flowboy

Congratulations! I had a "just do it" feeling when I read these posts...good to see you've made a decision. Personally I've been a massive overanalyzer when it comes to these decisions. Ironically, months of overanalyzing have often still resulted in decisions on studies that I wanted out of only a few months later. So now I try to go with the gut, heart, intuition, all that. I recognize feeling/identifying as naive. I think that is a good thing. I might be projecting, but what I think we have in common is being naturally wary of groupthink. Not assimilating the popular beliefs automatically, which enables us to keep a fresh view and think out of the box and all that. To box thinkers, that's going to come off as naive or even dumb sometimes. Nothing to be done about that. Except see for yourself. Which is what you're going to do! Awesome! Is this you? https://www.belbin.com/about/team-role-spotlight-plant/

I was in a regular remote stand-up meeting with our customer recently when one of their employees came out and said that he had been suffering from depression. I was surprised to encounter this level of honesty, depth and vulnerability in a routine business call. I felt some fear for him. They asked him what they could do to support him. He said, surprisingly, he wanted more work assigned to him, so he could feel more useful. The managers decided to make him take 1.5 week vacation first, to recover, and then they promised to take better care to assign him good work. Now, he seems way happier and even laughs sometimes during meetings.

You are not in a relationship. There is no action that you can take to remedy this. Therefore, stop fantasizing and pop this bubble. Be nice to yourself. Unfollow her on instagram. Delete your conversations with her. Remove any reminders. Delete her on facebook, snapchat, everything. She probably won't message you, but if she does, don't reply. See, because in that way you make room for something real. You don't have space for a real relationship with a person who cares about you, if you spend energy on this fantasy with someone who doesn't care. Delete everything. Make space for a real relationship, with someone who lives at a reasonable distance, and cares about you and respects you. Probably you'll find that you will have to care about yourself and respect yourself a bit more, first, before such a thing can work. Trust the process ?

I was about to masturbate and cum, but then I stopped. I sat down, just meditated and I noticed a strong desire to create. Create, create, create. Solve the money problem and then keep creating. Forever. One idea after another. Getting over the addiction to sex and masturbation is worth it, for the sake of creativity.

As much as I'd like things to be different, I do not have time to have sex with everybody. Some day I'm going to die. (I'm assuming - thanks Leo) and I am going to accomplish some stuff before that.

Thoughts upon seeing hot girl Do I want to fuck her? > YESSS Do I want to fuck her more than I want to be successful? > Aaaahhh...crap. Why'd you have to put it like that! NO!

28/01 Tasks processed off the list: 3 What went well: Made a lot of progress planning my vacations for this year. The options drive me crazy, and there is guilt because it's not important. Had a good workout, and a more efficient one: started alternating pairs of exercises in the same place. It saves much time. Was awake and not sleepy well before the alarm went off! Had not forgotten to set the loud alarm, but did not need it Nice mutually inspiring conversation with friend today. We motivate each other. It's awesome. The extremely hot girl I slept with awhile ago, apparently did not lose her interest in meeting me, despite my awkward attempts at conversation. She's just a poor communicator (like me, haha) so you never know from a text. But when do you ever. I'm going to meet her again, even though it's a risk to my discipline because she triggers my hedonism. Let me live a little, guys. I deserve it. What went poorly: Went to gym half hour late, because working on something. Decided to finish workout anyway and get groceries, which made me 45 minutes late for my last work session. Got groceries by hand. I want to have them delivered, shopping is a waste of time How will I prevent that from now on: The consistent tightness in the gym workout schedule is fixed by combining the pairs of exercises, as I mentioned. Beside that, I will just practice even stricter punctuality.

