Destiny

Is it true that nobody wants to hear your problems? I feel like I don't have anybody to talk to, because I've tried confiding all of my problems on people before, and it does no good. They can't do anything for you - the best is they listen to you with sympathy, the worst is that they lose respect for you and make you feel even worse. Most people don't deserve to know you that well - unfortunately this even goes for close family. Really struggling emotionally lately, after several months of very focused and intense work on myself. It's the holiday season, which has become the worst time of the year for me in terms of depression. Even when I have my kids with me I feel sad, and I'm forced to put up a front. Sad about everything that we lost, how our family was broken, how they are forced to grow up now with less. Guilt that I can't protect them from this, and they're living a childhood I never wanted for them. Blaming myself for being a bad father. My life is so hard right now. So many problems.

My brother got a medical marijuana card and now that our new Governor has been elected, there's a very good chance recreational marijuana use will be legalized in my state. Basically my brother can get me whatever I want, edibles, oils, vapes, whatever, with no impunity. And the social stigma has pretty much been removed from recreational cannabis use. I don't really want to go deep into my personal issues here - you can check my Self Actualization journal thread for that information. I have not used marijuana in almost 3 years. I used to think that I was an addict, and I was a member of Marijuana Anonymous for 3 years. I guess I still am, I was attending meetings regularly for the first 6-8 months, now I attend whenever I feel like it. Basically over the past couple of years I went from thinking Marijuana was the cause of everything that was wrong with my life to thinking - maybe I have much deeper rooted problems and Marijuana was just my way of escaping them temporarily. At my worst I was a daily smoker, and I used to smoke on my work lunch breaks. I used to smoke when my kids were in bed which was the main issue with my wife and caused my divorce. I was a very light user, but I tended towards habitual and daily use. Here are my thoughts - I thought that Marijuana ruined my marriage and destroyed my relationship with my wife. Now I think maybe I married the wrong person and never dealt with my underlying problems and turned to Marijuana to escape my issues. Definitely I was smoking during bad periods in my life when I lost jobs and did badly at school - but was Marijuana the problem or my lack of self discipline? I am also very proud I have not smoked in 3 years. Definitely some people in my Marijuana Anonymous groups would see that as a great accomplishment, I just see it as me living life and being too scared to try it again after my marriage blew up in my face and not having a good way to get it. I've definitely grown a lot and I have a lot more self discipline and clarity now, but I don't know if I trust myself enough to regulate my use so that I only do it occasionally. Right now I'm proud of myself that I've been very productive and focused on my goals - there is a bit of an 'edge' though in my life, I feel anxiety sometimes and I feel like Marijuana would help me deal with it. Anyways - would like to hear peoples thoughts on this. Thanks.

I've been working my ass off, that's the reason I haven't written in a while. Work is going extremely well, I'm working at least a few hours a day towards my goals for my side business and music. Working out, my diet has improved, practicing guitar. Mostly everything has improved. I realize that spending time on these goals is much more valuable than writing in this journal. But sometimes it's helpful to write down some thoughts. Meditation has made me much more forgiving and understanding towards myself. I'm able to step back and think about the reasons why certain situations in my life exist, and I've become more accepting of my flaws. This will be useful because I have big big challenges in the future. I think it's my nature that I always have such high standards for myself, but as I told my friend the other day - I have to be better than I've ever been. Ever. Starting from the inside. At a time when I feel the weakest and most vulnerable. Persistent thoughts that I'm running out of time, sense of time accelerating. I can see it in how quickly my kids are growing up before my eyes. Frustrations that things are not changing fast enough, frustrations at myself for wasting so much of my life. Is there enough time? Can I do this? In 2 years? I don't know, I have to try is all I know.

Well I just called out by the VP at our company meeting today for being the star performer. Holy crap, feels good to know that I'm on the right track...

I don’t like to admit this because our society doesn’t like any show of weakness from males especially, but I nearly had a total breakdown. I mean, I wound up in the hospital for suicidal ideation. This divorce nearly killed me, it greatly damaged my career and my money situation. And I don’t like to think of the ways it has put my children at risk. I never wanted them to grow up like this, yet here we are. My brother has a medical marijuana card now and offered to hook me up. I thought about it for a long time but decided against it. There’s not any real reason for me not to smoke again. But I have 3 years of sobriety at this point. Even though it doesn’t seem like it helped me that much maybe what I’m not realizing is it kept me out of trouble or kept me alive. Right now is not a good time because I’m still very much in the process of rebuilding my life and trying to become a better person. My kids need me. It’s just not the right time. I’m working hard again at my side business, I’m exercising again, I’m doing things that I enjoy like playing music. I’m grateful because these seem like signs of recovery. Right now I need to focus on taking care of myself and supporting myself. Making good choices. Trying to make myself healthy again. It’s just that it’s very difficult for me to keep going right now. I still get bogged down by depression and apathy, and I still don’t really believe in myself that much. I have to keep going like this until something changes in me and it becomes easier.

