immediately understood. But that's not enough. He played a couples games, and he forgot our whole conversation. Still failing miserably. I coached him some more. I taught him a bit of basic meditation/mindfulness to help him put this stuff into practice, to help him shift focus from his current mindset to the one I was suggesting.

And one day... oh boy... one day he called me extremely excited.

He no longer cared about winning. Not because he agreed with my coaching, but because he experienced it. He made a mistake. And the only thing in his mind was focusing on the ball in the next play. That was all. Complete, deliberate focus on the task at hand. Giving his best.

That's why reframing things in terms of "things you can control 100%" is extremely important. That's why "things partially under your control" have the potential to distract you from this lesson my friend learned.

Things partially under your control are confusing.

Sure, you can enjoy a win.

Sure, you can enjoy your merit on having bought a house.

But this enjoyment has nothing to do with this discussion. Even more so, that enjoyment will feed your potential suffering in the future when you lose a game, or you lose your house.

To wrap up and circle back: (TLDR)

I'm not implying you should resign to becoming homeless and daydream about how to scrap food in the street. I am suggesting that you develop a mindset so that money never worries you unproductively, so that fear and anxiety don't control your life.

Fear is useful for a zebra running away from a lion.

Fear is useful for a human running away from a school shooter or a murderer. Adrenaline will numb you to physical pain, and will make you run faster than you ever imagined possible.

But fear is absolutely stupid and useless within the context of modern life. What you need in modern life problems is rational thinking, mental clarity, and peace and mind. Most of the times fear and anxiety will accomplish nothing for you; on the contrary, they will maim you.

Elaborating on the subject of chronic stress in modern life would be extremely lengthy, but if you're interested in this, I highly recommend the book "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" by one of my favorite neuroscientists: Robert Sapolsky.

Feel free to ask any other questions or challenge what I said. By no means I claim to have "the truth". I just share what I gained from Stoicism and what worked for me. I live a life virtually free from suffering, so I'd argue I have a clear understanding of this stuff. But I acknowledge not every idea works for everyone.

edit: I have much more to say about this but I tried to keep it brief. :P

Zuko's hilarious but interestingly enough if you look at the basic principles of mindfulness and therapies based on mindfulness there's a similar idea ie. to learn to defuse from your thinking self and more often be in tune with your observing self.

So you accept your thoughts, urges, feelings as they are but not fuse with them and instead move in the direction of the things you value. There's a girl you're interested in, you feel anxiety at asking her out, you don't struggle with that anxiety or let it define you, you accept it but ask her out because it aligns with your values of love, connection, intimacy. The thinking self would run rampant, "I should ask her out. But she'll reject me. What if they laugh at me. I'm not gonna do it, she'll think I'm creepy. Okay here she comes. Damn, I missed my chance. I can't believe I missed my chance. I'll never be in a relationship. I'm going to be lonely forever. I am unlovable. I am a useless piece of human garbage."

As for your other self, your observing self, you get more into tune with this through focusing on the here and now and defusing from the thoughts of your thinking self. You've taken thousands of showers in your lifetime and while you have the option to think about how behind you are in school during your shower, you also have the option to revel in it for what it is and just enjoy the experience.

For anyone more interested in Uncle Zuko's wisdom, https://www.amazon.ca/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Living/dp/1590305841


I miss Avatar. Are they ever gonna do another series or was Korra the last one?

Squid and Dr. PP both recommend the art of learning, and the inner game of tennis and they're both godlike so I'd take their advice. Flow is really good too.

Something cool you could do is get into chess. I only played chess seriously for a few months really, but I feel like it gave me another angle to think about tactics and strategy in. Chess is really fun and it'll give you that same competitive brain feeling melee does without killing your hands.

/r/chess has lots of guides about how to get into the game and stuff. There's lots of cool websites now like www.chesstempo.com where you can do tons of tactics training puzzles that are really fun and make the learning curve for beginners a lot less steep than it was back in the day when chess books were the only option(which are great, but it's really hard as an absolute beginner to sit down with a chess book and actually make it through it).

If you're already like 2100 fide rated or some shit then just ignore this lol.

