15 days no video games

Just checked my watch and I've been sober for 2 weeks officially. Donno how long I will go(legit hope I'm done but life sucks and shit happens). I feel like I'm gonna get urges here in the next week or 2. I wish I could just not think about it and let myself vibe but I've dealt with my drinking problem since I was 18. Here's to hoping.

We enlisted our friend who has amazing organizational and cleaning skills to help clean the fuck out of our oldest's room. Got that shit knocked out in 3 hours. She's coming over early to help a bit more before their Sunday DND session.

I got my character built for the Cairn one shot planned for this Friday. If it happens cool, if not then social anxiety go down mode activated. I wanna do it if the others are on board and the social anxiety is just part of me so I'll get over it lol. At least I can recognize it now amd manage it before severe attacks happen. Those fucking suck.

I'm on a pretty big reading streak out the gate for 2024. On book 4 for the year and went with Trans Liberation by Leslie Feinberg. This book is fucking powerful. You know how sometimes you end up reading a book at the right time? This has been that so far and I'm sure it's going to continue. I think I still have some unchecked biases towards the trans space and I feel like it's helping me see those so I can learn more and fix it at the door. I believe I'm an ally but there is still a lot I don't know. I wanna be more than an ally and start getting into activism and this book is basically telling me that.

I think that's it for the most part. We are still working on divergent design and open face stackable bins are fucking expensive. Like bruh, it's just fucking plastic. I think since they are geared towards teachers that it's priced like that on purpose. Fucking predatory pricing can go diaf.

fucking gross to post that meme in this com. absolute shit.

Not sure if I'm making the best choice, but I'm returning to college to finish the CS degree I started. If STEM is what the market wants so badly, then STEM is what the market gets. It sucks I need to slog through all this time and money literally for society's permission to work, but the only actual alternative I see is me rotting as a NEET forever in my second best case scenario (my best case scenario is I make money as an artist, but I'd rather be an artist with 'marketable hard skills'). I also hope to learn how to "network" and set myself up for being an actual adult. In a sense, this is adult boot camp. Most importantly of all, I want to make friends and find a GF, I cannot see myself resorting to apps for such things. Plus it will set me up for grad opportunities that are more aligned with my interest if need be, I'm going for a job I can tolerate doing but find meaning outside of it with the friends I make and hobbies. I want to change for the better, and I have a habit of trying, getting burnt out, and failing. Regardless, I know I can't do this while I'm living the life of a manchild.

Also, I had a pretty good day in the gym, my bench is up and I hope to be able to bench 225 by the end of the year. Exercising has made me realize my music taste sucks so hard, I'm a total neckbeard that listens to video game soundtracks unironically. Can anyone recommend some good "normal people" music that's great for working out?

This week in my added sugar purge:

L's

• ended up buying a pack of cookies that was on sale
• there's still a lot of ways sugar is snuck into pre-made food (in salsa? really?)

W's

• switched from "healthy" breakfast cereal to overnight oats
• have been doing a good job limiting how many cookies I've eaten (only 2 per day!)

Not trying to be perfect, so this feels like an overall good week. I've noticed I'm going for fruit a bit more for the natural sugars, although I think cuz the natural sugars metabolize slower so I'm not getting as strong a hit.

Been trying to read more in the past couple of days. Borrowed one of those demonic self-help books that everyone on my instagram is swearing by, and while the book itself is brainwormed (LOTS of great-man thinking, and reverence for people who's only job is "investor"), forcing myself to spend a 60-90 minutes every evening has been quite interesting. I sort of fell out of the habit of reading seriously since my son was born, especially since I already had a daughter, and trying to keep them alive has been a handful.

The book in question is "Deep Work" by Cal Newport, and it includes an incredibly funny section about the statistical genius known as Nate Silver, which has aged absolutely perfectly.

I'm still going to social stuff irl, even though the mh has not been great. And, I'm committing to journaling my whole day (this always helps me detect unhelpful habits and inefficiencies).

Kept up with the exercise 3x a week, probably could be going harder but I'm happy it's happening at all

Kept on top of eating enough every day up ~half a pound from last week

I'm calling the ereader a success, 10% of the way through this textbook mostly reading during downtime at work and I've also started reading for fun before bed at night instead of scrolling. Something like 300 pages last week and today

Putting it on a separate device has meant I just need to win the battle against my ADHD once, instead of constantly on my phone/computer. It's also more comfy to read in bed

After some introspection and therapy I've come to realise that one of my main hurdles to actually improoooving is that my partner and I keep holding ourselves to neurotypical standards. Pretty regular internalised hustlecel productivitycuck, stuff, really, but the brainworms are nested pretty deep. It's been pretty bad recently. It always just ends in my going down a shame spiral and being completely overwhelmed and not doing the things I "should" be doing and just escaping the Bad Vibes with video games. It's unsustainable, and it's putting a lot of strain on myself and my relationship.

