SQAAD

@JosephKnecht @JosephKnecht You've made some good points.

@NoSelfSelf I find it hard to understand some parts of your post. I highly doubt you don't think about her and only care about what you are gonna do. If you use certain tricks to get her to like you more and increase your chances of slipping into her pants then that is manipulation right there. You do not act freely and genuinely 100% of the time. For example when i talk to others, i wanna talk all the time but i don't . I try to speak as little as possible so they respect me more. That is another trick (manipulation) i use. What i really want is to never stop talking. But then the other person will not take me seriously. So i am forced to play this game. It's an act. But many people just don't want to admit what they are doing.. There are countless examples of this.

@Aaron p Yes i agree with you. Finally someone understands my position. Some people just don't wanna admit how much they manipulate others. Manipulation has a bad connotation to it.

@ZzzleepingBear I really don't know anymore if its positive or negative. I think manipulating to make other people more conscious and maybe earn some extra cash is not bad. You cannot avoid playing the game of life. Its a game with all kind of tricks. If you don't use those tricks then your survival will be hindered and other devilish idiots who don't think twice about their devilry will gain power and corrupt others.. I prefer conscious people having power rather than unconscious people. I don't think manipulations can be avoided unless you are at a super high level of Consciousness like Ramana Maharshi. For the rest of us mortals we have to manipulate. I am a very empathetic person and i care about being good. Recently i have been gaining some awareness of my manipulations. I think twice about this kind of stuff. That's why i want some feedback on this topic.

@r0ckyreed My point is that even 'great' leader do use countless of manipulations. Manipulation is any means and tricks (good or bad) you use to achieve a goal. I believe that there are good forms of manipulation . We all manipulate. Leo's videos about getting laid is all about manipulation. Doing this, not doing that, saying things this way , not some other way. Being humorous, playing with womens emotions. What are all these??

@Jannes You don't need the details. The structure is this ''If i don't manipulate something bad might happen to me''. The content is irrelavent. It can be literally Anything you want. Yes i can confront people.

@NoSelfSelf No, you have to manipulate in order to get what you want. If you are in position of power or not, you are still being a manipulative 'snake' one way or another. For example a speaker may pause after an important statement so he can have an increased effect on his audience. He will not speak 'authentically' as he pleases. We are all master manipulators. And by the way, when you are with a girl, watch how many manipulations you use. You might not desire to put that deodorant but you will use it just so you can get into her pants. You will say the right things you learned from others while acting like a Hollywood actor how confident you are. It's all an act. You can act confident in an instant. Its easy to do. I doubt there is even such thing as acting authentic when we are all photocopies of others one way or another.

@Jannes I don't want to get into the content of why i had to do it. Let's say that if i did not cause fear to X person, i would risk losing my health. How about that? Let's say you cause fear to your stupid child because you are terrified of getting contaminated of sick by some checmical because of his ignorance and stupidity... And yes i allow myself to be angry and have all sorts of emotions. I have not done shadow work . But i journal a lot.

I suffer from OCD but for the last 3 years i have been doing a lot of response prevention and learning a lot about this monster. My father has it. Partially it must be genetic. My sisters don't have it though. For the last 2 years i have been doing very well. But few months ago, i did watch a video that was about mindset. The guy in the video said that if you say things out loud then you increase the probability of those bad things happening. And how saying something out loud is much more powerful than just thinking it. Also he mentioned a story of a guy who freaked out and ended up dying while he was closed in a refrigerator. The refrigerator was not working. But he was convinced in his mind that it was working and ended up killing himself. I don't know if the story is true or not. Moreover he mentioned the story of an athlete who was constantly saying that he wil die at 40 and actually did die at 40............. After this , i became paranoid of saying bad things out loud. A part of me knew that this fear was irrational but another part of my brain was afraid ''what if you can actually say something bad and cause some harm to your body by some subconscious mechanism?''. OCD does not need proof. OCD only needs an What If. Also OCD doubts everything. This obsession has caused tremendous ridiculous levels of suffering in my life. I like contemplating by speaking out loud & If i say something ''negative'' like that i have cancer, then i get afraid that my body could actually cause me the cancer. Then i feel the urge to say the opposite to counteract the negative i just said. This only teaches my brain to be afraid of this stuff. I know the solution is to stop reacting all together. But it has been very difficult to do so. I have evidence that this fear is bs. I have said multiple negative things that never did happen. And i don't beleive we have access to the bodily functions. But there are also some examples that validate my fear. In the last video i posted, there was an experiment where people had different physiological reactions based on the amount of calories they believed they had ingested. Anyway, i just wanna say whatever i want without this fear torturting me that i may damage my body because i said something bad. Any advice is highly appreciated.