I used to get the urge to pray all the time, but I had to tell myself that it wasn't going to help. You can get through it, but other people can certainly help. I am a big advocate of therapy.

Also, meditation. There are may ways to meditate. One book that I love and that helped me through some stuff is Buddha's Brain. If Buddhism isn't your thing, don't worry. It's written by a neuroscientist and neuropsychiatrist, not by Buddhist monks. It explains in simple terms how meditation affects your thoughts and the physical aspects of your brain, and has meditations for you to do if you wish.

Another book that I would recommend is especially helpful if therapy isn't available to you is Mind Over Mood. It's basically a guide for you to do cogntive-behavioral therapy by yourself. Again, very simply explained, examples given, and it has worksheets for you.

So, my advice is meditation instead of prayer and/or CBT. Either way, you will actually be affecting your life rather than hoping something else affects your life in the right way.

Edit: typo

I don't know, I feel like you are making mountains out of mole hills...achieving success (and happiness) can actually scare people because it means there is more to lose! And this often leads people to making self-destructive decisions that undermine and often ruin the success that was at your finger tips (and yes, I am speaking from personal experience - but that's another story!).

I would highly suggest possibly talking to a therapist if that's an option (I'm a fan of everyone at least "checking in" with a professional from time to time). If not, I would suggest starting a gratitude journal.

Also, I would definitely recommend reading either of these two books (by the same author): The Happiness Trap (applying mindfulness to everyday thoughts and feelings). And ACT with Love (applying mindfulness to our relationships). The second book is based on the first one, it is just applying it to relationships. If you only get one, get that one.

Anyways, I hope you figure it all out, OP! Best of luck to you and whatever may come your way!

Cheers,

Chaos

First, you're not alone. I was in my early 30's when I lost my faith and it took me 2 years to get over the depression and existential vacuum that Joe's lies left behind.

I was able to eventually work my way through it without meds or any serious counseling, but it was a grueling couple of years. Everyone has to figure out their own path, but what helped me most was reading from others who had faced the same existential vacuum and found a way to navigate it. A few titles that I would highly recommend are:

• The Power of Now by Tolle.
  
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Best on audiobook.
  
• Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl.
  
• Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning (A follow-on of above--focus on the later chapters in this book.)
  
• The Alchemist by Coelho.
  
• A New Earth by Tolle.
  
• A Confession by Tolstoy. Free download.
  
• What I Believe, also by Tolstoy and a follow-on to the above Tolstoy book. Free download at link if you look for it.
  
  The above, coupled with a lot of patience, exercise, sleep, and proper diet got me through my deep existential crisis. The existentialism still shows up now and then, but it's totally manageable. Good luck to you! You'll have good days and worse days, but stick with it!--I promise it gets better!

Stoicism is an inward thing, not so much an outward thing. So by definition, having a good job and a good education wouldn't be requirements for happiness or even routes to that goal necessarily. Instead the road to Happy Valley would be paved with right judgments, actions benefitting the greater good and a sense of one's place in an infinite space/time continuum.

So it's possible that you and Stoicism aren't on the same wavelength. If you wanted to find out for sure, you might try Donald Robinson's free online Stoic mindfulness class, which starts Sunday: http://modernstoicism.com/announcing-stoic-mindfulness-and-resilience-training-smrt-2017/

Or you might read his book: Stoicism and the Art of Happiness -- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1444187104/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1500071577&sr=1-1&keywords=donald+robertson

You look like the kind of guy I would be happy to have date my teen daughter. You appear kind and respectful. 16 sucks for just about everyone, it will get better and you will live your dreams. Just don’t give up and you’ll see- this life has a lot to offer you.

With maturity comes an ever increasing ability to not give a fuck what other people think of you. In fact, do you like to read? Check out this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713

Good luck son, you’re gonna do great. ❤️

Edit: You are certainly not a Luzer and might I suggest you make a new username so as not to reinforce that idea in your mind. You want to try to focus on positive things about yourself, not drill home the negative things your brain invents.