Rationally we understand that we're not the kind of people to handle the regular nine-to-five combined with keeping up our own health and relationships. But still the brainworm keeps whispering to me that "Shouldn't you have gone to the gym twice already this week...? I bet your partner is disappointed in you because you didn't clean the bathroom like you said you would. Idiot. When's the last time you even rode your bike? Not to mention all your fancy expensive dust-collectors you have decorating your synth desk. You paid for all this!!!". Always the emphasis on the money aspect of it, too. Probably comes from growing up dirt poor.

But anyway, I've tried to come up with a fuck load of different ways to manage my energy and not get overwhelmed by all the things I have to do, none of which have really worked. When I went to therapy last time though I managed to put the feeling into words for the first time (tl;dr: "I keep holding myself to NT standards"). Granted, I've had probably a hundred revelations like that in therapy, but this feels like a real one (this time for really really real ACTUALLY really).

So, I'm gonna try to approach the day-to-day with that in mind from now on. I even made up a little schedule that follows the ground rule of max 1 thing per day. Like, that I can only expect myself (and my partner from me and vice versa) to do ONE THING each day, and try to never schedule more than one thing on the same day. Food prep = 1 thing. Cleaning the apartment = 1 thing. Gym = 1 thing. etc etc. For example monday = food prep day, tuesday = gym day, wednesday = cleaning day, thursday = gym day, friday = grocery shopping day. Doing that one thing means I'm DONE and don't HAVE to do anything else that day (unless I actually feel like it). Kind of like an exercise schedule but for regular chores. I'm hoping that eventually my Executive Function Muscle will get strong enough that I can do as much as TWO thing per day. That'd be pretty neat.

Two days without binge eating (eating disorder :<) and looking to get back to lifting tomorrow after a week and a half off due to consecutive ear infections. I am keen to get back to being a swoletariat, no lifting makes me something something

Last week I practiced meditation on 5 days in a row. I did a bit of reading and touched grass with a friend. I think it was a good week in terms of making progress.

Next week the weather will be a bit warmer here so I would like to go running on at least one day. I also want to go hiking with a friend on the weekend.

Hello improoovers, i was sick all last week so my music progress got fucked

Staying inside for too long, makes me depressed and i ruminate harder than usual. im in a state of elation though as im almost over the lil cold and i've been reflecting on all the horrible things that I have overcome. hooray mokey! i really try to remind myself that my brain is not healthy when ive stayed inside for too long and not to take myself too seriously when i catch myself ruminating on things ive fucked up or relationships ive failed.

touching grass really is important. i realized about a month or two ago that i need to do atleast two music things a week (outside of practicing) to feel grounded.

Trying to work on my mental health and taking a few steps back to less engaged politically for a bit. The toll it's taking on my mental health has been worse than I thought. For now I've been enjoying leisurely activities and hanging out.

I've been lurking on the subreddit and then here since 2016, but the overwhelming majority of my posting has happened in the past couple of months with my current account. I'm not sure if that means I've pushed the envelope of my social anxiety or not...

39 days in a row without porn!

Death to America

Trying to analyze whats going on with my foot technique in my left foot.

I think the issue is that I'm not leading with the big toe and interior ball of my foot. It's mostly just the strength of my tibia and calf muscles doing the work.

I hope this solves the issue. My ideal goal is to understand as many troubleshooting spots possible with foot technique. It's not a very well explained field in my opinion and I'd love to have something useful for my people.

17 days no video games. Urges are not that bad right now. Mostly a weird distant itch. Way too busy with other shit to care that much about video games. Feeling weirdly energetic today. Generally good but I know I can be overhyped for things

16 days you know the drill

I've finally pulled my studying together. Not for anybody else but for myself. I ran on willpower alone for the first few days but now it's sinking in as habit.

Unrelated, but I was listening to a podcast where they had the author of atomic habits as a guest and he mentioned that people interested in his book were likely already knowledgeable in the topic, while the people who might need it most probably wouldn't be interested in reading it, lol.

I bought a traditional new years food of my people and ate some. I've eaten it throughout my childhood, but never bought it myself until now.

I'm isolated from my childhood community of my people so its really important that I made the step to do one cultural tradition on my own.