(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best motivational books

Welcome to OYS!

>Lifting: I'm new to this and don't know what I'm doing. I've found a gym, though, and need to make some time in my schedule. I'm thinking get up early and go first thing in the morning.

I would suggest downloading the free StrongLifts app. Then to to the Stronglifts website and check out the guides posted there, as well as the videos that are there. This will help answer any questions you have, and give you some demonstrations to help you start out with good form.

>I'm adding more eggs and beans for protein. I'm not sure if it'll raise T but it's worth a shot.

I think it will help, eggs are awesome for T production and beans are a good source of protein as well. If you're looking for additional help through supplementation, check out Pine Pollen Tincture, I take this twice a day, 5 days on / 2 days off. Let me tell you, I can FEEL the difference when I take this stuff, it works! Also, try adding Vitamin D3, boron, and Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols), these are proven to help raise T as well.

>Porn/alcohol/drug/whatever: A bit of ebb and flow. After years of NoFap and PornFree, that's down to almost zero.

This is awesome!

>Alcohol is another story. I have trouble drinking in moderation, but have made huge improvements when not using it for coping.

This is a tough one, but it can be overcome as well. Do you find there are certain times of the day/night that you are tempted to use? Or certain situations where it is a temptation? I would start there and think about creating different habits that don't put you in that position to begin with.

>Fashion sense: improving. I wear collared shirts with khakis a lot of the time now. I look better and feel a lot more confident. I found some really helpful stuff on The Art of Manliness regarding how to choose and wear this stuff; I think I look a lot less ridiculous now!

When you feel confident, you exude confidence and others can sense it. Do you have a link to the things you read on AoM? I would love to check that out!

>Agree & Amplify: Pretty good! Amused mastery: Not mastered, but improving!

Good.

>Negative inquiry: don't know this one.

This is from When I Say No, I Feel Guilty (WISNIFG). This book is one of the most helpful for handling confrontations with others in a productive way, I highly recommend it.

>I went to the bar with some coworkers last weekend and ended up making out with a girl there, so I can tell my technique has improved. I'm not sure how well this will work on serious Christian girls.

Well, you're not going to find serious Christian girls in a bar, for sure. If that's what you're looking for, you have to set the standard by being a serious Christian guy first. Are you?

>Evangelism: 0/10, have done none

>Mission solidified: Far from it, but I've got a huge career change up ahead. God will guide me onto the path on which I'll learn my mission.

These two things stood out to me. Is evangelism not part of your mission? I would think about this for a while, because every Christian is called to share the Gospel.

>Discipling: That's a 2-way nope

Evangelism comes before discipleship, so this is no surprise. Do you have any prospects for finding a mentor for yourself?

>Parts of the Bible I'm not understanding: I opened to the book of Zechariah this weekend and just couldn't figure out why it exists

From Studylight: Zechariah speaks more of the city of Jerusalem. Besides he is the only post-exile prophet to give a detailed overview on the history of God's people and the nations connected with Jerusalem. He describes the rejection of the Messiah by His earthly people Israel and their repentance and acknowledgment of the Messiah who will appear to establish His reign of peace. In this Zechariah is very similar to Daniel the prophet. Zechariah has also been compared to Isaiah "the evangelist among the prophets". The keynote of his message is the unchanging love of God and His care for His earthly people. He will preserve them from all dangers coming from the world's powers and keep them for His kingdom on earth.

>I don't understand how one can be "meek" and also be alpha.

This set of comments helped me get some good perspective on this.

>Church: I've visited quite a few churches this year. They've said some things that didn't sit well with me, so each time I've taken my Bible and read up on that stuff. Turns out that my concerns were grounded each time. I'm still looking for a church that teaches the Bible without spinning it beyond recognition.

Good on you for using the Bible as a discernment tool here; too many people only go by how they feel. God will lead you to the right church in His timing, keep looking in the meantime and don't give up.

>I'm struggling to get in the gym

What's the hardest exercise at the gym? Front door pulls. Make it a habit, and soon you'll feel weird when you don't go.

>and to afford healthy food

Do the best you can for now, sounds like things will be changing soon with your job. I'll bet things will work out better when that happens.

>I started in a pretty bad place and sometimes it feels like I'm not going anywhere, but objectively comparing my frame/health/looks/career makes the improvement obvious. Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord indeed, that's awesome to hear, brother!

>What is "reaching the subconscious"?. Is this a one on one conversation with it? Can you describe it in a meaningful way?

You can think of it as a kind of training that uses operant conditioning. I'll present a simple example.

>Philippians 4 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

>8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

When a Christian experiences anxiety, the trained response is to pray to God. This prayer is structured. First, we invoke gratitude within our minds. You have to think of something that you are thankful for. It can be as abstract as thanking God for the relationship that you have with Him or as specific as thanking God for the beautiful weather, or the meal that you're about to receive. Whatever it is you focus and find that feeling of warmth in your chest. This is by the way, really important anytime you pray. Then you go over in your prayer what is bothering you. The act of talking out your problems to God forces you to take a step back from them, which is helpful in itself. You then "give" the problem to God. This is well understood in Christian circles, but I'm not sure I could explain to non-believers. If you don't have the concept of a loving God firmly implanted in your mind, a lot of faith and stepping outside of a comfort zone would be needed. Then you invoke the meditative peace that comes along with prayer. The best way I have to explain this feeling to a non-believer would be The Power of Now. Once in that peace, you think about good and praiseworthy things which will then replace the worries that are on your mind. While it takes some effort, I've used this many times to clear bouts of anxiety.

>>For anyone that suffers from an unruly subconscious, or anyone that has ever struggled to modify their own behavior or mood, I believe that religious practice contains some of the best known mechanisms for intervention.

>Well, support that belief with something. Do you have any comparative studies?

Religious inspiration of AA. AA Literature Review. Project MATCH Results. Buddhist Aspect of DBT, Effectiveness of DBT. An article on research in meditation.

>I don't doubt that, but that doesn't mean it will lead you to what is 1) True and 2) Best for you. I'm sure we can both come up with examples, both good and bad, of where emotional influences lead you to. At least being rational can lead you to what is, with the best information available, true.

I agree. Morality and rationality must guide religious development. Absent those things, religion can be quite dangerous.

>Well great, you've described yourself as a subdued psychopath. If you lose your practices what are you going to go do?

I'm a diagnosed borderline. I have dealt with severe chronic depression, suicidal thoughts and self harm for most of my life. There is no rational protection from such things due to the strength of my deathwish. Rationality, unfortunately, can only channel desire, it cannot tell you what to desire. It's just as easy to rationally justify suicide as it is to justify living, actually a bit easier. Religion is the only effective defense I have found against it. The desire itself is irrational and must be countered with something inherently irrational.

>The only thing your post serves to prove is that people can be persuaded by emotions and rituals into doing things, which isn't anything I disagree with, but I hope you agree that people can be persuaded to do anything with the right stimuli, thus it's a tool for morality/immorality depending on who is controlling it.

I agree completely.

>Rationality is harder and less intuitive for human beings, it's something that takes time to learn unlike primal instincts, but it has the capability to be the best thing we can achieve. We should be encouraging trying harder, not giving up.

The problem is that rationality is insufficient for morality. Morality is rooted in the irrational value system of human beings. A means for manipulating these value systems is useful and myth and religion are the only tools I know. I believe that this view is perfectly consistent with rationality and that an aversion to this aspect of human existence is irrational.

There's quite a bit of evidence that intellect is a very malleable factor, and does not necessarily remain stable over time. In other words- it's entirely possible that a person can raise their IQ (not that I think IQ is a comprehensive measure of intellect to begin with.)

There's also quite a bit of evidence that a person's intellect is more an accumulated product of their ability to focus their attention and filter out distracting thoughts, than it is some kind of "bigger brain" or "faster recall" phenomenon.

It works like this: your attention (working memory capacity) is one limiting factor on how much of the information you've been exposed to is encoded into secondary memory (long-term memory). "A bigger garden hose fills a pool faster" would be a good analogy.

That being said, it appears there is very little variation in people's actual working memory capacities - but people who are "intelligent" are better able to focus on items and thoughts they wish to attend to. It is currently thought that this relationship between attentional filtering and intelligence is not just a correlation, but a causal one.

In other words: We think filtering extraneous thoughts and information so you are better able to focus on the operation (whatever it is you're trying to do) at hand is a primary driving factor in a person's intellect.

Further, other studies have shown that with deliberate practice, you can learn to enhance your ability to "focus" on information at hand. The implication is that you can improve your intelligence in broad strokes.

This is all undergraduate stuff at my University, and being an undergraduate I don't have the exact papers on hand to give you references, and don't happen to know a procedure for going about improving your attentional filter, but I know the information is out there.

So, if you don't want to accept what you feel is an unsatisfactory current level of intelligence - I don't think you have to.

tl;dr: Intelligence is malleable, and can be improved quite a lot with deliberate effort!
_

Leaving that, though, I also think that everyone has to cope with this problem on some level - there's always somebody smarter than you. Don't feel alienated or alone about this; know we're all in the same boat with you. Nobody is as smart as they wish they were.

You're probably smarter than you realize, and in fact the perception of weakness in one area will actually decrease your performance in that area - even if no weakness exists.

Also - if you're just not interested in something, you won't be able to focus your attention on it, anyhow. It could be that academics just isn't your cup of tea! That by no means means you're less intelligent than your classmates that are getting As. It just means you haven't discovered your interests yet. It happens, even to people who are actively looking for their intellectual calling. You'll find it.

Academics is just one expression of intellect - there's lots of others: music, art, interpersonal skills, oratory, crafts and trades. If there is something that interests you, and you're still young enough/in a place where you can afford to experiment, you should do it! There is no reason not to pursue happiness.

tl;dr: Just because you're not good at academics doesn't mean you're not very good at something else, equally as difficult and rewarding
___
And lastly, as a personal anecdote: I performed abysmally in college when I first went there. I could not focus on studying, information would just go in one ear and out the other, I took no interest in the courses I was taking, and I utterly flunked out. Twice.

I joined the military, crushed, because I thought I was an Einstein, Jr., like most other people seem to do. Ten years later, I went back to college and found I was just an intellectual late-bloomer. I have no idea what happened to me, but I vastly improved in my academic ability. Now I'm one year from graduating, improved my GPA from 0.9 to 3.4, and have good prospects on going to grad school. I think there's always hope - maybe your brain just wasn't mature enough before.

But if you really feel that you can't better your station in life, I would recommend reading On Living, by Epictetus. It's an absolutely brilliant book, written almost two thousand years ago, and it's purpose is to help people find happiness and come to grips with life, following the principle "Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not."

tl;dr: Sometimes we're just dumb when we're young, and age/experience fixes it. And some things are beyond our control, we can still seek ways to be happy - with effort.

Very long winded answer- but I hope I can be of some help.

Not sure if you're only looking for fiction or an entertaining read, but here are some "self help" books which have blown my mind and have had a huge impact on my life for the better. I wouldn't personally call them "self help" books, but rather, books for everyone seeking to improve themselves and learn how to make a happier life for themselves and others. Please don't be put off by the nature of these "self help" books - a few years ago I was of the belief that these were only for social retards and people with psychological issues, but I've since learned that these books can pretty much improve the life of anyone in the world in some way. Some of the things I learned in these books were so profound I had to put the book down in shock just to process it all.

Vital Lies, Simple Truths by Daniel Goleman

This shows how everyone (including yourself) will always see the world subjectively according to their own personal experiences and bias - whether being conscious of it or not. It'll really show you how to read more into interpersonal relations and develop a far better insight into how people (and perhaps even you) think mentally. Of course it's human nature for people to think they're perfectly rational, but this book shows how to recognise how people will subconsciously deceive themselves into seeing the world as the mind wants to see it.

The Definitive Book of Body Language by Barbara and Allan Pease

As the title suggests, this shows you how to read into body language. This really blew my mind - with this you will learn how to read FAR more into people and more effectively project desired attitudes of your own onto others. This will teach you things that most people are totally oblivious to, and yet, by understanding body language you will be able to tell so much more about people from it - this has taught me how to find out what people are actually thinking.

How to Argue & Win Every Time by Gerry Spence

Don't be fooled by the title - this book is not so much about arguing as it is about getting what you want with people and in life. Written by one of the world's best trial lawyers, it'll teach you how to more effectively communicate and connect with others in order to get what you and others want. At first I was averse to reading anything from a lawyer, but he really surprised me on this one - it was a hugely entertaining read and his words were some of the wisest I've ever read.

Comedy Writing Secrets by Mel Helitzer

This will teach you how to be funny! Of course, this sounds stupid and one might think that this kind of thing can't be learned, but I promise you that no matter who you are, if you read this you'll become a far more interesting person.

I don't know if these were the kind of books that you were looking for, but I hope this comes to some help to at least one Redditor out there. It's just that all of these books have greatly improved my life, and I wish I could have found these earlier. Plus it'd be nice if people would give more heartfelt suggestions on where to find more books like these - hope this helps =)

I was younger than almost my entire team, only had 2 others younger than me of a 7 person team. It can be a bit challenging but the key thing to remember is that you were hired for your skills to be a people manager and they are the professionals in their skills.

There was probably someone on that team wanted your job. I tend to acknowledge their desire for leadership positions and ask them if that is what they still want in their career. If so then we make a plan to help make them more marketable for the next role or as my "heir-apparent" when the time comes.

Be humble and let their expertise and opinions be a welcome thing. It is paramount to hear their advice and more importantly to hear why things are done the way they are. People (typically) don't do things without a good reason. Respect that.

Couple other random bits and pieces I recommend to new managers:

This is what I try to do when taking over a new team.

• Review finances (historical (3-5 yrs), YTD and budgeted). The good part is that most of your current year has already been determined for you, so take that time to get the lay of the land so you can hit next year strong.
  
• Outline objectives and priorities from your boss for the department.
  
• Establish 1:1 weekly meetings with all your direct reports.
  
• I like to provoke my new teams to tell me two things in the following areas: Where are we poor/weak? What do we OK but should do better? What do we great at? What would you like to see?
  
  Things I strive for as part of my team as their manager:
  
  
• Do great work consistently.
  
• Be the go to team in your organization.
  
• Be a team and manager willing to push envelopes or create positive disruption.
  
• Protect your team as a manager in all settings.
  
• Reward people by the way they want to be rewarded. Not everyone wants beer. Not everyone wants money. Some people are just happy solving a difficult problem others couldn't figure out.
  
  A few books I would recommend in no particular order:
  
  
• Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager
  
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
  
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
  
• The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
  
• Writing That Works
  
• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

I wake up early fairly consistently. Most Saturdays I sleep in until 8am, but throughout the week 5am is the norm. Today just happened to be 2:30am, so consistency as far as exact time isn't really a thing for me.

My morning routine I've adopted from Hal Elrod's Miracle morning. I originally read a synopsis found here after hearing about the concept. I read some reviews and thought the book was pointless to read, but I'm finally reading it now and not hating it. I thought the synopsis would be enough and the book itself would be full of fluff, but it's both inspiring and informative.

Essentially, the morning begins with 6 things. How much time you spend on each is up to you. Depending on homework, work and other tasks I have planned, I'll spend up to 2 hours doing these things and sometimes I just rush through it so I can work. Of course, again not so consistent, I do skip the routine altogether some days and I notice those days don't go too smoothly afterwards.

1. Silence/Mediation/Prayer. I'm not religious at all but strangely, I find myself praying in the morning. I find entreating myself is a way to solidify who I want to be and forces me to visualize solutions (#3). Silence and mediation is pretty self explanatory, it helps you relax. I often defer this part of my routine so that I can work on something and then meditate to relieve any stress it causes. Finally, this is a good time to remember to stretch.
   
   
2. Affirmation. I do this in two ways. I either in my writing (see #6) or during/after my mediation I'll start. Affirmations for me basically consists of repeating my goals and my personal Mission Statement (if you don't have one you should, this idea I adopted from the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). I end essentially forcing myself to be very excited. Not really a though process just a feeling, a rush of energy to get started.
   
   
3. Visualization. As I mentioned, I do a little prayer routine most mornings. This forces me to visualize my goals. Sometimes I just visualize something specific, like the other day I had a bench trial. Maybe I'm planning a hike or learning something new. Today I visualized next week and thought about what the week would look like in retrospect. Then I did the same for the month, and thought about my goals as if they had been achieved.
   
   4.Exercise. I usually wait till about 6 or 6:30 to wake my girlfriend up. We take our dogs for a walk and I usually run off midway with our bigger dog (she walks the little dog back to the house). Sometimes I just walk the whole route with everyone. Afterwards I'll either follow up with a workout or hit the shower. Exercise really awakens the body and of all of these things is the most important. I feel like it's great for depression, axiety and many other ailments, but then again I'm not a scientist and don't care to back up this claim for the sake of this post.
   