Slow, painful epiphany My sex drive is enjoyable, but exercising it is sort of a bottomless pit. I never feel satisfied for more than 15 minutes. Never! All these years, I projected that there would be some light at the end of the tunnel: a certain number of sexual partners that would make me feel satisfied. I basically reasoned: because I'm always horny, that makes my goal in life to have sex as often as possible Every time I feel attracted to someone, and this restless energy and horniness come up, I would think that that meant that there is something wrong. I feel like I desperately need to fuck someone. Or something. Therefore, I'm not getting enough and my life is lacking. It needs to be fixed. I'm now realising that as long as I'm healthy, I will feel sexually dissatisfied to some extent. It's a part of being a healthy, masculine man. Always feeling that I could fuck more. This is something that comes up for me because I practice what others might call 'NoFap'. I imagine if you jerk yourself to Jesus every day, it is less of an issue that interferes with your day, because your life force is regularly emptied into a tissue. But see, I like being full-on. And actually, to have so much sex that I'd be satisfied, would get in the way of creative expression. I'd seriously get nothing done. And I value creative expression. It's more important to me than getting laid, if I have to choose. So, with my set of values being as it is, I am choosing to consciously endure near-constant horniness. Time to unwire this belief that horniness means that I need something. That I should do something about it. That something is wrong. It means that I'm alive, that's all. I cannot tell you how profound it is for me personally to wrap my mind around it. I'm aware of how obvious it is logically, but that's not the point. For some reason, I've clung to the idea that I must have sex as much as possible, and this is the most important thing above all. That probably started in my teens, as an extrapolation from my sense of lack at that time. Time to let it go.

27/01 What went well: Finished the business administration for the quarter. Haven't made a dime yet but here I am processing every fucking bank transaction and invoice by hand haha. It's going to be easier and more automated in the future, but first I needed to understand what actually was happening. Had good workout session. Feel strong, forceful, powerful, masculine, energetic! What went poorly: Overslept a bit because I forgot to set an alarm. But actually, still got up at 5:45 How will I prevent that from now on: I added 'set the alarm' to my daily routine

So a short summary of what's been going on, is that about 10 days ago I had sex with an incredibly hot model chick. It derailed me significantly and triggered some hedonistic ego backlash. I've been eating family-size tubs of ice cream, drinking whiskey and smoking/vaping/eating weed for the past 10 days. I did not meditate or meal prep in the evening. Instead, I felt so addicted that I kept trying to meet up with the girl again, which didn't work, and then I turned to substances. Until today. Yesterday I deemed it necessary to throw out all my liquor and weed. If I have it in the house, I touch it. What am I running from? There's a part of me that is panicking, because I'm about to become successful. I can feel it in my bones, I know it. And an old part of my ego is screaming: "That's NOT who you are! Go back to your hedonistic loser ways at once!" It's fine. Getting back on the horse is easy now, I can do it in a day. Having processes in place is great. Went to the gym. The weed has made me slow, but I pushed through. Feeling slowly becoming more positive and strong. Luckily I'm also dating a woman who resonates with my ambitious side, and is not into drugs at all. So I can enjoy her company without getting derailed. She's really cool. 25/01 What went well: Made slow but steady progress in learning how to do accounting for my business. Even though I was in such an addicted state, it was hard to sit still and not masturbate, haha, but I kept at it. What went poorly: Yesterday I was high on weed and I watched Netflix until 1am. Because of that, when I woke up at 5am, I realised that there was no way I could work like this, and chose to sleep in until 9. So the netflix and weed binge cost me half a productive day. How will I prevent that from now on: I will keep in mind that bingewatching or hanging out past 8 directly cuts into the time I spend on my goal. Bingewatching till eleven costs me 3 hours of productive time, which is more important to me. So when I'm tempted to not stick to my bedtime, I will remember the shitty feeling of having missed out on the most important part of the day: a productive morning.

It's not enough just to to do it anymore... I want to do it AND know why. I've designed routines that contain the steps towards my goals. I can execute them mindlessly. But I had not considered one thing. It's easy to forget WHY. And there is efficiency to be gained there. Go running in the morning because discipline. But... wouldn't I run faster and enjoy it more, if I were thinking about a vision of myself being lean and fast? Go to work because I enjoy it, but wouldn't I enjoy it more if I had a clear image in mind of the sort of employee I want to be and the goals I want to reach there? Meditate because habit. But wouldn't I meditate better if I remembered why, remembered every time how it helps me be more aware, compassionate and intuitive?