One of the things I've been spending a lot of time on is - I've become involved with a lobbying group that is pushing for a bill that will mandate shared equal parenting time. Contrast it to what the situation is right now - where the court is under no obligation to err on the side of 50/50 parenting (and look at the results - they most often do not). I've been doing a lot of volunteering for this group. Prenups are garbage unfortunately - theres a lot of loopholes and they regularly get thrown out. The only solution is to change the laws or not get married.

It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote. I’ve mainly been focusing on getting stuff done. I recently joined Discord group that’s really been helping me stay on track in terms of putting in work every day towards my loan long-term goals. For one thing I’ve been exercising for five times a week for the past few weeks, mainly weightlifting hands like cardio. I’ve also been watching my diet and trying to keep it low carb and low sugar. Bless couple days of been hard because of Halloween, But mostly I’ve been getting healthier. You know how when you get done lifting weights even if your workout wasn't that great, you still feel better physically? Like a slight burn in your muscles and you feel 'looser'? Hard to describe, but I like this healthy glow, and I can see how people eventually need this to feel like they're feeling 'normal'.

Well it's been about 4-5 days since I wrote, just trying to maintain consistent healthy habits in my life. I have a habit tracking and todo list system that I've implemented using Trello, Evernote, and Google Tasks. You don't need to know the details. There's plenty of other systems out there on the internet that other people are peddling, this is the one that works for me. Also I keep tweaking the system and I'm not completely satisfied with it yet. My health has been horrible the past few days, I'm off the meds now more than a month and constantly feel slightly nauseous and/or dizzy with some brain flashes. Not good, but also not life threatening and these symptoms will dissipate. Anyways - I have to give myself an A- grade for the past 4-5 days in terms of completing tasks on my daily todo lists. Most of these tasks are important to me and are relevant to my long term life goals such as - lose weight, exercise, be excellent at work, make new friends, and work on my side business. Below is a ss of a typical day's task list I'm not perfect, if I could have consistently perfect days for an extended period of time - we're talking maybe a years worth of close to perfect days - that would transform my life. I'd say I've been at about 80% completion rate the past few days. The reason I give myself an A- is because some of the tasks I've been completing have been very difficult for me to even start previously - namely, financial related stuff. Diet and meditation are still kind of spotty, that's why i gave myself an A- also. Kids over this weekend. Some things I want to accomplish this weekend - Run the Destiny 2 Haunted Forest activities Clean the house, do laundry Guitar playing Day trading on Sunday Take the kids out to the park or their friends I have some handyman type stuff around the house I want to do Get my son a halloween costume

Some general rules for implementing lifestyle changes: Consistency is more important than intensity. Balance is more important than intensity. The plan is to create permanent lifestyle changes - at the very least this is a two year commitment to solidify these changes.

@ajasatya Thank you! Rules for developing my social life, become less introverted, and ability to be comfortable around people. This is necessary because it looks like I'm going into a management position at work and also I'd like to start going out more and meeting new people. 1. Always look for opportunities to make jokes. Of course you should be conscious of the context of the situation you're in. 2. You have to make an effort to put yourself in new situations. 3. Given #2, if you just pursue to develop your interests like discussing books or songwriting by attending more group meetings, it'll make it easiest to push yourself to get out of the house because you'll also be developing your interests. 4. Remember that other people you're interacting with are probably as insecure and self conscious of things that they say or do as you are. 5. Remember that if you do or say something awkward or embarrassing, other people most probably will not even notice it because they are too worried about themselves and their own experience (see #4) ---- And below these are special addenda to the above rules for social interaction for the context of business or work networking 6. The best thing you can do to improve your proficiency in business networking situations is to be excellent in your own job and cultivate a good reputation that precedes you into these situations. 7. The second best thing you can do to improve your proficiency in business networking situations is to treat the other person with the sense of importance that they probably prescribe to themselves in their own heads. So, the person who is presenting or who you are networking with is always the 'expert' or the 'owner' of a particular subject matter. 8. Whenever possible, give credit to team members or people in your peer group for their contributions.