   
4. Reading. Not necessarily following this order, I'll often read something during the first part of my morning, before exercise (then I can think or talk about it while I jog/walk). I try to find something good on reddit, pick up a book I'm reading, or I'll work on a tutorial (web development, programming) which often involves reading. I avoid the news and negative articles for obvious reasons. Today, this thread was my reading, so it can be anything in my opinion.
   
   
5. Scribing. I usually write last. I try to write something very simple so that I don't lose motivation. The reason that writing is important in the morning is, if you write about the day before you are forced to remember something that would easily be forgotten. Writing also is a good way to do Affirmations and Visualizations, as well as plan out your day. This used to be really hard for me but then I just decided to keep it simple-stupid. So in other words, a few sentences suffices when I'm not in the mood. On the other hand, this morning I wrote a blog post and now I'm writing this. The point is, though, whatever I write doesn't have to be the length of a book.
   
   Speaking of which this post is becoming a book so I'll stop it here. Hope that helps or inspires someone. I recommend the books I've mentioned, but from what I understand Miracle Morning has basically been summed up in this post but like I said I'm enjoying it so far. As far as when you wake up, I think the earlier the better, personally and 6am just does not cut it for me.
   
   Lastly, I should mention a good way to remember the above is the acronym SAVERS. Thats why I didn't put things in order of what I do necessarily, but in the order that fits the acronym.

I saw this thread earlier and thought I should reply, saw all the other posts and moved on. While out running just now, I remembered how I was in your spot (and maybe a bit worse?) and wished I had some help starting out or staying on track. So here I am, telling a really long story on Reddit. Maybe I’ll remember to save this and reshare later.

Mike’s Guide to Deciding to Fix Your Life, Lose Some Weight, Quit Smoking and Run the New York Marathon 5 Times (and eventually buy a Peloton).

At 33 years old I decided that smoking a pack a day, working 70 hour weeks and being overweight wasn’t what I wanted to be as a parent. I was driving to Oregon for work and got a double quarter pounder with cheese at McDonalds (and you know it was super sized) in the drive through. As I finished my burger and it up a cigarette (Marlboro Lights…because LIGHTS! I’m going to quit one day), I noticed my pants were tight. Not normal pants. My fat pants. For anyone who has ever been fat…you know what I’m talking about. I don’t know if this is still a thing, but at the time, I never remembered seeing sizes about 42 (which was what I was wearing). I realized I might need special pants—and not utilitarian pants…but pants because of my size. I hit bottom (mine…).
The next day I was at work, and was outside smoking with people half my age and thinking…wow this is what looked like smoking at 18. I looked around and then saw someone about 10 years older than me smoking…worse skin, stained clothes from it, etc. I didn’t want to become him…but was still stuck as that kid.

I devised a plan. I stuck to it, and went from 205 (all fat) > 165 (All skin bones) and now 180 currently, but stronger than I’ve ever been.

A bit of random commentary before I start:
• Quitting smoking is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Ever. Looking back, however, it was the best choice I’ve ever made. I have never missed it.
• Second thing: You have to change who you are and how you do many parts of your life. This isn’t easy. Your family needs to understand why you are doing what you are doing and support you. They don’t to have to come along, but they can’t take you off course.
• Do it for you. Don’t do it for anyone else. If you do it for someone, you’ll resent them. Quit smoking to live longer or to be a better role model for your kid, not because your family wants you to.

The order this goes in, I’ll explain why:

1. Fix Your Diet.
   
2. Get Active
   
3. Quit Smoking
   
4. Get More Active
   
   Fix Your Diet
   Note that this does not say ‘go on a diet’. Going on a diet is temporary. You got where you are today based on ‘not being on a diet’…so as soon as your diet ‘ends’ you’re right back on the road. I read Atkins, Keto, all of them. They all say the same thing: Eat less of (thing), Profit! At the end of the day, I figured I’d be bad at any conformist diet. I like bread. I like meat. I like milk. Hell, I even like cake!
   My diet is simple. To maintain my weight, I have 2000 calories a day. If I want to drop weight I eat less calories. 3500 calories = 1 pound of fat. What no one ever explains when you are a kid is that it is a net sum game. Over course of a week/month/year/life, going over calories gains weight, under burns it. If you eat 14,000 one week (2k/day) and 17,500 (2500/day) the following you will gain a pound. Even if you go back to 14k the next…that pound is still there.
   Track your food with apps like lose it or my fitness pal. Find what your healthy diet is…what the right serving size is (WEIGH YOUR FOOD), do the math and run tally. It doesn’t matter if you only eat Snicker’s bars all day every day. Stick to this and you will lose.
   I did 1500 calories a day to lose a pound a week without making changes to my exercise.
   
   Get Active
   I was perhaps more out of shape than you, but I couldn’t walk a mile without wheezing. Get a treadmill. Get a peloton (!) and get on it every day. Every. Day. 30 minutes. Every. Day. If you say ‘well I don’t have 30 minutes’ you are lying because you are on reddit right now. Find what works for you to be dripping sweat at the end of 30 minutes. Maybe that’s walking. Maybe its running. Add incline/speed or whatever every time it gets ‘easy’. (note from prior commenter: It never gets easy. My comments: its always rewarding)
   Prepare to be the slow go at the gym. Or low on the leaderboards. Or have one of the hyperfit instructors talk about 90 cadence and 60 resistance when you can’t even breathe. Do your best effort 100% of the time and it will come. The smoking will make this harder and hell, after you get off the bike/run/treadmill have a cigarette, I did. You’ll start to notice something though….breathing is important.
   
   Quit Smoking
   So, quitting smoking. Early commenter recommended vaping; I’m not a fan. Cigarettes are an addiction and saying that (to me) is like saying ‘Heroin? oh man those needles are bad for you, check out meth!’. I personally recommend a book called the Easy Way to Quit Smoking by Allen Carr:
   https://www.amazon.com/Allen-Carrs-Easy-Stop-Smoking-ebook/dp/B01EVMK0H0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1518225081&sr=8-2
   I never looked at smoking like an addiction nor did I understand how that cycle worked. Read the book, and just decide to quit and fight it. It isn’t easy. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do. I promise its worth it.
   Side tips to this: make yourself uncomfortable while quitting. Hang out with smokers. Go outside on smoke breaks with them. Drink! Go to bars! Don’t smoke. These temptations don’t go away—learn early that you can win.
   Wait a minute? Why shouldn’t I quit smoking first? Great question reader. You will, as a side effect of quitting smoking lower your heart rate (which is a good thing) but it will mess with calorie burn a bit. In addition, while quitting you will be hungry like never before. You will want to eat EVERYTHING to ease the nerves. You will probably gain weight. If you fix your diet first and don’t go over (EAT ALL THE VEGETABLES) you won’t gain as much. If you’re exercising you’ll see breathing benefits fast and can use it as a stress burn.
   
   
   Get More Active
   The world is your oyster. Run a 5k. Run a 10k. Run a Marathon. Get Peloton crazy. Climb a mountain. Do some shit. Its fun. 😊
   
   
   

Basing a response on what you've said to us:

"Holidays for my family are all about relaxing, eating and enjoying friends and family [took a little liberty with 'getting turnt'; IL's don't sound like they'll fit in...]
As guests, your responsibility is to be gracious and to entertain yourselves rather than demanding an itinerary - or ANYTHING. I shouldn't have to tell you this - you're adults and presumably acquainted with the social graces - but I am."

"You're welcome at our Thanksgiving and to hang out if you behave like guests. The rest of the time you're on your own. None of us are your tour guide. Google some local attractions and decide what you might like to do."

It's been almost a year since I had a holiday with my own family. I'm doing so and have advised DH that he's welcome to look after you and to spend as much time as he wishes with you. I'll be hanging out with my folks and friends. Hope you have a great time."

This is salty. Overbearing and self-entitled people leave you little choice; they wouldn't be making ridiculous demands if they were sufficiently reasonable for you to be polte. You have to be blunt.

If they clutch their pearls and gasp tell them "Reasonable folks wouldn't require being spoken to this bluntly; it's sometimes called a clue-by-four. Now that I have your attention, realize how overbearing and ridiculous is your behavior. Or don't. Either way, my family and I will be spending this visit together rather than entertaining you."

Copy DH and tell him something like "Your parents are being ridiculous. They're your family. Dear, based on their demands I feel like saying 'your circus, your monkey's.' You're welcome to put up with / hang out with them all you want or feel obligated to. I won't and refuse to allow them to steal or spoil my time with my family. I find their behavior offensive BECAUSE IT IS. I hope if you let them impose on you, you begin to understand that Fear, Obligation and Guilt are a shitty basis for a relationship. With your parents or anyone."

And give him When I Say No I Feel Guilty by Manuel J. Smith and No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert A. Glover for holiday reading.

I promise that 1) this experience WON'T loosen up FMIL or help her appreciate you. You've stolen her Baby Boy (hurk) and she's pissed. 2) She's shown you who she is. Believe her. 3) Absolutely somebody's going to be stuck trying to appease her; it doesn't have to be YOU. 4) Contact MIL as soon as you read this (unless it's 3 a.m.) and tell her that you're not her bank; her reservations will be canceled at 8 a.m. Thursday (allows her an extra day for Veteran's Day) unless you have the $1500 in full.

No, dear, you DON'T just have to front her funds; you're in a little FOG yourself. What's she going to do - spank you? Ground you? Stop speaking to you? (GOOD)

You're an adult. So is she, at least in years. You're her equal. She owes you reasonableness but you're clearly not going to get it without insisting on it.
You owe her FFF: Fair, Firm and Friendly until she's an ass, which she achieved some time ago. Now she gets Fair and Firm in perpetuity or until genuine change occurs. Perpetuity is waaaaay more likely.

Please accept that you get what you insist on rather than what you deserve. Taking this to heart - and living by it - is a significant sign of adulthood.

I hope you seize this opportunity to begin reclaiming your life; you deserve it. And maybe your very dear husband will start to see that the sky doesn't fall when mommy gets told no; that in fact things are better all around when she gets over her head exploding.

I'd like to point out that the marketing of gyms always shows fit and healthy people using the gym. That's not the whole story, and I've always thought that the target audience is unfairly measured.

Gyms are there to help people start their goal of get fit and to maintain it. Don't think about the gym being only for people who are already fit. It's a great resource to get oneself to the level of fitness that they are happy with.

Suggestions:

• Call around and find a gym that offers a free session on sign-up. It's a great way to get comfortable with exercise, and they will help find what will be good for you.
  
  
• I find that audiobooks and podcasts are great. Not only can one accomplish a workout, but one can also take in a book, interviews, comedy, whatever. Many people are in their own world wearing headphones at gyms.
  
  
• Treadmills are great for improving fitness. Gyms are air conditioned in the summer, and heated in the winter. One can measure progress easier. Starting off slow and incrementing slowly over time is much easier to control with a treadmill. Also more time to get through that audiobook.
  
  
• Find a book with a plan to follow for both diet and workouts with which you are comfortable. I found this book to be very easy to understand but it demands a solid 3 mth commitment. The interesting thing is that the book is very open about how hard that commitment would be and very accurate when it comes to asserting that while the first couple of weeks will be difficult, that most certainly goes away and the groove sets in. The path becomes very easy to follow within a few weeks.

I'm not a big expert myself, but yeah, it seems to me that here in the west we focus on the exteriority and kind of abandon our inner development, while in the east it's opposite, (it's a great generalization of course) so I try to take the best of both worlds to my life.

eastern thinking is a very vast term, there are so many different religions and currents (though I guess from our standpoint they are not so different :) ). I guess what unify them is that they all agree a man has higher potential that he can reach in this life, and through a spiritual path can attain "Enlightenment" (and until we attain it we basically live in misery) What I am stressing (and correct me if i'm wrong) is that their theory seems to align with your experience as your current life makes you miserable.

Anyway if you're interested there is this very good book "The power of now", have you heard of it?
here a nice review by the all mighty Steve Pavlina: (more of how reading the book changes one's life).
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/the-power-of-now/

the book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Now-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577311523


Sry about all the links and public relations, I just want to make sure that the decision you will decide to take is as aware of it self as can be!

So to summarize my understanding: right now, as an average human being, you ARE you thoughts, in a sense that you identify with them 100%. you are sure (as it is the default option and you are doing it for so long) that what you think is the reality, and as the mind have this tendency to gravitate towards negative thoughts, the reality you perceive is a quite evil.

but through attention and awareness - watching yourself, watching your thoughts etc. you can come to a very strong realization: what you think is just imagination, all your thoughts are created in this imaginary dimension, inside the mind, and at their best are only approximation of the reality (like the relation between a good movie and reality) but usually have zero objective truth in them. When you realize this you stop taking seriously everything you think and your emotional attachment to your thoughts decrease dramatically. when you stop thinking and worrying all the time you realize that to just "be", to just be aware of your sensory data, is quite fulfilling and satisfying and you are quite happy, and doing things you enjoy become much more fun - like singing with you favorite song, hiking, or eating delicious food becomes very satisfying. And that just the start...

of course it takes time and it takes effort but the payoff is infinite

So that is my experience, hopefully I don't bore you too much, GL!

I got you covered dude. My company lives for this and provides books on the regular, but the ones below are pretty much the industry standard, and top companies all over the world recommend that every one read these. I have to admit, they've helped me:

• "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" This will also have an impact on your personal life, but most importantly, it prevented me from being a little shit in the office, and helps teach you to focus on your work and behavior with other people by offering simple logic and examples.
  
  
• "Winning" This is the manifesto of how to dominate the corporate world by the legendary Jack Welch (Former long time CEO of GE). It's extremely simple and a very easy read, but this is the corporate mentality. Of all the books I list, if you only read one, make it this one. Easily a favorite among everyone in my office.
  
  
• "Good to Great" This isn't so much about how to be an effective individual, its more about what makes an effective company, but still important as you will want to recognize the effectiveness of your own organization is it grows and changes while you are there. Additionally, "Great by Choice" and "Built to Last" are also written by the same author, Jim Collins, and should also be on your list, but prioritize them for later.
  
  
• "Drive" by Dan Pink. This will help you understand a little bit more of what physically can motivate you, beyond money. Good way to sit down and assess your values as to why you show up everyday. I would also add "A Whole New Mind" which discusses creativity and "To Sell is Human" both by Dan Pink and prioritize them for later
  
  Those are the quick ones I can think of. If I come up with more I'll add them to the list. Also, welcome to the corporate world - good luck in your career!
  
  Edit: Holy shit, gold? This is my first time receiving so thank you for being gentle!
  

Ok /u/ACfireandiceDC, here goes:

I was diagnosed ADD a few years back after I read an account of someone describing their ADD symptoms on a Humans of New York post, of all things.

I read their life story and thought, shit, this sounds awfully relateable.

As soon as I was diagnosed, it became obvious I'd suffered since I was a child, and in-fact my Dad had, too - ADD is often genetic.

In being diagnosed, I was able to start better understanding why I acted in certain ways, and therefore able to start deploying strategies to navigate the challenges I faced.

This included starting on medication, initially Ritalin, but at this stage, I take Dextroamphetamine as I find it's much kinder to me later in the day during the 'crash' associated with amphetamine stimulant meds (note: the effects are entirely personal and vary greatly from person to person).

With hindsight, it's now obvious to me that ADD, and many other similar 'labels' are a general attempt to describe a group of symptoms that can range wildly from diagnosee to diagnosee - what I'm trying to say is that similar to Autism, I believe ADD and other similar disorders are sub-sets of a spectrum.

In my case, and by that I mean my individual 'genetic' traits which are associated with ADD, I suffer from the following things:

• Performance anxiety/perfectionism
  
• Extreme procrastination
  
• Difficulty focusing
  
• Problems with timings and organisation
  
  There are probably a few more I could squeeze in, but for the most part that's my slice of cake.
  
  Now, at this stage of the game, a few years into the diagnosis, I've spent much time and effort reading books, studies, anecdotes and so forth which have lead me to some interesting conclusions (that I have no doubt will continue to evolve):
  
  Overall, I think most of my symptoms are a manifestation of a type of anxiety, not dissimilar to what I imagine you experience with OCD.
  
  As a designer, if I can't get something 100% spot on within my own idea of 'perfect', I'll quickly end up grinding to a halt and giving up.
  
  Likewise, if I mess up a deadline early on, I'll lose all ability to continue, instead, becoming stuck in a bottomless pit of self-loathing and procrastination.
  
  My point is, I can trace most of my symptoms back to this type of 'anxiety'.
  
  I think, in many ways, this stems back to a conflict between my self-image and the reality of productivity requiring the suspension of 'perfection' in order to get things done.
  
  What I mean is: in my head, I want everything I do to be perfect because my ego constantly tells itself that it's special and unlike everyone else - when I look around, I see everyone elses work that seems mediocore and average, and I 'know' that I am capable of so much better, but then when I am working on something, as soon as I faulter and begin to struggle to get it 'just right', I am no longer capable of working and the procastination sets in - perhaps just a sub-conscious defense mechanism against the realisation that I, too, am mortal, and not as 'perfect' as my ego so desperately needs me to be - a form of cognitive disonance.
  
