john1

I've been thinking about this for a week or two after I watched the "life is a maze" episode. I came up with some things on my own, but I thought it was best to ask here. I'm starting to realize how important asking certain questions to certain people is and how much it can help me. So what constitutes a "good question" in your guys' opinion? I came up with some guidelines on my own: Not too broad or deep (what's the meaning of life?), not too shallow (what's the best brand of frozen blueberries at wholefoods?), not passive-aggressive (why are you stupid?), not stupid (How much could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?), not trivial (when did WW1 start?), not too long or convoluted, use proper grammar, don't be too fancy, don't be too casual, be polite, show your gratitude ahead of time, etc. -- Are all of these good points, or did I miss some stuff? Also, are the rules for asking a question in person different from asking people on a forum like this? Also, how do I incorporate all my points and convey my message to the other person concisely? I feel like when I ask questions I always forget some point and/or I always misconvey my message and get some unintended answers. A day later I always think, "oh, I forgot to add this," or "oh, the other person misunderstood me." To overcompensate this I add so much detail, end up telling my whole life's story, and make the question so long that I think the person doesn't want to read the whole thing or listen to me. I think I've done this here: I've added so much stuff in this message box that I feel like you'll look at it and simply ignore it because of how long it is. I really want to take advantage of this resource, so how do I (politely) squeeze all the information out of the person I'm asking the question to. I don't want to come off as annoying or an asshole, but I just want to get the most out of the question, because it can really help me.

I'm just curious about how much someone will grow by watching all the videos on Actualized.org and reading all of the books on the booklist. How long would it even take to get through all of that content? Is it worth going through all of it? I know all the concepts are useless without action, so what would happen if someone implemented 100% of the things that are talked about? 50%? 20%? 10%? 5%?

What would you say the best investments are for someone who's in high school/college to make in their life? What skills would serve them best and compound over time? What should all their time be spent on?

What do you mean by this exactly? Meditation, yoga? I thought spirituality came later.

Leo talks about building a foundation for your life, but what does that mean exactly? I've watched all of the life advice videos where he talks about the foundation, but I'm still confused. Is it about building skills? making habits? self-education? life-purpose stuff? investing in yourself? reading? a mix of all of these? Some clarification would be nice.

I'm in high school, living with my parents, have school online, and have very very minimal course work. So I have all the time in the world. I want to learn to draw, play piano, and become fluent in another language. Also, I have all the resources in order to do all these things. What should my attack plan be for learning all those skills? One at a time? Two at a time? Is it sustainable to do all three, like I'm doing now?

I'm 15 and finish high school in ~2 and a half years. As I watch more of Leo's videos, do more school, and go through life more I'm coming to the realization that I don't know what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, or what I should be doing. I see that this is the prime of my life, so I don't want to waste it. I have plenty of spare time, so what should I be spending it on? I know my eggs should go into different baskets, so what are those top priority baskets that I should be focusing on every day? Should I just be non-stop training as Leo said you should be doing in his no growth without training video? Should I be building skills? Finding my life purpose? Doing life purpose work? Learning about money? I made my parents buy like 15 books from the book list, so should a lot of my time be spent reading? Building a big picture understanding? Learning how life works? Should I be doing anything in the spiritual department? I'm already meditating, but do I need to be doing kriya and other stuff like that? What habits should I be building? What habits should I be breaking? What skills should I be building? What should I be developing? Tl;dr: I'm 15, don't know shit, what things should I invest my time in? I'd like to hear what you guys have to say!

Lately, I've become interested in learning about the body and how it works. The human body is so amazing, vast, deep, and profound. Are there any books, videos, or courses that teach you about all this stuff?

I notice whenever I listen to some really good music I always go into some state where nothing matters and I just experience a certain beauty and I just feel so grateful. What do I even call this? I know this is probably some spiritual stuff. Meditation probably helps with having more of these experiences, so I am meditating. It always ends within 5 minutes max and then I forget about it. So what should I do to experience this more often and for a longer duration?

I'm 15 and living with my parents. They pay for all my things, but like Leo said there are strings attached to their money. Some of their rules are really dumb and time-consuming, but I still have to follow them. I know that I'll be kicked out of the nest one day, so how do I prepare for that ahead of time? I have 2 years and 7 months to graduate high school, and I have lots of free time to spare. I want to make becoming independent one of my main goals in life. So, what should I do to work towards that goal for the next 2 years? What do I have to learn? What books do I have to read? What courses do I have to take? What mindsets do I have to adopt? And how much work will this really entail for me (I'm imagining that it's not going to be easy)? What skills do I need to start learning to reach this goal? I would love to hear your guys' thoughts on this.

