“In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out. Usually, what you wish for doesn’t fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes to get to it. This isn’t because the universe is cruel. It’s because the universe is smart. It has its own cat-string theory and knows we don’t appreciate things that fall into our laps.” – Neil Strauss
Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve written here.
But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been making progress with my life.
Peep game.
When the summer began, I got a new job at the same company I work for. I got a significant raise and now have benefits because I was previously working as a temp. This job allows me to work 4 10-hour days so now I have Fridays off. I am very happy about this arrangement.
I have recently decided to start going out again seriously. I don’t know if you can call what I did at the beginning of the year serious or not, I don’t remember trying very hard, or necessarily doing the things that I needed to do in those situations. I really need to re-read those posts again. Lately, I have been going out Thursday-Saturday with the sole purpose of talking to women. I go to high quality venues with lots of sets to open. The club. Without my job schedule, Thursday would either not be possible, or would make Fridays 10x worse. There are all kinds of problems that I need to work on when I go out that I will correct in time. In short, I am going out reguarly, I am opening, and I am proud of that.
I am also lifting 3x a week and it feels great. There were all kinds of mental roadblocks that were preventing me before, namely the anxiety of going to a strange gym and being a weakling amongst muscleheads. One day I decided to say “fuck all that shit” and started going and haven’t looked back since. There are times when I have felt like I have could have put a better effort in, but again that will be dealt with in time.
I am also practicing driving lessons once a week with a friend. My test is in one month. My friend thought I could past the test if I were to take it tomorrow. I am also taking swimming lessons once a week.
All in all, I feel like I have been challenging myself on a regular basis. I feel like I am in charge of getting better and taking action to move in that direction, instead of just doing the same ol’ and thinking that things will happen randomly.
Went out tonight with Hero for the first time in a long time.
For the past 10 months, I had only been to local bars and strip clubs, choosing to get fucked up rather than go places with lots of women to talk to. When I stepped into the club, it was total sensory overload-the blaring music, the ridiculous girl, the setting… I was scared shitless.
Hero opened a few sets and I winged him. I literally ran away from the first one, he stays in his sets long past the point of awkwardness, I just couldn’t take it anymore. Later, I forced myself to stick in there, coming to the conclusion, “fuck these people!” Why do I give them more value than they are worth? Why do I just assume that people are BETTER than me?
No, I didn’t open any sets on my own, but I do feel better about myself because I moved in a positive direction tonight. I had been avoiding going out like this for a long long time, and felt like something was missing from my life as a result. Would I have felt a lot better if I opened? FUCK YEAH!
But there will be a tomorrow. I can’t dwell on the past now. I need to buckle down and just start opening my mouth, something good will come out eventually. The women need me, they just don’t know it yet. I really don’t have any other options, I MUST become successful with women. My life will always feel empty if I don’t. Not saying my mindstate is anywhere near this guys, but I can understand the frustration. What is sad is that he didn’t know that he could change his situation. What is great is that I know I can.
“It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you…” – Rakim
So I stopped doing this for… however long it’s been since my last post. I decided at that point that it just wasn’t worth my time. I considered just posting privately this blog, or writing in my journal again, but my most consistent has been right here on this blog, so here I am again.
The past few months have seen me veer off the course big time, but I don’t want to dwell on the past. I have slowly been trying to simplify my life, and just keep the most essential goals. I haven’t been going out to much lately, I prefer to sit indoors and read. In fact, I just have two goals as of right now, be more responsible with money and meditate daily. There are some other goals I will add down the line but that is it for now. I will elaborate more on them later.
I want to get to bed at a reasonable time so I am going to sign off now. Until tomorrow!
“Solitude, the feeling and knowledge that one is alone, alienated from the world and oneself-is not an exclusively Mexican characteristic. All men, at some moment in their lives feel themselves to be alone. And they are. To live is to be seperated from what we were in order to approach what we are going to be in the future. Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition.” ~ Octavio Paz
I went out alone tonight.
It was Fat Tuesday and I had committed to going out a long time ago. Even after my first day back at my old job, I was convinced that I was going to go out. I have had this thing lately where I actually keep my commitments rather than being the generally flaky guy I normally am.
Still, it wasn’t easy. It was cold outside, and I missed my original bus which I thought was supposed to come at 10:50. As the clock struck 11:15, I decided to head back inside. It was 20 degrees outside, I would wait until the next one came indoors. The next bus came at 11:47, I hopped on it and took the 20 minute bus ride to the bar.
In the back of my mind on the bus ride was the question, “how am I going to get home?” I’d already answered this question in my head: if BartenderMan or Hero are there, ask them for a ride, if not, leave early and take a taxi.
It was really a simple and pragmatic solution. Sometimes I dwell on stupid shit. I’ve found that consistent daily meditation helps remove a lot of needless thoughts (overthinking).
I hadn’t been to a top 40 bar in awhile. I was calm but uncomfortable, the calmness aided by me taking an adderall. The uncomfortable is how I usually feel when I walk into a bar alone. Having a friend to lean on and talk to can be a real crutch when trying to do this PUA shit.
I mean, it’s a totally different experience because you don’t necessarily have anyone to talk to in the most social setting of them all. Some people who go to the bar alone sit in a stool and stare at a TV for hours on end, I’VE BEEN THERE! Lately however, I have struck up conversation with at least one stranger.
I walked into the bar and immediately got complimented on my hair by some dude, then some girl, totally unrelated. I tried striking up conversation with the girl, but it turned out the dude and the girl went to the same HS. After about five minutes, I was just the guy in the middle being ignored, trying to get a drink. The one dude had the LOUDEST voice, I was envious.
“Speak from your diaphragm!” He said.
I eventually said, fuck this shit and go upstairs. I open this one girl, but she is preoccupied because the guy she is with is talking to another girl. I should have been like, “fuck all that shit, I’m your guy tonight.”
As a side note, this was the wackest party in terms of Mardi Gras. First off, I went to college and went to PLENTY of Mardi Gras parties. In college, there would be PLENTY of indecent exposure at those parties whether you had beads or not, you would at least see a titty or something. Not the case tonight!
That’s not to say that naked women with beads was what I was looking for tonight. I actually think the concept of giving a girl a bead because she has lifted up her t-shirt or because she will make out with you is low grade prostitution, and while I’m not against prostitution by any means, I feel like I could save the $20 I would spend on beads and use it to get head from a street whore 3 blocks from where I live.
Anyways, lots of hot ladies running game on guys getting beads in exchange for good conversation from what I saw. Cool. I was inside my head a lot tonight, but I still managed to talk to a few ladies. Some lady I opened thought it was the green light for her to start talking about my hair like two minutes into the conversation, then her and her friend ran their hair through my shit. “Now where are MY beads?” I thought. Sheit.
The night ended by chatting up the coat check girl who actually works with Hero and Spy on occassion. She called me Kid and Play and I busted on her for it. There was no sexuality at all to the conversation, and she apologized for calling me that-I have an afro, not a high-top!
I left a little after 1:30 to ensure that I could catch a cab home. THREE cab drivers drove past me and opened their doors to people that were further down the street than me. When the fourth pulled up, I told him about this, and I told him I was mad at myself because I am just not aggressive enough while those people were.
“No, it’s because you are Black.” He told me.
He went on a diatribe about how he had been robbed three times, all by Black males. “You have a more educated look to you though, Leigh. But a lot of cab drivers don’t see that.”
That made me kind of sad. I understood where he was coming from, but I was still sad.
*Shrugs*
I can’t change the color of my skin. If a cab driver doesn’t want my money, I’ll find one who will!!!
***
So, what did I learn tonight?
The main lesson is that going out alone isn’t that bad. Ultimately, I am going to have to cut down on going out with King Lear, and venture out on my own. This weekend will likely be the first!
“Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.” – Mark Twain
I am employed again.
I got my old job back. I am talking the one I had BEFORE I worked at a bank. This is a job that I actually liked, but it was only ever temporary, and they made it pretty apparent that I would never be hired permanently. Still, it’ll be cool to have (relatively) steady income again.
This weekend, oh this weekend.
Friday:
King Lear and I returned to where we were the night before. We had a good time, I talked to some girls, I didn’t get PISS drunk, but nothing too eventful. I don’t remember any meaningful interactions. Later on, we went to afterhours, then went home. I saw HipsterGirl there, but she was with another guy, I did a half assed attempt at hollering, but in my drunkeness I realized that I am not interested.
Saturday
King Lear woke me up at 10AM to go to a snowboarding party they had down the street from where we live. We misread the flyer for this party because it didn’t start until two. We grabbed some breakfast, drank at a nearby bar, then headed over.
All in all, it was a good time, I met a few girls that I’d never met before, but in the back of my head I found myself worried about getting TOO drunk because I was literally going to be drinking for like 16 hours.
Life is always better without worrying.
We left the snowboarding jam at 7PM, took an hour break at our respective apartments, then headed out to the place I’d now been going to for three nights in a row. It was a small jaunt tonight, I tried to get on a girl I’d been talking to the other night to come with us to the NEXT place we were going, but she wasn’t having it. Oh well.
The next place we went to had a DJ from out of town and was a GREAT time. I spent a good amount of time talking to this girl who had a boyfriend. This normally doesn’t stop me, but then the guy showed up and I moved on. PUA aside, I saw a TON of people I hadn’t seen in awhile at this bar, and I remember the feeling of utter elation at certain points-just really vibing with the music and being around good friends. Sometimes it’s good to have those moments.
After that, we went to afterhours. It had been 15 hours of almost continuous drinking at this point. I was EXHAUSTED. Still, I met a cute girl with FUNNY glasses. I was pretty sure I managed to get a number, but when I got home I could not remember her name and nothing in my phone looked out of place.
It’s funny how I function like that sometimes, like my brain is on autopilot. I also remember talking to a woman who was ugly and had a kid who was my age. She was cool… but yuck.
The next morning I check my facebook only to realize that FunnyG had befriended me on Facebook. Oh, that’s what your name was!
No real exposition on the weekend, because outside of getting fucked up, nothing too crazy happened. I do want to calm down on the red bull flavored shots, those shits make my heart race like a cheetah!
Tomorrow is Mardi Gras, so I’m thinking I’m going to go out. We’ll see…
“We can all be heroes in our virtues, in our homes, in our lives.” – James Ellis
So I went back to the bar I was at last Thursday. Why? Because I thought TeacherGirl would be there! I wanted to clear up any shit that might have been caused by King Lear. I also wanted to figure out if I had gotten a wrong number.
Yes, I know this was a stupid stupid idea. If she gave me a bad number, so what? MOVE ON! However, it perplexes me that she would do such a thing, I feel like I hit it off with her pretty well, and maybe she just dialed it wrong.
She wasn’t there tonight.
I’ll see her again, it’s Pittsburgh, but if I don’t, oh well. Next week, I might go back to 80’s night and see LeaderGirl. The only reason I didn’t go to see LeaderGirl tonight was because I had no cash on hand, and I risked overdrafting at the bar I went to tonight.
King Lear decided not to go tonight, which was one of the rare times I’ve been at this bar without him. I was messaging the dude desperately wanting him to come out because I didn’t want to go out alone. In the end, it wasn’t a big deal. There were no real targets at the bar, and really only his ex-girlfriend hit on me pretty aggressively, but I’m not interested in her at all. Not to say that she isn’t attractive because she is, but she went out with my good friend to the point that she LIVED with him, that is NOT a good idea by any definition of the word!
If anything, I should have gotten at Hero, who was undoubtedly out tonight. Shit, he goes out any night he’s not working. He doesn’t drink anything but water, and goes out with the sole purpose of picking up women, he is a TRUE PUA.
The problem with Hero is that I usually feel uncomfortable when I go out with him. If the place is not up to his standards of girls, and 9/10 times it isn’t, then we have to leave. Most times I do agree with him, there are not enough girls to faciliate opening, but there is definitely work to be done, and oftentimes, we still stand there and do nothing.
Still, sometimes I just want to chill, get comfortable, and see what happens. He doesn’t drink so this is not an option for him. He is die hard. I admire him for this, I really do. If PUA was an army, he’d be first infantry, right there out on the front lines blasting at whomever, not giving a fuck if he died.
I realize that sitting and chilling is not conducive to PUA, and I think that in some ways I am not cut out to be one. Ultimately, all I really want to do is to be able to talk to females and elicit attraction more often than not. I want to get in touch with my core masculine identity and have a consistent roster of girls that I can get in touch with. A byproduct of this is that I will be able to talk to males and females that I’m not interested in.
Hero thinks this is stupid, he is not trying to befriend guys or ugly girls, he is just trying to fuck hot chicks. Sometimes I think that goes against him, because I feel like there is this weird aura that goes around him, that says, “fuck you, I only want your hot chicks!” Whereas with me, I say, “hey if you’re a cool and don’t smell, we can chill and talk, no problem. If you have hot girls around you though, I MUST talk to them.” I don’t make PUA the end all be all of a night, I just try to have the most fun I think that I can possibly have, and sometimes that is after only talking to maybe one girl.
By the way, I’m not trying to paint Hero as a villain or anything, I am just trying demonstrate how our minds our different in the way we go about things. We started PUA at the same time, and by far he has had the most succeess, no disputing that. Still, I feel that I have to have my own journey, as he has to have HIS own journey.
Hero is actually planning to move to Vegas, which is an idea I planned two years ago. He wants to go there for strictly PUA. Jeffy from RSD says that there is no better place on Earth to open women. My idea was to go there just because I think it would be a unique experience-I don’t think you could anywhere in the world that would be like Las Vegas. At first, I’ll admit, I was jealous and tried to discourage him from making this decision, but shortly into the conversation, I realized my wrongdoing and began encouraging him to make this move in his life.
Seriously, I wish him the best of luck, but Hero is so smart I’m sure he won’t have much of a problem. In a way, I am sad because if he’s gone, and Roommate and Crafton don’t really go out anymore, and King Lear is out of commission most nights because he has a girlfriend, then that means I will be going out solo a lot this summer.
Maybe this will be the kick in the butt that I need!
“We do what we have to do in order to do what we want to do.”- Great Debaters
I have no clue what happened to my post yesterday, and honestly I don’t think there was anything TOO important that I needed to re-write the whole thing today. I will however, incorporate parts from yesterday into today’s post.
I am going to keep the blank post, as a reminder that I DID do something that day, even if the content is myseriously gone.
First, let’s respond to a comment in response to a recent post:
Raba_D writes:
Dude you sound like the pua tylor durden. Relax and drop the porn. Just play the game more. Or you are simply becoming gay.
Well, I don’t think I’m becoming gay.
However, you are absolutely right in that I need to just drop the porn. I decided I woudl stop two days ago (Feb 17) for at least 30 days. It takes around that time to create or break a habit, so I am hoping that the desire will go away after that. It’s funny, whenever I get bored, porn is the first thing I turn to.
Yesterday, I talked about the endgame. I had been watching Heroes, and one of the shows antiheroes/antagonists, Sylar, had been talking about always knowing your outcome before starting something. Sylvester Stallone said the same thing when he was trying to get Rocky produced.
I spent some time visualizing the end game for my own goals:
1.) PUA – Being able to do approach any woman and more often than not, elicit attraction. I see myself at a TOP 40 bar near my house, casually talking to women as if it’s no big deal. The most remarkable thing is my MINDSET, which is devoid of the noise that I usually have when I’m at the bar. I am as calm as I might be if I spent a weekend at a zen retreat. I look to my phone and notice all of the women’s numbers in there, which is such a contrast from a few years ago.
2.) I have finished my rap album, and am now performing here and there at shows locally. The album artwork looks great, and there is even a cool little video on youtube. Every so often, a person I don’t even know tells me that they like my album and I smile about it.
3.) I have applied to grad. school and have been accepted into a Library Science program. The hours are long, but it’s great to have some direction in my life, career wise.
I plan on going out tomorrow, but barring a few events that I really can’t control, I probably won’t have any money. I just checked my bank balance, $3. I do have TONS of food, however. I imagine I will just head to a hipster bar up the street for the night, we’ll see though.
“I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” – Marilyn Monroe
Last Wednesday night, the electricity here went out for a good 18 hours. There were hurricane like winds and I guess shit got blown out.
Obviously, I wasn’t able to post for a day or two. However, even afterward, I was out of the habit, and it’s taken me this long to get back on the horse.
Since we’re looking at the past, let’s look at how the past weekend went:
Thursday
I got bored sitting at home with no electricty, so I went over to King Lear’s. Toegether, we were bored out of our minds and decided that we should take advantage of the relatively good weather and take a stroll across town. He brought his camera and we had an adventure. We saw some people we knew, met some new people, checked out a few lesser known sites of the city, it was all around a good time.
Around 8:45 we headed to the bar.
Nothing of note really happened, outside of TeacherGirl making an appearance. I had met TeacherGirl last week and thought I really hit it off with her, but when I called texted her at the number she gave me later that night, it was the wrong digits.
When she said hello, I didn’t mention the wrong number because maybe I’ve read too many PUA texts and generally they said that would be a bad idea. Still, I had a hard time masking that I was angry at her, so much so that she came back later and said that I seemed angry at her. I told her, “no, not at all.” This was a complete lie, because of course my feelings were hurt. But that was how I WANTED To feel.
It’s hard to put the ego down sometimes. It feels like, no matter how hard I try, I am still very much attached to this world. The point is to stop trying, the enlightened buddhist might say. I am thinking too much.
Anyways, I tried to chat her up, but after like a minute she interrupted and told me she had to go. Very awkward exchange. Part of it is because King Lear was rude to her. The next day I pondered whether she had just been in error in giving me the number or whether she had intentionally given me the wrong number. If the number she typed in was error, then she was probably pissed that I never called.
I guess I’ll never know. If I see her again, I COULD confront her about it, but even if she did, she’d probably deny it, and I’d get the number out of pity.
I am THINKING too much. Fuck, I am a chode. I am going to assume good faith, and if I ever do see her again, tell her that I think she mistyped her number into my phone and that’s why I never called. It’s honest and non-accusatory, I like it.
We went to after hours later and somehow made it like 14 hours of drinking constantly. I had a nice buzz going, but I wasn’t drunk because I didn’t want to repeat last week.
****
Friday:
I didn’t go out on Friday for the second week in a row. It’s hard when you put in Thursdays like that. Not this week though, I am going to do all three days this weekend.
****
Saturday:
I went out by myself.
No one I roll with wanted to go out, and I had stuff to do until around 11-11:30, so I went to a nearby bar where my friends were spinning and they had *gasp* a pudding wrestling competition.
Now, there are a number of a reasons a pudding wrestling competition doesn’t appeal to me. Firstly, I went to college and I was in a frat, so I’ve seen many pudding/jello/plain wrestling competitions in my day. Secondly, in an over-sexualized society where I can see Ava Devine get blasted in her vagina and her asshole at the same time with a few clicks of the mouse, something as tame as a pudding wrestling competition isn’t going to do anything for me. Lastly, I go out to talk to girls, and pudding wrestling didn’t strike me as a place to talk to women.
I stayed until the first round was over then I headed to another bar.
I ran into HipsterGirl at the next bar. HipsterGirl is the one I ate mushrooms with not too long ago. I come in just as her friends are leaving. We talk for awhile about whatever.
She tells me at one point, “I really like hanging out with you…” while staring into my eyes, which would have been any self-respecting man’s invitation for a full makeout session, but nope. I dropped the ball.
We head back to the pudding wrestling because she wants to, but the nights over. I don’t know why I wasted our time. After that, we went to a random house party where she kinda knew the people living there. She started talking to this dude she knew and I felt out of place so I left.
She asked me at one point, “Should I be leaving with you…?”" And I simply said, “No, stay.” I think my ego was bruised at this point because she was paying more attention to this guy than me, but there is this feeling inside me that I just didn’t care if she came back to my place or not. Maybe I am just not attracted to her like that.