  As a side note, I've often wondered if this insecurity stemmed from my parents, or perhaps from bullying during my formative years - a question I fully intend on getting to the bottom of as soon as I can afford to see a professional.
  
  With this realisation under my belt, I've slowly but surely been able to make great strides in the last few months towards something that finally seems like an effective counter-attack.
  
  When starting a big project, I let myself spend hours, if not days, engrossing myself in the details and getting comfortable with the task set out before me. I find this helps silence many of the 'voices' (metaphorical) before they have a chance to bring me down and derail the train.
  
  The aim is to understand what I need to do, how I'm going to do it, and importantly, that I can do it, alongside a light but constant reminder that I need to focus on finishing something over lower quality rather than giving up on something nearer to perfection (in my industry, a common phrase is 'Just Fucking Ship It' (ship = launch) and 'Shipped is better than perfect').
  
  Alongside the effective medication, frequent cardio, no longer drinking alcohol, a good nights sleep, meditation and a quiet, healthy work environment, I'm starting to see real change.
  
  I'm no-where near the 'utopia' of productivity I have in my mind, and honestly, I likely never will be - that's okay.
  
  But as someone who has spent literally years hating myself for not being able to command myself into action, the slightest signs of a 'pulse' are incredibly exciting.
  
  It's taken a lot of effort and time to get here, but I firmly believe that if I can, anyone can.
  
  If you have any further questions or think I might be able to share some other useful information, please feel free to message me or simply reply here (this applies to OP and anyone else who might stumble across this reply, at any point in the future).
  
  As much as I hope you find this reply useful in some way on its own, I also want to leave you with some actionable steps:
  
  If you haven't already, take a look at the GTD 'Getting Things Done' methodology. Regardless of whether you implement it or not, learning the 'science' behind it will help you on your journey.
  
  Here's a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOSFxKaqOm4
  
  Then here: https://blog.zenkit.com/a-beginners-guide-to-getting-things-done-3cc1a5123b98
  
  Some brilliant books I'd suggest are as follows - I'm not great at reading a book the whole way through these days, so I find Audiobooks to be a God-send (mainly Audible):
  
  Mindset by Carol Dweck
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322
  
  Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip & Dan Heath
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752
  
  Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Ego-Enemy-Ryan-Holiday/dp/1591847818
  
  Principles: Life and Work
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio/dp/1501124021

Thanks for the recommendation. Three non-fiction books that I like that might appeal to others who enjoy HPMOR:

Influence, Robert Cialdini. This is like a handbook of ways that people may try to short circuit your rational thinking. And it is written well enough for casual reading, not totally textbook style. Favorite quotes:

• "[P]eople at the racetrack: Just after placing a bet, they are much more confident of their horse's chances than they are immediately before laying down the bet."
  
  
• "[I]t is apparent that good looking people enjoy enormous social advantage in our culture. They are better liked, more persuasive, more frequently helped, and seen as possessing better personality traits and intellectual capabilites" [i.e., why it is worth paying attention to your appearance]
  
  wikipedia amazon
  
  
  
  Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom, and Urgent Means, William Vollmann. The title pretty much explains it. Quote:
  
  
• "The simple law of might accords respect to an armed individual [...] another way of saying that security is a precondition for autonomy. One long-standing labor unionist and civil rights activist had to contend with the active hostility of American police. In a certain town, Ku Klux Klan recruiting posters adorned the police station. The activist recalls:
  "I am convinced that I'm alive today because I traveled with firearms -- and that this fact was generally known." "
  
  I enjoyed this book more for the "true facts" aspect of historical accounts of the use of violence than the attempt to create a moral calculus. I only have the abridged version.
  wikipedia amazon
  
  
  
  Bargaining For Advantage, G. Richard Shell. This is a straightforward pretty short (~250 page) book about bargaining/negotiation. It is about identifying the situation you are in, evaluating the other parties, evaluating your own tendencies (and if it might be better to delegate), and conducting the business. amazon

I've walked through the valley that you're walking right now many times and I hopefully this discussion and examination of what confidence is can help you.

I think it's really common to think "I'm ugly, not smart, neurotic..." therefore I'm not confident or worth anything. ("If only I was better looking or was nicer, then I'd have it"). I went through a long period of reflection and self-improvement. I went to the gym, I improved myself in many fields, I improved my looks, and sometimes it did help temporarily, but at the end of the day I still felt the same. Honestly sometimes it made it worse because I felt the same despite the "positive change" I made in my life. So then I started to really examine things, "Will doing X, Y, Z really give me confidence? What about it will make me finally feel secure and have that self-worth?" and "What is confidence".

I think society tends to push this belief that confidence derives from external values and factors "Be good looking, be rich, be skilled, etc.", however in reality this makes your confidence hollow and transient. On the other-hand Confidence derived from internal factors can become unshakable. Confidence is the simple belief in the inherent value of the self, and being confident is understanding that you'll bring yourself forward through the inevitable failure and hardship. It's distinctly different from arrogance, which is the belief you'll succeed (or even worse deserve to succeed) regardless of everything. You can identify a confident person by someone who can genuinely laugh about their own mistakes/fuck-ups.

You don't lack confidence because you have these negative qualities, you see these negative qualities in yourself because you lack confidence. There are people who are have these negative qualities but still have a core confidence about them.

So then where does that leave you? How do you become confident?

Some people are lucky in that they've lived a life of enough positive experience and reinforcement that they have instilled in them the sense of core confidence.

However if you don't have this then you have to "brainwash" yourself into believing it. This isn't easy and it's not quick and unfortunately at the very base level it comes down to "just do it" level of advice. You have inherent value simply because you exist, that's your mantra. Simply by existing, you have value. Not value to other people, not to society, but to yourself, and value to yourself is what matters in the end. Repeatedly tell yourself this, meditate on it. It will feel hollow, and it will feel like lies at times, but you have to ignore that voice in your head and force yourself to believe. When you feel yourself slipping down back into that ravine, catch yourself and think "Ok, I know this path and I'm not going to go down it".

Also, why do you assume that voice telling you all that negative shit correct in the first place? Why are you so confident that you're right about all that negative stuff about yourself? Have humility and think "maybe that voice is just wrong?". Learn to separate yourself and that voice, learn to catch those thoughts and think "there's that voice again, thanks for the criticism but it might be wrong". That's what meditation is for, to give you agency is controlling where your thoughts go. Meditation is nice, but you have to apply the tools you get by training it.

You have to make the decision to become confident, and that means not allowing yourself to wollow in these negative thoughts. The thoughts can be comforting in a parasitic way, they become a part of the identity and then become a way of validating the self, feeding upon itself. This won't be fast, this won't be easy, and this won't be a linear improvement. You'll slip down and fall back into old ruts, but keep pressing forward. It's like in meditation, your thoughts will slip to random trains of thought, but the goal isn't about maintaining focus the entire time but more-so the goal is to catch yourself and bring your focus back to center. Each time you bring yourself back from slipping, you place a block underneath you, and slowly you build that sturdy foundation that is confidence.

Recommended Readings:

Practicing the Power of Now (Ignore the overtly spiritual aspects)

Love yourself like your life depends on it.

Well... good question. How do you know any strong sensation of peace, love, joy, rapture, inner quiet - comes from the Holy Ghost, or is of God?

I've never felt this sensation before either. Totally new to me. I've felt a good many different sensations when feeling the spirit. I do feel that particular sensation repeatedly when I visit this particular entry on that website, though. Even thinking about it right now is making just my fingers tingle.

Lots of exmos think that feeling good, or feeling emotionally touched, is the same as feeling the spirit. I've never felt that way. There are very distinct differences between when reading a touching story or watching a touching movie scene makes me cry and the spirit.

One time I went for a walk while thinking about the interrelatedness of things in the natural world, metaphysical stuff. As I contemplated, I had this incredible spiritual experience come upon me where everything seemed in perfect harmony - the trees, rocks, water, sky. Everything seemed just as it should be.

But I did not feel, nor believe, that experience to have been of the holy spirit. It was spiritual in nature, but not of divinity. Rather, a spectacular communion with nature and its cycles and hums.

This happened twelve years ago and just this year I read Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. I recognized the vibrant, living, in-the-present feeling as being conscious. It was nice to finally put a label on this experience! And know it was a well-known and desirable phenomenon.

But Being Conscious is not the same as feeling the Holy Ghost, even though it is a wonderful, peaceful feeling. When you feel the spirit, or God moving in your life, you feel a sense of something higher, something guiding you, something that loves you and wants good things for you. A power well beyond what is within.

My grand epiphany occurred reading Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction.

Until that book, I never really knew why I seemingly couldn't control or stop my alcohol consumption.

The basics are alcohol is not what you crave. It is the vehicle used to deliver the high you seek. It could very well be any substance, any drug that is used, but what is important is the high.

Take you and me, we've trained our brain to need this junk. Our brains were never suited to be in such a hyper-pleasurable state. For us, there's something that I guess gets turned on to where we start seeking the high out more and more and more and we then find ourselves addicted to whatever it may be.

That part of our brains wants that pleasure, needs it, and will stop at nothing to feel it. It doesn't care if it kills the body it's in. As long as the hyper-pleasurable state can be gotten everything is roses.

The book calls this THE BEAST.

So, it is you - the person that knows alcohol is poison and wants to stop - vs. THE BEAST.

The separation is important. You are not that desire. It is separate from you and you can control it. You are in control. This is something we forgot when we let alcohol take over our lives.

So, ok, say you tell yourself you are quitting. Fine, that part of your brain says. It can wait. It knows no concept of time. All it knows is that someday you will drink again and it will lay in wait for however long it takes.

During this time away though, it comes after you with thoughts and feelings and cravings. It whispers to you just how worthless and weak you are and you should just stop this foolish sobriety thing and go back to being the loser you know you are.

Yep, it doesn't fight fair.

See:

>and EVERY CELL in my body says "go to the bar (or liquor store) and CELEBRATE, you DESERVE (reward) it!!! Let's have some FUN!!

This is THE BEAST in all its glory.

You want to make it scared? Feel it's fear? Tell yourself that you will never drink again, ever. Pay attention to the feelings that brings to you. You feel that fight or flight response kicking in? Breathing kicks up, maybe you feel a knot in your throat. Something in you is screaming NOOOOOO! DON'T DO THAT!

You have brought THE BEAST out and shined a light on it. It really hates being known. It would rather hide behind your eyes whispering just the right things to get you to succumb again and drink. Pull it out in the sunlight it cowers.

So what can you do? This is the hard part. You have to tell it no. You have to stand up to it and tell it that you will not succumb no matter how hard it comes after you. This starts one day at a time. Or even one hour at a time. It means getting into some kind of treatment that works for you and working it openly and honestly. You have to do this for you. Doing it for anything else just won't work. This is all about you getting clean and sober, others need not apply.

Next on the agenda is to restructure your thinking about alcohol in general. Alcohol was my buddy and was always there for me when I needed to celebrate, relax, when I was angry, sad, whatever it was I could always work alcohol in. It always had a place at my table.

You have to change that 180 degrees. You need to start thinking about alcohol for what it is, poison. You can dress it up as fancy as you like, but when all is said and done it's a substance you shouldn't allow in your body at all. There are no positive effects, there are no benefits to this junk.

You have to hate it and I mean detest it so much that the thought of it or you drinking it turns your stomach. It's not your friend and never was. It is a life waster. It is a life taker. What have you gotten from your drinking? What good has come from it? When I answer that, I only have one word.

Nothing.

So none of this is easy, but you can do it. I did it and am doing it and I am nothing special. I am just like you and the rest of the people of the world, just trying to make it through and do the best I can with what I have. It's rough and tough. There's no doubt about that. The only thing alcohol does is make what's already rough and tough rougher and tougher. It doesn't solve anything. It's a lie.

There's got to be something else you do that brings you joy and happiness. Instead of ruining your holiday with alcohol, try doing that whatever it is. Or maybe you can think of something that you don't have time for now because of drinking that you enjoyed before. Whatever hobby that is pick it up and do it again. For me, I rediscovered my love of chess and playing the guitar. Maybe you can fix a favorite food or dessert. Anything is better than picking up another container of alcohol.

Promise yourself, just for the remainder of this day you will not drink. Tomorrow when you wake up promise yourself that today, that 24-hours, you will not drink.

Give yourself the best gift you can this holiday. Choose to be sober.

Merry Happy Christmas Holidays!

Motivation is driven by purpose, not Monetary Incentives

Monetary bonuses can backfire

[The relationship between pay and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis
of the literature](http://www.timothy-judge.com/Judge,%20Piccolo,%20Podsakoff,%20et%20al.%20(JVB%202010%29.pdf). You can read a good summary here

Make More Money by Making Your Employees Happy a book on the topic.

What Really Motivates Employees? article on Forbes.

If you want some empirical evidence just look at doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, police officers. This are all crappy jobs with long hours, low pay and full of potential dangers, but plenty of people do what has to be done, because they believe they're making a difference, they're doing something good for society. Other good examples are open sources softwar: firefox, linux, wikipedia. All built by volounteers and all good enough to compete with founded projects like chrome, windows and encarta.

The best way to make an employee more productive is to make him more engaged in his work, but this is not done in many companies, because often it means giving the employee more freedom and tis is against accepted management techniques. (How many bosses you know are willing to give autonomy to their subordinates?)

Edit: I forgot this book: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us which is probably the best example.

LOVE IT

(I was just going to leave a quick comment and then...well...theres a lot here haha)

This is exactly why I do what I do every single day. I teach 8th grade science in a title 1 NYC school. Priority for me is helping my students become the best version of them as I make the journey myself. I think that age group is ideal for teaching these concepts as they haven't figured out what type of people to be yet or how to get to be that type of people. My content is the tool I use to give them the perspective they need. I get to do genetics/evolution/physics/space/human impact...lets me cover everything about living well.

I happen to have started around 24 and now that I'm 26 and pretty confident in what I've learned and actually done, I share with as many people as I can. I'm lucky enough to teach with my best friend AND get the same 3 classes he does. We've been tag teaming our kids with personal growth materials and speeches and all sorts of things this year....and it's making a noticeable difference in them.

These are a few of my recent reads that I think carry important lessons and then a link to my actual webpage that I put together so I can share and help regular people. I'm in the process of building one dedicated to my students so they have somewhere to go for answers and encouragement as they age. I don't expose my students to these sources of information, I just absorb and integrate it into what I teach.

Good luck! And keep it up! We need more real teachers, it's not about memorizing facts it's about becoming human.

[The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0446671002/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_986UAbV1ES609)

[Ego Is the Enemy] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591847818/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_.96UAbDFHSW0S)

[The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591846358/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_W-6UAbZ3NTY0A)

My own webpage [Earthling Healing] (https://sites.google.com/view/earthlinghealing/personal-growth?authuser=0)

Thanks, I'm glad it was helpful for you. I still have a lot of "baggage" to work through, a lot of issues to resolve and heal but this was a good start. Congratulations on your one year of sobriety! That reminds me of another book I've heard about. I'm in the middle of reading a book called Brain Over Binge written by a woman who overcame her binge eating disorder. I'm using it as a starting point in dealing with my own food and eating issues. In it she talks about reading the book called Rational Recovery by Jack Trimpey, which is what helped her finally kick her binge eating problem after years of therapy doing nothing. It's actually a book about addiction recovery and just by chance she happened to try looking at books about addiction recovery in the bookstore instead of eating disorder books. This is the one she picked up. It talked about drugs and alcohol addiction but she just simply replaced that with the word "food" in her mind as she read it and it clicked for her. It talks about making a clear distinct separation in your mind and recognizing that the urge to engage in using the substance is coming from the primitive survival brain (same with things like anxiety which does have its place), but that it's the conscious human brain that is choosing to actually follow through and give in to the urge again. The primitive brain does not have the power to make you actually act. It's a bit more complex than that and she explained it better but she was able to take that knowledge and apply it to her eating disorder. I'm trying to use that and apply it to my anxiety.

Also, if you aren't familiar with this yet, you may want to try /r/raisedbynarcissists. I don't really have any experience dealing with that but it sounds like you're on the right track. You may also want to explore Childhood Emotional Neglect and what happens when we don't get that love and emotional support that we need as children as we are learning to navigate the world. It's about exploring emotional literacy and emotional intelligence, recognizing our feelings and knowing what to do with them in a healthy positive way (i.e. handling them properly instead of using drugs, sex, food, alcohol, things like that to cope). I'm slowly exploring that myself (for me it's food and learning how to communicate better). We need to work at connecting the dots with how we behave as adults to our past, recognizing that, understanding how that affects our behaviour, and resolving those feelings. Good luck!