Are recorded video lectures like MIT OpenCourseWare a good source for learning? I found this course on human behavioral biology, and it seems pretty good. I know Leo posted some of the lectures from this collection on the blog and said they were good. I realize that a lot of big-name universities have completely free lectures online and that seems promising to me. Like this one. But, do they actually deliver on teaching you? What have been your guy's experience with them? Most of them are the same length as Leo's videos, but do they have the same quality and depth in them? I know some lectures will be good, and some will be bad, but are they generally a good source for learning? If not, what are the alternatives? Is Coursera good? If these are good sources, what are your favorite and best lectures?

I watched the contemplating through journaling video, and I really think it's a great resource. But in the video, all Leo talks about is deep existential and metaphysical questions. I'm in a period in my life where I don't really care too much for that stuff. I'm in high school and quite lost in life. I don't know what I should be doing, what I value, what I like, what my goals should be, who I am as a person, etc. Even though I'm halfway through the lp course and have my values, some of my values seem inauthentic, and like I want them to be my values, but in actuality, they're not. I have the same problem with some of my strengths. So is using the process in the journaling video and then applying it to the problems here a good way to clarify what I want out of life? A good way of finding who I am as a person? What my personality is? What my values are? What I should be doing? Whether I should go to college or not? What my next step in life should be? What I should be learning and exploring? Basically, is doing the journaling process in the video a good way of strategizing about my life, what I should be doing, and finding who I am and what I want? How did all of you get clarity in your lives? Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear what you guys' have to say!

Thanks for all the responses! They were really helpful!!

I came to a certain epiphany over the past week or two: I don't know who I am or anything about myself. I'm 15, immature, young, and stupid. I don't know my personality, what I like, what I don't like, what gets me motivated, etc. But I know that if I did know who I was, a lot of my problems in life would just dissolve. I'm halfway through the lp course, but I'm still really unclear. I have my values and strengths, but some of them still feel inauthentic to me. Then when I go back to the master list of values to see what I want to replace those inauthentic values with, I get lost and paralyzed because I don't know what to put. So how do I go about finding my authentic self? Is there a method or technique? Do I journal about it? How did you guys find out who you were?

Would I learn or gain anything by learning to play an instrument? I'm asking because I have a full 88 key Casio keyboard piano collecting dust in my house. My dad bought it a while back because it was on sale. I opened it and took it out a year ago, but then put it back because it was too boring and hard and I lost my motivation to learn it. I wanted to play the piano after watching "Your Lie in April," a super beautiful and inspirational show centered around piano playing. So, should I take out the piano and try to learn it again, or is learning an instrument a waste of time? If it's not a waste of time, then what value does it give me to learn how to play it?

@Nahm Thanks, this really helped a lot!

I notice that I'm constantly taking my life for granted. I live in a good American town, I live inside a decent home, I live with my family, I've had an amazing upbringing, I have no diseases or body deformities, I have pretty okay looks. I'm in high school (10th grade), so I don't have to worry about real-life stuff like taxes. I've never gone 1 day without food or water (I'm actually a bit overweight). I have everything I could want in life, but I still take it for granted. I get bitter at people who have it better than me, and who have accomplished more than me. I think my life is so tough when it's really not. I get mad at my parents for the stupidest shit, when I should be so much more grateful towards them. I think that school is so bad and a waste of time, even though I would be nowhere without it. Then I feel guilty when I notice how much I've taken more for granted, how lucky I've got it, how much worse others have it, etc. After the guilt, I feel really happy, motivated, fulfilled, grateful, and like my petty problems really don't matter that much. The problem is: I keep forgetting this!!! One minute I feel grateful and satisfied, the literal next minute I jerk off to some porn and then watch 3 hours of youtube, and then feel horrible after the fact. Can I do anything to feel more grateful more often and for longer periods of time? What are the benefits of gratitude? Is the guilt that I feel justified? Thanks for reading all of this.

@Nahm Wow, thanks for writing all of that. It took me a while to understand what you were saying, and I still didn't completely understand it. I just have one more question: how do I balance both of those things? How do I balance "creating the life you truly dream to experience" with finding the truth and all that other stuff you're talking about? So my first priority should be creating the life I dream of, but what are the implications of that? I imagine all of the spiritual, truth, knowing stuff that you mentioned is still pretty important. So how do I go about incorporating the latter, without sacrificing or compromising the former? The latter also sounds a bit woo woo and really confusing at times, so how do I go about tackling it? Thanks again for all your help. I appreciate it more than you could imagine!