The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor.
In the book you learn to see success as something that follows happiness, not the reverse. This book cites many studies and positive psychology concepts. The ideas are easy to swallow and easy to apply. I am adopting a positive mindset and taking steps to improve myself and my professional performance. Overall, I have better days and see fewer reasons to feel depressed or sorry for myself and feel hopeful for my future.

This book isn't so much about boundaries but I think it's an overall great book to read to have a healthy life with better values. It's called The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck

This book does touch on boundaries but it's mostly how to change your perspective of adversity and change for the better.
Hope that helps? :)

You're not alone. Millions of people feel just like you do, it just that the people around you don't understand. The things that has helped me in the past is therapy, meditation, creating a support network, taking better care of myself (making sure I ate well, sleep enough hours, etc.), exercise. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) exercise and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) exercises have also helped me a lot.

Here a link about what is CBT: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Cognitive-behavioural-therapy/Pages/Introduction.aspx

And here is a link for CBT worksheets. If you don't have access to a therapist or a therapist trained in CBT you can still get the benefits of CBT by doing a CBT worksheet: http://psychology.tools/anxiety.html

My old therapist also had me read "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy-ebook/dp/B009UW5X4C?ie=UTF8&keywords=david%20burns&qid=1465227795&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

Here is a pdf about more information about ACT: http://www.people.ku.edu/~tkrieshok/epsy888/act_cliff_notes.pdf

Russ Harris's book "The Happiness Trap" goes into more detail about ACT: http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Living/dp/1590305841

Here are some books that I've found very helpful:

The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris is about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is I think the real deal. It's kind of a users manual for the mind, something I feel everyone needs to learn (I wish it could be taught to all children or young adults).

By Phillip Moffitt:
Dancing With Life: Buddhist insights for finding meaning and joy in the face of suffering is a great book, very oriented to Buddhist teachings, but also very practical for people living in modern Western culture.
Emotional Chaos to Clarity: Move from the Chaos of the Reactive Mind to the Clarity of the Responsive Mind is his recent book, really amazingly chock full of super useful tools. Another users manual for the mind.

The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life - Master Any Skill or Challenge by Learning to Love the Process by Thomas M. Sterner is another gem.

I agree with other commentators, this may be (in my non-medical opinion) mild to moderate depression. (Again, this is just an idea, diagnosing people over the internet with little information is not entirely ethical). I would like to suggest to other posters that depressive disorders are somewhat diverse.

Depending on your personal and financial situation, I cannot recommend seeing a psychologist enough, as I have been in this same situation. Whether you come from a background of hard science or spirituality, I would urge folks to see therapists/psychologists as a teacher that can help you understand what what is real, and how to have a good relationship with your thoughts/feelings.

I would like to suggest a few books that I have found to be personally helpful in this regard:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), very good read which outlines how your mind, Buddhists might call it the ego, creates a fake reality in a depressed state, and methods to counteract it:

Burns, David Feeling Good

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a different but similar approach to dealing with challenging thoughts/feelings, borrows a lot from Buddhism. Main idea is to be aware of thoughts and feelings as occurring, and not good or bad (and not "you"). To accept thoughts and feelings, not as reality but just as thoughts or feelings, and to take action towards something you value:

Harris, Russ The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living

If you're on a little, or big, Buddhist kick, I'd recommend the writings of Zen Master Seung Sahn. This particular book takes his bright and connectable style, and examines a variety of Buddhist traditions to see how they alleviate dukkha/suffering/stress/etc. in different ways:

Seung Sahn The Compass of Zen

Please do check out these books and post questions if you have them. If you are interested in finding a psychologist, and it is something that takes personal buy-in, I would suggest taking a look at Psychology Today or on your insurance company's website, if you're American.

Have a great night! =D

Sounds like you're being pretty hard on yourself. Here's a few thoughts from someone who was also pretty hard on himself:

1. Stay away from Red Pill / MRA / PUA, they prey on vulnerable guys. There is no value there.
   
2. Work on yourself, and I don't mean go to the gym. I mean stop beating yourself up. If you can afford it, a therapist is very helpful. Here are a few ideas of things you can do yourself:
   
   1. https://www.amazon.com/Men-Women-Worthiness-Experience-Enough/dp/B00D4APD3M
      
   2. https://www.amazon.com/Will-Change-Men-Masculinity-Love/dp/0743456084
      
   3. https://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-Life-Changing-Relationships/dp/189200528X
      
   4. https://www.amazon.com/Self-Compassion-Proven-Power-Being-Yourself/dp/0061733520
      
3. Hang out with friends, it's OK to not be in a relationship, even for a long time. Putting extra pressure on yourself isn't helpful.
   