Maybe it’s, like I said before, that I was looking more forward to seeing Ava Devine get blasted with two dicks than actually bringing a girl home myself.
Sad.
*****
SO HERE WE ARE AT A NEW WEEK!
Routine-wise, I hope to pick up where last week left off. I have been exercising, meditating, and writing rhymes every morning/afternoon, depdending on when I wake up. I want to add a little running at some point – that’ll happen this weekend and eventually, move my meditation up to 30 minutes. Twenty minutes feels so short!
Most importantly though, I want to put down the porn for a little while. I don’t watch it nearly as much as I used to, but I still feel like it ruins my experiences when I go out. A once a week binge would be good.
The problem is, that I don’t get excited about sex. I get nervous about it, because I am not sure if I’ll be good in bed or not. For porn however, since I am not dependent on anyone, I am totally in control.
Ah, I’m thinking too much again. I need to assume that I’ll always perform well, and enjoy sex as sex. Live in the present moment, motherfucker.
*”Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.” – Arthur Ashe
I was reading through the RSD forum today and came across this very inspiring post. It is about trusting myself to do the things that I want to do. Too often I find myself caught in my head and start thinking negatively in the direction of doubt. Meditation does wonders for eliminating these thoughts.
Sealdan’s post also got me thinking about what I want out of being a PUA:
Some people want the rock-star lifestyle of banging a new hot chick every night. Some people want the ability to get any girl they want… anytime, anywhere, anyplace. Some people just want that one special girl without the feeling of scarcity. Some people want something in between all of this. Some people just want to live a better life overall. Anything is totally fine. No one’s forcing you to live a certain way.
If you don’t know what you want out of life yet, that’s okay. You’ll find it as long as you keep working to do so.
I am not sure about what I particularly want out of being a PUA yet. Aw, who am I kidding, I would LOVE to live a rockstar kind of lifestyle. I imagine it would get old pretty quickly like most things I have aspired to do and done in life, but I would like to have the experience.
I do know that, for as long as I can remember, I have spent a lot of my time daydreaming about myself being perceived as having higher value in social situations. I often come up with some very creative ploy that makes me famous and therefore the talk of the town. When I was in junior high and high school, I did a few outrageous things just to get attention that I am not proud of. These acts often included lies and deceit.
The trick is to be content. That’s not to say that I shouldn’t work towards something better, but to be content with where I am now, and now that I am moving in a positive direction. I have to enjoy the journey, as they say.
*****
I skipped the zendo weekly meditation today, although I meditated in the morning. In fact, I have created a nice little morning routine consisting of: meditation, light exercise (pushups, hip raises, sit ups, and squats), and cooking breakfast. After that, I write down everything I need to accomplish throughout my day and get to it. Usually, I put in work straight through from 12pm-7pm, with minor breaks to check blogs and such. I actually slept through the evening group meditation session. Oh well, there is always next week.
“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” – Woody Allen
Real quick, I am about to pass out here.
I went to see this guy lecture this afternoon, but when I got there, I peeked in, and the room looked full. I quickly walked away and didn’t partake in the lecture. I saw people go in after me, find a seat and sit down.
I felt like a pussy in a lot of ways, I should have just walked in and taken a seat. Instead, I just cowered away like always…
UGH.
I AM GOING TO DO BETTER!
Anyways, I also went out tonight. It was funk and soul night and my man was spinning. This was actually the after party for the guy lecturing. ManOnCouch and I rolled through, the jams were playing, we had a good time. There weren’t many girls there, but the few that were there, approached MOC. Good for him!
I was supposed to meet the Redhead there, but she never showed up. She flaked on me, because she was painting with a friend. I am going to tell her that we are no longer text friends and that she must now call me if she wants to talk to me!
*******
Hero came back from his RSD bootcamp today, he didn’t have as great a time as I hoped. I think, in large part, it’s because his (and my) standards were set to high. He had a bootcamp with Jeffy, and over the couple years I have known him, we have grown to idolize him. Seeing him in person as a human must have stepped him down a notch.
Still, if I had 2,000 to blow, I would take a bootcamp with RSD and no one else. No one else seems even as close to professional!
“Goals are not only absolutely necessary to motivate us. They are essential to really keep us alive.” – Robert Schuller
What a difference a title makes.
These are actually my most popular posts. I’m pretty sure it’s just because of the title, but in reality these posts are just simple goal reviews that I do once or twice a week.
I’d say that the past couple of days have been great for me in terms of productivity. The key to my success is in implementing a morning routine. Every morning for the past week, I have woke up meditated, then eaten breakfast. Three days ago, I added simple exercises to the routine. Two days ago, I decided to try to try and write rhymes for at least an hour everyday.
This was all inspired by Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art.
I use JoesGoals and tick off every little task that I do. It’s great to see nothing but green marks on the screen everyday.
I started using RescueTime to track just where all of my time is going when I’m online. Not surprisingly, most of my time is actually spent reading blogs. However, I find that if I take care of everything I need to BEFORE I check the blogs, then the amount of time is drastically reduced.
It’s these minor tweaks that really help a lot.
Without further ado:
1. Develop Attraction Skills
I got a number this weekend, which brings me up to 4 this year out of 6 weeks overall. Which is good for me since I am pretty sure that I’ve equaled my output for all of last year. The number was a wrong one, so I really shouldn’t count it.
This past Saturday sucked balls in terms of doing what I need to do when I go out. I am no longer going to get a beer until I’ve at least said a sentence to a girl I don’t know. Yeah, let’s apply the success I’ve had getting stuff done at the beginning of the day to PUA.
2. Look for New Job
The truth here is that I am really enjoying not working. Not in the lazy sense, because I keep myself active pretty much all day. I woke up at 10AM today, and worked straight through until about 5PM. Took a nap and took care of some more business. I believe that I should be able to last another month or so living comfortably, so I will probably just do that.
I do not want to go back working for the man. I am going to have to formulate a plan that prevents me from doing that.
3. Better Management of $$$
I was good at saving my money all week, then I went to this Brazillian restaurant on Saturday. This was a once in a lifetime experience, and I figured I should splurge on myself every so often.
Notice that I have whittled down my goals to 3, but have actually added other ones that I previously crossed out? Meditation, write rhymes, and exercise used to all be on my list, and I now do them all daily. It seems that once I let go of some goals that they become something that comes naturally into my life.
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
I got a lot done today.
It was mainly because I was so disgusted at myself yesterday. That is usually a prime motivating factor for me. Sometimes, it’ll go the other way, and I’ll get really depressed and sulk around my house all day.
Hmm… I wonder if I am onto something here.
Let’s take a look at my prime motivating factors:
I find that I’m motivated if I feel that I HAVE to do something, like there is no other alternative. Either I do it or I do it. In these cases, I will constantly try to test the bar as to which I HAVE to do something.
For example, over the years in school, I have constantly tested the bar for how much I had to do just to get by. I was always in gifted classes because my mother insisted that I enroll in them. The classes were never that difficult, they just required extra work. I wouldn’t say that the people I was in the class with were the smartest people per se, but definitely the most motivated. In those classes, I did just enough to get by, if I had to hold a B- just to stay in the class I would.
Or in college, I remember having teachers that said that they would mark off big time if I didn’t hand in a paper, but I would often call their bluff. I would hand in papers sometimes months late. I remember, for my REQUIRED history seminar, handing a paper TWO YEARS late, and getting a B on it, I might add. The only reason the paper got done is because it was a requirement to graduate.
Oftentimes, it is the approval of others that keeps me motivated. I remember, the most I EVER opened PUA-wise was the first weekend I ever went out. I went out with guys from my local lair, and I wanted to impress them SO MUCH. This guy Maverick would point to girls and I would just walk over, embarassing the fuck out of myself, against my better judgement, but because he said to do it, I did it. Later on, when some of the mystique of Maverick was lost, I never opened again.
Depending on other people to motivate me is unhealthy.
Sometimes I sit around and think about how little I am motivated and wonder how I could not be disgusted at myself. I have consistently worked towards a life of non-stress and little responsiblity. I am not even capable of paying my own bills right now.
I will say that my overall organization and motivation has improved over the past two months or so. I can actually look around my room right now and see that it is clean-which, if you were to rewind to a year ago in my life, my whole apartment would be filthy right now. I even just got done washing the dishes!
So there are improvements being made, and often I am quick to brush them aside, but I am hoping that I am slowly, moving in the right direction.
********
Okay, so last night.
There was this new house monthly dance night at a bar near my house, so I rolled with ManOnCouch around 11pm. ManOnCouch has been doing just that, staying at our place, chillin’ on the couch for the past couple of weeks.
MOC is a really great guy and I like chillin’ with dude. MOC is that he’s a bit older (30), doesn’t drink, and generally doesn’t like to go out. Still, he sits at home and is like, “man, I need to be like you Leigh, always hollering at girls!” The dude is pretty charasmatic, and when I ask him why he doesn’t talk to more girls, he always comes up with some excuse that doesn’t matter.
“You think too much!” I always tell him. “You right, you right, Leigh,” he responds.
Excuse wise, he is where I was at two years ago. I would come up with all of these superfluous excuses before finally realizing that it really all comes down to fear. Fear of success, fear of rejection, fear of leaving that nice little comfort zone you have created for yourself.
Now, you see how skewed another persons perception can be of another? Here is a guy that has basically LIVED with me for the past month and thinks that about me. Either he is delusional, or people just assume that the next man is doing better than him.
MOC and I go there, and don’t do SHIT. I mean, we just stand in the corner, and yeah we dance a little, but nothing of consequence. I tried to talk to this 28 year old girl who is married. A few attractive women tried to touch my hair, but I was like, “$2 dollars.” I’m not going to say that anymore because it doesn’t keep the conversation going, just gets weird reactions from females. Instead, I’m going to be like, “only if I can touch your hair first.”
This HOT asian girl wanted to touch my hair, I ran my spiel, then she walked away. I was thinking that if I had approached the situation differently, then something might have happened, but I just can’t rely upon that.
Maybe I should be like… “but for you, one touch is FREE!” Eh, I am thinking too much!
After spending about three hours not talking to girls, we went to after hours, where we continued to strike out and be wallflowers.
There is always a next time. But fuck that shit. Carpe diem!
“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan
I feel melancholy right now.
I could describe what happened tonight, but I would sound like a broken record, repeating the SAME MISTAKES that I’ve been typing about for the past month plus I have been keeping this daily blog. The reality is, that I’ve been repeating this mistake much longer than a month and a half, I have been repeating it since I was 13 years old.
I am talking about the mistake of inaction.
I just don’t know what to do, I go out with the best of intentions, “yeah I’m going to go all out, talk to girls tonight,” but then when I do go out, I sit on the side in fear. This has been the case in the past two years since I read the game and really got into PUA shit, and it was the case since I started going to parties at 18 years old.
The part that really frustrates me, is that I’m not too angry at myself. I always say, “oh, you’ll get ‘em next time.” But I know that next time will probably be much like this time. It’s not that I don’t want this to change, I wouldn’t have started this blog or done a TON of things if I didn’t want it to change, I just don’t know how to stop myself from making the same mistakes over and over again.
I feel horrible. I’ll give a more detailed run down of my night tomorrow. For right now, just know that inaction HAS to stop. It is simply not acceptable anymore. I am going to sit here and maybe cry, but I am going to think of ways to FORCE myself to change, because what I’ve been doing in the past hasn’t worked.
“Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.” – Al Franken
Last night, I got blacked out drunk.
Not good.
The day started off on a good foot. I woke up, meditated, ate breakfast, and accomplished everything I wanted to get done on my list. Earlier in the day, King Lear committed towards going out. Cool.
We took the bus down to the bar and proceeded to drink our faces off. It’s hard drinking with King Lear, he is twice my size and has a much higher tolerance than me.
Still, I managed to talk to this girl for a long time. Teacher was a cute girl, I thought we hit it off pretty well. I opened her by making a funny face at her and telling her to come over to where I was sitting.
I have this thing where I tease girls about stuff and that is my way of being flirtatious. I teased her about being a rich girl that teaches in a rich school district. That didn’t work too well. It’s because I’m being someone that I’m not. When I hang out with my friends, I don’t tease them about dumb shit. I just need to be a nice person. In the end, I got her number, but it ended up being the wrong one. Oh well.
Lesson learned: Numbers really don’t mean shit.
At least I can say that I’ve been consistently getting numbers this year, I have gotten four so far. This surpasses my whole output from last year, so I am proud of myself.
Anyways, we left the bar and went to after hours, the second I entered the door, I blacked out. The next thing I remember is waking up the next day with a blistering headache. Apparently, I told the guy who drove us over that I had forgotten my keys and went out to his car and sat in it until they came out an hour later. His keys were in the car door.
I’m going to have to calm down on the shots when I roll with King Lear.
“I wept because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet” – Persian Proverb.
Ugh, tax time.
I would imagine this would be a happy time for most people, and I thought it would be for me too, except that I just figured out I owe $50. I will probably work it so that I don’t owe any money, since I just did them really fast to get an estimate of what would be happening, but still. I was counting on having a sizable return, but I am going to have to make do. This makes getting a job all the more urgent!
I generally try to do write these posts as the last thing I do before I go to sleep, but on nights when I go to the bar, I’m going to write them before I go out. That’s how I got out of the practice of writing last week-I would come home, I’d be way too tired or busy, and just go to sleep.
Not much to really talk about today, I am going to go out in a couple of hours of course. I am going to read some inspirational material and maybe meditate just to get my mind right before I head out.
Today, I woke up early at 9AM (that’s early for me), ran all of the errands I needed to run, and returned home around 2. I did my taxes, goofed around a little, and here I am. A very productive day. I find that it’s helpful if I write everything down I need to do the day before I do them. After I eat breakfast in the morning, I review all of my plans, maybe cross some things out, or add a few, no big deal.
“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.” – Anonymous
I returned to the zendo today for the first time in a month. I had been meditating daily since Monday, and figured this wouldbe a good time to go back. Of course it was blistering cold outside and the sidewalks were littered with slippery ice. I still trudged onward because I knew that the benefit was greater than the cost.
Before, I used to fret about the opportunity cost of time or whether I was really getting anything out of going to the zendo. I would end up not going and find myself loafing around on the computer for hours on end. Now, I feel like I actually did something with my day.
Before I left, I was reading Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, which gave me motivation.
The sitting was HARD because I hadn’t been there in forever, and my practice at home is only for 20 minutes as opposed to two sittings for 30 minutes. At times, I tried to keep my thoughts from racing. Other times, I simply tried to let go and let them pass. Both gave me the same measure of success.
Afterward, we learned about a man named Kuike who was the credited with bringing Zen Buddhism to China. We are reading the Transmission of Light, which are short stories about the first fifty-three Zen Masters in chronological order.
I enjoyed the story told today about Kuike, a man who was first rejected by the Bodhidharma, but later accepted after he cut off his own arm. Bodhidharma stressed that having an attachment to the body is not desired, and thus Kuike was well on his way to enlightenment.
Kuike was later executed by his government, wrongly accused by an overzealous monk, much in the way Jesus was.
All in all, I am glad I went, and look forward to keeping up with this habit on a weekly basis.
***
Going back to The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, the beginning pages speak of an interesting concept called Resistance.
He says that we all, as humans, have two kinds of lives. The Unlived Life (our potential), and the life that we are actually living. In the middle is Resistance. Pressfield personifies Resistance, calling it evil, and entity that much be fought at all costs. We know that we have succumbed to Resistance when we think about not doing something that we feel that we should do and anxiety or unhappiness begin to manifest themselves.
I haven’t read past Book One, but maybe I’ll talk about it a little more as I get further into the book.
“If you are not making the progress that you would like to make and are capable of making, it is simply because your goals are not clearly defined.” – Paul J. Meyer
Okay, so we’re a month into 2009 now, was January one of the best months of your life?
Let’s take a look at things:
I feel 1000 times better ever since I quit my job, but being unemployed has its own problems. I am not in a negative mindset where I am wondering what the FUCK I am doing with my life anymore. No, I am certainly not nearly as depressed as I once was, but I am constantly wondering where my next meal will come from.
As far as women go, it’s nice having the redhead to talk to everyday, and chillin’ with HipsterGirl every so often. Having multiple girls in my life is unprecedented, but I do feel like I could be doing so much more.
I didn’t meditate nearly as much as I wanted to, but I did consistently write in my blog for the whole month. Having a daily slap in the face is beneficial.
So yes, January was actually a great month for me, but do I feel like I am at the place where I need to be? Absolutely not.
Plus the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl!
Without further ado:
1. Develop Attraction Skills
This past weekend was bad for me. I didn’t accomplish any of the goals I set out for myself. I drank too much on Friday and it affected my mood on both Saturday and Sunday.
This weekend, I am going to cut down on the drinking partly because I just cannot afford to put it in too hard, but also because it is affecting whether I open or not. I have committed to going out three days (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday).
2. Learn How to Drive
I am considering crossing this goal out.
Yesterday, Hero said that it’s pointless for me to learn if I don’t have a car to drive once I get the license. I countered with the belief that once I get the license, I will be more apt to get a car. It’s like the chicken or the egg discussion.
Still, Hero is on vacation this week, so no practice until he gets back. I could ask my friends, but King Lear’s car is broken, and The Roommate… oh, I guess I should be getting at him, shouldn’t I? He is a busy dude, though!
3. Look for New Job
I went hard at this yesterday. Not in the conventional sense, though.
I started researching different avenues by which I can make money online, from the comfort of my own home. It’s not that hard by most accounts but it does take time, patience, and capital.
I have maybe a month before I run out of money and that is not enough time to start earning a sustainable salary, so I am applying for jobs. I have lost the total ambition to go back and work for the man, though.
There HAS to be a light at the end of this tunnel!
4. Better Management of $$$
Sunday through Wednesday I spent a combined total of maybe $40. Thursday through Sunday I spent a good $100.This includes eating out twice on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday I had pre-planned dates, but on Sunday I should have known better.
Still, my bills are paid for the month and I cancelled a few services. Hopefully, once my taxes are filed I should be able to make it through the end of March.
5. Take the GRE
Have not done at all. Embarassing. Better planning is in order.
“It is better to do the wrong thing than to do nothing.” – Winston Churchill
Whoa.
The Super Bowl was crazy.
EVERYTHING was discombobulated because of Super Bowl weekend, which I shouldn’t have let happen, but it did. Better planning is needed.
Let’s start at Thursday:
I went to 80’s night, which I went to by myself. Hero, Spy, and their friend Voodoo who I hadn’t seen in forever showed up later in the evening.
I spent most of the night talking to LeaderGirl, while Hero hollered at her friend, HippieGirl, which he had much more success with than I did. By much more success, I mea he was making out with her on the bench, even as LeaderGirl was like, “no you guys shouldn’t be making out.”
I eventually decided to stop being a pussy and got Leader’s number, but not before she went off and hollered at the bartender later in the night. I texted her a couple times over the weekend, but got no response. I deleted her number from my phone this morning.
Went to after hours and caught up with the old crew. We were pretty much the only people there.
Friday:
Went to the bar with King Lear, but not until late in the night, around midnight.
Somehow, in those two hours, I got wasted drunk, but still hobbled on over to after hours, with Slim, an old friend who was visiting. He started talking to a friend of mine, and I started talking to her friend. I was pretty wasted drunk, but I was still functioning somehow. At some point I blacked out, I didn’t get the girls number, my friends were gone, and the place was closing.
The next Slim said she was pretty homely looking. I checked her out on Facebook only to concur from her main pic, but she looked alright when done up. I befriended her, but haven’t said anything to her, I am still undecided whether I will pursue or not.
Actually, decision made: I won’t. Well, unless I see her in public again.
Saturday:
I was pretty tired from the previous night, but I still went rollerskating. Well, before that I went out for my friends birthday at some vegetarian restaurant. The food sucked. There were some hot girls there, but I was seated at the table with only my friend and the Puerto Rican girl he is seeing now.