Since you are a woman, you have the advantage of being the one who's being approached.I'm a 28 year old guy, who never had a girlfriend, because I was never able to approach girls. Imagine how I feel. At least now I'm working on that a little.Now, this might seem a little weird, but you might want to have a look at the book "Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself" by Joe Dispenza.

https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Habit-Being-Yourself-Create/dp/1401938094/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549143573&sr=8-1&keywords=breaking+the+habit+of+being+yourself+by+joe+dispenza+new

I haven't read it in a while and I'm still not finished reading it, but it basically says we can re-wire our brain using positive self-talk / affirmations. For example: You are used to freeze up when someone talks to you and worrying. You could try practice self talk every day for 10 minutes, for example: "When a guy approaches me, I stay calm and focused." You have to hammer it into your subconscious until it becomes your default mode.You really have to keep saying the positive self-talk every day for at least 5 to 10 minutes. You might see changes after 2 to 3 weeks. If not, try a different affirmation.You will probably say: "I've been dealing with this shit for 10 years. I've tried stuff like that, you moron.", but that's okay. I just wanted to have mentioned it.

Just a week ago I started saying "I'll talk to at least one girl on each concert I attend." And guess what: In the last week I went to 2 concerts and talked to 2 girls. And I didn't even do it thinking:"Oh, I told myself to do it, so I have to do it." No, it just happened. My brain said it's the right thing to do. Of course there were the usual fights in my brain and all that, but in the end I won. Unfortunately, the girls weren't intereseted in me, but that's another story.

If I was able to approach girls with the help of positive self-talk, then you can learn to not freeze up when someone approaches you. Because it's much easier. ;-) You can do it!

​

You could also have a look at mindfulness meditation, but I'm sure you've already done that. Shuts up your mind, calms you down, living in the present moment, enjoying life etc. A brilliant thing./r/Mindfulness

What are you interests? [Meetups] (http://www.meetup.com/), are a good way to start making friends.

Getting a girlfriend isn't as hard as it seems. It really boils down to your confidence level, but it's also a numbers game. (ie; the more girls you talk to, the higher your chances are) Check out /r/seduction and read the sidebar and top posts. Also, read [Models by Mark Manson] (http://markmanson.net/books/models) and [the Sex God Method] (http://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Method-2nd-Edition/dp/0557036488). Another book is [Unshakable Swagger] (http://www.unshakableswagger.com/), I just bought it, but I haven't read it yet. I heard good things though.

Also read [Practicing the Power of Now] (http://www.amazon.com/Practicing-Power-Now-Essential-Meditations/dp/1577311957). It's a book on mediation and it'll help you relax and be at ease. Ted talks, [RSDJulien] (https://www.youtube.com/user/RSDJulien), and [RSDTyler] (https://www.youtube.com/user/RSDTyler) are amazing sources for motivation and other self improvemnt and development.

That's pretty much it OP, have fun and get to work! PM me if you have questions.

Words like "enjoyable", "fun", "cool", "entertaining", "worthwhile", etc. are extremely problematic because there are no definitions. They are inherently subjective. That's why we use them.

Personally, I love filmmaking. I love conceptualizing films, I love planning films, I love preparing for films, I love being on set, I love building my camera package, I love seeing a scene's lighting slowly take shape, I love the organization and logistics required to run a set, I love managing my files, I love planning out how to approach editing, I love creating variations on edits to test emotional hypotheses, and I love feeling the energy of a room when I screen one of my films.

But I know lots of amazing filmmakers who do not even enjoy, let alone love, many of those aspects. And that's totally fine.

There are many people who love filmmaking but who hate working on my sets because of how much preplanning and clear intent I demand. They just want something else out of the process. Again, that's totally fine.

The point is, "enjoy" is not a deep enough analysis. You all may want to "make a film" but for a myriad of different reasons. Being a director means being a leader, and understanding the needs and wants of your cast and crew. It's the only way to achieve the cohesiveness required for a high-performing team.

You may want to check out Drive by Daniel Pink, or feel free to DM me and we can get on Skype/Hangouts and talk about it.

I work in the marketing industry and every attempt I've seen to make something "viral" or "big" has always failed miserably. If you think about it, this is not how news is made. In reality, the idea of ​​publicizing something suddenly changes too often, too quickly into an imposition that never arouses interest but rejection and makes one look like a religious preacher.

​

The best example of how stoicism can regain attention are Ryan Holiday's works "The Obstacle Is the Way," "Ego Is the Enemy," and soon "Stillness Is the Key." As he describes in his book on marketing called "Perennial Seller" (I can highly recommend this book to anyone who can't get the question of this discussion out of his head) and his first podcast interview at the Tim Ferriss Show, no one ever wakes up in the middle of the night sweating and thinks: "I desperately need a 2000-year-old philosophy from the antiquity," but people can't fall to sleep in the evening, because of the thought: "I need a solution to my problems very quickly." That's why Ryan wrote a practical book with concrete lessons & advice and not a systemic essay on the philosophical "school" of the Stoics.

​

It is said that stoicism is not the philosophy of the retired monk, but that of the worker in the marketplace; a person who wants to create things and pushes forward what concerns. At such places, Stoicism is really "taught". It's a practical philosophy which should be lived and shown by example in the work you do. And maybe after the work is done, you drink a beer with your colleagues and if the situation presents itself you tell them about the philosophy you're currently studying. This is how it reached popularity from the beginning, and it is how its representatives said how it was meant to be taught.

In the everyday business of the agency in which I work, topics related to stoicism often come up, as it does in any real workplace. If it seems helpful in solving the problem of the client, I give advice that I have learned while studying the Stoics, sometimes I even quote them. For me, these are the moments when philosophy comes alive and really leaves a lasting impression on people.

​

What of course can happen then is that someone can be a stoic, but he does not know it, because he is more busy acting righteously than wondering what his lifestyle could be called. This leads to the fact that Stoicism is less proclaimed. But this is what distinguishes this school of thought from so many others and makes me appreciate it so much: the primary focus of it, is that ist LIVED more than talked.

If I were to be given the choice of whether everyone in the world should know what Stoicism is or whether everyone should act like a Stoic, I would always choose the latter.

​

I trust that the things beyond my control, such as my fellow men understanding that philosophical action is the groundwork of a good life, will fall into places. And in my opinion, there already have been "successes", if you want to call them like that:

Ryan's practical books on stoicism have sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

Here in Germany, the author Ferdinand von Schirach, who is currently being hold up as the most important writer in the country, quotes in his current work "Kaffee & Zigaretten" (English: "Coffee & Cigarets", not translated yet), which until last week was #1 on the Spiegel Bestsellerliste, Epictetus, provides background information to the life of the philosopher and tells of his first encounter with the "Enchiridion." In another work, he writes: "Marcus Aurelius says that the purpose of life is right action, and the secret of life is life itself. I doubt that a man can know more than that, for me this is all."

​

So in response to the question of this discussion, I would say that we should diligently fulfill our duties, do what needs to be done, and tackle the issues that are affecting us. In solving them, the teaching of the Stoics will show through by righteous action, inspire people and thus spread by itself.

I'm sure Marie Kondo's philosophy has shown here in the past, but if it doesn't bring you joy, you can discard it.

I had an external monitor and it allowed me to play a competitive game at a higher framerate and play the game properly. As an avid fan of the game it brought me much joy and still does now as my new rig's main monitor. But does it do that for you? If not, you could discard it after you take a moment to think of what it's done for you.

If you really love cooking and those pan make you think happy things, keep them. But if they remind you of the excess you feel you have, or your inability to use them effectively, then it's fine to discard the ones you don't always use. The one you do use will be a joy. Cooking a big meal on Sunday and saving it for the week can bring you joy, but if it hasn't so far, maybe it's not for you

Again though, if you really like something then don't feel the need to do it. But lemme tell you, a lot of things in my space don't spark joy.

Source material

I went through a period of no friends. I have battled with depression, so I know what you're feeling. Unfortunately and fortunately, I realized that I had no real friends during a really bad bout of depression. At first, I felt really sad that no one cared. Like you, the only happy birthday wish I got was from my 3 immediate family members.

After a while of wallowing, I came upon a realization- it was better to have no friends at all than fake friends. I began to work on myself and had another realization- I could be the best to myself. Everything I was missing in my life(friend, mom, family, significant other, etc.), I could be that best version to myself. When I realized that, I decided that I would no longer settle for shitty people in my life. So, I began to be thankful for the opportunity to realize where I had been and where I wanted go to, as far as who I surrounded myself with.

At that point, I chose not to actively look for friends but to be open to the possibility. If anyone came into my life, I'd only let them stay if they supported me mentally and emotionally, made an effort to understand who I am, didn't make fun of me, treated me fairly, respected my boundaries, brought joy into my life, etc.

As part of working on myself that I mentioned above, I began to read blogs, comics, & articles, watch videos, read books and the like about subjects pertaining to mental, emotional, and spiritual health-

• depression
  
  
• anxiety
  
  
• healthy relationships, signs of abusive relationships
  
  
• mental vs emotional abuse
  
  
• setting boundaries
  
  
• compassionate communication
  
  
• narcissistic parents/people
  
  
• adhd, autism, and the spectrum
  
  
• OCD
  
  
• different spiritual beliefs(not religious beliefs, although world religions interest me as well)
  
  
• mindfulness
  
  
• types of meditation
  
  
• healthy coping mechanisms
  
  
• introversion vs. extroversion
  
  
• being assertive without being aggressive
  
  Anywhere those searches lead me, I followed. I didn't do this every day because some days, some weeks, it was hard to be motivated to do anything. But, after spending some time forcing myself out of bed, and making time, it got easier. Books like this were incredibly helpful.
  
  I also began to see a therapist and healer. They were very supportive with my choices and nonjudgemental about my life and what I had been through. My advice is, if you choose the therapy route, please find someone you mesh well with. Don't stick with someone just because they are a therapist. You should like them and be comfortable with them. After all, you'll be seeing them on a regular basis and delving into some deep things with this person!

That's impressive the low rent, expenses, etc.

Still, at best you're able to fund 2-3 years expenses and that's being optimistic and assuming nothing goes awry. With that low budget you don't have much wiggle room. Even if you cut it down you're gonna need a source of income if it's around $200-300/month even that still would only get you at best 5 years and again that's being super optimistic and assuming you really are able to survive on the low end.

Daniel Suelo has a blog and a book about how he lived without money, but he had a lot of family and friend support and even still barely made it and struggled a bit here and there because of it.

https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Quit-Money/dp/1594485690

Maybe check out possum living too. https://www.amazon.com/Possum-Living-Without-Almost-Revised/dp/0982053932 they were able to live on only $700/year but it was in the 70s and they had their family helping with work as well as a home.

While again super impressed, it seemed like it probably wasn't worth emulating to me personally. A lot could go wrong, they were lucky it went as well as it did.

Also as a renter with roommates you're susceptible to increases over time, sure you can move and find a new place, but on that low level it'll be a challenge and moving is a hassle even if you don't have much belongings.

Don't get me wrong I'm all for living an unconventional life and checking out early and/or often, but you're really going to need a source of income or drastically cut costs and even still unless you're able to cut it by like 10x I'm pretty sure you're going to need to do some sort of work or earn an income,

I got into Stoicism and it really helps with things like this. https://www.amazon.com/Art-Living-Classical-Happiness-Effectiveness/dp/0061286052/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464729591&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+living

It just really teaches that whole "Don't worry about things in the past, don't worry about things you can't control, don't worry about something that won't matter in a couple months".

But boy, did I do so many similar clueless things. It really makes me realize how low my self-worth was that I didn't put the effort into taking care of myself. Or that I thought I wasn't worth the money to do the things I cared about. I.E. I needed new t-shirts and I saw some on super-sale for like $4 on a website, so ordered a bunch, like 20, and they showed up and were so stiff, so scratch, so terrible. Then I saw an ad claiming "The softest shirts in the world" and they were like $20 each but I ordered a bunch of them, and they were amazing. It really taught me a lesson that if something is going to affect me that much, I should put the proper time and energy into it. Not blaming you or anything, but maybe it's a great learning experience that you really care about your hair and from now on you will spend the proper time and energy making sure it's done at good places?

the 10X Rule by Grant Cardone (https://www.amazon.com/10X-Rule-Difference-Between-Success/dp/B005DGW34C) is almost exactly what I am saying in this conversation.

The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan (https://www.amazon.com/ONE-Thing-Surprisingly-Extraordinary-Results/dp/1885167776) is a good one for how to achieve massive results, I feel like it also mentions why you should always set larger goals than you THINK you can accomplish.

The Miracle Morning by Hal Erod (https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Morning-Not-So-Obvious-Guaranteed-Transform/dp/0979019710) is a decent one that touches on the concept but is more about motivation and structuring your day for success and things like that.

If I think of any others and remember, I'll come drop them here, need to go look at my bookshelf / todo list of books when I get home :)

Tons of books (honestly almost every success or wealth book I've ever read) talk about changing your mindset from "I cant" to "How can I" - Rich Dad Poor Dad and Think and Grow Rich come to mind.

I agree wholeheartedly. While this is a noble attempt and OP should be praised for his realization that he needs to make changes in his life, there is a strong likelihood that his goals will not be met. The reason for this? One word: willpower

I strongly recommend you read this book before attempting to make any changes in your life. It is NOT a self-help book, rather a collection of decades of research showing that humans have a finite amount of "energy" that enables them to achieve goals and avoid short term temptations that have long-term consequences.

The book mentions effective ways of setting goals for yourself and ensuring you understand your limitations before attempting to make radical changes in your life.

Again, I applaud you for your desire to change. But desire is only half the equation. A successful gameplan is necessary as well, and that is what we are here to help with.

Good luck!

Meditation does not in of itself cause permanent character change. The insights you get from meditation cause permanent character change. Except for the rare occasions, meditating without changing your habitual thoughts is like putting a bandaid over a wound - in my experience anyways.

You need a tool for inner exploration. In my experience, the best tools are Letting Go by David Hawkins and finding/destroying limiting beliefs best pioneered by Anthony Robbins.

Tony Robbins is entirely overlooked in the spiritual community because he is more self-improvement focused than spiritual focused. I have to say though, besides Hawkins, I don't think I have ever found content that requires a higher degree of self-awareness than Tony's. On the surface it looks goal-oriented but there is actually a lot of depth in it. I recommend his Personal Power program.

I would recommend those 2 resources in addition to your current meditation practice. When I started getting involved with these tools both my level of worldly success and internal fulfillment skyrocketed. Hope they are of help to you. Good luck!

I've heard of this edition before. I understand that it's a modern, much looser translation of the Enchiridion, but everything I've heard about it has been positive. I didn't know the Kindle version was available for free - very cool, thanks!

Edit: Downloading it and looking it over, I realize that I confused the "Good Life Handbook" with "Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness". That is the translation of the Enchiridion that is much looser that I had heard about previously (and unlike the Good Life Handbook, is not free on Kindle). Still, thanks for making us aware of this edition.

Same story. Also self-employed and do everything and also brain-fried after 8 (actually, after 6). Also feel the tension between important and urgent; want to finish next phase of certification, set up a better inventory system, learn to play instrument etc but get flooded with immediate demands.

Here's my personal experience; I've been the most successful when I practice these things:

1. Plan in parts and wholes
   
2. Prevent others from running your week, because they will
   
3. Confront your big issues
   
   "1." Is the difference between playing your chess game with pieces and playing with the whole board. Stop queueing objectives and start co-ordinating them as parts within whole spaces.
   
   Calculate exactly how many productive hours you actually have to play within the space of a month, a week, and a day. You might be surprised how little of a 16-hour wake cycle you can actually use to produce after the quotidian stuff like brushing teeth and commuting is subtracted. Same for a month. What are your actual resources for accomplishing stuff?
   
   Put an estimated time value on every objective you want to fit in any of those whole periods. I no longer write a task/todo item down without attaching some time value to it. If it's going to take longer than any single whole space of time that I can allot, then it's not a task; it's a project---another whole with parts. "When faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again." (Robert N Heinlein). So make an indented list of steps for this objective (sometimes its "minimum viable product" stages), and each of those lines has an estimated time value. Now those tasks can be slotted into some space of time.
   
   "2." is something an old boss taught me when I began supervising. Other people and other emergencies will always run your day if you let them, leaving you with no initiative for your own responsibilities. Plan your time as outlined in "1." so that you know what you can give, and then learn to say no
   
   "3." Stop avoiding the important and uncomfortable things in your life. In other words, plan! Because it's these things that are creating anxiety and forcing you out of the gestaltian conception of your life and time from which you have initiative, and into the reactive ("queueing") mode. As General Eisenhower said, the plan is nothing, but planning is everything. Do your most important relationships need help? Do you need to get that abscess tooth taken care of? Are there spiritual issues you need to confront? Take the initiative and go to step 1.
   
   This is just my personal experience. I'm no kind of expert but I have noticed that I work better when I remember these things.
   
   Good luck!

This book is a great place to start. I quit cold turkey when I turned 31 this year, July 19. My experience has been very similar to the experience David Sedaris describes in the last (hilarious) essay in this book. The best part about Rational Recovery, is that YOU are accountable. There is no “alcoholism” disease. That disease doesn’t exist. Drinking alcoholism is hedonistic. You do it for the pleasure, not because you have some mythical disease. You can do it all by yourself. You don’t need to sit around with a bunch of strangers you have nothing in common with (other than addiction), telling them details of your life that is none of their business. The “alcoholism disease” is an excuse to keep drinking. It takes the pressure and the accountability off the person who is CHOOSING to drink.