4. Consider reading this: https://johntreed.com/products/succeeding. I've found it's a pretty good field guide to life. If nothing else it's an interesting deep dive on how someone else managed their dating experience.
   
   You'll be amazed at how hard women find it to find a great guy. You can be that great guy.

hahaha that made me laugh and there's a lot that's true of what you say. I guess kids (especially pre-middle-school) have a lot less anxiety than adults so there's less of a need to be so emotionally supportive.

But I'm not sure it's a fair comparison. Competitive competions by their nature encourage you to be better than other people. A kid shouldn't be told "Beat everyone else at schoolwork" or "Get the most friends"... they should just be told to do their best and only compete with themselves. An adult OR kid in a competitive sport or game should be being encouraged to beat everyone else.

ALSO: I think the model of "Only compete with yourself" is also sometimes flawed. I recommend everyone reading self-compassion, a book about accepting who you are. Basic premise: Everyone wants to think they're better than average at everything which is obviously not true, so whenever you fall short you can get all sorts of issues. Instead, understand places where you are who you are and be okay with them, learn to live with them, etc. (And also understand where you can improve)

This is a great question!

The most important part of this is the idea of "okay to ask for help".

The truth is, this has more to do with who you're asking than it has to do with you.

ADHD is difficult to come to terms with because its effects are so hard to pinpoint; they're mixed in with all of the other confounding factors that make life a struggle for everybody.

This is unfortunate because you can never completely blame ADHD for anything--there's always the possibility that you could "just try harder" to make The Thing happen.

On the other hand... no one can ever completely blame you, either! Because there's always the possibility that your executive faculties are just not running at full capacity, and absolutely nothing you do will make The Thing happen on a faster timeline.

So, how do you manage this balance? What do you do when there's never a straight answer?

In short: you have to learn the boundaries of each person in your life, how much they're willing to help (whether "help" means "listening to me bitch and moan" or "coming over to help me stay focused"), and whether they feel like you're leaning on them too hard.

You have to learn to have those awkward uncomfortable conversations where you put your emotions on the line intentionally, because it's actually safer to do it this way than wait until people blow up on you and say "UGH, JUST TRY HARDER!"

I say a lot of things like:

---

> I feel like I've been bugging you a lot lately. I just want you to know that if you ever need some space, you can just say "Hey, my plate is full--think you'll be OK without me on this one?"

---

> Yo, is it cool if I vent about my productivity a sec? (afterward) Phew, all right. I feel a little better, thanks. How are you?

---

> I really appreciate how much you've been willing to help me out with my struggles lately. Is there anything I can do to help you out in return?

---

> Hey, I'm really sorry I went MIA yesterday. I should have let you know I was having an off day. Are we cool?

---

If you're looking for reading material, I suggest:

• Nonviolent Communication - Basic overview of some useful concepts
  
  
• Anger, by Thich Nhat Hanh - Very "woo-woo" at points, but full of detailed strategies for communicating when you're full of emotion.
  
  
• Driven to Distraction - Classic must-read for ADHDers.
  
  
• Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength - I never finished reading it, but it made me feel better about how progress can feel so slow sometimes!

I've been meditating on and off for the past 6 years, some tips that helped me:

1. Reading / learning as much as I can about it. I am a psychology nerd so I first got into meditation when I started reading books like Buddha's Brain and Hardwiring Happiness.
   
2. Following on this, audiobooks and guided meditations are great. There are a LOT of really cool apps out there. I am partial to Headspace and The Mindfulness App. The later has full audiobooks as well as guided practices. I have also heard good things about 10% Happier and Waking Up (Sam Harris' mindfulness app).
   