I took the bus home, then headed over to rollerskate. I wasn’t in a great mood, and it took me FOREVER to get my skates on. I was inside my head the whole night and basically just watched Slim get his holler on.
PartyGirl and her friends came through later in the night and we hung out, but for the most part this wasn’t a very notable night. Some girl stole the pick out of my hair, but I didn’t find her very attractive, so I wasn’t very amused.
For the third night in a row, I went to after hours.
Sunday
Slim spent the night and we woke up pretty early because we drank a lot of Sparks and were still really wired once the alcohol wore off. Unable to sleep, we watched about half of Casablanca until we tried to sleep again. Later in the day, we linked up with Roommate and went to the bar to catch the Super Bowl.
Nothing notable happened here. There were some really hot girls, but mostly I just watched Slim do his thing. The game was great, but now that I am sitting here and reflecting on the game, it could have been much better.
I don’t know what happened this weekend. All I have to show for it is a less fat-wallet and a few okay nights to opine about. That it, no more drinking until I open at least one set of girls. I mean seriously, at the end of the day, drinking is a very empty activity. Drinking, by itself, doesn’t necessarily equal happiness or even fun. It can ADD ON to fun in certain situations, but many times it doesn’t or even worse, leads to very negative encounters.
I am really PISSED at myself after writing this. I am going to go HARD this coming week!
I just had a goals update two days ago, but in an effort to get back on track, I am going to have another one today.
Remember, I re-did a lot of my goals after reading Leo Babauta’s The Power of Less, and coupled with the short time between the last update, this should be a shorter post.
Without further ado:
1. Develop Attraction Skills
Even though I am unemployed, I haven’t increased my social life because I do not want to spend money. Sure, I can go out and simply not drink which I’ve done in the past, but it will still involve money. This is going to be a longer weekend so I will have ample opportunity to go out.
When I do go out, I will remember to be present, confident, and just an overall fun guy. After all, it’s just talking to girls!
2. Learn How to Drive
We had a snow storm here, so my driving practice was canceled yesterday. I re-scheduled my test for later next month, since the dudes car I’m using will be out of town on the originally scheduled weekend.
3. Look for New Job
Interview on Monday. I’m not too excited about my options right now, though. I’ve been thinking really hard about ways to get myself out of the “entry-level hole.”
4. Better Management of $$$
Being unemployed has me obsessive about being responsible with my money. Any penny that I spend I know stress over. This weekend will be a real test because it’s Super Bowl weekend and I live in Pittsburgh. The *real* test however, will be when I get a steady flow of cash in and stop throwing the money away. I have actually spent exactly less than 30 bucks since Sunday, and half of that went towards paying small bills!
Okay, so I am now going to add one goal and drop two goals:
Add: 5. Take the GRE
Wow, if I ever want to get out of the entry-level hole, this is an absolute necessity. I have full afternoons open to do whatever I want, so being unemployed is a prime time to do this.
Drop: Cut Down on Watching Porn
I changed the way I watch porn and have made it more of a ritual. Now, whenever I think of watching porn I think that it is too much trouble. If I feel I have started watching too much again, I will re-add this goal.
Drop:Write on this blog everyday
I am doing this everyday. Yeah, I missed a day, but that was more because I mis-planned my day. 28 out of 29 days is really really good. Like the porn goal, if I stop posting consistently, I will re-add this goal.
In the end, it feels good to have reduced my goals down to a parse five out of what used to be nine. Hopefully in a months time, I will be able to eliminate two (driving and a new job).
I am working towards accomplishing these goals, I am sure that I will have the best year of my life!
“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” – Buddha
I’m going to spend some time today expounding on my Zen Buddhist beliefs. My interest in Buddhism is very much in the beginning stages, I have read only a handful of books on the subject. I realize for anyone who has been following zen for a long time that I might come off as ignorant, but please bear with me here, I am a work in progress. I do go to the zendo, but have fallen off in recent months.
How I got into Zen Buddhism:
It was all by chance, really.
I was reading Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now and he speaks a great deal about living in the present moment. I had been talking to a friend who told me that is a basic tenet of Buddhist philosophy. She suggested that I also look into meditation.
A couple of months later, I felt like my life was in shambles. My job sucked, I wasn’t making any money, and I was angry all of the time because I had no women in my life. I felt like a waste.
My anger wasn’t going away so I figured I would try out meditation, which I had heard relieves stress. After doing some research about meditation groups in the city, I found out there was one not too far from my house. This meditation group met at a zendo and practiced in the soto zen tradition.
“What the hell is that?” I said to myself.
Being the obsessive researcher that I am, I read all I could about Soto Zen and it’s differences from Rinzai and even the differences between different forms of Buddhism. I listened to Zen Mind Beginners Mind at work and my interest was peaked.
I decided it was time to contact these people at the zendo.
I called them up, and the guy gave me a lesson on how to sit. Then we sat for 30 minutes of zazen, walked around for another 10 minutes (kinhin), then sat for another 30. Afterwards, we read from a chapter of the Transmission of Light, which I didn’t gain too much from.
Beliefs:
I did gain a certain calm from meditation that day. I believe that sitting in a dimly lit area staring at a wall for 30 minutes tends to do that. Or maybe it drives you crazy.
That’s the thing though, any kind of negative feelings I have while sitting-When is this going to end? Is my foot is falling asleep? I need to itch my nose! That is NOT living in the present moment.
In the present moment, the past does not exist, the future does not exist, only the PRESENT exists. Now, my body has no other other choice but to live in the present. When I move, when I breathe, any action I take, is done in the present moment. But our mind is often somewhere else. It is in the past, dwelling on something I forgot to do, or it’s the future, wondering when I’m going to have stable income coming in.
These thoughts are often negative and a waste of time. In the present moment, these problems simply do not exist.
This is why practice is so important, because I am sitting for however long with the sole purpose of trying to live in the present moment. It is a very simple concept to understand, but very difficult to do.
TRULY living in the present moment is an experience I believe I have had a few times, but only fleeting, in a few seconds it was gone. In that time, a great calm came over me, all of my worldly problems went away, whoo it felt great!
That, my friends, is a state of zen.
But it’s important not to practice without expectation, because then it will become harder to achieve zen. Just understand that sitting is enough. Just sitting, no matter how difficult or how frustrating, is a learning experience in and of itself, and should be viewed positively. To think otherwise would bring me further away from my intended goal.
Next time, I’ll expand a bit more on my beliefs, which as I said are a work in progress. I hope that I haven’t offended anyone by this post. As for books I have read or am reading: Essential Zen by Sekkei Harrada is what I am reading now, and I think its’ a great book. I also really enjoyed the Shunryu Suzuki biography, Crooked Cucumber.
I just got done searching for a new job, and while seraching through Monster, what did I find? The job that I applied for a month ago, and had been told by my little birdie inside that I was going to get.
I was sad, but only for a little while.
This could all really be a blessing. I have enough money to survive for a month, maybe even longer. I might even be able to survive on a part-time job if I am smart with my money. In the meantime, I want to start looking for a job that I want to do.
Originally, I quit my job because I HATED the management, but the truth is that I had become bored with my job. Ever since I graduated college I have worked at these meaningless data-entry jobs that have gotten me nowhere. Sure, they paid the bills and allowed me to live comfortably, but they weren’t very fulfilling at the end of the day and oftentimes I’d become depressed.
I have put some thought into the kind of word that I want to do.
First and foremost, I want to go to graduate school to get my masters in Library Science, so that is something I am going to work on in the coming weeks. In the meantime however, I want to work in a library. Libraries don’t pay too much money, and the competition is pretty scarce here, but I think I’m going to volunteer just to fill up my time.
I also have been thinking about working from home.
I have no idea how to go about this, though. I see spam mail all of the time, “EARN $50 dollars a day doing NEXT TO NOTHING!” But I know that is too good to be true. I know that earning money online is going to be hard work and will likely take training of some sort. It’s something I am going to research in my free time during the next couple of days.
I read a good bit of Leo Babauta’s Power of Less today.
He talks about putting the Power of Less into practice through having One Goal. I wrote down a list of goals I would like to accomplish, and picked out the one that was the most important to me.
I want to develop skills that will allow me to become better with women.
He says to pick a goal that will take six months to a year to complete. On average, this goal could take as many as three years to complete. However, I think after a year, I will have had remarkable success if I keep on task.
Now I need to break that one goal into a subgoal. A subgoal is one that I can accomplish in the next month or two.
Conquer Approach Anxiety (for the most part).
Fuck getting laid, fuck getting makeouts, fuck getting numbers even, I am going to just try to not become a nervous wreck whenever I step into a social setting. I will never become successful if I don’t at least do that.
Now I need to break this down into a weekly goal.
Go out three nights per week, and open three different groups of women per night.
It doesn’t matter if I get blown out, or don’t know what to say, or even if they don’t talk to me, I am going to do this until I no longer feel uncomfortable opening women. That is the first step.
Tomorrow, I will write about my three projects.
I know I say a lot of things on this blog and go in a lot of different directions, sometimes unexpectedly, that’s because I am often fickle and confused. I feel myself being pulled in many different directions. Sometimes I feel swamped from it all.
I need to remember to keep things as simple as possible and live in the present moment.
I wasn’t planning on shutting it down completely, but merely moving all of the posts to private status. I had a crisis where I became paranoid that someone I know might happen upon this blog. I also questioned the point of this blog-do I really need to have an anonymous blog? Couldn’t I just do the same thing with a personal journal (which I have) or in a word document?
This is a question I am going have to answer over the next couple of days.
The pros to having a public but anonymous blog this are: 1.) I am stating my goals in a public avenue, so that anyone reading can post here and say, “what the f are you doing?” and 2.) I can get advice from complete strangers.
I really don’t talk too bad about anyone on this blog, so if I were to be found out I don’t think it’d be that big of a deal. It’d be more of an issue about how weird I am!
He talks a good deal about simplifying and putting limitations on what you do in order to be able to accomplish more. Mr. Babauta argues that in a world of multi-tasking, too many people are not getting anything done, because they are trying to get too much done. In the process of trying to get 20 things done at one time, tasks get diluted or abandoned altogether. Focusing on doing a few things and doing them well, is much more effective.
This is exactly my problem.
Therefore, I am going to eliminate some goals from the Best year of My Life list, many of which I plan on coming back to later. Babauta suggests trying to one goal at a time, for 30 days, since it takes 30 days to become a habit.
Without further ado:
Let’s first look at the list of goals overall and see which ones are left or have been amended:
1. Write on this blog everyday
2. Cut down on watching porn 3. Meditate Everyday
4. Exercise/Eat healthy
5. Apply for new job/Graduate School
6. Meet More Women
7. Learn How to Drive 8. Finish Rap Album
9.Better Management of $$$
Leo talks about breaking things down to the essential and non-essential. he suggests breaking things down to one goal at a time, starting with the most important first. If I were to break it down to ONE GOAL that affects me most in my life, it’d be WOMEN.
Not having women, for as long as I can remember, has been the #1 tried and true source of disappointment in my life. Tyler Durden says, “If you do not have women actively in your life, you are failing at one of your core purposes.”
This is not to say that I would like to have wild orgies with 2 or 3 women a night, but I think that having 1 or 2 women that I could spend time with on a regular basis is a highly reasonable goal. In order to be able to do this, I have to learn to be more aggressive and talk to women in public settings. Oftentimes, that means going to the bar, even if I have to go alone.
So, I am going to start with Develop Attraction Skills, renamed from Meet More Women because that isn’t necessarily what I’m trying to do.
1. Deveop Attraction Skills
I had a life first this past weekend.
I hung out with two different girls on consecutive days. One might even go as far as to call them “dates.”
It’s a great feeling, going from so many years of absolutely loneliness to hanging out with two different girls on two different nights.
Still, there is much work to be done.
Now when I was out at the bar, did I make a concerted attempt to meet more women?
No I did not.
My goal, first and foremost, is to get over my approach anxiety, which seems to have taken on a life of its own in my head. In fact, it is a monster that I can picture now, it is purple blob named Bob. I am closing my eyes, and imagining myself pouring cold water over Bob, which makes the blob dissolve and kill Bob.
In my mind, I have conqured approach anxiety. I just need to go out and show the world that I have conquered it.
I am going to go out three times this week. One night will be either tomorrow or Wednesday with Hero. Then probably Thursday and a weekend night. If I don’t open, I DON’T want to kill myself over it. First and foremost, I want to have a GREAT time. It sucks going home depressed as all fuck because I didn’t do what I came out to do in the first place. Hmm… maybe that is why I should open!
2. Learn How to Drive
I have scheduled my drivers test for February 7th, but it will have to be pushed back since Hero will be out of town. I am getting in some practice tomorrow with Hero, and will continue to do so 2-3 times a week until the test. I really already know how to drive, it is just a matter of learning how to parallel, which is kind of hard now since there are all of these snow banks on the road.
3. Look for New Job
A necessity now because I am unemployed. I must say that I am enjoying being unemployed a little more than I’d like to be. Sure it gets boring, . I want to take this time to secure a job in the direction I want to go in-which is library science. However, I am also drawn towards work at home opportunities. This task occupies the waking moments of every weekday now.
4. Better Management of $$$
Budgeting always will be a absolute necessity of mine. I have been budgeting pretty dilligently as of late, especially since I don’t know where my next paycheck will come from.
5. Cut down on watching porn
For years, I thought I was addicted to porn because I spent so much time looking for and watching it- I am talking 3 to 4 hours of my day, easy.
For a long time, I would go through spurts where I would watch a TON of porn, then feel guilty and stop for 2 or 3 days, then go right back into it. This past June, I stopped watching (and masturbating) for over thirty days, before regressing to my old ways.
But now, things are different.
I only allow myself to watch at the end of my day, after everything is done. I have also made watching a ritual. I pick a scene to watch, and I watch the whole scene, usually 30 or 40 minutes. I practice my stalin technique and kegel exercises in the meantime.
Oftentimes, I am too tired to sit down and dedicate 30-40 minutes to porn. Other times, I just don’t have the desire to watch anymore. I think this is due to me having ladies in my life, but also because I would be accountable for it in this blog.
6. Write on this blog everyday
Yeah, I missed a day.
That day was an exception, not the norm, and I have worked hard to keep writing consistently. After missing once, it’s is very easy for me to say to myself, “who cares? I can miss again!”
I believe that posting everyday like this is very beneficial and I will continue to do so throughout the year. Let’s just hope I am not discovered!
A few words about the crossed out tasks.
3. Meditate Everyday
4. Exercise/Eat healthy 5. Graduate School 8. Finish Rap Album
It’d be stupid to say that I have just given up on these goals. I mean, who DOESN’T want to Exercise and Eat Healthy? It’s just that right now, I am focusing on other goals, and when those goals have converted into habits, I will work on these goals.
That’s not to say that if I wake up in the morning, and I feel like I need to meditate, that I won’t do it. What I am saying is that I am going to be the most focused on the six (actually, really four) goals listed above.
“I experiment with things [psychedelics] that are usually an internal experience, because that’s just what excites me. And yes, it does sometimes give me visions…” – Tori Amos
Awwwww…
I missed a day.
But I’m not too mad at myself. I do wish I had lasted a lot longer, but 24 days in a row is a pretty great streak.
I had planned on writing after I got home from the bar last night, but I was busy.
I spent the day on Saturday being a lazy bum. I had meant to go to zazenkai, but for some reason decided against it and instead read some books, watched some wrestling and slept. It’s funny how the cold outside ruins my motivation to do a lot of things.
I almost contemplated not going out, too. It was PartyGirls’ birthday, and the people that were supposed to give me a ride canceled on me, so that meant I would have to take the bus. I did not want to have to take the bus.
Still, it was my good friends birthday, I really had no choice but to go.
I arrived around 10:30pm at the top 40 club. I had a good time overall, saw some people I hadn’t seen in awhile, and acclimated myself to a top 40 club, which I hadn’t been to in awhile. LOADS of fly women that I didn’t talk to.
Around midnight I realized that I didn’t have a ride home and decided to leave. PartyGirl and her boyfriend were leaving too, so I didn’t feel too bad. I caught a taxi home, put some more wrestling on, and went to bed.
While I was in bed, I sent a few texts out to the redhead, and HipsterGirl, a girl that I had a one night stand with back in November, but we have remained friends. She had told me to get at her this weekend, so I sent her a text on a whim, asking if she wanted to head to after hours. She said, “sure.”
I got out of bed, reluctantly I might add, and headed down to the bar, where it was last call. When I got there, she was talking to the door man who is a cool dude. I paid no attention, grabbed a beer and sat down for a little.
After I finished my beer, we headed to after hours. She ran off and talked to some other dude , and I talked to these other girls that I knew. I was pretty nonchalant the whole time, just really enjoying myself.
At this particular after hours, there is always this girl that is totally in love with me and has been ever since college, but I don’t think she is very attractive and she is also engaged to be married. Still, I think that she is a very nice person.
Anyways, HipsterGirl and I link up again at after hours and strike up some conversation. At one point, I tell her that I have mushrooms. She suggeststhat we go back to my place and eat them.
Sure, I say.
Now, I was tipsy when I agreed to make this decision. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best to make-mushrooms are a very serious drug to do, if this girl freaked out, it would have been a TERRIBLE time, not everyone can keep their shit under control like me. After all, I don’t know her that well.
Anyways, I had nothing to worry about, we had a great time.
I didn’t try anything, not because it was weird since we are on mushrooms, but because I have been hesitant these past couple of days-I don’t know what it is. First with the redhead at the theater, and now with HipsterGirl while we are on mushrooms. I’m just going to have to get over this headspace that prevents me from being as good as I’d like to be.
“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, an hour, a day or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it will last forever.” – Lance Armstrong
I am tired right now.
I can barely keep my eyes open.
What’s funny is that I had ample sleep last night and I just woke up from a nap. Still, I am tired.
I actually contemplated forgoing writing this post for sleep, but instead decided to man up and get my writing on. Plus, there were a couple of other pieces of business I needed to attend to.
Wow, I am actually being responsible for once!
Still, this is going to be a shorter post.
Last night, was a good night.
King Lear came over pretty early and together we headed to the bar up the street. No one was there when we got there, which was cool, so we grabbed a few beers and watched the place fill up with people.
I talked to a girl briefly who wasn’t feeling me, but I didn’t care, the redhead would be in attendance tonight. She made her way upstairs a good ways into the night, and we had a great time dancing and making out pretty publicly.
When it was time to go, she accused me of talking to a other girls, which I didn’t think I was doing, although I was pretty damn tanked at the time. I went to the bathroom and she had left by the time I got back.
Maverick thinks this was a shit test.
King Lear and I went to after hours for a little, tried to talk to these three girls, but we didn’t get much progression fromthat.
Anyways, I awoke this morning to a facebook message saying that the redhead had a great time last night. Maybe she is just really insecure about getting it poppin’, I don’t know.
This afternoon we started texting again, and she invited me to go see The Reader, which is a good movie! No making out during this date, but that was moreso on my part, I don’t like PDA’s when I’m not WASTED.
Tomorrow is zazenkai at the zendo. I plan to be there for half of the day. From lunch onwards. They make great food at the zendo for lunch. It’ll be good to get some meditation in.
“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” — Calvin Coolidge
First off, let me say that last night’s premiere of LOST was GREAT! I hope that the rest of this season will keep up the quality of yesterdays episode! If you haven’t checked out that show yet, do yourself a favor and start at the beginning. I can’t say enough about this show, it is my second favorite next to THE WIRE.
Yesterday, I had a driving lesson with Hero.
Hero and I have been friends for over two years now, and I consider him a close friend of mine. We don’t hang out too much depending on what part of the year it is. The reason is that he mainly goes to top 40 clubs, which I like to go to too, except in the winter I decide to go to mainly hipster events. I get bored of too much of any scene after awhile.