The last two days have been productive at least. Some notes: I got a raise and was informed I'm being vetted for a promotion sometime soon (let's see if my company actually comes through on this one). Very grateful that, despite the debilitating anxiety and depression the past year - I'm able to not only keep it together at work but actually thrive professionally. One feedback I got pretty consistently was - I should be more confident in my technical abilities and that I'm actually highly respected within the company. Who knew. The money will help right now too, lord knows my ex wife and the damn lawyers are bleeding my dry. I get kids an extra day this week. I got inspired and did a full reorganization and cleaning of the house last night. Took about 6 hrs, it's actually still not done. Amazing how you can think more clearly once all the clutter in your home is removed. Plan is to work on this over the weekend and finish it out, including throwing out everyones old clothes and reorganizing cable management with all the computers and electronics. I just got a new digital scale, the old one broke almost a year ago and I never bothered to get a new one. This is horrible - I'm almost 50 lbs heavier than my marathon weight. I knew I've been really lazy and that I was overweight, but not this much overweight. Change has to start today in terms of diet and fitness habits - 50 lbs overweight is way beyond acceptable to me. I was talking to this friend at work who's a fitness nut and he convinced me - the way to go is to start working out again of course. But also to go hardcore ketogenic diet again - no carbs and no sugar. It's going to really suck but you know what else sucks? 50 lbs overweight. Starting this weekend. Planning on nothing but protein shakes and salads this weekend, will update next week on how I did. Meditation and journaling is kind of spotty but at least I keep trying, I'll count the last couple weeks a 'win' in this area. Another thing I'm doing - I don't know how wise this decision is but - I've decided to go off my meds. I was on wellbutrin and celexa for a number of years. During the worst depressive parts of my divorce I think I really needed them to keep going. But now I feel like they are making me sluggish and apathetic, and they have screwed up my metabolism and have exacerbated my weight gain. The big problem w going cold turkey off the meds - you get dizzy and nauseous, and you get these brain zaps. It's scary but I talked to my friend J. who went off his meds over the past year - it's not going to kill you. Once J. went off his Prozac he lost like 40 lbs in a month and a half. My weight has only gone up and my exercise habits have only gone down since I started taking meds. @Destiny

Something is changing inside me and I feel grateful for it. I feel like the overwhelming depression is starting to lift and I’m entering a new period in my life, thank god. The divorce is over. I mourned it for a long time and my grief literally nearly killed me. I never want to experience that again, and I don’t think I ever will. Because I learned a lot of hard truths about - myself, love, the society we live in. I mourned the loss of idealism for a long time. I mourned my children’s childhood. It broke me - and now I’m cynical in a lot of ways. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Just lately I started to think - I have to keep going because my kids need me. But I’m not going to make it unless I open myself to whatever possibilities are out there. Start taking care of myself, making myself healthy again and starting to think about how I can make myself a better person. I have been blessed with this intelligence. Why would I dishonor this gift by not putting it to good use. I’m still relatively young, just barely. I keep thinking how it’s totally possible that you can totally transform your life in two years if you really wanted to, it just takes vision and consistency. That’s the thing that gives me hope, I just want to see what that will look like two years from now, what life will look like. And if I can actually pull this off. If I can, it will be the best thing I’ve ever done.

I had a dream that I was writing a book and that it healed me somehow. I’d like to write in here every day out of habit, just to make myself feel better. And then maybe years down the line realized that I’m healed and writing was what helped me find a way out. Right now I’d say my problem isn’t that I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time, or that I don’t know what I have to do to fix myself. Or I don’t know why I’m in this situation, or what my purpose is in life. I know these things. I’m just overwhelmed by this feeling of hopelessness and despair. And I am suffering from really severe depression right now, worse than I’ve ever experienced. I go through long periods where I’m just going through the motions day to day, doing the bare minimum to survive. And then I try to work up some energy within myself to make a change - but then I get knocked back down by something that happens, usually something going on with the divorce, and I have to start all over again. My only saving grace is that I’m not much of a drinker, and I haven’t gone off the deep end with destructive habits. Except maybe video games. At my age I’ve all of a sudden become obsessed with World of Warcraft and Destiny. It’s the only thing that has been effective at taking my mind off my problems over the past two years, even more effective than my meds. I’m also very grateful that I’m somehow still doing well at my job, and that my kids love me and somehow our relationship is even stronger. I watch a lot of self help type YouTube videos. This one sort of inspired me https://youtu.be/DKcHX_5dxdI You don’t need more than two years to change your life. That seems doable, it will probably take a lot of work, but I have to try, I have to do something. I can’t keep living this way.

If you do get it make sure you get it on PC, because there are thousands more songs on PC than on XBos/PS4.

Have you played Rocksmith? It's the most fun way to learn songs on the guitar.