I am angry with myself for not doing what I promised completely and thorougly Is it true? No What happens when you believe the thought? My breathing becomes shallower, I feel tightness in my chest and a sense of haste and pressure Who would you be without the thought? I'd be more relaxed, forgiving and compassionate towards myself, and in that way inspire others to also be more relaxed and less hard on themselves I am doing what I promised completely and thoroughly The database project at work, I did exactly what I said I would do, no matter how complicated it turned out I promised I would organize the workshop and I made it happen I promised I would post something on the prayer board, and I did I am not doing what I promised incompletely and halfway The workshop I did completely, even bought the gift The database project I did completely The time I researched the SEO stuff, did that completely as well I am doing what I didn't promise completely and thoroughly Shit, that's true. The SEO stuff, no one asked for it. I put it on the agenda myself. The workshop. I didn't promise anyone that I would do it. It was just a nice idea. The database thing at work: my boss didn't ask for that! It was a complicated job and I created it, because I convinced everyone it was necessary! I want myself to finish what I promised. I want to do it completely and thoroughly as I can imagine. Is it true? No What happens when you believe the thought? I feel proud, like I'm better than everyone else because I do these awesome things that others don't want to spend energy on. [Interesting...didn't know my pride was that involved] Who would you be without the thought? I wouldn't feel superior to other people, because I too wouldn't spend energy on most ideas, however awesome. I'd feel similar to other people in that I'd do what I can without overstraining myself I want to do what I promised as incompletely and superficially as I can imagine Actually, yes that makes sense. Usually what I can imagine goes way deeper than what anyone else would. So my incomplete will be more than sufficient. I do not want to do what I promised as completely and thoroughly as I can imagine No, I don't!!! That takes ages! It's basically infinite, my fantasy, so I'd be busy forever. I don't want to copy MJ DeMarco's mindset stuff as completely as I can imagine. I don't want to buy all the music from the workshop that I have no use for I don't want to make a facebook group and stay in touch with people whom I really have little in common with. I don't want to organize a meetup. I should finish every end. I should do things in a perfect manner. I should always keep my word. Is it true? No What happens when you believe the thought? I feel tightness. I feel stressed. I hold my breath. I feel obligated. Who would you be without the thought? I'd have not such unrealistic expectations of myself. I'd be relaxed, knowing how much effort is too much. Being completely at ease with doing something in a loose and imperfect way, when it is not essential. I shouldn't do things in a perfect manner. That's right, I should not! Perfect means way too good for most things. People tend to wonder why I work so hard at something unimportant. Actually, I even hide how hard I work, because I'm ashamed that I can't give up perfection. I should do things in an imperfect manner. True. Most things should be dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible. Doing all the niceties and extra ideas that come with it, may feel nice, but actually it is stealing time from myself. Other people shouldn't do things in a perfect manner Hmm, come to think of it, no one should waste their time like this! Executing all your nice ideas is insane, you'll never get anywhere. I don't wish this upon other people either. I don't want people to add on all this extra stuff I'm not going to use! Even though to them that made it perfect, to me it is just spam I'll have to throw away, and even feel guilty about! I need to be perfectly accountable to everyone I promised things to. I need to execute on all my responsibilities perfectly. Is it true? Yes Can I absolutely know it's true? No What happens when I believe the thought? Tightness in my chest. Sense of pride. I feel my chest muscles tight up, and it seems to be connected to my sense of manliness. Who would you be without the thought? I would be actually more accountable! Because when I get stuck, I wouldn't hide, stress out, and break communication. I would be a person who is okay with disappointing people, and telling them something is not going to happen. Because he cares about his own sanity, and knows others do, too. I don't need to be perfectly accountable to everyone I promised things to. No one can tell the future, and miscalculations are bound to happen. Therefore, the expectation to be able to execute perfectly on all my promises is crazy. Besides, I care about being dependable. Sometimes that means having to reneg on some things, so I can keep up the others. In the end, I care more about being dependable towards myself, than towards others. If I have to choose. I need to be perfectly accountable to no one I didn't promise anything to Come to think of it, I didn't promise anything! I simply talked about things that would be nice. Suggested some outcomes. I "promised" somebody video material, and there is now a problem with it. But: I didn't actually promise that there would be videos. I merely said that I would share what I could! Flowboy is messy, flowboy is a failure, flowboy is a loser, flowboy is a liar, flowboy is independable, flowboy is flaky, flowboy is destined for failure, flowboy hasn't got what it takes, flowboy is unsuccessful, flowboy is a dreamer, flowboy is an asshole, flowboy betrays people, flowboy is untrustworthy, flowboy is a secondhand citizen, flowboy is weak. Is it true? No What happens when I believe the thought? I feel shame, I retreat in myself. I hide from my feelings of failure, by trying to figure out how to do everything perfectly. I make crazy plans. Who would you be without the thought? I'd be more open. Less closed down. More accessible to people and less in my head, because I wouldn't be obsessing over all the things I still have to do perfectly! Flowboy is organized Well yes, he is. Everything has a place. He keeps a calendar and a schedule. He plans his meals and his weeks. He keeps a list of tasks. He categorizes his notes neatly. Flowboy is a winner I won the fight with societal conditioning. I gave an amazing speech at my first attempt. I "won" my perfect job. I won over my shoulder injuries by taking appropriate measures and not quitting, and am now stronger than ever. Flowboy is dependable Actually yes. When I do (actually) promise to do something, in a firm commitment, you can bet it's on my mind all the time and it will get done. My commitments for the men's group for example. flowboy is strong Flowboy has the discipline to do things few others would. He won't violate his principles, which is strong. He is also physically strong, and getting stronger every day. flowboy is loyal to people Flowboy goes to great lengths to be loyal to people. He won't talk negatively about people, and is aware of what they expect from him. I never want Flowboy to leave a project unfinished again. Is it true? No!!! I want flowboy to leave many projects unfinished, so he can focus on the important things! What happens when I believe the thought? I feel like I'm drowning. trying and fighting to stay with my head above water, and inevitably sinking Who would you be without the thought? I would be okay with not finishing things. I would be aware that to finish the important things, I have to abandon most other things that seem so nice. I would be happy that I let go of most projects and leave most responsibilities in an incomplete state, because I'd know that that's what enabled me to put all effort in what matters. I would be relaxed instead of always stressed and preoccupied. Sometimes I'd be sad that I didn't execute on this or that nice idea, but then I'd remember that that is the reason I'd still have my sanity. I'd remember this stress, emotional labour and crying, and know that finishing every nice idea is never worth it. I am willing to experience Flowboy leaving a project unfinished again. I look forward to myself leaving a project unfinished again. Yes, I do! Please, let me abandon more stuff! Let me abandon the nicest ideas, please. It makes room for the stuff that matters. I look forward to leaving many, many projects unfinished in the future! I'm happy thinking about all the "promises" I will reneg on, knowing that it is essential for my freedom!