Also, when I go out with Hero, it almost always purely to sarge, and in the past I have NEVER opened, so nights out with Hero have tended to be on the dull or disappointing side. I can count so many nights where I have gone out with Hero, and we have just stared at everyone else having a good time. The time moved sooooooo slowly.
Anyways, I can always count on Hero to give me his unabashed advice on anything. Some of his advice I agree with, some of his advice I don’t agree with, and some of his advice I file away and think about later. Yesterday Hero told me, amongst a lot of other things, that I spread myself too thin.
And he was right.
I engage myself in too many activities and in the process, I do a pretty shitty job at all of them. If I consolidated and concentrated on a few goals, then I would have much better success.
To become a master at a task, I must consistently work at it. I haven’t read the book yet, but Malcolm Gladwell often talks about the 10,000 hour rule. In order to become a master I must work at that task for 10,000 hours.
Here is the progress curve of a person achieving mastery looks something like this:
Instead of consistent progress, I often do a task for a little while, get bored of it, then move onto something else. In this way, I have become shitty at a myriad of tasks. Here goes a very common progress curve of me:
Those squiggly lines are the skills I have built slowly going down.
So what can I do about this? How can I break myself from the rut of being a dabbler?
Well, I think I am making great progress towards that by writing in this blog daily. I have been consistently updating for 22 days now, and tracking my progress twice a week. I can’t remember who, but a recurring theme in self-help says that success in one thing will lead to success in other things. So, by keeping consistent with this blog, I will likely become successful in other goals, as well.
So yes, Hero is right when he says that I spread myself too thin. It’s true, in addition to my goals listed in the Best Year of My Life, there are a TON of other leisure activities I engage in. Fantasy Basketball, Travian, my incessant addiction to my Google Reader, comic books, wrestling, the list goes on.
What I need to do is prioritize. First and foremost, I think that the goals listed in the Best Year of My Life are highly doable-many of the tasks don’t require daily practice and even those that do can be reduced.
I think it is also important that if I don’t complete a task, I need to stop kicking myself over it. Oftentimes I start calling myself a failure because I haven’t completed x activity. Also, I have this tendency to go out on a whim and sign myself up for stuff I know that I have no time to do. I have gotten better in the past year, but improvement still needs to be made. Instead of adding tasks, I need to start cutting tasks.
I am going out tonight with King Lear. The redhead also told me she will be there, although she did cancel on our date last night. My goal is to first and foremost, have a good time, but also to shut the fuck up, be a man, and talk to some stranger girls.
“If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.” – Barack Obama
First, some thoughts about yesterday.
Yesterday was a historic moment in our nation’s history. While I don’t think Barack Obama will the savior that many people are looking for, I do think that he will be a more effective president than the man we had in office for the past eight years.
Furthermore, it is hard to ignore the symbolic value of Barack’s presidency-he has broken down what might be considered the final color barrier for minorities in America. Does that mean he has single handedly ended racism? No, racism or discrimination for that matter will always exist in a ego-fueled society. Barack Obama has pereservered in spite these barriers. I think that is very powerful and inspiring.
I am disheartened when I hear or read about people who say that they could care less about what happened. Yesterday was one of the most remarkable events of our lifetime, whether you agree with the mans views or not. His middle name is “Hussein” for crying out loud. It goes to show, that no matter the odds, no matter the, if you have the will, YOU WILL SUCCEED.
David Wygant has a very inspiring video related to yesterdays inauguration:
Onto the goals update.
Without further ado:
I realized yesterday that in following my New Deal Plan, it makes more sense to have daily, weekly, and overall goals. I am going to list my weekly goals here at the beginning of every week.
- Find a new job – It looks like the job that I thought I had gotten has fallen through.
- Finish song.
Overall goals:
1. Write on this blog everyday
21 days and counting, no stops. There have been a few close calls, but honestly I really like writing this blog everyday. It is therapeutic, and helps me get my thoughts in order.
2. Cut down on watching porn
I am surprised that this is going so well. I have cut down IMMENSELY on my porn watching, and have even skipped days. Having women in my life helps cut down on this a lot. Also, I have made watching porn much more of a ritual-I watch one full scene, and practice my Stalin technique throughout. It is much more of a practice of restraint than pleasure.
3. Meditate Everyday
I am on a once a week average with meditation. I meditated yesterday but was interrupted by my Father calling, I actually thought it was the alarm sounding to end the session. Tonight, I plan to return to the zendo depending on when my date with the redhead is. I will probably miss out on the Transmission of Light reading, but I am not sure that I get much out of these readings.
4. Exercise/Eat healthy
The Hamburger Helper is gone, so my eating is a lot healthier. I have been splurging on KFC every Sunday, but I think that will end once football is over. This morning I had a chicken salad, which is probably what I will also have for dinner.
I have to save the money for the gym membership because I am now unemployed. Although, a few pushups and sit ups to start my day wouldn’t be bad.
I need to come up with a morning routine!
5. Apply for new job/Graduate School
Applying for new jobs is now a necessity since I am unemployed and have no money saved. I made a rash decision to quit my job and am now dealing with the consequences. I made an appointment with a temp agency for Monday, but what I’ve been doing for the past couple of years.
I am going to start working on grad. school apps starting today.
6. Meet More Women
I fell off pretty bad this weekend. Thursday I didn’t do anything, Friday I was embarassed by the redhead, Saturday I didn’t do anything, and even on Sunday I was introverted. I am in a slump right now. Too much inside my head.
This weekend will be different, mainly because I will be cutting down on the alcohol since I am now broke. But I will also be returning to the top 40 clubs, which I haven’t really gone to since the fall started. I am just going to have to step up, be a man, and not be outcome dependent.
7. Learn How to Drive
Going out to practice with Hero in about an hour or so. Will schedule test in the next week or two. Since I am unemployed, there is daylight, which means there is time to practice!
8. Finish Rap Album
I finished a verse yesterday, I just have to fix it up. A good hour a day or so will help. I really enjoy writing, it’s stupid that I don’t do it more often!
9.Better Management of $$$
This has me pretty nervous right now. I have no steady stream of income coming in as of today (my last paycheck was received). I have enough to pay my bills and enough food to last until the middle of next month, but my social life will suffer dearly. I am confident I can whether this storm and make better decisions in the future.
“You know… I don’t think my father would approve of me dating the undead, and you’re probably too nice a zombie-pirate for me anyway. Let’s just be friends instead.” – Elaine Barley in The Curse of Monkey Island
I went out last night.
My roommate, his ex-girlfriend and I went to see Notorious. A good, but not great, movie. I love this quote that Diddy says to B.I.G:
“In order to change the world, we have to change ourselves.”
Indeed.
On the way home, my roommate dropped me off at the bar where I met up with PartyGirl and PghGirl.
Party, Pgh and I were a team this past summer. We worked together, ate lunch together and went to the bar together. This past fall, Party and I found new jobs and everyone drifted apart. These two can be fun to hang out with, they are a refeshing change from the majority of my friends, because they are not intellectuals and don’t go to hipster events. They are attractive, girly girls that like to dress up and go to the club.
It was $1 Taco night at the bar we were at and I ate four. We were at the bar basically alone so there were no girls to talk to. Instead, I just caught up with those two, whom I hadn’t talked to in a long time. As we were leaving, the girl that PartyGirl’s boyfriend sees on the side walked into the bar. PartyGirl is a really melodramatic person and started freaking out. I found the whole situation funny, nothing happened, though.
I caught a ride with PghGirl as we moved onto a more ritzy bar where PartyGirl’s boyfriend was spinning. It was pretty empty there, too. It was a Monday night, after all. Nothing too eventful happened as we didn’t stay long. I was back home by 12:30am.
Both girls had this revelation about me, they said that I am much nicer and relaxed now because I am getting laid. I have a more positive demeanor than usual. This was funny, because I’m not getting laid right now, but I guess the prospect of having ladies in my life when there usually are none puts me in a much more positive mood.
I had been texting the redhead throughout the whole night. We had patched things up after the debacle on Friday when she was out of control. She thinks that a guy spiked her drink that night and that’s why she acted so erratically. While I certainly won’t rule out of the possiblity of her drink being spiked, I often think that girls use that as a cop out because they can’t hold their liquor. I don’t know redhead all too well though, so a spiked drink may have very well been the case.
During our texting, I have been trying to build things up sexually, but it’s not working. After Friday’s debacle, and me ignoring her on Saturday, something was lost between her and I. It seems much more like a friendship than two people who want to get together and fuck. I don’t know what to do about it. This always happens to me!
Part of me wants to place her down in my priority list, keep her as a friend, if she wants to hang out, then fine. There are sooo many other girls out there. The other part of me wants to get real aggressive and give her an ultimatum, either we start taking things sexually, or we stop talking altogether.
I know that the latter option is not me right now. I am just not that forthright and would begin to feel guilty if things went bad. Remember how I said I wasn’t talking to her after Friday night for awhile? Well I got drunk on Saturday night and started texting her again.
There was another girl I met two months ago where the same thing happened. I took HipsterGirl home the same night I met her at the bar, but unfortunately my penis decided to go into hibernation. We have remained in the friends zone ever since. On New Years eve, she was part of the drunk texting rampage that I went on, but thought all of the messages I sent were funny. I invited HipsterGirl to an MLK day event yesterday, but she declined because she didn’t want to take the bus with me.
So, when I do get up the courage to meet girls, I am STILL not aggressive enough and get thrown into the friends zone. Do you see how much a lack of self-confidence can hamper success in a person’s life? This is all very frustrating, to know what I have to do, but still not do it, just because of my brain.
You have no physical handicaps. You have only mental handicaps. You are allowing a weak mind – and your fears and insecurities – to dominate your life. You’re not willing to communicate with people because you’re not willing to push yourself the extra distance.
Geez. that cuts right to the bone. I am going to have to write that somewhere so it’ll be the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.
Right now, if I were to rate how I treat myself on a scale of 1 to a million bucks, I think $50 would be accurate right now. This needs to STOP and it’s frustrating because I am not sure that I know how!
Since I went out last night, no goals update today, but there will be tomorrow.
“Tell me what company you keep and I’ll tell you what you are.” – Miguel de Cervantes
Yesterday, I woke up inexplicably early, ate some food, and took care of business all before football started at 3 PM. Seeing as I only had about 5 hours of sleep, I thought I would need a nap, but that was not the case.
Instead, I watched the Cardinals beat the Eagles (YEAH!), and then the Steelers beat the Ravens (FUCK YEAH, here we go!). Our friend, we’ll call him Lanky, came over to watch the Steelers game. He was tripping on acid and already pretty drunk. Some alarms went off in my head once he told me that, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt, because I am a chill guy when I am on acid.
This guy however, was pretty damn ignorant. Lots of yelling and screaming, which is normal because we are in Pittsburgh and it was a close game for the most part. But this guy, his yelling and screaming was filled with lots of “YEAH NIGGA’S,” (he’s Black) towards white people, which weirded them out. He also told a lot of stories about “fucking bitches,” that I really didn’t care for. At first, he was kind of funny in a “let’s laugh at him” kind of way, but later on it was more like, “when will this guy shut up?”
At one point Lanky punched our Christmas tree, which we should have taken down awhile ago. He was making fun of us about it, and we were in turn teasing him about being angry about a Christmas Tree, then he got pissed and punched it. Not necessary at all.
After the game, he downed a good bit of our Smirnoff liquor. I didn’t know it at the time, but it’s not like I would have told him “no,” either. He starts yelling, “let’s go to the bar!” But no one wanted to go with him. My roommate and the other dude that was with us felt more like chillin’ so they stayed put, but not before Lanky tried to physically move them off of the couch.
I had already planned on going out, but I was hoping that I wasn’t going out with him. I should have, from the get go, told him that I really didn’t feel like going out with him, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
I have this whole theory on not doing something because I don’t want to hurt someones feelings, I think it’s actually the opposite, the action is actually not done because I don’t want to hurt my own ego.I want to be able to say that I did or didn’t do x or y for this person, rather than just doing what I feel. Still, there is the emotion of compassion to factor in. I really didn’t care if Lanky liked me or not, I should have just been honest.
Instead, Lanky and I walked to the bar. It’d be about a thirty minute walk since neither of us drive. Lanky, having just downed a sizable bit of alcohol, is SUPER belligerent. He is walking down the middle of the street, yelling, “GO STEELERS,” but if the person doesn’t answer or tells him to get out of the way, because he is in the middle of the STREET after all, he’d respond, “FUCK YOU NIGGA!”
At one point, we see this guy who is all decked out in Steelers gear, and he has two terrible towels. When he approaches us, he’s like “HELL YEAH GUYS!” He was being as nice as can be. Lanky, however, immediately went for this guys terrible towel, and tried to snatch it off of him. The guy yelled “NO, that’s mine!” Lanky, in turn says, “I want to have it!” The two go on to have an argument that turned into a snatching contest. I shook my head and continued walking.
A few moments later, I look back and there he is running to catch up to me, “Yo, LEIGH, wait up!”
Sigh…
Not too long after we started walking again, Lanky started yelling all kinds of random shit. He would even do this like, war cry where his face started shaking. Then he tried to punch the glass out of an advertisement display in a bus shelter. He was really buggin’.
Later on, he was yelling his random shit, and then this older black guy approaches him:
Older guy: “Yo, I’m with you black man.”
Lanky: “Hell yeah!”
Older guy: “Yo, let’s roll on some niggas, straight up rob ‘em!”
Lanky declined, but it’s at this point I decided that I’m not hanging with him anymore. He was negative and attracting negative people toward him. I told Lanky, that I wasn’t rolling with him anymore. He didn’t want to hear it, he just said, “Leigh, fuck that, let’s go!” We started walking some more, he’s in the street yelling at whomever, then finally I just stopped. I didn’t do anything, I just stopped, dead in my tracks.
Lanky hadn’t even noticed that I stopped walking with him and strolled down the street.
Whew…
The thing with Lanky is, that he used to actually be a very mild-mannered person. Lately however, this is a theory that my roommate proposed and one that I agree with, he has gotten it into his head that he does not fit into the black stereotype enough and has therefore gone overboard in trying to adhere to it. Nowadays, it seems like he goes out of his way to be ignorant, using lots of “niggas” and bitches” when he didn’t before, and being on some ‘I will fuck somebody up if they step to me’ type deal.
I remember at some point during the game, he said to me, “I love you Leigh, but we’re like two different people.” I didn’t even ask him to clarify, because I knew what he was saying. I am not “niggerish” enough, I have gotten it my whole life.
Ugh, as you can see I’m still pissed off about this, and I carried these negative emotions with me when I finally made it to the bar.
I get to the bar, and I see King Lear making out with this girl he’s been seeing. He is not even letting up for air. I don’t want to be around his smooch-fest so I go downstairs. I see this guy, South American, who buys me a beer.
South American is a guy who I thought was my friend many years ago. Then he had sex with my ex-girlfriend (The One) a week after we broke up, impregnated her, then left me to pick up the pieces. South American has a reputation for being a VERY violent individual, so whooping his ass was not an option.
Everyone that knows him tells this story about how he cut a mans eye out for hitting his mother. This was back in his home country.
I tried to be cordial to South American. Partly because I don’t like beefing with people, but also because he’s pretty scary. He told me this long story about how he was jumped outside of the same bar we were at one year ago by six dudes. He didn’t have any other options and had his knives with him (he’s a cook), so he went to town. He cut this one guy on his arm and he had to go get 47 stitches. Wild.
South Americans trial is this week so naturally he was a little nervous about the situation. I guess talking to me about it was therapeutic for him, I don’t know. Maybe he was trying to scare me so I wouldn’t retaliate on him for doing my ex-girlfriend like that.
I didn’t stay too long at the bar because I was suddenly not in a good mood. I did manage to go upstairs and say hi to King Lear. I pulled him away from sucking face long enough to have a brief conversation with him while his girl went to the bathroom. After all that, I walked back home, watched some porn, then passed out. I hadn’t had much sleep the previous night and it felt good.
On the way home, I thought about how I am surrounded by crazy motherfuckers in my life, and what does that say about me? This is by far not the majority of my friends, but I do think they fill a certain void for me personality-wise. I think that, deep down inside, I admire these people, because they do things that I would be afraid to do.
I remember, maybe a month ago, King Lear and I were at the bar, and this guy BLATANTLY cut me in line for the bathroom. He’s taking a piss, and I’m talking to him like, “yo, you just cut me in line!” The guy says, “no I didn’t!” He keeps taking his piss. King Lear interjects, “actually, you did,” but he’s not paying attention, he’s washing his hands.
There was nothing I could do at that point, he was already pissing. I felt like getting in his face, and being like, “yo, you WILL respect me!” But instead, I just let him go. Afterwards, King Lear says to me, “I would have whipped out my dick and pissed on HIM!” and I am sure he would have.
People treat me like this because I have a lack of self-confidence. Therefore, I allow this shit to come into my life. If I was assertive, and shoved the guy that cut me out of the way as I went to the toilet, there would have been no issue. Not even a need for a fight. I feel like I am constantly stepped and picked on and just wish it would stop.
Guys like King Lear, South American, and Lanky, I admire them because they have balls. I don’t think they make good life decisions, but the fact that they are so confident and unafraid of everything makes me look up to them, and that’s why I hang around them.
“He who procrastinates, masturbates.” – Unsourced.
Last night was a bad night.
If Friday was a good night because of my actions, then tonight was exactly the opposite. Nothing bad happened, in fact nothing really happened at all.
It was the monthly hip hop night at the bar we went to. Our good friend was deejaying so we got in for free. We stepped in and no one was there, which was to be expected because it was snowing pretty badly outside.
We actually skipped a good friends birthday party at another bar in order to go to this DJ night. We had originally planned to get started earlier so we could go to both, but that just didn’t happen. I hope she isn’t too disappointed in us!
I was already pretty drunk when I got to the bar. I had pregamed a bit too hard. When it was time to go to the bar I was actually passed out on my bed, telling my roommate that I wasn’t going out. I quickly changed my mind, grabbed my jacket and headed out the door.
The bar was pretty barren for a little while, but then a decently sized crowd amassed out of nowhere. No one was dancing, though.
I was pretty drunk and feeling the music so, I just started dancing by myself alone on the dance floor. Some people followed suit, and it eventually became pretty packed. I felt pretty proud of myself at that point.
That would be the most noteworthy thing I did all night.
The rest of the night wasn’t very noteworthy. I just danced by myself, eyefucked a lot of girls, but never actually pursued any. There were a few that in retrospect I could have easily talked to and danced with, but I got nervous and chickened out. I remember, at one point, standing next to this circle of black girls, and getting the feeling in my heart of nervousness that I get when I am about to do something, but then I chickened out. I remember being totally in my head during that whole period, trying to rationalize to myself why I SHOULDN’T talk to these girls, I just needed an excuse to make myself feel better.
In contrast, I looked at my friend, Crafton, who was doing his thing. Crafton is a total ham, he always has to be at the center of attention. He was approaching every single girl in the bar, doing a little dance or whatever. My other friend said he was on a mission to creep every girl out. Well, if he was trying to creep girls out, then he was doing a terribly bad job, because a lot of girls were feeling him. When we went to leave, we saw him outside brushing the snow off of this girls car. I haven’t talked to him yet, here’s hoping he had a threesome.
So, that night is over.
I can’t dwell on it, I can only learn from my inaction and do better next time. It’s funny, because for as long as I can remember, I have had success staring me RIGHT in the face, and what have I done? Everything in my power to prevent myself from succeeding. It’s really a fucked up way to live a life.
I need to be more present, I need to get over this fear of rejection, I need to basically stop being a pussy.
“I like to do my principal research in bars, where people are more likely to tell the truth or, at least, lie less convincingly than they do in briefings and books. “- P.J. O’Rourke
Last night was a good night.
It was nearing party time, and I really had no plans to go out. It was like one degree outside and I felt perfectly comfortable chillin’ in my apartment. My friend, Maverick, had been wanting me to roll with him, but like last week I flaked him off.