3. I enjoyed my practice about 10x more once I stopped worrying about the "right" way to do meditation. Meditation gives you a variety of very useful cognitive tools, and it's up to you to decide how best to integrate them into your life.
   
   For example, I really have a hard time with sitting meditation. My legs cramp up like no other and it drives me nuts. But I love integrating mindfulness randomly throughout my day: A quick breathing exercise when I'm driving to work, a small eating meditation when I have dinner so I appreciate my meal more, a small gratitude reflection before I go to bed, etc. I found those tiny 30 second meditations throughout the day had a much more profound effect on my life than sitting in a quiet room for 30 minutes.
   
   To me, sitting meditation is just the practice room so you can get some training before you start finding more and more little ways to apply it in your daily life.

I think people have a lot of misunderstanding about Buddhism. I suspect that this thread is perhaps not focused on developing a better understanding of Buddhism, but I will try.

1. Karma is not so much a Buddhist concept but more the intellectual backdrop on which Buddha developed his understanding. There are many ways to understand it. The best explanation I have read is here :Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom.
   
   
2. Please notice that Buddhism denies the existence of the soul, reincineration is many ways is like the law of conservation of energy.
   
   
3. Buddha spoke specifically against Nihilism. Buddhism does not focus on suffering , it focuses on eliminating suffering.
   
   
4. Buddha was very specific about women being equal to man in Buddhism. However many cultures in which Buddhism was practiced were (/are )misogynistic. This is no fault of Buddhism.
   
   I understand that a Buddhist posting here is not so welcomed but I hope this post will contribute to better understanding .

If I may, maybe go by a bookstore and browse through this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Willpower-Instinct-Self-Control-Matters/dp/1583335080

Strike that. Don't browse, go right to Chapter Five, "The Brain's Big Lie: Why We Mistake Wanting For Happiness" and read about the rats.

I'm on my second read of the book, taking notes and doing the exercises, and I gotta tell you the truth, by chapter five I am feeling liberated from this addiction.

Just a suggestion. Until after you at least take a look at the book, don't get rid of the collection, but also don't add to it. And here's something to trigger your reward system to motivate you to read that chapter: The author looks pretty good in yoga pants herself.

Be well my friend.

I'm glad you can relate. Porn addiction does blow lol. But yes we truly are top level people here. It has shown me the true courage that humans have. I've been trying to figure this whole life thing out for about a year now, and it sounds like you may be struggling as well. I highly recommend this book or anything by this author, if you are on the same path. You can filter out all of the religious stuff, I know I did. But it helps you detach from your ego, and basically allows you to be happy in life.

If you'd like help calming your mind I'd make a personal recommendation that you go to a local buddhist center of practice and attend some free vipassana or mindfulness meditation instruction.

I'm also very sensitive to woo, but a decent book I've been working through lately is Buddha's Brain, which speaks about the benefits of meditaiton at large, not just zen. There is a very slight admission of some woo in one of the very first chapters when regarding the validity of the religious belief of there "being more to the mind than just meat" or something like that, but you never see it again afterwards, much to my relief, the rest of the book is quite helpful.

I really like the book boundaries. It changes the way you think about and act in relationships. It’s all logical, but if you’ve never thought about your relationship that way it’s a new way of doing things.

You are an adult. You get to choose how your mother treats you and interacts in your life. Draw some firm boundaries there and if she can’t abide them she will have consequences.

People with no boundaries and people with boundaries that are to intense suffer. You need to find the middle. So, for instance, if you don’t want her to kiss baby then say ‘it’s flu season and I’m not comfortable with you kissing baby. If you do kiss him, I’m going to have to hold him or put him in his swing’...and then do that. If she’s speaking about you in a disparaging way (your mom is being silly. Who raised her. Etc) calmly say that you are this child’s mother and you will raise this child according to your own guidelines, just like she got to raise her kids according to hers. If she can’t respect that, then maybe it’s best for her to leave and come back another time when she can respect your rules.

Be kind, but firm. It’s great practice because when baby is 2/3 you will get to do lots of work establishing and maintaining boundaries.