By the way – I switched to pot for the first couple weeks. I was getting very, very baked every night since I couldn’t drink. I’m sure it doesn’t work for everyone, but for me it was the perfect “patch.” For the last 2 weekends, I’ve actually partied with my friends. I was the only one who didn’t drink. (It’s kinda nice being the only one without a hangover…and getting up early on Sunday. My weekends last three times as long!) I’ve already lost 10 pounds and I’ve actually been eating WORSE (muchies). 20 pounds more to go, and I’ll be in perfect shape. Life is great. You can do it! By yourself. You don’t need God or AA or an “accountability buddy” just like Dumbo didn’t need that stupid magic feather. That book will help you learn AVRT – Addictive Voice Recognition Technique. As soon as you know how to recognize the addictive voice inside your head who will say anything to get you to take just one more drink, you’ll have the power to tell that voice “fuck off. I don’t drink anymore and my life is better because of it.”

For a scientific underpinning of what has been said multiple times in this thread, I HIGHLY recommend the book willpower by Roy Baumeister, a renowned psychologist (amazon link)

If you are like me and are a little distrusting of the "motivational speaker" type stuff that gets posted here a lot and would like to have a scientific understanding of how willpower works, how best to actually get some stuff to change and what pitfalls to avoid, this is the book for you.

This and getmotivated have really helped me better myself and become more productive and happy in the process. I'm far from there yet, but I see a lot of progress and will hopefully have the stamina to get good enough grades to get into a great phd program thanks to my hard work.

But I still have a lot to work on, I don't work out nearly enough, I still smoke and I'm still kind of messy. But pacing is key, I try not getting worse in those aspects while becoming less of a pathological procrastinator. starting in the summer, when the brunt of my classes is over, I will start focussing on other areas in my life to become the best me that I can be!

Sorry- that day got quite out of hand. (Not) incidentally, I have moderate-severe ADHD, with all the attendant issues with focus and follow-up. Though I don't have A.S., my husband does, so I've got a multi-faceted perspective on this issue.

I am learning to overcome the ADHD with a system I've designed for myself, from a few different things:

1. The Pomodoro technique. Basically, you set a timer for 25 minutes, and begin executing a task / objective. When the time goes off, you stop- even if you're not done- and re-set the timer for 5 minutes. You take a 5-minute break. When the timer goes off again, you resume your task, or take stock to make sure that's what you should really be doing. Here's the website, or download a cheat sheet.
   
   
   
2. Getting Things Done technique; I use the inbox / task flow / ToDo List methods. Combined with the Pomodoro Technique, it's a fail-proof system for ensuring I execute tasks in the order of highest priority, whether I want to do them or not. This system ensures I'm never wasting valuable time on inessential tasks, while elegantly preventing procrastination.
   
   
3. I keep a journal of what I'm doing whenever the Pomodoro timer goes off, below by daily ToDo list. It helps me see when I'm getting off track. The most valuable skill I've learned over the few months I've been doing this is the habit of thinking, "what am I doing right now, and how does it help me achieve my objectives?"
   
   
4. Also, an "Energy management journal:" I track my intake of food, sleep, water, and exercise. Though I don't do anything like graph the data, the act of writing it down holds me accountable, and increases the likelihood that I'll make wise choices. If I'm having an unproductive day/week, I can usually trace it to a preceding disturbance in one of the above habits, so I've learned to take care of myself, if I want to perform well.
   
   
   I recommend looking into whether any of the above could help with the challenges you're facing. My husband now swears by the Pomodoro technique; it helps him get started on larger projects, and also stops him every 25 minutes, so he's never hyperfocusing so long that he forgets to eat/sleep, etc.
   
   
   Speaking of body maintenance, the most important thing you can do for your overall well-being is exercise. Strength training is preferable, supplemented by cardio, but no matter what you're thinking right now, check out this book. Sticking to a regular weightlifting routine has improved my productivity far more than anything else ever did (even my Adderall prescription). When you feel physically better, far more things are possible. For further reference, check out these books, too.
   
   
   Tl,dr; Learn to manage your time & energy; you'll be better equipped to improve your own focus and follow-up. Meanwhile, your former therapist has no excuse.

It's hard now to try and think about what was going on in my head as a kid.

I was a skinny adorable child up to somewhere between 1st and 2nd grade. I really couldn't tell you what happened but I chopped off all of my long blonde hair and started to gain weight and it never stopped until the end of college.

I went to a Catholic elementary school, where I KNEW I was fat. I knew I was literally the bottom of the social barrel - the pretty (aka normal) girls had cliques based on heritage (Italian, Irish, Filipino) and then there were the runts who didn't fit into those groups for whatever reason - even among the runts I was the bottom of the heap and it was surely because I was fat. I probably had behavior issues related to that but I don't remember. I know I was diagnosed with asthma but I don't remember if that was before or after the weight gain. I remember whispering to some girls, asking them how much they weighed - I weighed 100lbs (in second or third grade) - was that a lot?

I did ballet from a very young age. Around 3rd grade was when I remember being in rehearsal for The Nutcracker. I was moving up in the world - finally old enough to be a (special) snowflake. For some reason I was pouting or slacking off and the instructor muttered something about me being too fat to be a ballerina. I quit dance completely shortly after, humiliated because I knew she was right. I wish to God I could go back to that day and help little me, I feel like quitting dance was when it all started going wrong.

In middle school I transferred to public school. I started out with no friends since no one I knew had transferred with me. I was still fat and even more awkward. Desperate to find a clique I solidified my identity as a bookworm nerd. Every movie and tv show and YA book I saw told me that nerds don't do sports, nerds sit at a computer or read a book, nerds don't have to be pretty because they are smart so that was what I told myself to do. Meanwhile I fostered secret eating habits (hiding the trash in my room, stealing it after lights out) and my attitude grew worse and worse. To this day I apologize to my mom every time I talk to her for how bad I treated her. I remember her asking me "Why are you so angry?" I didn't know then and I still don't know. But food was a comfort, and books were a comfort.

My mom started dating a man who had my "best interests" at heart. He was a fatass himself and I never trusted any of my mom's boyfriends so I struggled against him. He bought me a book on manners and told me to read it. He bought me a dumbbell set - but never told me how to use them. He brought a juicer, then (/r/thathappened) literally pinned me and my sister to the kitchen floor when we didn't want to drink frothy warm chunky apple/carrot juice (my sister was skinny but an extremely picky eater so we both got this treatment) - solidifying that vegetables were the weapons of hypocrites and psychos.

My poor mom. She had a lot of convenience food and single-serving snacks around because she worked so hard and did everything she could to juggle us kids and a 8-6 job. It breaks my heart thinking of how I treated her, and how I repaid her by being such a little shit and not even being cute.

In high school I kept on keeping on, did all the stuff that smart fat girls were supposed to do - a hit in the drama club, "funky" dressing style, did anything desperate for the attention of boys. We had home ec in middle school but I only remember making cookies. In high school, health class was flour babies and "beer goggles". I actually started going to a gym. I'd get there as soon as it opened before school, use the elliptical, walk quietly around looking at all the other equipment, but that couldn't fix my awful diet. I don't even know where I got the junk food, or where I got the money for it.

In college I had the run of the dining hall and at my school they went all out. Softserve ice cream, dozens of different desserts, huge helpings of comfort food. I remember buying bags of "yogurt covered raisins" and eating the whole bag as a snack because it was healthy.

One summer I did an internship in Minneapolis. Trying to save money, I lived in the dorms but didn't buy a meal plan. Not realizing that in large cities, grocery stores are hard to find or get to, I ended up living on apples, plain pasta and peanut butter sandwiches - but my tight budget meant I ended up losing about 20 lbs in 2 months. One day I had to go to the big Target and fill a prescription - it was a long trip there so I hung around the store waiting and came across a book. Body for Life. This book was an overload of info - so much stuff I never realized, specifically about nutrition and diet. When I got back home, I started putting it into practice, got a real gym membership and began my journey.

Now, that wasn't the end of it. You guys all realize that when you first start getting into health stuff, there's a whole new world of fatlogic that opens up. The next summer I started a different, more physical internship. I was doing intense labor for about 15-25 minutes per hour, then a break the rest of the hour, repeat for an 8 hour day. I was still eating ~6 times a day like I had while doing BFL, but I wasn't working out anymore. My "tough" job moved me to pick up convenience foods - goldfish crackers are healthy right? These gummies are ORGANIC OK?

I gained the 20 back +10. When I started my final year at college, I was at my highest weight ever. Most of my friends had graduated (I took an extra semester off for internship) and I was all alone in apartment housing. I finally had a kitchen! That's when I realized I had no idea how to cook. Cereal and boxed cake mix do not count. After wasting a semester being depressed and playing WOW, I stumbled upon "thinspiration" and pro-ana stuff. I'm not proud to admit it but that was what got me started again. I worked out intensely and calorie restricted. In three months I lost 40 lbs.

It's been 4 years since then. I lost another 10 lbs, regained it, and now I've lost that 10lbs and another 3. I'm close to my goal weight. But Every single day is a struggle with my own fatty impulses, desire to eat food when I'm not hungry, wanting taste sensations and rewarding myself with food or treating sad/upset times with food. I think that for some people, the fatass impulses are so worn into our brains that it requires constant, unceasing vigilance, that we will never just stop craving, that if we stop paying attention to our actions and thoughts, we'll slip right back. I'm dreading the fall and winter - food-based holidays and cold weather impeding the desire to exercise. I'm determined to not slip and regain the weight I just put off - but how strong will my resolve be in 3 months? In sub-freezing temperatures?

This is really incredibly long. My point is that sometimes there is no answer to "Why do you do this to yourself? Don't you realize how bad this is?" - the answer is often "I didn't know, I don't know." I want to believe that in the next 15 years binge eating and impulsive eating are going to be classified as mental disorders, much more heavily researched and talked about than they are now, right alongside anorexia and bulimia - but the cynic in me says that there are just too many people who don't realize it's a problem, and they never will.

My relationship with food really did ruin a massive portion of my life. I don't want anyone to go through what I did, the experiences that still have repercussions on my current life. That's what anti-fatlogic is to me - trying to bring attention to this issue, hopefully saving young people from wasting so much of the important years of their life they won't ever get back.

Love that you read the book! Here's a link if anyone is looking for it :) https://www.amazon.com/What-Say-When-Talk-Yourself/dp/0671708821 WARNING it's cheesy as hell but it works.

I would say that we're always open to be acquired...we've turned opportunities down, we've had deals blow up in our face, AND we actually did sell BuluMarketplace.com :)

The answer is that the goal is to grow profitably and create value for all parties and if an acquisition is an option, we'll look at it if it comes along...I would say that I was probably "programming" myself incorrectly talking "acquisition, acquisition, acquisition" all the time because your decisions are based on that end goal. So, yea, we'd sell but we're just building a great company that makes real money right now :)

I have tried time blocking and it was just not helpful for me. Two things have really helped are Bullet Journaling and Miracle Mornings.

Bullet Journalling is awesome because it is so flexible that I can make it work with anything. It can be creative, or minimalist, and it works with everything. I'm not kept to a rigid format, and it can hold anything from tasks/events/plans to goals/reflections/journalling. It's definitely worth a try.

Miracle Mornings are awesome because they really focus on getting what matters into your day in the span of a morning. I need to feel more meaning in my life and the Miracle Morning really centers you. It focuses on the Life SAVERS:

• Silence
  
• Affirmations
  
• Visualization
  
• Exercise
  
• Reading
  
• Scribe
  
  I would absolutely recommend at least reading the book to find out if it's something that you could commit to. It changed me from wishing and hoping to do all of those things, to actually doing them every day. I would strongly recommend even just reading the book to see if it's for you.

I started smoking at 16 and I was in a similar position when I was 22 and began my first real quit attempt. I told all my friends I was quitting and then was so ashamed when I relapsed like 3 days later that I kept up the charade for 3 weeks before admitting to it. The problem I had was that I just didn't know how to start or even where to look for help. It took me 3 more years and a couple more quit attempts before I came across Allen Carr's easyway to stop smoking

I know it sounds like a fucking scam when someone tells you there is an easy way to quit smoking, but honestly this book does a lot to help reprogram the way you look at smoking. You can buy it for less than 2 packs of cigs on Amazon or get it from a library for free.

The truth is tho that quitting smoking isn't easy. But I never had success until I bought that book and gave it an open minded read from cover to cover and followed the steps. It made the quitting process a whole lot easier when I was able to recognize all the brainwashing that cigarettes and advertisers had done to my brain. The first few weeks I was consumed with the thought of having another smoke but now days go by without me even thinking about cigarettes and when I do have thoughts of them it's just an errant memory rather than a desire to smoke.

In a couple days I'll be two months cigarette free and I couldn't feel better. I've more energy, I'm no longer self conscious about how I smell next to strangers on the bus, I never again have to be berated by a non-smoker for trying to get my nicotine fix (seriously, fuck those people), I've cut out a large source of my shame when I would have to smoke around colleagues, my sexual stamina has increased, and I've something to feel proud of.

Seriously, pick up the book and give it an honest effort because you've got nothing to lose even if you can't stick with it but so much to gain if you can.

The fourth season of "Nathan For You" has started. I wonder if any other SSCers are watching?

To briefly describe why I like the show, I'd have to say that what I enjoy is how elaborate the scenarios get, the situations that result, and how people react to them.

To the people who aren't familiar with "Nathan For You", nominally it's a comedy reality show where the host helps small businesses succeed using crazy ideas, but "really" it's about the limits of politeness, how people react to cameras, and moments of humanity that happen throughout the show. I really don't know how to explain it, I'm hoping someone else will come in and convince you in a much better way.

Nathan Fielder, the host, is playing a character based on a very awkward version of himself - to get a reaction out of people - but supposedly the show is otherwise real.

Disclaimer: The clips below are just YouTube clips, not full episodes.

Examples of things that happened in the show:

• If a maid takes 4 hours to clean a house, if you use 40 maids at once...
  
• Fifty percent of Americans believe in ghosts ^[citation ^needed] . Ghosts are known to haunt houses. Therefore you should cater to your customers and market yourself as the the only realtor who can promise ghost-free homes.
  
• Paying employees to move furniture is expensive. At the same time people want to get in shape, and will pay you to help them do so. What if you make people move furniture as part of an exercise routine? Of course, you'd have to make the idea look legitimate, by hiring a face to associate with this new craze. To help this, you write an actual fake autobiography.
  
• In the finale of season 3, the host spends months to learn how to walk on a tightrope. For a comedy show joke.
  
  Each episode is rather, well... episodic and mostly self-contained. For an introduction, I recommend having S03E01 be your first episode. S01E01 might make you think the show is more gross-out and puerile than it is.

Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace) by Chade-Meng Tan. This was a great book on the importance of mindfulness and emotional intelligence.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. Helped me get on the path to decluttering my life.

No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover helped me to stop seeking approval from others and insuring my own needs are met.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini. A good introduction to social psychology.

These are just a few I've read in the past few years that have helped me. Good luck!

It's good you are trying to do things as an individual, and should continue. However, it's really like taking a drop of water from the ocean. Pretty much unnoticeable. But it's still important so don't stop. At the very least you become a role model and your activities will create conversation with others.

1. Beyond your individual efforts - join a group. Become an activist. Mobilize. Three of the below are youth based. I'm not sure of CCL has a youth group, but they need to if they don't. Be active in these groups.
   
   https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-the-xr-youth-network/
   
   https://www.sunrisemovement.org/
   
   https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/
   
   https://citizensclimatelobby.org/
   
   
2. Are your friends concerned? Make them concerned if they aren't. Not a convincing person? Read a book called "Influence" by Paul Cialdini and Google search "Monroes Motivated sequence". At the teen level you can do this, and the skills you will learn from those two items will be invaluable for the rest of your life. Convince your friends. Make them activists. Mobilize. Protest.
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Business-Essentials-ebook/dp/B002BD2UUC
   
   https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LMb65w9nLyo
   
   
   
3. Convince the voting age adults around you, and get your now activist friends to do the same. Afraid they won't listen? Well, after step two you should have skills. You have a better chance of convincing them than other adults even without that great persuasion experience you now have https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/children-change-their-parents-minds-about-climate-change/
   
   
4. Continue. Recruit more people. Get your recruits to recruit more people. Mobilize. Protest. Repeat. Don't give up. Don't stop. Keep going.