Instead, the redhead from Wednesday started on a text messaging/calling frenzy around 9pm. Originally she had told me she was busy and that we should hang out tomorrow, but now she wanted me to come meet her at the bar.
I shrugged and said, “okay.”
I wasn’t doing anything but watching a Ken Burns documentary, so I quickly got dressed, ate some pasta-tuna salad and caught a cab down to the bar she was at.
HAHA! I am laughing just thinking about the events that transpired at the bar.
I arrive at the bar, and the redhead, as soon as she sees me pulls me away into a corner. She is WASTED! We start making out. I think it’s suspicious that she would do such a thing, and I ask her, “yo, are you here with someone else? It’s totally cool if you are, I can leave, no problem.”
I have been in these situations before and can smell them a mile away. She says, “no, I’m not here with anyone else.” I trust her, we make out some more then I go to meet her friends. She is there with two dudes and a girl. One guy has been married for five years and lives in San Francisco. Still, he is trying to hit on the girl in the group, even though as he puts it “she is a DYKE!” His words not mine. We will call him the “adulterer.”
The other guy is this taller, skinny guy that has really low self-esteem. I can tell as soon as I meet him. I quickly guess that she is there with him. I grab a beer and I think about it some more, and I come up with the assumption that this guy doesn’t have many options in his life, but she uses him as the permanent second option. She gets with other guys in his face, and he does nothing about it, just hopes that she will come home with him in the end.
I am getting weird looks throughout the bar, and yes the situation is awkward, but it’s still early and I figure I’ll buy a ticket to this shit show until around 11 or 12 at which point I’ll move on.
After awhile, the redhead goes into the bathroom with the Lesbian for a LONG time, maybe 30 minutes. In the meantime, I take shots of yager with the Adulterer and the Hanger-On.
The Hanger-On and Adulterer work at the same job, except the Adulterer commutes once a month. The Hanger-On could do the same, but he keeps saying that he is not good at his job, he is only there because he is able to fool people that he does a good job. This guy is more pathetic than I thought. At one point I say to the Hanger-On, “man if she doesn’t come back soon, I am going to start talking to other girls!” He quietly responds, “yeah you should!”
During the break, I ask one of the workers there who is also my friend to get me some information on the redhead. Later on in the night he comes back and says, “yeah, i talked to the bar manager and she was going out with Hanger-On heavy in the summer, but now she gets with other guys right in front of her face. But right now, she is making out with the one girl in the bathroom. I guess she’s just a freak!”
He pats me on the shoulder and says, “the night is young, my friend.”
Indeed, it is.
The pair come out of the bathroom, the Hanger-On sticks a tongue in the redheads ear, she pulls away, she pulls me aside, we make out some more.
The adulterer gets ready to go, and so does the Lesbian. They leave separately. Not long after, the Hanger-On decides to leave, but I really think he is bringing the car around. The neighborhood we’re in is notoriously difficult to park in.
I figure this is my shot to make it plainfully obvious that I am trying to have sex. I tell her that we are going back to her place, we are going to watch a movie and have fun. She says “no, I barely even know you.” She keeps talking about meeting up tomorrow, and I tell her “maybe,” but at this point, I am more like, “fuck this girl.” She is getting up to leave anyways, so I finish my beer first. I look out the window to see Hanger-On picking her up. I was right!
The night is still young, as my friend said.
It’s 1 degree outside, I call King Lear and he says that he’s at a bar nearer to my house. I tell him that I’ll meet him there. Except on my way there, I take a wrong turn and end up getting lost for the next TWO HOURS in the freezing cold. That is no exaggeration my friends, TWO HOURS! There were points when I could not move a muscle on my face!
At one point, I actually walked through a graveyard which was fine until about halfway through, when I realized I was walking through a graveyard. I instantly became paranoid and scared, the woods in the distance became houses for all kinds of derelicts, in my imagination.
I tried to call my friends, but none of them were answering.
Why I didn’t just go meet Maverick at a nearby bar, I don’t know.
I finally make it home and it’s past 2 AM-all of the bars are closed. I could go to after hours, but I am not up for it at this point. I tried to take a shower, but the cold water in our bathroom was off. I think the pipe froze from the cold! The only option was to take a boiling hot shower. Instead, I treated it like it was a sauna and sat in the steamy bathroom.
Tangent: Does your dick shrivel up when it’s really cold? I have a pretty nice sized penis, but it was smaller than I had ever seen it after being out in the cold! I started to become scared that this was permanent!
After I warmed up a bit, I put on some porn, but again I just wasn’t interested. I finally went to sleep.
Now why did I say this was a good night? As far as the events of the night were concerned this was a terribly SHITTY night. Seriously, I can’t even remember the last time I had a night worse than this.
Well my friends, it was a good night because of my reactions. In the past, when I would have figured out she was there with another dude, I would have been shattered. I would have flipped out on her and acted like a total idiot. Instead, I was like this is pretty funny and it’s early, I’ll stick around for this, then head somewhere else.
Also, during the long walk, I probably would have had suicidal thoughts. I remember, after having an eerily similar situation a year ago, I was so drunk and so sad, that I walked down the middle of a road, yelling for “THE WORLD TO TAKE ME!” all the meanwhile bawling crying. I am lucky I didn’t die then.
The redhead messaged me at 8AM this morning: “WHAT happened last night?” HAHA! She knows, she just doesn’t want to admit it!
I will probably talk to her again, but not for awhile-probably not today. After all, I do want to get laid. I just don’t want to deal with bullshit like last night. I honestly don’t care if she dates other dudes, I just don’t want her to see other dudes when she is supposed to be meeting up with me. I think that is common sense. Any chance for a relationship is over at this point, I will just keep it casual. I also won’t go out of my way for her anymore.
Man, I am really proud that I didn’t flip out last night! FUCK YEAH!
“Mission is at the heart of what you do as a team. Goals are merely steps to its achievement. Mission has an eternal quality. Goals are time bound and once achieved, are replaced by others.” - Patrick Dixon
It’s Friday. I had the day off because I was fired yesterday. It hasn’t been the most productive day, although I did get some things done. A lot of it was spent texting Red from Wednesday.
Without further ado:
1. Write on this blog everyday
Haven’t missed a day yet, sixteen and counting. There have been a few that I have technically finished the next day, like after midnight, but I am going to count it as the same day as long as it’s finished before I go to sleep.
It takes me a lot less time to write these posts now, and I think that I am improving grammar-wise. Hopefully, there aren’t any tense shifts in my posts anymore.
Good job!
2.Stop Watching Porn Cut down on watching porn
I amended this goal a little bit- I have simply cut down on my watching, only at the end of the day after I have accomplished all of my tasks. Doing this has actually made me lose the zest I once had to watch porn. There were two days this week where I didn’t watch any porn at all. Even last night, I put some on, and just wasn’t feeling it, so I turned it off.
I think that the reason I watch porn is because I have self-esteem issues. The times when I go off on some crazy binge and download and watch nothing but porn all day are when I feel the worst about myself. Conversely, when I have women in my life, and I feel that I am accomplishing things, it is the first thing that goes out the door. I know that it’s bad to use women as validation, but that isn’t necessarily the case with me. I find that I stop watching as much porn if I simply OPEN and talk to women, no matter if I get played or not.
3. Meditate Everyday
I meditated once this week, and it was a bad experience.
I was very anxious throughout the whole sitting, wondering when it was going to end. I didn’t even last the full 30 minutes. Instead of going to zazen at the zendo this week, I went on the date with the redhead.
It’s not that I don’t want to meditate, but when I get home I think about all of the things I have to do and meditation is always the first thing cut out. Meditation has a TON of benefits for me, I am going to make it more of a priority.
When I get home from work, I am going to meditate, even if I am hungry.
4. Exercise/Eat healthy
I have the $$$ for the membership to the gym, but since I got fired prematurely, I am going to have to save that money.
I ate the last of the hamburger helper this week, too. I told myself, when the last box is done, no more of that for you. I made some pasta tuna salad which has lasted me a couple of days!
5. Apply for new job/Graduate School
It looks like that new job is falling through, so I am going to get on the ball with this very soon. I will call the temp. agency on Monday and start applying for permanent jobs next week.
As far as graduate school, no movement on that front. I need to make a plan of recommendations and get ready to write the best acceptance letter ever. I am afraid of failing, that’s why I haven’t done this yet.
6. Meet More Women
Met the redhead last Saturday, and talked to a few more girls that night, but I did nothing last night. I need to write down my goals for each specific night in my notepad before I go out, just like PUA Sinn says.
Honestly, I really like the redhead. There aren’t too many girls that I can get along with on an intellectual level. It might be cool to get serious with this girl. I don’t know, I’ll have to see how it goes. Part of me thinks that this is a cop out to stop sarging. I am conflicted.
7. Learn How to Drive
No progress here this week, although if I’m not working next week, getting some practice in during the day could certainly be helpful. I’ll have to schedule a test in the very near future.
8. Finish Rap Album
I wrote a little today, but not enough to finish a song. I hope to complete a song either tomorrow or Sunday. I want to complete one song per week.
9.Better Management of $$$
Much better on this front this week, I stuck to my budget and didn’t spend too much eating out. Getting fired changes things though, I am going to have to conserve and cut things out until I get something steady.
I am sure that this will be the best year of my life.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not a single act, but a habit.” - Aristotle
So, I got fired today.
When I got to work, my boss had given everyone else work to do except for me. I knew something was up. I confronted my boss about it, he said “yeah, you’re probably going to get fired today.”
Cool.
I was down about it during the afternoon, but by the end of the day, I was okay with it. After all, I had put in my two weeks just a few days ago. Granted, the people I was dealing with were very unprofessional, but it’s all water under the bridge at this point. I would soon be done with them forever.
But being fired leaves me in a place of uncertainty.
I haven’t gotten that job, and am not sure if I am going to get it now. My little birdy that works there says it is a paperwork issue. If that job doesn’t work out, I can go work temporary jobs, I’ll wait a few more days before I try that out.
Shit, I might even go to Obama’s inauguration in the meantime!
Now that I have written about it, the situation doesn’t seem that bad.
Moving on…
I am a huge fan of Google Apps. One app that I have used in the past and am going to implement a lot more is Google Notebook. Anytime there is a blog post that I feel could be of some use to me later, I copy and paste the information into Google Notebook. I have TONS of PUA and self-improvement articles pasted there for later viewing. Lately, I have been posting recipes to make in the future.
I actually went through my Google Notebook tonight and cleaned out a lot of garbage. It’s amazing to see the kind of blogs that I thought would be important to me a year ago as opposed to right now. I am now able to sift through the bullshit a lot easier.
Tonight I went to a quasi-rave.
I know that I should save my Thursday night post for Friday, but this night was pretty uneventful-I will post my goals update tomorrow, instead.
I went to the quasi-rave because it was my friend, Youngun’s, birthday.
Youngun is a girl that hollered at ME two years ago, and although things didn’t work out, we have remained friends ever since. She was my first girl after The One, and was very helpful in helping me get over her.
Initially, I didn’t want to go, it was COLD outside 9 degrees to be exact, right now it’s -1 degrees. WOW! Instead, I trekked down the street in this cold weather, I thought I was going to be frozen alive!
When I got there, I was surprised, it was pretty crowded there! Lot of hot hipster girls to talk to.
I didn’t talk to any.
I did talk to Laura for a good bit, who was PLASTERED off of her ass, and another Asian girl that I remembered from another bar, but that’s about it. Most of the girls had left within 30 minutes of me getting there, but that is still no excuse.
I did have a good time, I can’t complain, but I am disappointed in myself. I should have opened some girls. I am going to have to dedicate some time on my off-day to my approach anxiety. I need to get rid of this the best that I can!
A note on the blog title. I was listening to the Frankie Beverly and Maze song as I edited the post this morning and felt that it’d be very fitting.
“I will not have my kids call themselves dating anyone, or doing any activity that would remotely resemble what this generation calls dating. To what end would they do that? What would be the purpose? So they can fornicate?” – Shirley from the Most Hated Family in America
Tonight was a good night.
First, let me show you this very inspirational video. Don’t read any further until you’ve seen it in its entirety. It almost brought me to tears!
I went on my date with the redhead tonight.
I didn’t know if it was going to happen-I messaged her late in the day, and she said that she would probably be working until 10PM, and would not be able to make it. There was also a huge snow storm going on amidst all of this. When I got home, I planned my night as if it were one that would be spent indoors.
Around 7PM she said she would be able to make it at our originally scheduled time of 9PM.
Oh shit!
I quickly made some dinner, got ready, cleaned my room, then hiked in the snow for 40 minutes to make it to the bar. It normally doesn’t take that long, but when people don’t shovel their sidewalks, it takes a bit longer.
I get there, she messages me that she’s going to be late, I drink half of a beer, and there she is.
Damn, she looks better than I remembered.
Well dressed, young, cute face, pretty red hair, man I was impressed. We started talking, and quickly realized we had a LOT in common. She is really into Buddhism, ithe liberal side of politics, OH and she watches a TV show called the Wire, which is my favorite show of ALL-TIME!
We got decently drunk, and towards the end of the night, I leaned in for a kiss. I don’t remember the specifics, but we made for a bit.
Man, she was really cute.
This is my problem with doing PUA stuff, I meet a girl and I am like, “yo, that’s the one!” It’s even different this time, because I DO have other options, she is just currently the best one.
There won’t be any chance for a relationship though, because she is moving away this summer. This is a good thing because I can continue to develop my PUA skills.
Here is where I faltered: I didn’t build enough attraction to have her invite me back to her house. I needed to be more aggressive and express intent MUCH earlier in the conversation, but like always, I got nervous and didn’t want to lose what I had.
No attachments in 2009.
Anyways, we are going to hang out sometime soon. Hell, we might even go to the inauguration.
“When you change the way you look at things the things you look at change.” – Wayne Dyer
Today, David Wygant posted a blog about thanking the universe. He asks:
“For what are all of you thankful every day? Do you wake up feeling positive? Do you wake up really embracing life? Do you wake up thanking the universe? If you do, amazing things will happen to you every single day.”
This morning, the answer to all of these questions was “no.” In fact, I loathed getting out my bed only to walk around my cold apartment and get ready for a job that I did not want to go to.
I went to work and found myself in a negative mood, staring at the computer screen, my depression killing my motivation. The work was too monotonous, the pay was way too low, and my boss was a snake. I sulked for a good hour.
After awhile, I remembered that I have two options to get out of a negative situation. I can…
Accept the situation fully.
or
Get out of the situation completely.
So, I quit my job.
Well, I gave my two weeks notice.
Do I have another job lined up? I think I do, but it’s not for sure. I’ve talked about the job a couple of times on this blog. If I don’t, I’ll just go back to the temp. agency and get another job. Life is too short to be dealing with bullshit like the Bank.
Once I sent out my letter of resignation, it was like a load had been lifted off of my shoulders. All of the sudden I was smiling and jovial. I had solved a major source of strife in my life!
But there was still a question that Mr. Wygant asked that I haven’t answered.
For what are all of you thankful every day?
I am thankful that I am able to make decisions like the one I made today. I am not in the best financial situation, but I am able to live on very little money. Also, I can find temporary jobs pretty quickly with my computer skills.
However, I don’t expect the situation to come to that. I am going to get the job I interviewed for.
At one point during the morning, when I was really sulking-I mean really on the brink of having a breakdown, I had this daydream. I was standing on sidewalk, looking across a two way street to the opposite sidewalk, and beyond that on a building wall was a sign that read:
Relax, it’s cool.
I smiled and calmed down a bit. When put into perspective, my job wasn’t that bad, and even still, I always had the option of quitting, which is exactly what I did. Oftentimes, I find myself freaking out about shit that really DOES NOT MATTER. Take the past two years of approach anxiety, for instance.
Tomorrow I have a date.
It’s with the redhead I met on Saturday. I hadn’t texted her since Sunday but she seemed receptive when I messaged her tonight. It went something like this:
Me: What are we doing tomorrow?
Her: We have plans for tomorrow?
Me: Of course we do. We’re going to wine night.
Her: Yeah? That sounds like fun what time…
It went on from there…
I am pretty proud of the interaction, I portrayed myself as confident and to the point. I stated my intent, “I want to go out with you,” right from the beginning. I didn’t beat around the bush, I didn’t ask her any questions, I basically held her hand.
My goal with the date tomorrow is to have as much fun as possible. The redhead, she seems pretty laid back and cool, so. Plus, there will be wine involved, so any nervousness that she or I might have will be eliminated soon enough through drunkeness.
I’ll let you guys know how it goes in one or two posts from now.
In the meantime, be sure to check out David Wygant’s blog. The guy, according to PUA Thundercat, is as close to Hitch as it gets in the community. He targets the older crowd of gentlemen and up until recently, he has eschewed bootcamps for more personal one on one help. He also helps women find men. His blog is filled with not just PUA tips, but also philosophical insights, which are very much in alignment with my own views. He updates his blog daily, so be sure to check him out.
When I arrived home from work today, I sat for the first time in a week.
It was hard.
Whenever I sit at home, I get this nagging feeling that I have set my alarm incorrectly and that I’ve been sitting for too long. This stems from an actual time when I sat for 50 minutes because I mis-set my alarm.
As such, every so often I will stop meditating TWO minutes before my scheduled 30 minute goal. There are times when I get disappointed with myself for stopping early, “why couldn’t you just stick it out for TWO more minutes???” I would scream at myself, but this does no good. Today, when I stopped early, I told myself that I was thankful to have lasted 28 minutes, and that next time the full 30 would be well within my grasp.
When I sit at home, I sit on my bed and stare at a wall. I don’t have the space for a zafu and zabuton, so I make do. When I go to zazen at the zendo, it makes for an uncomfortable hour because I am not used to sitting in seiza position. Oftentimes, my foot will fall asleep.
I learned long ago not to expect anything out of my practice. If my mind wanders, I simply let it wander. I know that if I start thinking thoughts like, “no I should not be thinking about that, I shouldn’t be thinking about anything!” It will lead me down a path of frustration. My practice is a much more enjoyable experience this way. It is filled with brief periods of what I would consider to be no-mind, I lose consciousness of everything-to the point of when I come to, I am startled and have to remind myself where I am. It is like waking up from a sleep but in actuality, I was wide wide awake.
When I was practicing on a daily basis, I started encountering very brief periods where I felt light headed, and was overcome by a tingling sensation. The word “calm” is the best way to describe my emotion in these situations. It’s like I understood or maybe even no longer cared about all of the problems and issues in my life. Even if just for a second…
A guy at my zendo said that as I practice more, I will begin to add new things onto my practice. I don’t know what he meant then, but after that experience, I think I have at least a cursory understanding.
There are also times when I practice that I find myself fighting off sleep. I implore myself to struggle through these times. I try to concentrate on my breathing. Slow, deep, breaths…
More often than not however, I skip meditating altogether. The usual reason is that it is taking up to much time during my day. I simply have too much to do. It’s at these times I forget how beneficial sitting can be for me. First, you mental benefits that doing an acivity consistently brings, but when you meditate, you also, at its most basic level, have a 30 minute reprieve from the world. Your problems, they are out there, in the world. When you sit, all you have are your thoughts. Nothing more.
“…And if I had the chance, I’d ask the world to dance, I was dancing with myself… oh oh uh-oh!” – Billy Idol
Last night, for lack of a better word, was strange.
A shit show, even.
It started at 7PM. People started coming over my house to watch the playoff game and start drinking. This was incredibly early to start, even for us, but because everyone had it in their mind that it was time to start drinking, who was I to say no?
We had a case of Yuengling, and after Baltimore won, King Lear and I watched The Professional before heading out to the bar.
It is now 10PM.