{ Still | Again } Overflowing with ToDo's This really is a huge cause of stress that has not left me alone since my teens. I always have carried a huge list of tasks, the stress of which has weighed me down. And understandably, that stress has also caused me to escape into excessive TV consumption. For months, even years. Root problem: I feel I need to do things as thoroughly and completely as I can possibly imagine, or else I'm a failure who can't keep up. That tends to mean: all the 'nice to haves' and side tracks just get piled on to the big priority list. To me, it's beautiful to have the complete project done, as I perfectly envisioned it. Since I've been blessed with creativity and my mind is constantly generating 'nice-to-haves', you can see how this is a problem. This also translates to responsibilities to others: I tend to come with lots of nice ideas (let's get a video camera! Let's organize a workshop! Let's offer to edit people out of videos, even though that will take somebody hours), and then since no one else offers, I make myself responsible for it all. Meanwhile my thought process is: jeez these people are lame and unimaginative, look how cool it would be, we definitely have to do this! I do at this moment not consider the cost of my perfectionism: tasks that sit on my todo list for months and stress me out, while I have no time to do them. After several months I might decide to get to it. By that time it's usually expired, someone else has taken care of it or no one expects it anymore. Still, it cost me stress for all that time. Or I might decide to do a cleanup and reorder my tasks. I might divide them into poorly-defined projects (July 2019) and stash them away neatly. Or I might pile them all together again, and sort them by urgency and importance (January 2020) I feel better for some time, but the volume of work is the same, and the root problem hasn't been solved. 67 todo's in the matrix, NOT counting planned projects! That means about 14 full days of stuff, most of which has nothing to do with my life purpose. Still, looking at them and imagining striking any of them, seems impossible. It's like throwing away a perfectly good chance at feeling good about myself for completing something. It's like crossing things out is admitting that I'm a failure who can't keep up with the world. Jesus. I keep bashing my head against the wall here. I have to do something.