Maybe try out [The Sex Lives of Cannibals] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Sex-Lives-Cannibals-Equatorial/dp/0767915305)? - even if it's just for the first part, about how the author ends up following his girlfriend to a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific because he can't figure out what to do with his life after graduation and collectors are after him about his student loans...(it's funny, and a quick read - plus you learn about a place and people and job you've probably never heard of!)

Or, in a completely different vein - [The Road Less Traveled] (http://www.amazon.com/Road-Less-Traveled-Timeless-Traditional/dp/0743243153/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405947098&sr=1-1&keywords=the+road+less+traveled) - yeah, it's self-help, and maybe a bit new-agey, but it's got some great insights. Again - you don't have to read the whole thing, but the beginning part - about 'life is difficult, and once you accept that, it becomes less difficult' and personal growth and all is great - life-changing for many people.

Maybe you could share a bit more about your interests to get some more ideas? It's hard for some of us to remember being 19 - though I sure remember the anxiety of not knowing what to do with my life, and just bumbling around for a long time. Many (most?) of us felt the same way, and maybe it helps to know that we made it through?

The Road Less Traveled
I think parents would find more useful information here, but I read it when I was 20(no kids) and found it pretty interesting.

The Alchemist
A quick read, I have felt more at ease and optimistic about life since I read it. Both actually have religious themes--didn't bother a godless man such as myself though.

Motivation to be more creative? Poke the Box by Seth Godin
I have quite a few business-related recommendations, but watching or reading Seth gets my brain going everytime.

Good morning keto friends! Down 0.8 lbs today, only 2 more lbs until I'm back at pre-vacation weight. Take that, shark week >:)

Lots of goodies coming in the mail from our supreme overlords at Amazon today, including: powdered peanut butter (never tried it but heard great things), a bullet shaker thing, Quest protein powder, and this book. I'm hoping that it can be a positive step in my new quest for wellness. Has anyone read it? Did it help you at all, or did I just waste $10?

I can understand why you're getting frustrated with other people's responses so I'm going to suggest some practical steps that start with easy and safe actions. Read this book and this book. After the second book, start practicing mindfulness meditation regularly. Also start exercising regularly if you don't already and learn a bit about nutrition and eating healthier. These are all evidence backed ways for you to feel better about yourself and deal with problems you have socially. As a side note, I know it's a cliche thing to say, but looks aren't everything. Practice good hygiene, wear clothes that fit and don't underestimate what a bit of confidence and self-deprecating humour can do for your level of attractiveness. Better confidence will come by following the above steps.

Some brain dump here:

• Hit the gym or get in shape otherwise. I really like the workouts from Neila Rey and Freeletics. It helps with confidence, as already said.
  
• Stop worrying about your ex. Went through similar situations. You as a person are not what other people do with you. You are what you make of your life. Go be yourself.
  
• Some books I found helpful in finding a "path": "No more Mr. Nice Guy" – if you think you're a too nice person, this book is really helpful in pointing out what's wrong about that. And poses some questions worth reflecting on. "Fire in the Belly – On Being a Man". Title says it all. Some really good questions in there about how you want to live your life. "The road less traveled" – some general life advice I found quite helpful.
  
• Probably don't start dating right away. Instead, focus on yourself and your passions. The rest will come later. Although I really like OKCupid, helps sorting out girls you wouldn't want to meet anyway.

Yes, I had very similar thoughts about CBT. I didn't know I was on the spectrum at the time but that's exactly how I reacted to it. In the end I found the Mark Williams Mindfulness book and audio the most useful. It really helped with anxiety and overwhelm specifically, it has useful tools to cope with those. It avoids the CBT issues because it doesn't tackle thinking head-on, it's a subtle roundabout way of dealing with the mind. It was this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-practical-guide-finding-frantic/dp/074995308X

To be honest, ordinary long term therapy was difficult too, and didn't help much. The thoughts/feelings thing still makes it hard to progress. I also found it difficult to follow the therapist's way of conceptualising things. It was too alien.

Yes, some follow up from ASD specialists would be very welcome. There are some NAS conference videos and similar online where they discuss things like anxiety in ASD which I found helpful.

I hope you will find something suitable. Anxiety is a torment. I'm glad to say that mine is much more manageable now.