Before we leave, we notice the police parked in the street outside of our apartment. As we are going to King Lear’s car the cop stops us and says, “don’t leave yet, you’re getting a ticket for parking on the sidewalk.” We looked at Lear’s car-it was crooked and parked WELL on the sidewalk. It had been snowing the past two days, and I live on a hill, King Lear had originally parked the car on the sidewalk, but the car slipped, turned to the right, and there we have what looked like a botched parking job.
And so began our weird night.
King Lear had just gotten paid, so he took it upon himself to get us tanked tonight. Upon arrival, we order a Las Vegas Bomb, which is what we normally do, but that was followed by a vodka bomb no more than 15 minutes later.
Oh my, this would be a messy one.
I told Lear to slow down, as I didn’t want to black out tonight. I ended up talking to this one girl who was sitting next to me at the bar, but she was already there with a guy. Plus I didn’t find her attractive.
At one point I sat next to a guy that was more enamored with the Cardinals blowout than the bar. We struck up a conversation, and somehow he got into telling me about his addiction to cocaine. “I have lost friends, my job, gone into debt, everything because of cocaine.” I nodded my head, I didn’t know what to say.
This poor guy, when he realizes that we can get cocaine rather easily, is like can you guys get me an 8-ball? We tell him, “no, we can’t. We’re not going to do that to you.” Then he starts to rationalize to us the reasons why he’d be okay if we got it for him. We insist on telling him no. When he won’t stop, I tell him that he’d have to pay 3x the price for it. That got him to go away pretty quickly.
My thoughts on cocaine and drugs in general is this: when done in moderation there is nothing wrong with doing drugs. They can be fun when used responsibly. When done in excess however, drugs, cocaine especially, quickly become a problem, and this is what happened to our poor guy. I personally don’t care for cocaine all too much. I am more the kind of guy that likes to eat mushrooms and gain some perspective on the world.
The poor guy also told us he can get other pills like adderall, but we shove him off. Yeah, you and everybody else on the planet, buddy.
Later, I talked to a teacher and her friend, who actually worked at a place I used to work. Both of these girls were REALLY cute. I opened by saying, “…and I’ll take a lemon drop, thank you.” The girl actually got the lemon drop. I graciously say thank you, but I tell her that I didn’t really want it. We strike up a good conversation, but once again, I can’t hold the line. No sexual intent, no nothing. Conversation without intent means that you are a dancing monkey.
My roommate and other friends arrive on the scene.
We goof around for a little bit. We play some music on the jukebox, then drink a LOT more to the point where I would say I am pretty wasted. King Lear, on the other hand, is slurring his words, which I’ve NEVER seen him do before. He is a pretty big guy that can throw down with the best of them. He must have been off taking shots when I wasn’t around.
Two black girls are waiting for a drink and I talk to them. One of them pulls the afro pick out of my blazer. “How did you know it was there?” I asked her. She says, “I just know.” Nothing really happens there. They walk off five minutes later. Again, a dancing monkey.
PartyGirl and her friend also come through.
PartyGirl is my best friend that’s a girl. I used to work with her and she dates one of my friends. She is really cool and likes to go out a lot. She is hot and all of her friends are hot-I mean the kind of girls that date professional football players.
Our ever expanding group continues to goof around. My roommate tries to holler at PartyGirl’s friend. He also has a black girl that he talked to like two weeks ago on the other side of the bar. My roommate, who is also my best friend, is the man. He doesn’t really try to get women, but always seems to have pretty hot ones around. I wouldn’t say he’s a cassanova, but he does pretty well for himself.
The teacher and her friend, probably after seeing me talking to Party Girl say hello from across the bar. My social value has gone up. I don’t do anything with it, though.
At the end of the night, I start talking to a redhead and get her number. She actually opened me, she said that she liked my dancing and the fact that I always looked like I was having a good time. I messaged her a few times later that night, but I didn’t cut it off soon enough. She stopped messaging me after awhile. Fuck. Maybe I was too needy?
I messaged her a bit during the football game, she seemed pretty receptive. Sometimes being a Dancing Monkey has its advantages!
Still, at the end of the night, I felt disappointed in myself. Mostly this was because I was drunk. I need to stop being outcome dependent. I also need to meditate consistently, this vastly lessens any outbursts 0f anger or sadness I might have, even while drinking.
I know I said I was going to go out tonight, but when I woke up tonight, I made the decision that I would take it easy. I would much rather have a good night of rest, take care of some stuff around the apartment, and arrive to work in good condition tomororw. I might make it out on Tuesday, I haven’t decided yet.
So what are my sticking points?
- Need to set the sexual intent early in the conversation.
- Need to not be outcome depdendent. Need to curb outbursts of sadness and anger-meditation will help.
“People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals— that is, goals that do not inspire them.” – Anthony Robbins
I didn’t go out last night.
I had originally planned to, but after being out until 5:30 AM the night before and then going to work at 9 AM, I was just too exhausted to do it. A two hour nap after work didn’t cut it-plus King Lear cancelled on me.
Instead, I turned on the space heater, put on Ken Burns’ The Civil War, and tried to stay awake as long as I possibly could before finally dozing off.
So, today will be my very first goals update. I know I wanted to have the update for Mondays and Thursdays, but I think I will actually go out tomorrow night and have a field report for that night.
I have revised or even abandoned some of my previously stated goals, and added some new ones.
Without further ado:
1. Write on this blog everyday
So far so good. I haven’t missed a day thus far. Having a place to write down my thoughts and reflect has been immensely helpful to me. At first I had some concern that I would run out of things to write, but so far that hasn’t been the case. I actually have a few topics to pull out on rainy days.
This goal goes in tandem with my intention of carrying my notepad with me wherever I go. Having a notepad is great for jotting down thoughts, or things I need to remember to do later.
2. Stop Watching Porn
Quite simply, I don’t think this will happen because I don’t want it to. The main reason I want to stop watching is because I had been spending too much time finding good porn. All this week, I have watched porn only as a reward for getting everything I need to get done.
As far as porn ruining my sex life, I think that’s mostly it’s a problem with the technique I use to masturbate. For the porn I have been watching, I have been practicing the stalin method pretty regularly-masturbating until near climax and then going soft. It’s weird because I have been watching full scenes of porn for the first time in my life. Before, I would skip ahead to the missionary position, whack off, and be done within five minutes. Now I spend a good 30 minutes at the end of my night, wind down, and watch about 30 mins. of a scene. It helps me sleep at night.
3. Meditate Everyday
I fell off on this goal. I meditated twice on Monday and that is it. I want to start waking up early and meditating to start my day, but when I wake up late, this is the first thing to get nixed.
I will make a more concerned effort for this task starting tomorrow.
4. Exercise/Eat healthy
I have yet to start my exercise regiment because I don’t have the $$$ for the gym membership. I have been researching recipes this week, and even made pasta-tuna salad this week. I am not sure I am going to go back to the 5x a day eating schedule, but three hearty meals plus a milkshake or two will definitely be beneficial to me. It will just take some planning.
5. Apply for new job/Graduate School
Well, according to the girl who works there, the job I want is in the bag. They haven’t made an offer yet, but I am hoping on Monday they will seal the deal. If not, I will go back to sending cover letters/resumes out, at least 1/day.
As far as graduate school goes, I should take the GRE, although it’s not required to get into the program here. Last year, I had half an application in, this year, I will put the full one in. DOPE.
6. Meet More Women
Well, on Thursday I went out and opened more than I have ever remembered. I am going out tonight and have a continuation of my glorious Thursday night.
7. Learn How to Drive
I want to take care of this goal before March. I need to get at Hero and schedule some time with him. I will do that tomorrow. I will also schedule my test for sometime at the end of the month or early February.
8. Finish Rap Album
I didn’t work on this at all this week-this week was really busy with that assignment I had and applying for the new job, but I made a pledge to myself that I will finish a song a week this year. This will be incredibly difficult at the beginning, because I am a slow writer, but eventually it will take me no more than a few hours to write a complete song.
9.Better Management of $$$
I started out this week afraid I had overdrafted my account. I had spent a lot of money over the new years weekend. It turns out that I didn’t overdraft and actually had money to spare. Still, it will be better for my mental health if I avoid those situations.
Earlier this week, I planned out my budget through the end of March. This budget will ostensibly change very soon as I get a new job that pays a significant amount more money. I look forward to being able to pay my college loans, and start chipping away at debt.
And there you have it, my goals. I am very excited about all of them, and am actually surprised because I am doing better than I usually would be doing, mostly in thanks to this blog, which reminds me of them every day. 2009, has been a great year thus far, outside of one very drunken night.
I am sure this is going to be the best year of my life.
They’re not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? [whispers in a raspy voice] – - Carpe – - hear it? – - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary. – Dead Poets Society
Last night was a good night. I had a lot of fun. I was more social and talked to more strangers than quite possibly ever before in my life.
I walked down to the bar alone. It was Thursday and I was going to eighties night for the second week in a row. I was pretty excited, last week was a lot of fun, but this not was their two year anniversary, and to celebrate they wouldn’t be closing until 7AM. Of course, I had to work the next day at 9AM, but that never stopped me before.
Plus, I was hoping to see Leader there. I had a good time dancing with her last week. She was really cute, too.
The night began slowly.
I walked in, grabbed a beer, surveyed the place, did a lot of dawdling. Finished my beer (a Pabst pounder), then grabbed another one and sat at the bar. After that got boring, I walked out to the dance floor and became a wallflower, watching everyone dance to 80’s hits like “Sunglasses at Night” and “Dancin’ with Myself.”
All of the sudden, this hot, tall, redhead grabbed me out to the dance floor. This is a girl that King Lear and I had talked to before at another bar. She yells, “I REMEMBER YOU!” when we’re out on the dance floor. “Yes, I remember you, too,” I replied.
I personally believe there is very little difference between a hipster party and a top 40 party. Once you get past the music and the clothing, the people are pretty much the same. The one striking difference is this, there really isn’t any grinding at hipster parties. Instead, it’s usually a bunch of people in a circle dancing. No touching, no nothing.
Not saying there is nothing wrong with this, but it gets boring very quickly. I should have grabbed the redhead, spun her around and started dancing with her. Instead, I danced in the circle for two songs, then went to sit at the bar. Damn, she was sexy, too.
While walking to the back of the bar, I caught Leader out of the corner of my eye. She is talking with Plain Guy from last week. I acted like I didn’t see her and walked to the back. In the back, I see her one friend, who is also really cute and a friend I hadn’t seen before.
Enter Hero and Spy.
Hero and Spy are two of my best friends. I actually met them through our local lair. We go out sarging a lot, although not in recent months because I have fallen off. Hero gives me a hug and three of us start catching up. They tell me they’ve been here for little while and that they love 80’s night (they’d never been there before). I was surprised because these guys usually eschew most hipster parties I bring them to.
Right in the middle of our conversation, I see Leader’s friend, I jump right out of the conversation and tap her on the shoulder.
“Remember me?”
A bad thing to say, according to most PUA texts. You never want to supplicate, it’s putting the ball in the females court. Natural Tim would say that you can say anything as long as there is core masculine intent behind it. In honesty, I just wasn’t thinking. I should have just walked over and started talking like I already knew she’d remember me.
“Yes, I remember you,” She says.
I introduced myself to her friend, Kansas, who coincidentally had just moved back here from Kansas. We talked for a long while about Kathleen Sebelius and other intellectual endeavors-”dorky stuff” in her words, before she was pulled back to the dance floor.
Ah, that felt good!
I stepped outside of my comfort zone and even though it was a warm approach, it felt like a load had been LIFTED off my shoulders.
That set the tone for the rest of the night.
Part of this was precipitated from the good response I had from Kansas, but admittedly it was also sparked by the alcohol kicking in. Either way, I was on fire. I danced with another redhead, she wasn’t really cute, and kept looking down when she danced. I told her to look up when she danced.
I saw these two girls, one fat the other cute, texting on their cell phones on the dance floor no less. I pulled out my cell phone, walked over to them and said, “can I join your club?” they said, “what club?” “your cell phone text messaging club!” then I noticed the bigger girls cell phone and said, “WAIT A MINUTE!” we both had the same cell phone.
I need to remember to talk louder. Speak from my diaphragm. Speak as if the person were 10 feet further away from where they actually are. I want to minimize the “what?” that I keep getting!
Another girl and I stood waiting for a beer, I asked her what she was buying me to drink? She said, that I should buy her a drink because she is a girl. I said, well if you cook and clean barefoot pregnant in the kitchen then I will gladly buy you a drink. She laughed and we continued our conversation for a bit, until this one girl, CrazyB interrupted us.
CrazyB is a girl I have known for many years, we went to college together and have many mutual friends. I think that she is cute in a very weird way. She is also fucking nuts. Hero and Spy actually lived with her for a year and contend that she had sex with her brother multiple times while there. She is a quasi friend of my ex-girlfriend (The One) and asked me if she was crazy, because she stopped talking to her. I said, “no, I don’t think she is crazy, but I think you are.” The girl I was talking to had moved away.
I would love to hate-fuck CrazyB. Otherwise I don’t care for her.
The real star of the night was Leader. She spent the early night dancing with Plain Guy from the week before. I did like Kansas a bit more on an intellectual tip, but even though I was being more aggressive in my talking, I just wasn’t being as aggressive in my pursuance of her.
Core masculine intent, gotta remember this stuff. Write it down on my notepad, dammit!
I danced away the night until 5:30 AM, dancing with the unattractive redhead who looked down, Leader, and Kansas. Leader and I grinded a whole lot, but she kept pulling away because there weren’t that many people around. I called her, “miss self conscious” and teased her a lot about it. I also goofed around with Hero and Spy a lot.
In the end, Leader said her goodbye, and inferred that we should meet up sometime, but my naive ass missed the intent from a mile away. She left, maybe to never be seen again. Leader said she won’t be around next week, and I probably won’t go there either. It’s good to take a break from places. I will probably go to a top 40 night instead.
What did I learn tonight? Carpe Noctum, motherfuckers.
“If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.” – Albert Einstein
Angry.
That is the emotion that best describes me right now.
I am angry because I have just come to the realization that I have been shitted on.
My current job is a bad work environment. The team I am on is under constant pressure to meet goals that are unattainable and as a result we CONSTANTLY have our jobs threatened. We live in fear that any one of us can get axed at any time.
I work as a contractor in the IT department of a bank.
The whole team I am on is contracted outside of the head manager. My boss, a lower level manager, is also a contractor. My boss told us two or three weeks ago that we should begin looking for positions elsewhere.
So what did I do? I looked for positions elsewhere.
Last week, I had a job interview, it went well. I was basically told that if my references checked out, the job was mine. This week, I pull my boss aside, and I talk to him. My boss tells me that he has been applying for other positions. I figure that’s the green light to tell him-I had an interview last week, and there’s a good chance I might get hired, the new place might be calling you. He says, “cool, congratulations.”
The next day, I get a call from my contractor: “I hear you’re leaving. We’re really surprised, why would you want to do us like that?”
This motherfucker told my contractor.
I tell my contractor that while it’s true I don’t like my job, I am a man of integrity and if I were to get another position, I would give two weeks notice. I am not here to shit on anyone!
The next day, my boss talks to a co-worker and says, “oh, we don’t know about him, he’s thinking about leaving, we’re going to have to go in a different direction.”
What?
I thought we were ALL going in different directions?
But wait, there is more!
I happen to talk to other members of my team about their salary. It turns out that EVERYONE makes significantly more $$$ than me, TO DO THE SAME JOB!
It isn’t about age (there is someone younger), it isn’t about experience (I am pretty experienced), it’s not even about skills (we all do the same job, and I am actually more technically inclined than anyone), it’s about me being a damned sucker and not standing up for myself.
I want to scream at my boss for not having the common courtesy to keep shit to himself. I want to scream at my contractor rep. for treating me like a sucker. I left a decent job to come to the shithole I work at now, and this is how I get treated?
But I can’t be too angry, do you know why?
Because all of this is my fault.
It’s my fault for leaving my last job to go to the new one. It’s my fault for not asking for more money and sticking firm to an amount that I would be comfortable with. It’s my fault for trusting my boss who I thought was a friend, but in all reality, I don’t know him well at all.
Sometimes, things don’t work out the way I planned and there’s nothing I can do about it. I have to take my lumps as they come and move on. I have to let the anger I feel inside pass, writing about it makes me feel a lot better.
I will enjoy my remaining days at this job the best I can, and then move onto the next job (*knocks on wood*). I will learn from my mistakes: I won’t be so trusting, and I will be more aggressive when it comes to salary matters.
On a more positive note, I am about to head to the bar.
It is 80’s night, but this one is a little special because it’s their 2-year anniversary. It’s supposed to go ALL NIGHT! I can just imagine myself now, stumbling out of there at 6AM, only to shower, eat some breakfast and be at work at 9pm.
Hurts me just thinking about it!
My goal when I go out tonight is to have fun. I want to talk to girls, I want to dance with girls, but overall I want to fun while like listening to dope music.I am a hip hop guy and I like to get some variety in my life whenever I can.
I need to do a goals review soon on this blog. I actually should get on a regular schedule to review them. The Thursday and Monday posts sound like good days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be dominated by field reports, so bookending my weekends with goals reviews sounds good to me.
“Try to be happy in this present moment, and put not off being so to a time to come,—as though that time should be of another make from this, which has already come and is ours.” – Fuller
I should be at the zendo right now, meditating.
Instead, I am here at the computer, writing this blog.
I started off well intentioned. I get paid on Wednesday, and I have NO food in my refrigerator. I wanted to avoid eating out for lunch tomorrow so I ran to the supermarket after work. It’d be closed after zazen and study ended. When I got home, I had maybe 15 minutes to unpack the groceries, get ready then run down to the zendo.
That wasn’t happening.
I could have been late, but being late for zazen is plain rude. Walking through the zendo, setting down my zafu and zabuton and getting myself situated, it made no sense.
There will be next week.
Next week, I will plan my grocery shopping for the day before or after. It’s all a matter of working out the kinks.
Just like the tortoise, I will prevail in the end.
Since I’m home now, I can work on that assignment that I’d been meaning to do for the past couple of days.
I want to talk about some ideas in things I read or listened to in the past couple of days
A recent post on Erika Awakening’s blog, Awakening from the Dream, talks about overcoming emotions:
In an ever-shifting world, how do we keep our inner game rock solid? The best way I have found is paying attention to my feelings, literally moment to moment.
This is also a concept that Eckhart Tolle features pretty prominently in The Power of Now. Once I become aware that I am experiencing a negative emotion, I will become detached from it and easily get over that negative emotion.
At the zendo, we often have philosophical discussions, and someone will always say, “it’s okay to be angry, but it is important to just let that emotion pass through you, do not let it linger, let it pass through you.” This is exactly the same thing.
It is important not to identify with negative emotions, to not let them become a part of you. Sometimes I will hear people sometimes refer to themselves and say that they are “an angry person,” which they don’t realize is something that they choose to be!
I bring all of this up because today I was at work talking on chat with this one guy who was fired maybe two weeks ago. I was bitching about my job to this dude. I was pretty riled up at the time. Then, at one point, I took a step back and was like, “whoa, I am pretty angry right now, and there is no need to be.” I apologized, changed the subject, and felt 10x better!
When experiencing a negative situation or emotion, there are two things to do:
1.) Change the situation.
2.) Accept the situation fully.
In the case of my job, I have to accept the situation fully, because I simply cannot afford to stand up and quit. I am applying for other jobs and am pretty close to getting one as we speak.
Today, I was listening to David DeAngelo’s Man Transformation (can you tell that I love this guy??? Mancrush!) and heard this affirmation:
“Happiness is right here, right now.”
…which perfectly sums up the ideas I have just expressed. There is no, “I can’t wait until…” NO! Happiness is in what I am doing right here and right now. If I am not experiencing happiness, then I must either change the situation or accept it fully. The trick is to remember this when in a heated moment. Man, I should get a poster with that affirmation put right on my wall! My friends are going to think I am some weird self-help geek, but whatever!