Right on! Glad you like it. I really enjoy Aubrey Marcus's podcast and I take away a lot of life lessons from him and his guests. I have not heard the Shane Mauss episode yet, but I have now downloaded it and will check it out tomorrow.
Knowing that you liked that podcast... I would definitely recommend his podcast(s) with Ryan Holliday. He's written such books as Ego is the Enemy and the Daily Stoic and he is a really knowledgeable guy.
You should also check out the live DTFH podcast with Aubrey and Duncan that they did in NY back in January.
Lastly, if you've never checked out Aubrey on JRE, I'd go back and listen to all of those. He's probably been on there 6 or 7 times, and 90% of those are after he's returned from Peru and is essentially giving trip reports after spending days in the jungle doing Ayahuasca, Huachuma, Ibogaine etc...
I haven't listened to the Burning Man episode since it was first released, so I'm not sure about the "wind up toy" but I was planning on re-listening to it this week. So if it rings any bells, I'll definitely let you know.
Hope these recommendations help!

I know how you feel. Been working on this myself a lot recently, exercise has been a great boon, stick with it a few weeks and you start to see the results and it feels good every time you catch yourself in a reflection. Seeing the progress on a consistent basis gives me that motivation to keep going with it.

I've also been trying to consciously monitor my thoughts, to try to catch them as they slip to the negative and force myself to a different topic before I start the downward spiral.

As weird as it sounds, Tea has been a big help for me as well. A cup or two of Green Tea in the morning and something soothing and non-caffeinated after work or before bed. I think it's the ritual or the schedule as much as the Tea itself, it kind of gives me checkpoints in the day or something. I don't know why it feels like it helps, but it really does.

I've also started looking into reading material to help me understand the way my ADHD affects my thoughts. Knowing that I have a predisposition to act the way I do makes me feel more in control of it, like it's something I can learn to overcome with effort. Right now I'm reading [The Art of Living] (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Living-Classical-Happiness-Effectiveness/dp/0061286052) because I'd seen it recommended in some articles I've been reading about ADHD and it's been helpful in keeping me from letting myself go to dark places.

Music has been a fantastic help as well, just having headphones on and music playing occupies enough of my brain to keep it from wandering unchecked. I usually go with stuff I already know and either sing along out loud (or in my head if people are around) or whistle.

What it really seems to be is to not give myself a lot of downtime, if I sit still or just piss away time for long enough, my thoughts eventually wander in a bad direction and that's when I start to fall apart. Having a list of things I can go to and say "I'm not doing anything, but I could x,y or z" then picking one and doing it, even for 5 minutes, seems to help immensely.

>(Not sure why so underrated)

It's because this kind of advice has been given before. To be successful you have to accept that you're not the most important person in the world. You're not a special snowflake with special problems. Everyone has an area of life that they wish they were better at. Accept that you may be lacking, but understand that you can improve and seek to do so in a humble way. This is how you keep your ego in check.

If you want a deeper look into it give Ryan Holiday's book a read. Ego is The Enemy It's amazing.


His other book, "The Obstacle is The Way" is also an amazing piece of my collection and will show you that the world is filled with challenges and it's a great thing.

> Okay, first of all, my mom is a psychotic, nagging little bitch. She ALWAYS tries to find the littlest of things to criticize me, even when there's nothing to criticize about. For example, I would eat dinner upstairs. Just me sitting quietly and eating my food. Suddenly the bitch would instigate an argument. And bam, I start to feel like shit for the rest of the day. Thanks for ruining my mood, fucking bitch.

This behaviour is a request for validation or acknowledgement, but she is having difficulty expressing it positively because of the level of resentment she is feeling. Find out what she is doing for you or others that she expects gratitude for, and then give her said gratitude. Once you do this, the nagging should at least start to ease.

David Hawkins wrote that people start nagging when they do something for someone, expect praise for doing said act, and then don't get it. They set up an expectation within themselves, and the nagging is triggered by the resulting feelings of emptiness, exhaustion, and resentment. The other thing to understand here is that the nagging and resentment will be in direct proportion to the amount of gratitude or acknowledgement that the person expects to receive for the service they have rendered. If she was expecting a lot of praise from you, then she will feel a lot of resentment if she doesn't get it.

> I'm sorry for being so angry. This is what happens when you're constantly surrounded by negative people. As a result, it's making me really negative as well. The negativity is contagious. It runs like wild fire.

Anger is in fact a relatively positive condition. It is two emotional steps below the tipping point for stable positive emotion; the next two being Pride and Courage. Get from Anger to Pride by finding some achievements that you've made which you feel proud of yourself for, and then get from Pride to Courage by realising that, because you're capable of achieving things you can feel proud of, that means that you are sufficiently competent that you can cope with living as a stable, independent adult. The major developmental hurdle is getting to the point where you believe that on a long term basis, you have the ability to consistently survive. Once security in the ability to survive is established, negative emotion will largely cease, and you'll be able to continue to higher levels.

Get Transcending the Levels of Consciousness, and Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender. They will outline a very concrete method of elevating yourself emotionally, and potentially helping others rise as well, through active listening and providing positive acknowledgement.

I recently read Influence by Dr. Robert B. Cialdini and based on that reading, yes, absolutely.

There's a chapter on the concept of Social Proof, which basically boils down to saying that when people are making decisions, they are strongly influenced by what other people are doing. Have you ever gone to a party and asked a friend what he's planning to wear because you aren't sure how to dress appropriately? Have you ever asked a waiter what dish is the most popular? Have you ever followed a crow, assuming that they know the way to an exit? Those are all examples of social proof.

​

Coming back to fantasy novels, reviews and recommendations are social proof that we all use in making decisions. The appearance that a book is widely read and well liked makes us more likely to read it ourselves. Some books reach critical mass and snowball in popularity because they're already popular and therefore are considered a safe pick for someone who doesn't pride themselves in finding a diamonds in the rough. We pick books based on best-seller lists, editor's choices in book stores, and recommendations from friends, bloggers, and social media.

​

So in general, yes, a book which has accumulated a sufficient number of positive reviews has gathered enough social proof that it becomes easier to market. It will be less common for a book to become popular due to a single review, but books can get a bump from an enthusiastic, popular blogger.

You don't like our health care system? You think it's better south of the border? You know how broke you would be if you guys were in the states?

She's sucking a metric ton of resources our of our health care system.

An 8 hour run in the er with children with you is about as much parenting pain as one can take. The situations you describe are a living nightmare. I can relate, I'm Canadian and have done it myself.

You need to stand up to your wife for your own reasons, she's bullying you emotionally. This type of behaviour form your wife will proablly manafest in your kids in a couple of decades.

You should read this book, it's not about being a dick, it's about aserting yourself in a health way. It's full of communication exercise that make me want to throw up but they are gold for most people. This book has helped a lot of men just like you.

https://www.amazon.ca/No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy/dp/0762415339

You should definitely check out this one as well, fantastic read.

https://www.amazon.ca/When-Say-Feel-Guilty-Systematic-ebook/dp/B004IK8Q22

If you find value in thoes books make sure to play it forward and help another man. It's why I'm here.

So sorry to hear this. Really, the best you can do is fight back with everything you have, and quitting is the first step to that.

As for sage advice, I'd say there are two parts to quitting. First is the physical. Your body is all kinds of messed up from smoking, with your dopamine levels completely jacked and your lungs full of crap. You're going to feel like utter death for a while and there isn't much you can do about it. Look at it as a sickness and understand that you've just got to get through it to feel better. Treat it like a sickness also. Get plenty of rest, take vitamins, eat healthy, and get in as much exercise as you can. All of that will likely help speed up recovery and certainly won't hurt.

The second part is the mental. For that, the only thing you can do is try to reprogram your brain. For that, I would highly recommend that you read the thoughts of Allen Carr in his book. If you can begin to look at smoking for what it truly is, a complete waste of time, it can all but eliminate the mental withdrawal from the addiction. This is the hardest part of the quit, but if you can master it, you'll have smooth sailing.

The second advice I can give for handling the mental side of quitting is to utilize a support group of people who have been and are going through the same thing as you. Oddly enough, you just happen to be in the middle of one right now. Check in with us on a regular basis. Participate in the conversation. Share your story and offer whatever advice you can. You will find that doing so will really help you, and we're happy to help you as much as we can.

Hang in there, you can do this.

I used Rational Recovery (RR). It's not meeting focused (in fact, it discourages group AA style meetings) but there are groups and I did go to one several times.

RR uses a form of Albert Ellis' rational-emotive behavioral therapy (REBT). It does emphasize the "never drink again" philosophy, but after a few years without touching a drink, I now drink normally or less than normally. Whenever I want, which is hardly ever.

RR might be kind of outdated now, though, I'm not sure. If I were looking today I'd check out that SMART Recovery the other person linked, and definitely a therapist's or physician's (or both) help.

Oh, I used RR with something else. It's going to seem really...unscientific. I also used 7 Weeks to Sobriety, which is a plan to help support your body nutritionally while it recovers from the alcohol. It relies heavily on supplements. While the science might not be rigorous, I found that the supplementation helped greatly, and that I felt a lot better than I had on previous attempts. Lesser withdrawals, better physical state overall.

I apologize, because that's probably not a great skeptical book. I used it because it cited a lot of research (I think; it was a while ago) but I would think if it were that proven it would have taken off as a primary axis of addiction treatment, you know?

> I'm not even sure where to start sorting myself (and my place!) out

Peterson won't tell you exactly how to clean up your place but many people have had good luck with Marie Kondo to get in the right mindset for that. Maybe that's a good place to start in the meantime. There's even a frikkin manga version because why not (which I may or may not have ordered a second ago >.>).

It most likely won't tell you anything you haven't heard before but sometimes it can help to hear it in the right words for it to finally click. There are also free 'cliffnotes' on peoples blogs if you look for it, but I think it loses its impact that way.

Other than that I can recommend Bite-sized Philosophy if you don't have the time to listen to Peterson's complete lectures.

This won't give you the same structured approach as the Self-Authoring Suite, the idea is more to keep yourself surrounded with the ideas and concepts that Peterson promotes. I'm the kind of person that has to be surrounded by a new idea constantly and hear it again and again for it to completely sink in, perhaps this will help you too.

I really recommend Eckart Tolle's Practicing The Power of Now (http://www.amazon.com/Practicing-Power-Now-Essential-Meditations/dp/1577311957). The practicing version is simply a practical, easier to understand version of his original book, from what I've gathered.

I haven't read ANY spiritual books before this one, and I simply cannot leave it alone. It's enlightened me in so many ways. From lifting weights, to be charming, to explore life, to sit home alone, to SLEEP BETTER (yess!). It's given me a new outlook on life that I can explore whenever I feel like, and it is great!

> I'm usually a people pleaser

You and me both. But at some point, the pleasing-other-people part comes at a negative cost for you. I found a therapist I liked and worked on being less of a people pleaser. I'd highly recommend you do the same. It's hard to not feel guilty, but it feels SO much better when you realize you have nothing to feel guilty over (especially here).

If therapy isn't something you're ready to try, there's a great book called When I Say No I Feel Guilty that you can read to help you get in a better mindset about things like this.

Learning to meditate is not difficult - the instructions can be reduced down to a few steps. The bigger questions is, why are you meditating to begin with?

Is it just another chore or activity on your todo list? Or, do you have a true desire to understand your mind, and all of the challenges it creates in your life?

Most of us go about our days lost in thought, not realizing the mind pushes and pulls us where it wants to go. Meditation will help you see that, but it is more that just "follow these four steps and do it twice a day."

I don't think you need a class or teacher, though I encourage you to find one if you want to. I suggest reading Tolle's "Practicing the Power of Now" to get an understanding of your mind. I also suggest "Mindfulness in Plain English," as well as the free guide here (their blog and 21 day course is excellent as well).

This question isn't really about sciences, per say, it's about energy and motivation.

1. The quality of your life is comprised of the sum of the five people with whom you spend the most time. You can be intentional about who you spend time with. So find people who are positive, motivated, smart, high-energy, and interesting, and spend as much time with them as you can. Minimize time with friends and family who complain, are lazy, gossips, blame-shifters, and so on. Join some meetups at meetup.com and show up. Meet people. Commit to one or two meetups a week, minimum.
   
   
2. Take control of your mornings, because mornings set the tone for the rest of the day. Read this book and do literally everything it says. Give it two weeks.
   
   
3. Your diet has a greater impact on your sense of well-being than you might imagine. Clean it up. Eat food, mostly plants, not so much. Eliminate sugar completely, except on Saturdays.
   
   
4. Exercise.
   
   
5. Use your calendar! Schedule things on your Google calendar and have it send reminders to your phone. Put "exercise" on there. Now you have to do it.
   
   
6. Establish good habits. This is a good place to start.

Start With Why [Simon Sinek]

48 Laws of Power [Robert Greene] (33 Strategies of War, Art of Seduction)

The 50th Law [Curtis James Jackson]

Tipping Point:How Little Things Can Make a Difference and Outliers: The story of Succes [Malcolm Gladwell]

The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy [Ryan Holiday] (stoicism)

[Tim Ferris] (actually haven't read any of his books, but seems to know a way to use social media, podcast, youtube)

Get an understanding to finance, economics, marketing, investing [Graham, Buffet], philosophy [Jordan Peterson]

I like to think us/you/business is about personal development, consciousness, observing recognizable patterns in human behavior and historical significance. It's an understanding of vast areas of subjects that connect and intertwine then returns back to the first book you’ve read (Start with Why) and learn what you've read past to present. Business is spectacular, so is golf.



To Add:

Irrationally Predictable:The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions - [Dan Ariely] (marketing)

The Hard Things About Hard Things - [Ben Horowitz] (business management)

Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It - [Charlamagne Tha God] (motivation)

The Lean Startup: Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses - [Eric Ries]

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, How to Build the Future - [Peter Theil]

Read the Miracle Morning (quick & easy read). The author has pulled the best morning routines in 6 steps:

Silence - Meditate
Affirmation
Visualize
Exercise
Read
Scribe - Journal

Apart from changing your life, the book introduces you to a 70k strong community that only inspires and encourages. Every single person has been in your position.

I read the book over a year ago which ultimately lead me to complete 4 triathlons so far and help me focus my mind through meditation.

https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Morning-Not-So-Obvious-Guaranteed-Transform/dp/0979019710

I wish you best of luck for your studies, and I am sure you will succeed in gaining better control of the anxiety and negative thoughts plaguing your mind. There are some great books to help you navigate your thoughts on these matters. From my experience, The Conquest of Happiness by Bretrand Russell, and recently Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday helped. The second is perhaps more practical and relevant to our times.

I just find it a bit disturbing that to be girlier one has to be "less serious and intellectual" (unless we are talking about "intellectual = r/iamverysmart"; that is obnoxious, guy or girl). You shouldn't have to distort your perception of yourself to make friends. Being aware of our flaws and vanities is crucial to growing up as a person, but compromising our identity to fit in to stereotypes is not right in anyway. It is insane if a society demands that from us. You do you, make mistakes, fail, learn from them, and you'll find happiness in your naturally evolving identity. Best of luck for 2017!

There's quite a good book all about getting up in the morning called "The Miracle Morning" which helped me a lot. I've included the links at the bottom.

Basically, it teaches a routine called S.A.V.E.R.S., which is 10 minutes of each of these:

Silence (Meditation)
Affirmation
Visualization
Exercise
Reading
Scribing (Journalling)

Doesn't have to be in that order, but the "S.A.V.E.R.S." thing helps you to remember it.

One of the best lessons I learnt from it was that if you're having an issue of continually hitting the snooze button in the morning, then you probably hate waking up in the morning. So why do it multiple times every morning instead of just doing it once and getting up. Hope that's useful to someone.

http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Morning-Not-So-Obvious-Guaranteed-Transform/dp/0979019710/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458498898&sr=8-1&keywords=miracle+morning

Or the Audible version, which you can get with a free trial:

http://www.audible.com/pd/Self-Development/The-Miracle-Morning-Audiobook/B00CLCNROG/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1458498993&sr=1-1

Read this First - This is an infograph that summarizes every financial blog/book I've looked at.

Books I've read that have been very helpful

1. I will teach you to be rich - I've reread this multiple times. Covers almost all things finance that you'll need to know in your 20's + 30's. Totally worth the money!
   
   
2. Beginners Guide To Investing - Breaks down investing in a very straightforward way
   
3. Rich Dad Poor Dad - Very Cheesy, but hits some great thoughts on how rich ppl perceive money, are willing to talk about it, and how they grow money faster than the poor and middle class
   
4. Your Money or Your Life - Haven't finished (feels a little dated, but hits some really good points on how to think of money and why you should change your habits)
   
   Books I haven't read but ppl reference:
   
   
5. A random walk down wall street - Why investing in single stocks is foolish
   
6. Possum Living - How to live cheaply
   
7. Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman - Both have very popular philosophies and spending strategies that are referenced all the time.
   
   Sites to Reference:
   
   
8. Mr. Money Mustache - All Financial Independence websites reference this site.
   
9. Money Under 30 - All things Personal Finance for our age group
   
10. Investopedia - Helps with the basics
    
    Reddit: (Search Top Posts All Time)
    
    /r/financialindependence
    
    /r/Personalfinance
    
    /r/FinancialPlanning

Not a video but the book Persuasion, The Psychology of Persuasion is a great read to understand how these non-verbal cues persuade people to act.

There's also the classic How To Win Friends and Influence People which discusses human nature and how to get on people's "good side."