Hey! I feel ya!!!! The good news is that you can beat your depression!!!

My partner had depression for many many years!! He was on meds for a long time, he went to counseling (I even went with him to know better how to help him and to learn to not let his depression get to me - because it certainly does!)

So here is what worked:

1. Regular exercise. It doesn’t need to be every day. Start with a commitment of going to the gym once a week. And stick with that! Don’t expect miracles and give up after 1 month because you are not feeling happier.
   Also, in order to be effective, the exercise needs to elevate your heart beat for 30 minutes or so (therapist recommendation). We enrolled in a cardio class, so we stay more motivated than walking in the boring treadmill.
   
   
2. Meditation/mindful classes. Game changer! It really helps and there are tons os studies proving that it can be as effective as meds!! This was another of the therapist’s recommendation.
   Can’t find one in your community? There is tons online!
   
   
3. Healthy diet. Tons of veggies and fruits. No soda! Cut the crappy sugar! ;-)
   
   
4. Take a vitamin D supplement. Go on short walks 2 or 3 times a week. Keep active!
   
   
5. Books:
   

• The Happiness Trap
  
• Creating True Peace
  
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
  
  I hope this helps, OP! I can give you more suggestions, but I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed! I really really hope you will find a way to get better! ❤️

No problem!! CBT is great, but I have found that ACT can compliment it nicely and fill in some of the holes it has (eg. "What happens when I challenge a negative automatic thought, but it turns out that there is evidence for it?" was one I had issues with).

If you want a good starter book on ACT, which maybe you and/or your therapist could look at, The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris is a great overview. :)

It sounds like you've been through some tough times. The beauty of life is you always have an opportunity to forge your own path. As cliche as it may be, after every storm there is a rainbow. This is your opportunity. Here is my road map for you:

1. The first thing you must do is talk to a psychologist. It is possible you have depression or underlying mental illness. They can give you techniques to combat that. Even if you do not have a mental illness, the techniques they can teach you, with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, sound like they would be useful for you.
   
   
2. You need to make a schedule and, this is the hard part, follow it as well as you can. Find a diary or make an excel spreadsheet and fill your day with activities. Examples would be: 8am wake up, 9-10am go for a walk, 10-11am write resume, 11-12pm tidy house, 12-1pm lunch, 1-2pm reading, 2-3pm exercise, 3-4pm search for jobs, 4-5pm do online university course homework, 5-6pm free time, 6-7pm dinner, 7pm-9pm free time, 10pm go to sleep. Basically, fill it with tasks you think you can accomplish that are not so challenging that you are put off doing them. Even if you miss one or two scheduled activities, you will still be moving forward in the right direction.
   
   
3. There are some books you can read that may be of benefit/interest:
   
   

• Marty Seligman, Learned Optimism
  
  
• Philip Zimbardo, The Demise of Guys
  
  Good luck, let us know how you go.

I'll give you some books to use as a starting point. You want to start out as generally as possible and then follow what interests you. Someone can give you a list of top books, but if they don't fascinate you enough to really dig in deep and reflect on them to sate your own curiosity, you'll just be scratching the surface. I don't care what it is, you can make money anywhere in the markets. So starting generally will help you find out what direction to go.

So, that said, these are the ones I'd recommend starting out with
https://www.amazon.com/Market-Wizards-Updated-Interviews-Traders/dp/1118273052
https://www.amazon.com/Reminiscences-Stock-Operator-Edwin-Lef%C3%A8vre/dp/0471770884
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400063515/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684840073/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809045990/

Some less conventional ones I really liked
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578645018/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1422121038/

Chaos theory describes some properties that pop up again and again in markets. I really liked this one.
https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Simplicity-Bringing-Order-Complexity/dp/140006256X

I also highly recommend finding a few good books on behavioral investing, just to get acquainted with the common mistakes investors make (how you can avoid them, and how you can exploit them). I don't have a lot here because the books I read are outdated and you can find better. So one example:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470067373/

But in general reading about psychology will help you understand the world better, and that's always a good thing.
https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202

I'm posting this from the perspective of a pastor (which I am), so if you want to dm me, feel free.