Small changes in regimen I decided I will go running in the morning 3 days a week, instead of the 6 I'm doing now. For the past month I've worked out twice a day on th, fr, sat. First the running, later the lifting. And while I can do it, working out 9 times a week is a big time investment. Skipping the run on gym days gives me an extra half hour of productive time, and additionally, it gives me the satisfaction of starting work before 6am! I'm moving meditation to the evening, on those days. Reason being that I do not feel like the meditations of the past month have been of good quality. I was usually in a rush because there wasn't enough time left after the workout. And also I just did not feel sharp enough to meditate well. If I do it in the evenings before bed, I get the additional benefit of it calming me down for a better sleep.

04/01 What went well: Woke up naturally before 5am Spent 8 hours cleaning out my digital inbox, and finished right on time Experimented with answering texts during gym time, in between sets. Seems to combine well. What went poorly: Did not reschedule year like I said yesterday I would. Will do that tomorrow Went running late, ha ha. That caused me to not shave or shower, in order to still start on time Spent a lot of time on meal prep during work hours. I felt like I needed to be eating constantly How will I prevent that from now on: Put my running clothes next to my bed as part of evening routine! (I spent quite some time collecting them) Never miss a dishwashing. If the kitchen is clean, I have enough time to meal prep during the evening.

03/01 What went well: Spent 7 full hours cleaning out junk in my inbox that had been weighing on my mind. Now that I've removed the grocery shopping break, I can just go on untinterrupted and have most of the day's work done by 1pm, which is nice Energy is back. Got up at 5:15 without much resistance What went poorly: The year has barely started and I'm already a week behind schedule. Serves me right for planning everything back to back without any breathing room. How will I prevent that from now on: Tomorrow I will reschedule my year, this time with breathing room. I came up with a solution for the tasks that come up unexpectedly: I write them directly into an urgent/important matrix, and keep that separate from my monthly schedule. I no longer mix miscellaneous crap tasks with those that belong to projects that help me towards my goal. They come together only at the moment of scheduling the day. We'll see how that goes.

@Zigzag Idiot Thank you! Going to bed at 7 pm was great. My friend said that physical stress and mental stress take from the same source. So it's not weird to need 9 or 10 hours of sleep. So it wouldn't be a bad idea to go to bed at 8, or even 7, if I can.

What She Wants I haven't even considered what she wants. How about feeling into what she wants, and showing that side of you, if you have it? I used to think that that is pleasing. But it can also be serving. Once you get to a level where it's easy and natural to be authentic, you can tune into the other person and perceive how best to get along, without betraying your authenticity.

I do have to go for the hottest girls, because how you do one thing is how you do everything. Am I going to be scared to talk to the best clients too?

Why do people die? - They've played out their role. How to live long: - Keep contributing to nature's evolution. Evolve. Imagination.