I love it, I could go on and on until the other person starts freaking out then I know that it will be easier winning then because they always end up freaking out hahahaha.
The only way to improve is talking and laughing with people, is really great man, just keep practicing and you will get there.
Three years ago I read this fantastic book and I leant a lot, https://www.amazon.com/How-Argue-Win-Every-Time/dp/0312144776%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q%26tag%3Dduckduckgo-d-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0312144776, hope it helps.

According to Willpower:Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength it is. I read the book a few months ago. I'm a little fuzzy on the details but from what I remember it said some of the following interesting points on willpower

• It can be fatigued. If you use your willpower to do one thing you will be less able to do something else later.
  
  
• You can use an endless supply of tricks to conserve your willpower. (see the marshmallow experiment
  
  
• As many people said it's linked to feel good neurochemicals like Dopamine (I forget what exactly they mentioned in the book). Also it's linked to blood sugar. Hungry people have less self control for everything even for things that have nothing to do with them eating.
  
  
• You can strengthen it by excising it. Just ask David Blaine
  
  Over all if you have an interest in willpower at all I recommend the book. However don't expect any magic tricks from it that give you unlimited willpower, this list covers what I thought was most useful.

The single best book (or audiobook) I recommend every beginner about minimalism is "Goodbye, Things". The writing is simple and direct. It's full of interesting insights and advice.

After that, read "The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo. Why not the main book? Because the manga (comic book) is easier and more entertaining to digest and goes over her main ideas just fine. While Marie Kondo isn't a minimalist, her methods complement it immensely.

And for the love of God, avoid "The Minimalists" or anything by them. Absolutely preachy, pretentious, surface level garbage.

> How does one who has never tried at anything, try at life?

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Some challenges seem huge but if you break them down into little pieces you can conquer them. How do you do that? Just start doing anything and something will happen.

Succeeding in my line of work is all about the effort I put into my projects. Even if I work my tail off there is a chance I could fail but the success is so sweet that I have to keep trying. Just do anything. Good luck.

Books: The Four Agreements

Ender's Game

Body for Life

If You Haven't Got the Time to Do It Right, When Will You Find the Time to Do It Over?

The War if Art

I got something out of these, maybe you will too. Good luck.

Well, it just so happens that I have a list prepared to tweet out—figured I'd share here as well :)

How to Win Friends & influence People

Never Eat Alone

The E-Myth Revisited

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook

Tribes

Linchpin

A Whole New Mind

The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing

The millionaire Next Door

Cashflow Quadrant

Why We Want you to be Rich

Drive

Rework

The 4 Hour Work Week

Entreleadership

Thou Shalt Prosper

Driven

How to Get Ideas

The Go-Giver

Whatever you do, don't start again. For your own good hear me out.

I started off with painkillers and got up to using about 1 gram of heroin per day. In other words, I was very addicted, it felt like drugs took my soul and I was never going to get it back.

I've been clean for ~4 years now, life isn't roses, but guess what, it never will be. I can promise you one thing though, life is at least 900 times better without drugs. Slavery or freedom, it's an easy choice. Ugh, just thinking about it makes me shudder (figuratively).

Never give opiates another THOUGHT, those thoughts are not that of your own. I was taught to think of them more like a transmission from your enemy, and that did the trick. Quickly enough life moved on, and the worst experience of my life thus far became merely a chapter in my past to learn from.

P.S. (OPINION): NA is useless, it is as much a disease as the drugs themselves. It is cult like, and not mentally healthy behavior. If you learn some things about psychology, you'll quickly learn the mindset that NA provides is not that of a healthy successful individual. You can do it on your own, the mind is all you need.

Reading can be more powerful than anything else if you allow it. Reading one method from one book was what changed the course of my life. That is to identify addictive thoughts as not your own, but rather a transmission from the enemy, you must identify that transmission and it's sender (your enemy) and block it out/demand that it stop. I tried to find the book for you and I couldn't, unfortunately. Point is, knowledge and effort alone are enough. For now though, do whatever works.

EDIT: I remember the book.

Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671528580/

This book taught me things that were a huge help in getting clean for good.

You should really read "Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself" by Dr. Joe Dispenza. It is truly revolutionary - I'm reading it right now and I feel like the keys to understanding life have just been handed to me.

Also I do think that you should follow the advice of other posters and consider getting help. If you need help finding a purpose in life read this, it can definitely help.

Good luck OP

Hey so it seems you are kind of new to recovery. I have been to rehab 5 times over the years. Over time it moved more towards cognitive recovery. In fact the last rehab was totally cognitive.

You should look at rational recovery. it might be a good fit for you. [Rational Recovery: The new cure for substance addiction] (https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Recovery-Cure-Substance-Addiction/dp/0671528580/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522339718&sr=8-1&keywords=rational+recovery&dpID=51y4eFxq6QL&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=srch)

You will be really surprised at some of the angles it looks at. Especially the addictive treatment industry. And author is straight up anti AA.

I like AA because otherwise I am alone in this.
YOu have family and you have people that you are accountable to. Being accountable is a must in recovery.
This is another very good book and it is written for people early in recovery. It has some humor in it.
(Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down: 50 Things Every Alcoholic and Addict in Early Recovery Should Know) [https://www.amazon.com/Don%C2%92t-Let-Bastards-Grind-Down/dp/0981708803/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522341799&sr=8-1&keywords=don%27t+let+the+bastards+grind+you+down&dpID=51DnBBtqC7L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch]

Whatever you do, just do something. If you are really an alcoholic, it WILL progress and you will lose everything.
Ain't no mother fucker here gonna challenge me on that.

much love

Drive by Daniel Pink is also a great book about this topic. It also delves into other aspects of motivation. I really enjoyed the book.

Brain Rules by John Medina is another great book. I love the brain!

I'm in a similar position. Good news, you can definitely change. Keep in mind that you're only 21 too! The older you get, the more self control and awareness you can develop, especially if you start making the right choices now.

You've demonstrated the most important factor. Which is that you give enough of a damn to write this post in the first place! Seriously. You have motivation, just terrible habits. The solution is to understand what a meaningful and virtuous life means to you and then to apply yourself with HARD WORK and PERSISTENCE to live your philosophical ideals. It takes a lot of work in this day 'n age and culture to go against the mediocre crowd. Here's a life changing book that I've read about three times since buying it a week ago that I can't recommend enough. It's by a greek western philosopher from the times of the Roman empire. His name is Epictetus and he is a stoic philosopher. This book isn't overly dense. It goes over the basics of what must be done in order to live a virtuous, happy, and effective life. And the modern interpretation is wonderful. Check it out! You won't be sorry. Epictetus - The Art of Living.

Honestly, 72 hours of shitty symptoms and your body will be nicotine free. I recommend buying some tea tree oil toothpicks to chew on for something to do to replace the hand to mouth motion, continue exercising, try yoga or other mindfulness measures to help with the mental side. It sucks, but the only way is to bite the bullet and get through. Also, even though it’s meant primarily for cig smokers (which I was), try reading Allen Carr, easy way to quit smoking

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EVMK0H0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_YFT6BbFZT24AF

GOOD LUCK AND YOU ABSOLUTELY CAN DO IT

I always struggle with motivation and direction, even as an adult. I figured that it's all about the conversation you have in your head and fixing that. Here are a few things that help me on a daily basis.

​

Great book on mindset Breaking the habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza

https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Habit-Being-Yourself-Create/dp/1401938094

​

This is a great app for daily motivation and mindset. Personally, i cannot meditate so this helps. https://getmotivateapp.com

​

When I was in a dark place this blog helped me a lot https://jamesaltucher.com .

​

Good luck!

I just finished this up and found it to be profoundly and fundamentally applicable to my life: Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

The most important thing you get out of it is how much your decision making is affected by your current mental state, rather then reason, and how important will power and self-discipline is to a successful and happy life. It's extremely easy to read and approachable as well.

In addition to the links already posted, I'd add Baumeister with his excellent work on willpower (link on amazon)

Also probably the most useful piece of research I found was in Handbook of Self-regulation, specifically a piece by Alexander Rothman, Austin Baldwin and Andrew Hertel. (here's the link on google books - warning, it's not light). Some of it is also in the Baumeister book above.

Long story short, the most useful approach is to set up things so that you don't need willpower in order to work, and that's best done by creating habits. There's lots we know about the science of creating habits, easily enough to make it doable.

There is a great book that helped me quit 15 year ago. The book is called "Easy way to quit smoking" by Alan Carr. The book actually helped millions of people, including a bunch of my friends. Effortlessly. You read it while smoking, and by the end of it you just don't want to smoke any more. It's truly amazing, i suggest you try.
The secret is - try to read it in one sitting.
Found it: Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EVMK0H0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_BxfFAbSJ47AWR

From reading the comments and your answers to them here is the simple answer. There is no beginners guide and you will not find anywhere, a cheap or free way to do this or at least start it. It may be possible, but use what the other commenters have added to the conversation to start you decade of learning to make it happen.

Also good luck finding others to do it with you, but your not going to have an easy time finding anyone that won't give up quickly. It may sound good to some including you but the reality is very hard and unpleasant which is why you can't find a cabin community in the yellow pages to join.

All in all I would suggest reading Dolly Freed's book Possum Living and looking into her life. It's the mindset you would need to do this the cheapest way and also the most realistic where in you don't plan on doing it completely off grid or free. Rather close tho once you learn the skills you need.

1. don't stress, your parents are being cool
   
2. no one has all the answers if they claim they do they're full of shit
   
3. you have to find your own path and belief system.
   
   Some people might say you can live without some belief, some life philosophy, I don't know if I agree with that. As the great Omar Little said "A man gots to have a code"
   
   Personally, I've read some western philosophy to help shape my view. I really liked "The Art of Living" - Epictetus
   
   Now I'm reading some Nietzsche, next I'll read something else. Man has struggled with this void since they stood upright. Clearly no one has found a singularly satisfying answer.
   
   
   One thing I've been thinking about the last few days from Nietzsche. (Paraphrased) "if you had to live this life again, in the same order the same way for all of eternity, would you rejoice?"
   
   Basically, do you enjoy your life enough to want to do the same thing forever and ever, all the pain and sorrow, all the joy and laughter, would you rejoice at that chance?
   
   I don't know the answer but it makes me think
   
   
   Good luck, and don't worry

Makes sense.

>A person really willing to quit would do things like only carry the amount they need each day, and employ other strategies that are proven to work.


I don't know why it didn't occur to me to read up on methods shown to work. Thanks for the comment, I've ordered a well rated bookon this very subject. Time to quit guessing my way to success and read up on how others have manged to be success full.

It's like what John of Salisbury said about learning from major thinkers:


""We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."

Strictly meditation? Or, understanding and dealing with your compulsive mind as a broader subject?

• Sam Harris' "Waking Up" is excellent.
  
• "Mindfulness in Plain English" is excellent.
  
• "Practicing the Power of Now" is excellent, though it doesn't delve deeply into meditation as a practice.
  
• If you're just getting started, I always recommend the free guide I link to in this comment.
  
  

The Morning Miracle might be an interesting read for you

I typically can't work after a long day either, which made me quickly realize I have to get used to working in the morning. I've actually been going to sleep earlier so I can wake up fresh in the morning. Lately I've been studying the first hour to improve in algorithms/data structures and then I get some work in afterwards. Even when I'm not working I think about the game non stop recently.

Idle games are honestly my absolute favorite and I really want the genre to push forward. It seems like we havent really progressed at all in the past 2 years and CH2 doesn't seem like it will do it for me either, so all this motivates me to push even harder.

There's a great book called When I say No I feel Guilty. That really put things in perspective for me and helped me make progress.


One other thing to keep in mind. When you stop people pleasing, people in your life won't be pleased. That's totally okay and normal. Try not to fret as you undertake this process. And congrats and good luck!

Your question made me look up an article on perfectionism. It is worth having a look at. There's also a good book on self-talk here.

There seem to be positive and negative aspects to it, meaning that while you should strive towards perfectionism, being perfect should not be a goal.

You will make mistakes. How you frame those mistakes determines whether you have a positive or negative mindset.

Instead of saying, "man I suck!" when you make a mistake, it may be better to think, "man that thing I did was not good!"

Notice the difference, whereas the first statement diminishes your self-esteem, the second statement admits a particular course of action was not the best choice. You can then identify how to improve that course of action through better decision-making. As others have stated, get a calendar.

Within the context of your LTR, it shows you didn't completely breakdown due to a few mistakes, you're unshaken. And, that you have a positive, learners' mindset geared towards improvement.

Everyone has their own way but this is the concept that allowed me to quit and never look back:

Mindfulness. With every inhale ask yourself why you are smoking? What benefit does it have? Is it enjoyable?

As others mentioned, Alan Carr's Easy Way To Quit Smoking was very influential in this process. Highly recommend picking up a copy, if you aren't sure it's worth the price pm me your address and I'll send you a copy.

Are you the kind of person that, if they know the "why" and "how" of something, it really helps them to get achieve the "just do it and quit!" part?

This may sound trite, but there is a book called "Willpower" that may help. It is relatively new, written by a respected research psychologist (and a formerly addicted NY Times writer), that may help.

If you're analytical then the book may help you to understand why your willpower wavers even though you are committed to breaking a bad habit. One big factor that took me by surprise: the power in Willpower comes in large part from blood glucose levels. Who'd a thought?

That’s the key, OP. Accepting that you can’t carry this burden alone. Finding help and support from people who will not judge you. Therapy is a godsend if that’s an option. There are a lot of people here who will listen and empathize with you.

For me, therapy has been a journey of looking inside myself to discover what unhealthy needs my pwBPD was filling in my life. Acknowledging and letting go of those little payoffs has allowed me to free myself from her. We have kids and are still together, and that’s hard in many ways, but I am healthier than I have ever been. I fantasize about being able to go NC, together with the kids, never having to deal with her again and finding a more peaceful situation. That time may come in a few years once the courts will allow the youngest to choose NC if she wants it.

In the meantime, this has become my favorite book. Life-changing. https://www.amazon.com/Letting-David-Hawkins-M-D-Ph-D/dp/1401945015

I'm sorry. That sounds horrible. I'm glad you're posting here because it sounds like you do actually want to recover. I recently read an interesting book called Brain Over Binge and a lot of what she writes sounds similar to what you're sharing with us. She isn't diabetic but it's the same concept of accidentally starting terrible habits and the desire to be skinny and feeling shame over your choices. She also mentions the book Rational Recovery which is about alcoholism but covers a lot of the same concepts.


Being honest with yourself about why you're in therapy is important. It's time to turn that honesty on its head and ask yourself if you want to really get better. And if you do...you can get there with help. Bulimia is a very serious problem, and you know this...you know that you can actually die from it. Please be kind to yourself and your future life. Good luck!

[Body for Life by Bill Phillips](
http://www.amazon.com/Body-Life-Mental-Physical-Strength/dp/0060193395) - regardless of its merits, it has some fantastic progress pics and a 'change for life' philosophy. This is not what got my current journey going, nor do I use it now, but it's what made me take the first step, long before I took any successful steps.

Burn the fat, feed the muscle by Tom Venuto - technically an e-book, so not sure if that counts. Still, this little PDF taught me a lot that my college courses did not, and has an excellent philosophy behind it. Probably got me half of the way to starting out properly, even if I don't necessarily adhere to his approach, the knowledge was invaluable.

That's awesome! If you want some extra motivation, I HIGHLY suggest reading The Miracle Morning. The author talks about how his motivation was started by getting up and running in the morning.
Here's the link, worth the read for sure...or get the audio book and listen to it while your run ;)

http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Morning-Not-So-Obvious-Guaranteed-Transform/dp/0979019710/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462543489&sr=8-1&keywords=miracle+morning

($2 for the audio version)

The sense of entitlement right now in the under 25 crowd is staggering. I have tech recruiters who can't give away 16.00 an hour jobs because people feel they are "better than that" when they have no actual experience other than graduating college. I hire and recommend for hire people, and have done so for multiple agencies.

I've been saying what Mr. McDonald has been saying, for some time, as have all the HR recruiters, head-hunters, sociologists, etc. People are coming out of higher education and are not able to do things that they absolutely should know how to do. In addition to this, they can not problem solve effectively, and everyone thinks they are a genius and entitled to something...when they're not. Here - this is just one more study about this exact thing:
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-06/national/39057667_1_entitlement-survey-graduates

Here's a good article (from 2005) that is old, but talks about the change in the term "gold collar" worker. (Gold collar use to mean experts in mid level roles - as I've said to people "I'm a cog. A expensive gold-plated cog, but still just a cog")
new gold collar workers - people that spend what they don't have and live at home with lower level professional positions. Here's that entitlement....

http://seattletimes.com/html/living/2002479345_goldcollar08.html


You want to blame people, blame the parents. Blame them for creating a society where everyone theoretically gets a trophy. where everyone is constantly told they are special, and brilliant, and exceptional. Right now - under 30 is the over-praised generation and under 25 adds to that two-fold.