Other notes:
- Notice how I started using the first person instead of second in this post. That is a topic for a whole OTHER post, my friends! Until tomorrow!
- If you haven’t already, check out Erika Awakening’s blog, Awakening from the Dream. She has some good articles for the PUA’s out there, from a females perspective, along with some insights on A Course in Miracles, which sounds interesting. Remember what David DeAngelo said about fully understanding another person?
“To be nice, I sacrifice things like no sleep…” – Canibus
I went to bed at 2:30 AM last night.
I usually like to go to bed a little earlier, 12-12:30 at the latest, but there was so much stuff to do that I didn’t make it until then.
This led to me waking up at 8AM this morning.
I thought I could make it up bright and early this morning, I even set my alarm for thirty minutes EARLIER, but no, I got into that nasty habit of turning my alarm off. All of the sudden it was 8:10 and I hadn’t gotten out of bed, yet.
Getting out of bed in my cold apartment was not fun. I kept telling myself, “oh just stay under the covers a little longer!”
I didn’t have much to eat during the day. I had bought a steak and potatoes pizza on Sunday but didn’t realize I only had one slice left and no money for lunch. By the time I got home from work I was exhausted and hungry.
I skipped meditation, ate some dinner and here I am writing this post, trying to make the best of the rest of my night.
Here goes an already used quote: “Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.”
I read Zen Habit’s Leo Babauta’s blog about becoming an early riser and got some good pointers. It has become apparent that this will not be a goal attained automatically, but slowly over time. As long as I keep hacking away at this blog daily, I will be reminded of the destination and keep trudging forward.
Tomorrow is zazen at the zendo, I will be sure to make it there. Gotta remember to set aside some good socks, no one likes sitting and smelly stinky socks!
More of David DeAngelo’s Man Transformation today at work. Nothing really of note on the third disc outside of an extended debate between audience members on whether a man should have try to have sex with a girl as soon as possible, or should he wait to have a lasting relationship?
The actual point of the debate was for the two audience members to actually understand what they were saying. Too often we get caught up in our opinions and don’t try to understand opposite points of view.
Now that I think about it, it’s actually a great point to make. I know that I often get caught up in my own opinion and don’t try to understand where others are coming from.
Another reason for the exercise might be that the reason some men don’t have the success they want with women is because they don’t try to understand women-they have very limited contact with females and therefore base their whole perception on either that limited contact, or the hypersexualized image they see in the media.
Anyways, this kid made an affirmation in the third disc, and I am going to make the same here on my blog.
“I take 100% responsibility for EVERYTHING in my life!”
“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” - Christopher Reeve
I started the day off on a good foot.
I woke up, I took a shower, I meditated for 20 minutes, I ate breakfast, I checked a few things online that I can’t check at work, then headed out the door promptly at 8:30am.
I trudged through my day at work, anxiously hopeful that this might be one of my last days at the Bank. I had a job interview last week at a company I worked for. It’s for more money and permanent (I am currently working temp.). I would absolutely LOVE to have this job. I am still waiting to hear back from.
I got home, I meditated for 30 minutes, I put laundry in the washer, I ate some dinner, then headed to my computer. There was an assignment that I wanted to take care of, it’d take a solid 3-4 hours online to complete. Instead, I found myself putting out one fire after another. I thought the domain name for my website had expired (not this website), so I’m on the phone with Yahoo! customer service. I had also just been interviewed by a website and wanted to spread the word. Instead, I come home to find my website is down.
That takes a good hour of my time to fix.
Then, I went to fill out an application and survey for the aforementioned job. This took doubly longer than I thought it would. What should have been maybe a 30 minute task took about 2 hours. I chalked it up to the difficulty of working with Microsoft Word tables, and my total desire to get this job. I’m actually going to leave a little earlier tomorrow so I can get to the library early and fax the application off.
Needless to say, the assignment isn’t getting done tonight, it will have to wait until tomorrow. No worries.
I spent the day at work listening to David D’Angelo’s Man Transformation on my ipod.
I’m only two discs into this set and have already heard a wealth of knowledge.
I have heard David D’Angelo seminars in the past, and was turned off by the esoteric knowledge he spewed throughout. His past programs seemed like they were just random utterances of whatever he was thinking at the time. Not organized at all.
Man Transformation however, is entirely different. First off, it is not strictly about meeting women, it is about improving your life as a whole. Secondly, the first two disc’s were three hours dedicated to discussing the boundaries that prevent us from achieving our goals.
David talks a lot about how there are some of us that, no matter what we do, will find it incredibly different to achieve our goals. He says that these people have problems finding the reason that will enable them to do “whatever it takes” to achieve that goal. You know how some people will go to the doctor and the doctor will say, “if you don’t stop doing x within one year, you will die?” Well, according to David D’Angelo, NINE OUT OF TEN people will simply not stop doing the thing that will kill them! So even in matters of death, many people are not motivated to make the change that will better their lives!
For a very well written article about pretty much the same concept, read Tyler’s post about the “loudness” of your “inner voice,” over at the RSD blog.
David proposes some solutions to rectify these problems. The one that resonated with me the most was called, “inevitability.” How can we make success inevitable? “What is the best way to climb a fence if you’re scared?” David asked. “By throwing our hat over the fence, then you HAVE to go get your HAT!”
With inevitability we set conditions that will make it so that we HAVE to achieve the goal.
An alcoholic steps into the doctors office and says, “Hey doc, I can’t stop drinking, what do I do?”
The doctor says, “Eh, keep drinking. But now, if you want to get a drink, you have to walk five miles across town to the bar, and then walk five miles back.”
The guy says, “okay, I can do that.”
And maybe, for a day or two he does it, but if he lives in Pittsburgh and it’s the winter, he probably doesn’t last very long. He is maybe at his house, bundling up, getting ready to go out into the cold, then says to himself, “aww, that just ain’t worth it. I’m staying inside.” He eventually ends up quitting.
The point here is to set conditions that you personally would HATE to go through. One person at the seminar swore that he would eat dog food if he didn’t practice yoga for 15 minutes a day when he woke up. Now that’s motivation.
D’Angelo also stresses accountability, because afterall, it becomes very easy to cheat if you are only held accountable to yourself. It is good to get 1 or 2 people that will encourage you to keep your goal through inevitability.
Now, some people are going to say, “oh I’ve heard this before, Mystery says to hand your friend $100 and if you don’t open, s/he gets to keep it.” Well, I’ve done this before, and my friend kept the money, and I didn’t feel too bad about it. For real change, it needs to be more drastic.
Which leads me to ask, how am I going to apply inevitability to MY life?
Well, when I look at my own priorities, I believe that women, or lack thereof is the biggest problem. Therefore,I am going to hand a friend a check of my weekly salary and ask him to cash it if I don’t open at least 3 women whenever I go out to the bar.
He will know that I have done my task because 1.) He will be out with me part of the time and 2.) I will post about them on this blog.
I am going to try this for one month. Wow, I haven’t felt this nervous since I first started going out, which coincidentally was the most I have ever opened. I opened then because I went out with lots of new guys from my lair and thought they would think I was not worthy if I didn’t open. Then I learned they were in much the same boat, and my opening whittled down to zero.
Before I go, I want to make a committment to improving the diction of this blog. I have noticed tense shifts, run-on sentences and grammatical errors in many of my posts, which is simply not acceptable. I have the Blue Book on Grammar and Punctuation waiting for me at the library and can’t wait to check it out!
In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. – Henry David Thoreau
I woke up today with a feeling of dread. As I tossed around in my bed for an hour or two and thought about my life, I came to the conclusion that there are two kinds of people in this world, “spectators” and “performers.” My friends, I am a spectator.
I can sit around all day and watch other people do things. I can watch my favorite team play football on the television, I can watch people having sex in adult videos, I can listen to rappers talk about the great lives they have etc. etc.. In my own personal life, I can watch my start working on a skill, they can learn to start dj’ing, or they can start. I can watch them fail, I can watch them succeed, but in the end I am always watching and end up saying, “I wish I had their life,” for better or worse.
Yesterday was Saturday, my last night out in my marathon of going out, spanning four nights.
I wish I could say, that last night was better than the last, because I finally got off my ass and did what I intended to do when I went out, but the fact is, I can’t. Sure, last night was better than Friday night, I didn’t text anyone and didn’t ruin any potential relationships.
But it still was a rather “blah” night.
After the previous night, I resolved that I wasn’t going to go out, I was going to stay inside and relax, which I hadn’t done since this past Tuesday night. Around 9pm, I changed my mind, telling myself that I have to go out if I want to get better. If I ever want to become the true social butterfly that I want to become, I have to go.
My roommate was spinning at after hours.
I decided that I would forgo going out for regular bar hours. I would instead relax until around 2 AM then head over. Around 10 o’clock King Lear comes over, and while watching the 40 year Old Virgin, I tell him, “we should go get a case.”
We go down to the beer distributor only to find that it’s closed. I tell him, “shit, might as well just go to the bar.”
We go to the bar and end up talking to these two girls. The (cuter) Indian girl my friend had been talking to off and off for quite awhile. The other girl was pretty cool, and I thought we were hitting it off, but at some point she moved away from me.
The conversations I engage in always seem canned. I feel like I’m always at a loss for words to say or to make the conversation move forward. No matter how many conversations I get into, I always end up doing the resume routine. “Oh, what do you do?” “What do you do in your free time?” BORING!
It’s not even that I am uninteresting. I think that I am one of the most interesting people that I know. It’s just that, right now, I am having a difficult time presenting that interesting person within the first 30 seconds-2 minutes of meeting a person.
Next week, I am going to resolve to break the resume chain. I was listening to Natural Tim last week and he says that he interrupts and says, “hey, I think [whatever the current subject is] is cool, but I don’t really want to talk about that right now. Let’s have fun!” Then I’ll have to figure out what we’d have to do to have fun.
Overall, I feel inhibited, scared even, when I am out in social situations. It’s like there is a voice in the back of my head that prevents me from doing what I want to do. I have to get rid of this voice because it is grossly impeding my progress.
After the bar, we went to after hours. There was NO ONE there. We drank, went to the diner at around 6am. Then I came home and slept.
Today is the end of my extended Christmas vacation.
I know that a lot of my posts have been dealing with PUA material, or just a basic rundown of my bar life. Expect a change in material over the course of the week, until well, the weekend comes again.
I think that this blog has been immensely helpful the past couple of days. It has kept me productive and makes me more conscious of things as I go throughout my day.
I am going to make a pledge to post on this blog everyday. I am also going to make a pledge to be absolutely honest in every post. I read over some of the posts I write, and I think to myself, “wow, this guys sounds like a whiny boy, why doesn’t he get off of his ass and just DO the things he talks about doing everyday?”
It’s hard for me to read over some of my posts, I feel embarassed about them, but in the end, if I ever want to become a better person, this will help me.
“I can say whatever I want, to whoever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want, however I want…” - Eminem
I am not proud of my actions last night.
It started off badly. I lost a sack of herb somewhere in my room and spent an hour plus looking for it. The sack is still at large.
My friend, “King Lear” and I, arrive at the bar at 9pm. I am in great spirits even though I just lost sixty bucks worth of product.
King Lear didn’t have any money so I would be footing the bill tonight. The bar we go to is the one where our friend works and we regularly get a crazy discount. We arrive at 9 P.M.
Nothing of consequence really happens the whole night, we take a LOT of shots. chat with some friends, some girls, but nothing *too* aggressive. There was a girl with HUGE boobs that I wanted to talk to, but didn’t.
Anyways, dejected, I leave paying a $54 tab for the evening. Not too shabby for five hours of drinking.
Except at this point, I get it into my mind that it is time to start drunk texting! Commence the shit show!
I had been listening to Tim’s Flawless Natural program at work over the past week and remembered that he messaged girls that didn’t respond to him with the simple text message: “you are shit.” I was drunk, I thought this was a great idea, so I messaged like three girls with this message. Of course I get messages back that say, “don’t ever talk to me again,” “goodbye, asshole.” Basically, they all tell me that I am a wonderful human being.
I know that I some exchange of words after that, but my recollection is hazy. I can’t look at my sentbox to see what I sent because at some point, I must have realized that I was drunk texting and proceeded to delete all of the girls numbers I was drunk texting. Then I emptied out my sentbox and inbox.
Now, I can’t even say “hey, I’m sorry” because I don’t remember the numbers. I am not sure I would say sorry anyways, I would probably try to play it off and say I meant to type “you are THE shit.”
Meanwhile, I have inadvertently started off 2009 with a clean slate. Nope, no more girls of 2008, 2009 chicks will be all new baby!
King Lear and I moved onto after hours, where our one boy was dj’ing. This is where I did most of my text messaging. I spent a large portion of the night sitting on a bench and sending them out. Around 3 A.M. my ex-girlfriend, The One, started texting me, and this started a whole new round of texting. This exchange wasn’t mean at all, but it was just simply unnecessary.
I do feel embarrassed, but I’m smiling as I sit here typing this. I am not angry at myself because this is not something I do all of the time. I simply need to learn not to be outcome dependent and have the most fun possible in the present moment, even when I am shitfaced drunk. If I were to see any of these girls in person, I would sincerely apologize, and would understand if they don’t want to talk to me. I would even understand if they hit me or spilled a drink on me, which would be a first for me and hey, I’m all about new experiences!
They are just girls that I was not emotionally attached to. There are many more fish in the sea, and I will just move on.
“If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won before you have started.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
I woke up yesterday and I did not meditate. I always come up with some excuse, usually it’s I need food or the fact that I simply want to surf the internet for awhile first. I’ll make up for it by meditating before I go out for the evening. It’s good to get a half hour of silence before entering the sensation overwhelming atmosphere of a bar.
Yesterday was new years day.
I was pretty tired from the night before, but I had determined to go out early in the day. Around 9 p.m., my friend canceled on me, and my motivation dropped, but I said to myself, “no, you ARE going out.” I get anxious and discouraged at the thought of going out alone, but I generally end up having a great time. Going out alone FORCES me to be more social.
I walk down to the local dive bar where it’s eighties night. Lots of lovely hipsters and gutter punk females fill the place, dancing to a lot of songs I have never heard before. I grab a beer (can’t beat $1 Pabst pounders) and post up.
After a little while, I come to the conclusion that I am too afraid to approach anyone, so I go back to the bar and sit down. A few girls sit beside me while they are getting drinks and I talk to them, but nothing out of consequence comes out of these encounters.
I go back out to the dance floor and start dancing by myself. The DJ starts playing a hip hop set and I start to really get into it. I grab this girl and we start dancing. This girl, let’s call her LeaderGirl, has another friend who is much hotter than her and dressed much nicer. In fact, they both looked out of place at the bar because they were dressed more for the club rather than a hipster night. Not that I am complaining…
The other girl is dancing with this guy she says she doesn’t want to dance with anymore. Still, later on in the night, they disappear to go someplace where presumably they are making out. Leader and I continue to be the only ones grinding (read: simulated sex) on the dance floor. I held back on trying to make out with her, which I should have done, but I didn’t set that sexual tone. Meanwhile, the other guy, who can’t dance and is as plain looking as anything, is making out with the hotter girl. Sigh…
There was another cute girl with a mullet eyeing me up all night. I’m sure I had talked to her before, but I can’t remember where. I was preoccupied with Leader, so I didn’t talk to her… but I should have. Lastly, there was a girl, maybe the hottest girl in the bar that night (long legs and heels, oh my), who came up and touched my hair, I told her that costs “two dollars, please,” but didn’t follow from there. She was with my one friend, so I didn’t pursue, although I can’t say I would have if I did.
Lastly, Leader and I parted ways at the end of the night. She pleaded with me to show up next week, telling me what a good dancer I am (that’s a first). I guess next week is the 80’s night marathon where they’ll be open till like noon. I told her I’d think about going, but I’ll probably show up, sounds like a unique experience.
On my way home, I got the idea that I should start calling myself “He-Man.” He is a muscular guy that gets the princess and wields a big ass sword. I think I can go really overboard with this: I’ll start watching He-Man episodes before I go out and yell “I HAVE THE POWER!” whenever I feel really self-conscious.
I HAVE THE POWER!!!
Immediate goals:
- Meditate to start the day.
- Make plan for rap album, start writing.
- Step out of comfort zone by…
- Opening once I enter the bar. This will set a social pace for the whole evening.
- Being more aggressive.
- No could have’s or should have’s for tomorrow, only I did’s.
Administrative notes: I am going to add some of my older posts which I deleted awhile ago over the weekend. I’m going to edit the timestamp, so I’m not sure if they’ll show up on your reader or not. I don’t know why I deleted them, I guess I didn’t want to stare my past failures in the face all of the time.
It’s with a company I worked at before my current job, but it’s permanent as opposed to temporary, which were the kinds of jobs I held there before. It pays a lot more money, $10,000/year more, to be exact.
I am actually overqualified for the position, so I think getting hired is just a formality. It all depends on my references from my previous bosses, which I’m sure will be fine.
This will be a HUGE step in the right direction for me, not only financially, but ambition-wise.
A year and a half ago, I got a very prestigious position at a non-profit company, but my boss was this homophobe/racist/misogynist guy that was too hard to deal with, and considering him and I were the only employees of the company, my only option was to quit.
Ever since then, I have not been aggressive in pursuing jobs. I have taken whatever is available and I have suffered not only financially but emotionally as well.
Yesterday was also New Years eve.
We started at around 8pm pregaming at my place. I had on a spiffy new shirt made by Donald Trump. I also got a haircut during the day. I looked good. Still, I was hampered by the Philly Cheesteak sub I ate earlier in the day. I passed a lot of gas when we made it to the bar later. It was embarassing.
Still, I did not let it stop me.
We pregamed pretty hard at my crib. I was pretty drunk by the time I got there. I drank some water to sober myself up.
I met a girl there, “Ginger,” who actually approached me by saying, “I like your hair.” I told her I liked her hair and we started dancing. Nothing of note really happened, just a lot of dancing, with her glancing around the dance floor for more intriguing prospects. Finally, her friends pulled her away and she left, I got her phone number, but I know that I did not build enough attraction. I should have pulled her aside after a song or two, and talked to her at the bar.
Later on, “New York” came up and said I’ll dance with you. New York is a girl that I had a fling with starting a year ago to this date, but I quickly became disinterested and moved on. Later in the year, she moved to New York and I hadn’t seen her since.
I have this thing where I just dance by myself at the bar. It is because I am too scared to approach women, I’ll have to work on this. She approached me and we started dancing. She is way drunk and trying to make out with me. Meanwhile, there are two hotties on both sides of me dancing by themselves. I should pushed her away and danced with them.
As the night comes to a close, New York is making it plainfully obvious that she wants to go home with me. Meanwhile, I am texting Ginger and asking her if she wants to go to afterhours. She says, “no I’m in PJ’s.” I call up my one friend and tell him to rescue me, because I just can’t tell this girl that I don’t want to go home with her.
My friend picks me up and we dash out of there. Onto afterhours!
After hours is pretty crowded. Once there, I am immediately approached by this punk rock looking girl. This girl is the girlfriend of my friend who brought me there’s friend. She starts touching my hair, I tell her, “that’s two dollars my friend.” She keeps touching it and running her hands through my hair. I look over at the boyfriend. This is awkward.
It turns out that this girl is a total loon. Still, we go back to her and the boyfriends house once afterhours is over, thinking that there will be people (girls) there. Instead, it’s just them two and this gay kid who has a v-neck t-shirt on exposing his hairy chest. We don’t stay long.
One of my goals is to get better women. I’ll admit that “getting better with women” is very vague wording. What that means is that I would like to stop OOZING low self confidence wherever I go. It will be a good day when I log on to this blog and there are no “could haves” or “should haves” littered throughout my stories.
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
Last year, I made a list of goals for 2008. I failed at all of them.