@Judy2 I agree with that. Good advice. I don't know.. You can hardly argue with your fears especially with OCD. Because you are seeking 100% absolute certainty when there is no such thing. You can for example assure yourself that the probability you got aids from touching that doorknob is very low probability but when you have OCD , you want zero probability. Hence you suffer. The solution that works for me is simply to ignore the fears. I make space for them by listening but i don't engage with them or try to dismantle them because it never works. The brain can always come up with another what if statement. I have analyzed this . What i've found is that my main fear is a general fear of suffering and pain. I fear for example a scenarion where i suffer so much that the only savior is suicide. That's what i fear the most. Being in a situation where my life is unberarable because of extreme levels of misery,pain and suffering.

When you are following your Life-Purpose and your dreams, many times you feel that you might never make it. And it is very hard to convince yourself otherwise. I don't know what are the statistics but i assume most people never make it and never will . This is super discouraging and drives me into a low motivation state where i don't have much passion to work hard anymore. Charles Bukowksi ''made it'' as a writer in his 50s (when finally a publisher gave him some attention) but many others never did. Eckhart Tolle would not enjoy his ridiculous level of fame and success if it wasn't for Oprah promoting his books and work. Bill Gates wouldn't become the King of Software, if it wasn't for the great private schools and the minicomputers he had access to at the time. There is definetely an element of luck to all of this ''success' thing. And also you must have the right kind of personality and fit into a certain box. I didn't like the video below. The fat man in the video says how ''following your dreams'' and ''you can be anything you want'' are super bad advices. He goes on to derogate these notions. Even though he himself followed his dreams. (The irony). Its hard to keep pursuing your dreams when society and many people around you, tell you otherwise because of ''reality'' and ''statistics''. Any thoughts? How do you deal with all this uncertainty and doubt? Is it still worth it even if you never will ''make it''?

Let me give you a summary. For a period of 6 months i have been highly motivated and i was pursuing my goals . But now , the last couple of months i have been in a low dopamine state and it is very hard for me to push myself to do certain things (like working on mastery and life purpose). I have temporarily stopped practicing on the one thing that i wanna master, because i can only do it for like 15 minutes at a time. The most convenient thing is to scroll through videos on youtube. I noticed that i watch like 5 minutes of a video and then i notice a shift in my consciousness where i am super bored and have no drive to watch any longer. Then i search for another video to watch. Later in the day, i notice that i can watch for 20 minutes or even 45 minutes of a video at a time. I know some things about dopamine and how it is basically the fuel that gives us energy to do stuff. Besides scrolling through many videos and watching few minutes of one video at a time, i don't do drugs and activities that release huge amounts of dopamine. I watch porn like once every day or once every 2 days but i don't believe it is an issue for me. I never get addicted to watching much porn. It's weird because for 6 months my motivation levels were quite high and stable. And i had the drive to practice the one thing i wanna master for hours. I don't know if maybe i was doing too much of my life purpose and kinda burned myself out. I am thinking of a dopamine fast. Not watching videos on the internet is not an option. But i am thinking maybe i should force myself to not skip videos. Any advice on how to get out of this low dopamine state is highly appreciated.