That kind of fixation on the SF/fantasy strikes me as unhealthy and there may be deeper issues (I realize that that is fairly obvious). When dealing with a person who is fixated like this, it's not your responsibility to change them nor are you at all responsible for her freaking out. It is also very unlikely that you can get through to them.

My advice would be to set up a boundary regarding the behavior you find bothering you, in this case, the lecturing, yelling, long phone calls, etc. Something like "I understand that this is a big issue for you, but I am not willing to talk to you about it." Give her no wiggle room, and if she persists, tell her something like "I said I am not willing to talk about it, and since you are insisting on talking about this, I am going to hang up." Click.

That's honestly going to be the best place to start (all of this is contingent on me not really knowing you or your situation, so take it with a grain of salt). If she realizes that you aren't willing (that word, willing, is important) to listen to her regarding this issue, she may stop brining it up. Also realize that it will be difficult at first. Have someone you can talk to when you start lay down this boundary.

Hopefully, you will start to feel the freedom of knowing you don't actually have to talk to her about this. Since it has such an impact on your emotional health, imagine what that would be like!

I also highly recommend Boundaries. Might be overkill in your situation, but there is lots of good stuff.

If anyone is intersted in this then I highly suggest you watch this TED talk with Shawn Achor. It goes on to explain positive psychology, a relatively new field in psychology that has confirmed that people need to be happy in order to maximize their potential to be successful and not successful to obtain happiness, as is widely believed and virtually how the majority of the worlds work force is managed.

If you enjoy that than I advise you to check out his book "The Happiness Advatnage". It's a great read. Perspective really does change the reality in front of us.

I found that the spoon theory helped me understand myself just as much as it helped me communicate to other people. I had to work on keeping spoons for myself. I want to be so much to so many people, and it killed me every time I found I couldn't. I hated being the type of person that people couldn't rely on. I hated that I would tell someone I would be there for them and couldn't. And I would definitely push myself well beyond my capacity because I refused to be the person my illness was forcing me to be.

It's not sustainable.


I am not qualified to give advice beyond my personal experience, so I don't entirely know the best things to say. Going through a chronic illness for the past 14 years what I have discovered is that happiness is a choice. It doesn't happen to you. It's a skill you have to learn and practice. I read Learned Optimism, and though it was a while ago I remember it helping. A lot of therapeutic work can be done by yourself if you haven't found someone you work well with. Try looking for books written for veterans, they may speak to you better than ones that talk about new age stuff.

Notice that your responses to me have all outlined why it's hopeless. But the fact that you keep responding shows that you do have hope. You are taking action and reaching out and trying. So tell that voice that keep saying it's not worth it to shut the fuck up. Literally. When you catch your mind spiraling down stop yourself and say "shut the fuck up. I decide how I will feel about this." And for every negative thing, force yourself to come up with a positive. Try writing back to me only listing what is good in your life. Even if it's just that you ate a good sandwich, it goes on the list. Practice that list, because you have more than enough practice on the negative list skills. Now is the time to focus on the positive one. Think back to what made you a good marine. What qualities and skills helped you succeed? How can you use those same skills to overcome this new hurdle?

It's not easy, it is worth it.

And if you respond well to the veterans' support, use them. Don't wait, use them now. See if they have any groups in your area, or online, and add more of that positive support in your life. Start building spoons for yourself. And recognize the people in your life who give you spoons back instead of just take.

Last thing: being in your 30's is a plus. I found that in my 20's people didn't get it. Once my peers started getting older and experiencing more of life they became a lot better at understanding what I was going through and had better skills for being supportive.

(Edit: I didn't read the whole post and didn't know you weren't looking for self help books. Maybe these will change your mind though.)

Here are two fantastic books that can help you deal with depression and the fickle human mind. One focuses on mindfulness and the other focuses on reason. Enjoy!

The Happiness Trap (mindfulness)

https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Living/dp/1590305841/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541600072&sr=8-1&keywords=the+happiness+trap

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (reason)

https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/0195374614/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541600123&sr=8-1&keywords=a+guide+to+the+good+life

I hope these help, I can answer any questions you have about them as well.