This year, I kept those same goals, but added even more. Why? It’s not because I am a masochist that gains some pleasure in watching myself fail, it’s because I feel I can complete these goals. So what’s different about me this year than last year? I am more determined, I realize that I’m not getting any younger, or as Mr. Ford put it, I am starting, “more intelligently.”
With these goals, I try to be more definitive with them and assign quantities wherever applicable.
Also after I list each goal, give a brief description, and maybe a brief history behind the goal, I am going to list the deviations, which are the reasons that I rationalized in my head that it was not a good idea to keep working on that particular goal. Recognizing these thought patterns will lead to me making different decisions. I am also going to list any websites that will assist me in achieving my goals.
1. Use the computer less
I currently use the internet on average 12 hours a day. This is no exaggeration. Sure, on days that I work, I am required to sit in front of a computer for eight, but often I come home and use the internet for another four.
I want to make a conscious effort to cut down my internet usage. A good goal is about 2 hours a day during the week, and 4 on the weekend. This is still a lot of internet time.
Deviations: A lot of my internet time is spent looking for new porn (see goal #2), and surfing random websites. I absolutely love the random article function on wikipedia. If I can simply be mindful that I am doing these things, then they will stop.
2. Stop Watching Porn
I made great strides in achieving this goal this year. I actually stopped watching for something like 35 days.
There are a number of reasons why I want to stop watching porn. The first being that I spend too much time looking for it. While I don’t actually watch too much porn per se, I will spend hours upon hours searching for good porn to watch. This time could be better spent on any number of more constructive tasks.
Secondly, porn is slowly ruining my sex life. First off, if you spend most of your day wanking off to girls and then try to go out and meet women on your own, you won’t be motivated, because the women are often not as attractive as those in porn, and if you do meet a woman and take her home, you won’t be able to get it up because you spent your whole day whacking off!
The last reason is more ideological in nature. Porn is watching other people having sex. Why am I watching other people having sex? I want to have sex. Why am I not out meeting women on my own?
Mystery advises cutting down on watching porn to once a week for the best results. When you do watch porn however, he says to make it a date for yourself. Like, this prolonged event. If I do feel the need, then I will make Sundays this day. All in all though, I would like to cut this out of my life entirely.
Deviations: I find myself watching porn the most when I feel particularly bad about myself. I’ll tell myself, “you’re not going to meet any women anytime soon, might as well watch some porn!” When I feel down, it is often the first thing I run to. What’s funny is that after all is said and done, and business is completed, only very rarely do I feel happy about myself. Oftentimes, I feel worse.
Out of all of my accomplishments of 2008, I am the most proud that I really got into zen philosophy. Back in May, I happened upon my local zendo, met some absolutely wonderful people and became really active. I was gung ho for awhile, I meditated twice a day, I went to the zendo once a week, and I even went to an all-weekend sitting. At some point though, I fell off and stopped going until recently.
When examining my mental health to a year prior, I find that I am a lot more calm and humble. I remember times when I was downright suicidal. Meditation has helped me get over that. While I still get sad, it never gets that extreme.
I had a routine going for awhile where I’d wake up 90 minutes before going to work, I’d sit for 20 minutes, shower, and eat breakfast. This was a wonderful way to start my day and I am going to bring it back. It helped me stay on time for work, too.
Deviations: Sitting is a large time investment. I usually try to sit for about 20-30 minutes at a time. Oftentimes, I would sit at work and tell myself that the first thing I’m going to do when I get home is sit, then I would get home, think about all of the things I have to do and I would forgo sitting for whatever I’d have to do.
Also, I think it’s easy to write meditation off as not helpful, because afterall you’re just staring at a wall for an extended period of time. I need to remember just how beneficial meditation can be and I’ll be alright.
4. Exercise/Eat healthy
Earlier this year, back in September, I put myself on a regiment of more exercise and healthier eating. My goal was to gain 20 lbs by the years end. The plan went well for about 3 weeks, then I fell off. In order to gain 20 lbs., it meant lessening the actual amount of food per meal, but increasing my meals to about six per day. This takes an incredible amount of planning/money.
I want to get back on track with this goal. Lifting for an hour 3x a week, and increasing my meals to at least 3 is very reasonable.
Deviation: At some point, I convinced myself that there is nothing wrong with being skinny, which there isn’t. I pointed towards Barack Obama who is a man that is looked upon by many as a very attractive man. However, the truth is 5′11″ and 150 lbs. is not a healthy weight.
2008 was a horrible year for me career wise. I actually ended the year making less than when it started for the second year in a row. I understand that money isn’t everything when considering a job, but I actually hate my current job more, too.
I have been unambitious about my career ever since I had a negative experience working at a non-profit company. I have taken jobs just to get by, without exception.
I want to go to graduate school for library science. I have been saying this for years, but I never apply. This year, I had half an application, with both recommendations submitted, but I never finished the application.
Deviations: Quite simply, I am afraid to fail. I dread the thought of getting a rejection letter so much that I am afraid to even apply. I need to work through this and realize that life is full of taking chances.
6. Meet More Women
If there is one goal I want to succeed at in 2009, it would be this goal. Two years ago, I read The Game and immediately became enthralled with the community. Still, for as much as I go out, I can count the number of women I have truly cold approached on one hand. Getting into pickup led to
I want to start going out at least 2 nights a week and opening 3 women a night. By the end of the year, I want to have already taken, or be close to taking a bootcamp with RSD.
Deviations: Again, I am afraid to fail. I need to be present, make my two feet move, and open my mouth. It’s that simple.
I will be turning twenty six this year, and this is simply unacceptable. This year, I made a great stride in that I actually took the drivers test, even though I failed.
I want to have a driver’s license, in hand, by March. I will practice 1-2 a week until the test.
Deviations: This goal is dependent on the schedule of others. Oftentimes, I get into the mindset where I tell myself, “oh I shouldn’t bother them!” And as a result, I never pass the test.
8. Better Management of $$$
Ever since I graduated college, I have kept a budget in excel that tracks my spending. I have noticed that when I look at my budget on at least a weekly basis, I have a lot more money. Whenever I stop looking at my budget, that’s when overspending and overdraft charges come. I need to remember to look at my budget at least once a week.
An underling to this goal is to cut down on drinking and eating out, because a lot of money goes towards those endeavors.
Deviations: I just keep forgetting to be honest. A simple note to remind myself will suffice.
I love hip hop, specifically of the indie variety, although there have been some quality releases this year. When I was in college, I wrote and recorded songs, performed in front of people. I even had my own producer and DJ, who is my current roommate. My roommate gave me enough beats for an album 3-4 years ago, but I have just sat on them. This is maybe the biggest disappointment in my life right now.
This year, I made great strides in that I recorded 3 songs, which is more than the 1 output of years past, but a lot less than when I was at my peak.
I want to start writing for at least an hour 5x a week.
Deviations: A lot of this has to do with self-confidence. Sometimes I’ll tell myself, ‘oh you’re terrible, you should put the mic down.’ But the fact of the matter is that I have a lot of fun making music, and that’s why I should keep doing it. It would be absolutely wonderful if I could finish that album this year.
10. Be more responsible.
This is more of a catchall goal that encompasses a big problem with my life. The truth is, there are very few things that I take seriously in my own life. For instance, I am rarely ever on-time to any engagement. In fact, I have a habit of leaving at the exact time as when I am supposed to be somewhere, usually. Oftentimes, when I an assignment to do, I mysteriously get sleepy, (as I am right now), and sleep rather than complete the assignment.
Failure due to irresponsibility put me in a horrible mood, and a more concerted effort would go a long way.
So there you have it, goals for 2009. I am sick of staring at this screen after having wrote this long post. I am going to bed!
Oh, before I go…
Big shout out to Zensquared, who left this comment:
Come now, where are those goals? Don’t procrastinate. Post them.
You can always revise them later.
I had been procrastinating, now here they are. Always good when a comment from a stranger motivates you!
A few years ago, I came to the realization that I was a pack rat. I would accumulate tons and tons of junk and never throw it away because I always felt that I might need it again. As a result, I was as messy as messy can be.
When I started getting into zen, I read about the principle of “no attachment.” When it was time to move to the place I live now, I decided to go through everything I owned and ask myself, “Am I really attached to these items?” Now I sit here in front of my computer in an almost barren room, devoid of the papers and gadgets that inhabited it before. I don’t think I have longed for any of the items I threw away once.
I often think about just what am I attached to. What would, if taken away from me, cause me stress and despair? My computer is the first thing that comes to mind, along with a lot of the things that come along with it-my music, my settings, programs, the way I have set the damn thing up, even my porn, although I delete it pretty much everyday, I know how to get quality new porn within seconds. So, I have an attachment to my passwords to porn sites. I worked pretty hard for them!
But no, this is not limited to material objects, either.
I clench really hard onto my ego. I have built a life for myself where I have minimized the chance that I will ever be put in a situation where my self-esteem will be lowered, whether it be through an insult, or humiliation at something dumb I did. No, I won’t talk to that girl because I don’t want to damage my ego. That is what I’m REALLY saying when I am afraid to go talk to a female. Yes, being afraid is the surface level emotion, but underneath lies an ego that REFUSES to be bruised!
This life that I have built is one of constant fear. I remember, in college, I used to rap and perform on stage, but I became so nervous and self-conscious about it, that I eventually quit.
So what can I do about the problem of my ego?
I CAN DESTROY IT!
I can be present, and be cognizant that this is going on, and take actions to move outside of my comfort zone. Instead of being afraid to talk to that girl, I should just say, “fuck you ego, I’m doing it.” It also helps to not automatically assume the worst in every situation.
It will be hard my friends, but I can do it!
Note: I am going to post my goals tomorrow, I have already written down my problems, I am just taking some time to look them over. I want them to really sink in and marinate before I set any course of action for myself.
“The true sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results.” – Albert Einstein
You know it’s funny, I was reviewing my goals, and they are almost exactly the SAME as when I wrote them down over a year ago. This says to me that these problems will not change without concerted effort.
Why am I not making the concerted effort?
The problem is two-fold:
1.) I don’t believe in myself. Deep down inside, I have serious doubts that I will ever be the man that I want to become.
2.) I have become accustomed to a certain level of failure. Living in mediocrity, while it makes me unhappy most of the time, it does not disgust me to the point where I am willing to make sacrifices at any cost in order to achieve my goals. No, I am quite comfortable being a slacker, loser, whatever label you want to append to it. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!
I have noticed that I make conscious decisions to sabotage my own success. I won’t study for the GRE some nights because I tell myself that I am too tired, or instead of working on a song I will surf random websites. At the bar, I won’t talk to a girl for x, y, or z reason. I am cognizant of myself doing these things, BUT I STILL LET IT GO ON.
I notice that when I DO get some success, whether it be a getting a girl’s number, or finishing a song, it’s like I am injected with a newfound sense of energy! All of the sudden, I want to clean my room, dress better, take care of shit that I haven’t done in forever! It’s a very exhilarating feeling.
Then, the euphoria from that experience will wear off, and I will be back at square one. Oftentimes I find myself diving in even further to whatever old habits I had before. Maybe I will watch nothing but porn for two days straight, and in the process I will have neglected applying for a new job, and stayed up late so that in turn I am late for work the next day. IT IS A SAD SAD CYCLE.
So what can I do?
The only thing I can do is to be cognizant and make a conscious effort to change these behaviors. I have to live in the present moment and adhere to a principle of no attachment.
It will be difficult, but I know I can do it. Everytime I fail, I can feel myself inching closer.
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.” — Henry David Thoreau
As I reflect back upon another year passed, I become disgusted with myself. My saliva changes taste and I am welcomed by an overwhelming feeling nausea.
Another year has passed.
Another year wasted as a failure.
Not one goal for 2008 accomplished even though ALL were attainable. All I have to show for it is a vast amount of porno and knowledge of weird, useless facts, the result of spending hours on Wikipedia.
I take a few deep breaths, the last exhale is accompanied by all of the negativity built up inside of me….
*Whew*
That felt good.
I now have two choices: either I continue to live in mediocrity, as a lazy ambition-less sack of shit or I learn to change my habits and become the superstar that I know I can be. I choose the latter because the former leads to negative thinking, suicide, yada yada yada.
I am reminded of the New Deal, a plan that I had set out for myself back in May. I wrote down my goals, down to minutiae, and set out time frames to accomplish them. I was motivated. The New Deal plan lasted for two weeks… then I regressed.
When you fall off of the horse, you dust yourself off, and you get back on.
My friends, I am back on the horse. I will return tomorrow with new goals.
“People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.” – George Bernard Shaw
I have not had the success I would like to have. I have not met the goals I have set for myself. I am disappointed in myself. However, I will not dwell upon the past because that type of thinking is self-destructive. What I will do is figure out where I have went wrong and make changes from there.
I tend to think in very logical straight forward terms. When I do something, the details must be pinned down to minutiae otherwise I don’t feel comfortable moving forward. Oftentimes, this leads to me becoming discouraged and irresponsible.
For the past year I have really immersed myself in self-development material. From The Secret to Eckhart Tolle to Steven R. Covey to Daniel Amen, i believe that there is valuable information that can be incorporated from all of their respective texts. There are commonalities that exist in all self-development books and I feel that after one year I am able to glean what is valuable for my own self and formulate a plan based on those principles.
I call that plan The New Deal.
Yes, I have hit the reset button again.
Named after the progressive plans that former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted when he was in office, my New Deal is less ambitious and more pragmatic than the Roosevelt plan. It is very logical, with details planned down to minutiae. I feel that if I follow this plan, then my chances for personal success are 100%.
The plan is very simple:
Materials needed (absolutely required):
Memo Notepad (99 cents at CVS)
A journal (can be just a marble notebook)
A willingness to step out of the reality that you have created for yourself and step into a more successful one.
Steps:
1. Sit down with a pen and your journal, open it to the first page, and write down the problems that you feel that you have with your life. Keep this list as short and as broad as possible. For instance, do not write “In the rare event I get a girl to come back to my house, she will never have sex with me,” if you find it difficult talking and getting women to become attracted to you in the first place. Make a nice spiffy headline at the top of the page.
2. On the next page, write down a list of goals you want to accomplish. Next to each goal, write a few sentences describing how that goal directly relates to any of the problems you just listed. If the goal does not relate to any of the problems you have listed, think about scratching it. We want to keep things as simple as possible here.
3. On the page after this, write down where you would like to be in given terms of progress within different time frames. I chose 3, 6, and 12 months. Write as if you have already accomplished these goals. For instance, “In six months, I will have gained 20 lbs. and look fit, but not muscular yet.” Again, try to set realistic goals for yourself.
3. Sit on your journal and think about the goals for the next day or two. Maybe spend a couple of minutes envisioning yourself after your given time frames, like say, after 12 months. Anyways, from here we move onto phase II, the daily part of our plan.
Phase II.
4. Every morning when you wake up, review the goals in your journal. Then write down your goals for the day. It is okay to write errands like, “go to the supermarket,” but also try to make your daily goals adhere to your overall goals as much as possible. After each goal is finished, strike it out with a pen, or put a checkmark next to it. Believe me, nothing is more gratifying then going back over your notepad and seeing nothing but crossed out lists. It is okay if you are not catering to every goal everyday, but then you must remember never to lose sight of that overall goal.
5. At the end of everyday, write in your journal. You can write about whatever comes to mind, but also try to critique your effort on achieving your daily goals. Write about the difficulties you had trying to achieve them, if you happened not to achieve them, write down why you didn’t.
Discipline = Consistency = Results
I visited my brother this past weekend and this “equation” was written on his bathroom wall. I this this sums up the The New Deal plan very nicely!
Here are some questions that may ring through your mind:
What if I fail? No one knows failure worse than I. I wrote down the goals I wanted to complete in November for the next three months, it is May and I have not accomplished any of them. The point here is that this is not going to be easy. It is going to take sacrifice. No one is going to do this for you. In the event you do fail, take a mental note of how you feel, and then get back up on that wagon. If your goal is more of a preventative measure (stop smoking, or in my case stop watching porn), think about how you felt after you broke that habit when you think about falling off again. DO NOT dwell upon your failures because again, it is negative and self-destructive.
Also, remember to review your goals and be as realistic as possible. If you feel that the time frame you have set to accomplish your goals will not work. Then simply change the time frame for your goals.
Lastly, this New Deal is constantly under revision (especially with some of the verbiage I have used here). I am going to make a duplicate link to this post on the sidebar, be on the lookout for that.
In the next post, I will post my own goals (again).
When I look back on the year 2007 I will always have both positive and negative feelings. On one hand, this year sucked. I made little progress to improve my life-my job is worse, I am broke, and I am single and alone. In fact everything is pretty much the same except that I have more “stuff” in my apartment. On the other hand, I finally feel like I’ve hit rock bottom. Sure things could get much worse, I could be homeless, for instance. But for my definition of what I consider to be success and failure this really is the rock bottom.
This experience of rock bottom is very negative to most people, but if one takes a moment to stop and evaluate the situation it can be maybe one of the most positive and rewarding experiences in one life. Why? Well, first it can’t get any worse, you can only stay where you are are or go up, but most importantly is only when someone hits rock bottom do they realize that real change needs to be made.
Nick Saban, coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, knows what I am talking about. He said pretty much the same thing after his team was upset by Louisiana-Monroe this past weekend. He likened the loss to a catastrophic event, like Pearl Harbor and 9/11. “Only when something happens of this magnitude,” I am paraphrasing here, “do people rally together to make significant change.”
I feel like I’ve hit rock bottom. I feel like I’m ready to make significant change. So far so good!
Here is an update on my goals:
- Haven’t masturbated or watched porn in 3 days.
- Purchased an e-book for $2 from theSimpledollar.com entitled “31 days to Better Your Finances.” I will follow the activities, one for each day over the course of the next month. Also, I have re-done my budget and hope to look or identify a new job over the course of this weekend.
- Hope to go sarging on this weekend, even if it’s by myself. I know I don’t _need_ to, but I will probably peruse a book or two before I go out. Maybe even get in a few beers to lessen the nerves!
The year of two thousand and seven sucked for me. In fact, every year since I graduated college in 2005 sucked, but this one takes the cake.
Why did it suck you ask?
Let’s start with females…
Even though my girlfriend of two years had already moved on and found someone else, I found myself still holding on in hopes that we would someday be together. I just couldn’t move on. There were a lot of drunken, embarrassing moments where I did things that I wish I could take back. Looking back, I think a large part of it is that I felt I would never find someone else, let alone find someone compatible with me.
There has been another girl, sure. Just one, and it didn’t work out well at all. I view this, maybe very erroneously, as the biggest problem in my life, my inability to attract women. There are serious self-esteem issues at play here, the pressure for a man to have a female companion rings strong for me.
To cope, I spend a lot of time watching porn and masturbating, which is what I did before I had gotten into the relationship. It has gotten to the point where I think it is an addiction.
Then there’s the money…
I am broke. I just overdrafted my account this weekend, in fact. I spend a lot of money on drugs (alcohol, marijuana, pills of different varieties, mushrooms…). I am a month behind on my rent. I have no money saved. If I were fired tomorrow, I’d be in deep shit and have to move back in with Mother (who isn’t doing so well herself). I am living on the edge…
…And an overall lack of purpose in my life.
I am twenty-four and work at a dead end job with no prospects of it getting any better. I make as much money as I would have if I <i>didn’t</i> go to college. In fact, I’d probably be making more by now. I have signed up to take the LSAT three years in a row (every year since I graduated college). One of those years, I took the test but didn’t study and did a horribly (a 141). The other two I chickened out because I realized this is not what I want to do with my life.
I am suicidal. There have been times when I thought about putting my head in an oven, or tying a belt in a noose and hanging it from ceiling (I actually did this a couple of times). I feel like a failure. It is few and far between when I actually good about my life.
And I want this to change. I want to win. No, I have to win, because I don’t think I will be around much longer if I don’t…