I've heard first hand such stories as "I didn't hire a person and their MOM called me about it" (yes...for real).

This attitude of people also trickles into other things, even things like video games. Read this:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/13/call-of-duty-red-orchestra-2-interview/
He talks about the lack of mastery in people. that lack of mastery, that aspect of needing, wanting to start somewhere and become good at it vs. just being given something cause its all "too hard" -- that permeates society right now.

and the top rated comment is exactly what is wrong. those startups that are talked about? they fail faster than restaurants these days. And, does everyone realize that making it work in a small business/start up is HARD? that it's like saying "I'm going to be a pro-athlete" and counting on it? There is no guarantee. We are not all beautiful unique snowflakes.

You want to get someone's attention? skip the attitude and learn to start at the bottom. make exceptions and work hard and smart. Learn how to be wrong, how to accept it gracefully, and how to maintain relationships with smart people, annoying people, and dumb people. learn how to learn. Show that if you don't know something, you can pick it up.

Read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-Motivates-ebook/dp/B004P1JDJO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368327765&sr=8-2&keywords=dan+pink


You may feel that I'm outdated in my thinking, and that is your right - but as I said...I hire and fire people, I recommend people for roles, and I'm in the software world making products that many of you use all the time.

Now - if this doesn't apply to you, if you are in these age groups and work hard, recognize that things aren't owed to you, and you can understand and process defeat gracefully, learn from it and improve your position - then congratulations, you are ahead of the curve.

i would highly recomend reading this book as you start your journey. it will give you a lot better insight into stopping then just white knuckling it... biggest advice is focus on one thing at a time. you only have enough will power to diet or stop smoking. overloading yourself will result in relapse. you are young and have plenty of time for self improvement. take small well planted steps and you will be amazed at how far you can travel. GOOD LUCK

I'm higher on some testing for ADHD. I have really good success with pink noise. Listen to it at a level where you can barely hear it.

Overall, take breaks when you need to. It sounds silly, but when you do go for a quick walk around the office, take a file folder with some papers in it. Again, it sounds cheesy, but it at least gives the impression that you're doing something instead of taking a quick break.

For me, I make a lot of lists and break everything down into ten minute chunks. It works for me, but its definitely not universal.

Fidget toys are ok, but also not perfect. I have a few fidget cubes and like them, but I find that they only work once in a while for the restlessness.

Overall, I've found that lists broken down into chunks works best. Get into the habit of just doing it.

Its worth checking out 'Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: A Concise Guide to Strategies for Change' by Timothy A. Pychyl.

I'm not in your situation so I probably can't tell you what to do. I can just share what helped me. First of all, I was in a place where I wanted change really badly. Like really badly. I was upset with my life, my relationships and just my outlook and decided it had to change. I read a lot and I asked a lot of questions and worked at it. Eventually, I read three books which helped change the way I approached everyday things, and specifically relationships.

They were
http://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-Marshall-Rosenberg/dp/1892005034
http://www.amazon.com/True-Love-Practice-Awakening-ebook/dp/B004SII6JWe
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577311523

But yeah, definitely not a quick fix.

A lot of people are really turned off by the "spiritual" aspects of the third book. I don't understand that, when I read it it just seemed like an practical way to go about living your life and not religious at all. All three of these books offer physical activities, like very basic "an idiot could do this" things that make you better at listening, especially the first two, which is what I was looking for. And the suggestions they gave definitely worked. If you only read one, I would read the second one for your situation. It's not as "Buddhist" as it seems.



What I eventually learned: Listening and being present is really hard first of all. Your mind wants to jump in all the time and pick apart, dissect and analyze... And then there is the other part of your mind that wants to react, like "Oh she said this, that's not right." Once you get there though, you're just calm and it's a great thing because you can always go back, and people just tend to relax around you more.

You need to change the things you tell yourself in your own head.
"I am a junior in college with no direction, still no motivation and an increasingly less promising future."
"I am not stronger enough to put off instant pleasure in order to achieve future happiness."
"I know I'm a screw up."
Put a post-it note on your bathroom mirror. (Or someplace else you'll see often.) Something about yourself that you want to be true but don't yet believe. Single sentence, statement of fact. "I work hard." "I pursue things that interest me." "I dedicate my energy to improving myself." Not I WILL or I'LL TRY or I'M GOING TO but I DO. You can rewire your internal brain patterns this way. Also, get your hands on a copy of this book: http://www.amazon.com/What-Say-When-Talk-Yourself/dp/0671708821/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314110587&sr=1-1

This might come across as a bit melodramatic. But...

It's not just a game. It's real life. It's real life in the sense that your emotions are real. Your frustration, your self-doubt, your despair at being mentally dominated by another person--all real. It hurts and it sucks, but writing it off as "just a game" won't help you.

You have an opportunity to improve yourself through chess. You can learn to deal with your feelings more effectively. You can learn to turn that frustration and rage into resolve. You can harness your ego.

There is a lot of good advice out there on improving at chess. You will have to put in the work, but you can do it.

Your efforts with chess may benefit you in ways you don't expect. We are all destined to be vanquished on many boards, real and imaginary, until our final defeat at the end of life. Might as well learn to deal with it.

In movie form:
https://youtu.be/D_Vg4uyYwEk?t=97

A good book:
https://www.amazon.com/Ego-Enemy-Ryan-Holiday/dp/1591847818

Yeah I know, been there, done that.

Like i said, order Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: A Concise Guide to Strategies for Change, meanwhile install habitica, start drinking water, find some community for bonus kicks in the ass, and stop finding excuses :-)

oh and of course: start meditating :-D

(insight timer is a good app, plenty of free guided mediations, a basic course .. later you will use only the timer)

Off the top of my head, here are a couple of fantastic Stoic books by female authors:

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Living-Classical-Happiness-Effectiveness/dp/0061286052 - very easy, great read

https://www.amazon.com/Stoicism-Emotion-Margaret-Graver/dp/0226305589 - very in depth but the best discussion of the subject that I've read

As an adendum, the Life Changing Manga of Tidying Up is a great addition to the original text, and a perfect starting point for those looking for a more entertaining way to learn about her principles.

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Manga-Tidying-Up-Magical/dp/0399580530

Read this, this and this. They have helped me tremendously. To be sure, you have to do the work, but these texts gave me TONS of perspective and practical advice. Finally, get yourself into therapy. It helped me a great deal.Best of luck!

I wake up about 2.5 hours before work. I follow The Miracle Morning pretty closely. It has six rituals: exercise, meditation, journaling, visualization, affirmations and reading. After I do each of these for about 10 minutes I pack lunches for me and my wife and iron my outfit for the day. Then I pick a good podcast and do my 15 minute walk to the train for work. It really helps me focus and have a productive work day.

At night I usually go to the gym around 8 and get home at 9. I shower, take a melatonin, hang out with my wife for a bit and go to bed.

Are you giving away a story free to subscribers? Where in your front matter / back matter do you put your CTA (Call to Action) to entice them to sign-up? Do you use images or just text? For every 100 books you sell (or give away free), how many subscribers are you getting on average? It's work, but it's soooo worth it.

ETA: Throwing some power words into your CTA/headline might help too. The Lust column on that page, for instance, has some juicy words to use for your CTA/headline. Have I mentioned the importance of your CTA/headline enough yet? ;)

ETA TOO: If you want some homework, read Influence by Cialdini and/or Tested Advertising Methods for some basics on marketing. For even more author-specific newsletter tips, check out Mark Dawson and/or Nick Stephenson.

It might be less of "you need a job" and more of "know your place".

At one point, I said, "You know what. Maybe, I am lazy. I will get the hardest job I can find." Parents told me an uncle would make $30/hour at his factory job. I made $8/hour. I make more in retail and I do less work.

You don't need a job. (Jobs are quite a modern concept.) However, you still do need stuff, e.g. food, water, shelter. Your results may vary if you don't have the usual ethics, such as not stealing. I chose to work, because I would like to remain friendly with and included in society. Society gives a lot of benefits, such as protection and easy access to resources.

Instead of being reactive, be proactive. What do you want to do? Humans don't need much to survive.

Maybe, professional gamer. Or, you could go bottom of the barrel (Possum Living).

The book letting go is fantastic for this, I would see it's even more powerful than ACIM for me compliments it quite nicely. https://www.amazon.com/Letting-David-Hawkins-M-D-Ph-D/dp/1401945015

https://www.amazon.ca/When-Say-Feel-Guilty-Systematic-ebook/dp/B004IK8Q22

And

https://www.amazon.ca/No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy/dp/0762415339

Definitely this one:

https://www.amazon.ca/Married-Man-Life-Primer-2011-ebook/dp/B004W0IRQ8

And required reading for all men

https://www.amazon.ca/Rational-Male-Rollo-Tomassi/dp/1492777862

And

https://www.amazon.ca/Rational-Male-Preventive-Medicine/dp/1508596557

The 5 love languages is a great read if you want to masterbate in the shower.
I'm coming at this from a male perspective.

I used to believe that addiction is a disease, but reading this book changed my mind.

I strongly encourage you to check out Rational Recovery, by Jack Trimpey. I quit drinking the day I read this book, and I’ve been alcohol-free ever since.

The book teaches a skill called AVRT: “Addictive Voice Recognition Technique.”

It also contains a chapter on “How to Help an Addicted Family Member.” If you want a sample of the chapter, I’ll actually type it out for you here. Shit, I might just type it out & message it to you (later tonight) whether you like it or not. You gotta read it.

Or you could just buy the book. Read it, or start reading it to see what it’s all about, and then maybe encourage your S.O. to check it out.

This isn't a book on formal logic, but it has very good advice: How to Argue and Win Every Time

This isn't a book about logic either, but it has a long chapter on thinking systematically. The rest of the book is useful too: Why

Besides the general benefits of being more relaxed, centered and having a better sense of self, mindful meditation helps to train your mind to let go of past events and regrets you can't change and let go of future events you have no control over. It doesn't mean you don't plan for the future but it helps you to live in, and enjoy the present moment while you do it, or whatever.

A lot of people start with this: Mindfulness in Plain English

And then perhaps: Ekhart Tolle: The Power of Now


And of course: /r/meditation

It sounds like you may have a problem with boundaries, which is a common symptom of social anxiety disorder. I had SAD very bad when I first left, I would literally cry in front of people, just spontaneously break out into sobs... it was not a great strategy for making friends. Some of the opinions people expressed would just upset me so much. My best friend (worldly friend that I grew up with) had an abortion when we were 18 and I just couldn't handle it. I would share very personal information to strangers and then be devastated when they didn't give me the support that I needed. If I hadn't gotten some help dealing with it it would have actually driven me back into the organization because my behaviour was so negative it would've reinforced their teachings that the 'world is bad' and 'real friends love Jehovah' by pushing people away from me.

It sounds like you could really benefit from some therapy. And if you can't afford therapy these two books really helped me. first and second. The second book is considered to be 'spiritual' but I chose not to look at it that way. It is about practicing 'mindfulness' which is really just being aware of your own internal dialogue. What is your mind telling you about yourself and the world? Sometimes figuring that out is the hardest part, and for me it vastly changed how I interact with others.

Good luck OP. You're not crazy.

Definitely contact your local public library for connections to both remedial academic supports (online and local) as well as Child Protective Services and also domestic violence resources, which I have read can help those on the cusp of adulthood who have not been properly prepared. They may be very able to point you in the direction you need to go.

Given the basics of reading ,writing and arithmetic, it still may be possible to achieve a fairly sustainable lifestyle in a creatively simple way. Check out this book, once. Good luck.

https://www.amazon.com/Possum-Living-Without-Almost-Revised/dp/0982053932

If you plan not to touch sugar due to addiction, you might like this book: https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Recovery-Cure-Substance-Addiction/dp/0671528580/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1549636238&sr=1-1&keywords=rational+recovery

It's targeted towards alcoholics, but I have found it amazing to instantaneously flip my mind around food. Saying 'no' becomes easy when you have these strategies in mind. (Sounds weird, but it's very true.)

​

Live long and prosper! You do you!!

My psychiatrist has me on Prozac, Buspar, and Lamictal. We're still getting the dosage figured out (I've only been on medication since July), but I'm seeing great improvements.

EDIT: I thought I'd go ahead and add that the techniques in Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by Dr. David R. Hawkins have really helped me a lot, and might be worth a read while you wait for your appointment.

Try this

It's about "arguing" but it really gives some good deflection tools.
Also, I would recommend something on negotiating, like this one

Use moving as your new workout routine /s

In all honesty, the few times I have tried moving by myself, it is humbling - I can lift a decent amount, but I find that moving things like furniture and boxes can be really awkward compared to lifting weights, and I can never really get a handle on it. Maybe try working on your grip strength and stability (e.g. via single leg/arm work), and using things like heavy sandbags in your training? For me... I've vowed to only use movers from now on.

Ugh, this should be higher up the list. Not sales specifically, but the skills translate frictionlessly and also useful in life. In this same category I would put

• Word Hero by Jay Heinrichs as well.
  
• Verbal Judo by George Thompson
  
• Influence by Robert Cialdini
  
• Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini

Love your list. Ordinary life is a blessing. Really believe in law of attraction: me too. Do check Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender

Join /r/fitness and read the FAQ (it's actually very helpful). Here is the section on losing weight. I usually suggest doing the program known as Starting Strength for people that are new to the gym, as it's pretty easy to follow when you first start weight lifting. Losing weight happens when you burn off more calories than you take in, and a lot of people don't realize that lifting weights burns a TON of calories. You should try to do some sort of cardio three or more times per week, concentrating on the running as much as possible. Don't neglect your diet - you can train really hard but if you sabotage yourself with junk food you can undo tons of the progress that you made in the gym. If you have no idea where to start on the diet I would look at Body For Life, by Bill Phillips. Good luck - getting in shape is not as impossible as it can seem sometimes. And if you need motivation /r/fitness it the place to go.

Well, I go to therapy regularly for other things and assertiveness and how I communicate my needs to others is one of the things I've needed to work on from the beginning. An assertive tone is one part of it, but how you say things is important as well. A great, short book (my first self-development book, long ago) on this is When I Say No I Feel Guilty.

These are the assertive rights I learnt from it. The book has a lot of case studies but once you get the essence of it it's not necessary to read them all. It helped me understand how I wasn't doing anything wrong by expressing my boundaries or what I would or wouldn't tolerate.

In your case it could help you to just de-escalate the situation by saying "I'm not going to talk to you since you are yelling" to the guy on the train, and stick to it by ignoring him, and just let him make a fool of himself.

I've come a long way just by absorbing the concepts that book taught me, that nobody taught me during my childhood. I highly recommend it.

I personally found The Power of Now as a great means to achieve "enlightenment." It really allowed me to use that little voice in my head, literally as a tool, and not as something that was part of my identity. So being able to switch that voice off, and concentrate on being aware of my surroundings and environment, was a really relaxing and refreshing experience that I can recreate on the bus, or walking down the street, or sitting on a bench.

Personally prefer listening to the audio version right when I'm about to go to bed, since the sounds are a meditative means on their own.

> You're a believer now, because you just did the movement.

You got love him pointing out all the stick figures.

I can't believe it's done so well on Amazon. Kudos, Nathan!

A couple weeks ago this video was posted to /r/videos, and it lead me to this book by him called "Solving the procrastination puzzle", which is a quick read, it gives you a much better understanding of what procrastination is.

• He regularly writes for psychologytoday
  
  
• http://www.procrastination.ca/
  
  
• iProcrastinate Podcast
  
  I'd definitely recommend you start by watching that video from one of his lectures, then read his book. There are a few steps in the book which you can write down and memorize.
  
  

I never tried audio, I bought the hardback.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Selling-David-Hoffeld/dp/0143129325/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=science+of+selling&qid=1565117814&s=gateway&sr=8-1

​

I thought it was quite useful all around guide to sales (buyer motives, 6 Whys people buy, company USP, closing). Interesting was the use of behavioural economics and psychology to inform the different techniques (such as innoculation theory). On that topic psychology and sales, the psychology of persuation and predictably irrational are both really great reads.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=predictably+irrational&crid=3UWT9GUFOSU8F&sprefix=predic%2Caps%2C151&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_6

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Business-Essentials-ebook/dp/B002BD2UUC/ref=sr_1_2?crid=16X7RHAWVI8QH&keywords=science+of+persuasion&qid=1565118078&s=books&sprefix=science+of+persua%2Calexa-skills%2C141&sr=1-2

Agreed, though I can't help finding Marcus Aurelius a bit of a prig. I like this interpretation of Epictetus:

Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061286052/

Since it's a mental thing, the only way to address it is by filling your mind with material to help counteract your natural tendencies. Read (or listen to) Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich and then keep reading self-help/motivational material. There's a reason motivational speakers are always in high demand: people need motivation. There's nothing wrong with needing motivation, it just makes you normal. But you've got to address the problem at the thought-pattern level. (And in fact, I believe it was on this sub that someone recently posted a YouTube vid of a professor who researches procrastination - I watched it, it was a good vid. He has a book, too.)