@Superfluo Dude you cannot control sleep. You can only create better conditions for sleep to happen. I am against all this non sense about tracking your sleep, that some 'weirdos' (in my opinion) engage in. The more you care about sleep, the worse your sleep becomes. Because you are constantly worried and paranoid about it, creating extra stress for yourself People who sleep well don't think twice about sleep. People who suffer from insomnia care and worry about sleep 24/7. And yes if you change environment , you raise dopamine. But that is not my underlying issue.

@zurew Yeah that is great advice. What you are talking about is essentially removing the friction. I like this concept very much. I've heard it from the Atomic Habits book. It's great not to rely on willpower and just eliminate the damn obstacle. I try to do that as much as i can. Youtube is my enemy. And my laptop too. That is what i use to master my own thing but also to watch videos on youtube. I will check maybe there is a way to block youtube from my laptop.

@Carl-Richard Because multiple minds is better than one mind when trying to find a solution.

@Scholar I like this idea. Anxiety isn't the problem. The issue is boredom.

@Kksd74628 Dude, i am physically active. And don't call me indirectly lazy ass b*tch. That is not cool. Your arrogance and testosterone is reeking too much and you should contain it more. Not everyone should be running and lifting weights. That is your thing. Don't force in onto others. Walking 45 minutes every day is good enough for me & doesn't cause uneccesary pressure to my joints. I was lifting weights for years and was into powerlifting . I know the drill.

@Carl-Richard I highly doubt that. We all have motivation problems eventually. Your dopamine doesn't stay the same. After a peak, it goes below baseline. Nobody can work at X thing at the same pace indefinitely. Leo takes 2 months breaks every year.

@Michael569 Basically my problem is that when i wake up in the morning, the easiest thing for me is to scroll through some videos and waste time on youtube. To sit down and practice is not the most attractive option. But this has only been the case the last couple of months. Before that, i didn't waste much time on youtube, and i was practicing for hours. I had the drive, the motivation, the fuel. Until one day i couldn't spend more than 1 hour practicing. I couldn't force myself. It was too painful and unbearable. I think i need to force myself now. Maybe it will work. I don't know what else to do.

@Kksd74628 Ahahahaha Leo says its a waste of time ^_-

@Carl-Richard No. I used to though. Nowadays i mostly go outside for a walk.

Until today, i didn't know that cleaning your mattress was a thing that people do. Is this neccessary for health? I have never done it and i am 29 years old. My parents and grandparents (some of which lived up to 87 years old with no major health issues) never cleaned their mattresses aswell. From what i understand, there are some tiny organisms that live in the mattresses and can cause you respiratory issues if not removed. I have not suffered any ill effects thus far. I take care of cleaning sheets and etc. But cleaning the mattress i have not done that.

Yes i flirt with the idea of suicide from time to time. And it is very normal under certain conditions. There was a phase in my life where i was super bad mentally. And then i was really serious about ending it all. I bought a drug that could potentially kill me. And i prepared the injection. But then i realised that i could not do it . The urge to live, was too strong to overcome. You have to be really really bad to override this self preservation instinct. I wasn't at that breaking point. After that one incident, i never considered again seriously ending my life. I would just entertain it as a thought when things were hard but never seriously. You don't want to to die. What you want, is to stop the misery. That's an important distinction to keep in mind.

I took anti anxiety medication for like 3 weeks and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I became like a zombie. Basically i didn't feel much of anything. I didn't feel anxiety much but i also didn't feel much of anything else. It was a very dull state of consciousness that i despised. I quickly weaned off the medication. I am very against medication unless they are super necessary. From your post, it seems you haven't exhausted all other methods yet. My anxiety nowadays is very low level. I don't feed into anxiety by ruminating about it. And i accept the worst case scenario by being willing to experience everything.

@Yarco What does this recent study say? I'm very interested to know.