Took xtc at NYE, underestimated hangover Today is officially a day where I work on a project in a disciplined manner. However, I miscalculated the effects of partying in a certain way. I had one more day of vacation left that I gave myself. Decided to use it to go to a rave with an old friend. The old friend offered me drugs. I hesitated, but took some. I wasn't going to, but what pushed me over the edge was that I had paid a lot of money for the ticket, and I had been feeling like absolute shit since I got there. Fearful, too insecure to talk to people, just an extremely low sense of self worth and being uncomfortable in my skin. A contributing factor to that may have been the refined sugar binge I had before. My gut really did not like that, and I started feeling depressed right after. I conveniently forgot that I had plans to work on a project for the next day. Also I did not expect it to affect me the day after the next day. Which I could have known, since this is not my first time So, I suppose today will just be an interesting experiment: can I work while every cell in my body wants to lie in bed and do nothing? I already slept in till 9. Did however do a 100 pushups and 10 minutes of meditation at 6am, for what it's worth. What the drugs showed me Actually after it started working, I did not do any dancing. Or much socializing. Most of what we did was walk around in a daze, enjoying the body high and conversing. But at least there was a lesson: I sat down and felt my nerves in my limbs being very tight and full of stress With my eyes closed, I started seeing lines of code scroll past my vision field, from the code base at work I could not figure out what the purpose of dancing was. I remembered enjoying it in the past. This time, I was just very aware that I was standing around, moving my limbs in an awkward fashion, with no clear goal being accomplished. Also packed too tightly with other people to be able to go around and socialize freely. The music was too loud to hear each other. And I was too much in my head to be interested in others, really. So what was the purpose? It felt like a strange waste of time to me. This made me realize how much I've been putting on myself with all these new rules, routines and discipline. If I am on a dance floor and having trouble to figure out which goal it belongs to... Not every minute of time I spend has to be for some goal. I can also just be alive, sometimes. I will probably not repeat this experience anytime soon. The warm feeling of bonding was nice, yes. However I felt my eyes roll around too much to really be presentable to strangers, and was very aware of how artificial my feelings of love and empathy were. It's like a toy I've outgrown. Maybe I'll use it to have a special time with an intimate partner at some point. But to meet people (women) I'd rather do completely sober, no matter how shitty I feel. Although the wall of anxiety and feeling unworthy really seemed quite insurmountable this evening. Oh well. I will not have refined sugar binges, because then I'll feel depressed. And when I feel depressed I might break some rules that fuck me up for several days.

Crawled back to bed, woke up at 6:30 This is why you never go back to bed after hearing the alarm. Because then you subconsciously learn that it is okay to do it the next time...and the next time you do fall back asleep. No, however cold it is, once the alarm goes I am UP. Henceforth.

@dimitri Happy new year to you too!

@dimitri Thank you! I have indeed tried microdosing. Tried microdosing shrooms, I liked it. Now I regularly microdose LSD

28/12 Lap time: 32m What went well: Even though I had only slept 5 hours, I still got up when I heard the first alarm, at 4:45am. With a lot less resistance! Ran my 4km, even though I felt sick from the lack of sleep. Did concentration and meditation Designed a solution to darken my room. Curtains won't do. I want pitch black. And I know how I'm going to do it. Finished the entire workout I had scheduled for the day, and a bit that I missed yesterday What went poorly: Because men's group meeting ran until 11 30, I needed a 3 hour nap after meditation and running. This refreshed me, but it cut into my productive time of course. The darkening project is going to take more time than I had planned, I'm afraid. The tasks have been piling up. There are things for the current project, but apart from that there's some miscellaneous obligations or urgencies, and I haven't figured out how they fit into my new system yet. I suppose I just wait for a gap. How will I prevent that from now on: The men's group meetings are only once a month. Next time, I will schedule the nap, so that it's not a surprise (making a note on my calendar right now) I will simply make a note of how long the home project takes - I am still building experience estimating this category The miscellaneous tasks I will simply put on a list next to the calendar part. Maybe even carry over to the next month. I can cross them off whenever there is a gap. And of course eliminate as many as possible.