Is there any way to wake up before that? I don't want to lose something precious and have a bunch of regrets after the fact. So your saying consciousness and gratitude have a direct relationship(as one increases, so does the other)? If so, how would I go about raising my consciousness? I'm 15; Aren't I too young for that stuff? What do you mean by this? Do you mean that gratitude is too impractical? But isn't that mechanism good to a certain extent? I need to have my way to some degree, right? Otherwise, I would just forgo survival altogether and just lay down and die, right? So how do I find a balance between survival and spirituality? Also, if that's the point of spirituality, what's the big-picture, end goal of spirituality that I'm working toward? To become enlightened? Sounds pretty great! I could get to this "waking up" by practicing spirituality and meditation, right? When you put it that way I think you're right. I don't know what life is or what it's about. So if I recognize that I don't know, will that make me grateful? How does one get a clue to what life is? Then how do I go about getting a clue to what and who I am? You're dropping a lot of bombs on me. What do you mean when you say I have nothing? What do you mean when you say I don't know what my parents are? Also, why do you use the word "what" instead of "who"? Are you saying that I not only know who I am, what I am fundamentally? This is a lot to take in! So how do I find out what emotion is and what it means? That dream board sounds like a good idea! How do I find authentic things to put on it? What do you mean by I believe guilt is about me? "you weave the belief that a you feels a happy". I really don't get what that means. So are you saying that I'm deceiving myself by thinking that I know what I'm saying, but I actually don't? Are you saying that my situation is like the cloud situation that you mentioned? And what do you mean by "This changes meditatively"? Wow. I feel like something really deep is here, but I just don't get it. Here's what I get from this: you're not saying that I'm doing anything wrong, but you're giving me this message. And what do you mean by "the end of suffering" exactly? Oh, and thanks for all of your replies; they all really helped me out!

I became really curious about this question when I got a youtube ad from Hillsdale college about a free WW2 course. The ad was super interesting, so I clicked it and went to their website. I never heard about Hilldale, so I did a bit more research about it and found out they were a Christian school founded on Judeo christen values; that gave me a lot of PragerU vibes. This got me to wonder if they would tell the truth in the WW2 course and if they would be biased or not. This got me to wonder even further if any of the histories I learn from is biased or not. And it got me to wonder if history is really necessary at all or if it's just a waste of time. I have always been interested in history and learning about the past. I love learning about WW2, the civil war, the founding of America, medieval Europe, and about Napoleon. But recently I really wonder if learning about what one dead old white guy did to another dead old white guy is really helpful to me or just a waste of time. I could really get lost while watching history youtube channels like oversimplified, epic history tv, extra credits, whatifalthist, etc. I find that watching and learning about all these things opens my mind and makes me sound smarter. But should I be doing better things with my time? One of my main concerns now is that I will watch some biased or inaccurate documentary or video that will mess up my judgment and perception of reality: something like PragerU. If I should continue doing what I'm doing, I have some additional questions: 1. What parts of history should I learn about? I don't want to get stuck in the minutia/facts of things. 2. What are some good quality youtube channels, courses, or documentaries that you guys recommend? Is there any history taught by someone at stage yellow or turquoise? 3. What's the end goal of learning about history? what exactly am I trying to achieve by doing all of this? What am I trying to learn/accomplish by spending hours each day watching documentaries, reading books, and taking notes on all of them? Thanks for reading all of this! I really want to hear your guys' advice on this.

This seems like a really good list, but are all of these good books? There are 66 of them, just want to make sure they're worth it. Also, what do you recommend I do if I want to learn about one particular topic that's not on that overview. How should I find a good book on the Japanese Edo period for example? When you say a "thoughtful study of history" what does that mean exactly. I don't imagine it's a study of dates and places of certain events. Do you mean studying wars and events in the past and then learning about them and learning what mistakes they made? Should I seek out books on the matter, or should I find a course, or should a youtube video suffice? And exactly what wisdom am I trying to get by studying history. Am I just trying to learn from the mistakes of the past? Or is it something else? Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate them.

Wow! This seems like a really good resource. Thanks!

My work ethic right now is absolutely horrible. I go and sit down to do my online school works and my mind wanders and ends up watching cat videos on youtube somehow. I know building a strong work ethic is really important and I hype myself up, but I get so lazy and demotivated the second the rubber hits the road and I start doing anything. It could be doing schoolwork, doing some of the LP course, taking notes on Leo's videos, reading, etc. I spend so much time watching stupid youtube videos that it's insane. I procrastinate, and I'm lazy, even though I know it's bad for me. I dream up so much amazing stuff that I'm going to do the next day, but I always end up wasting my time and doing basically nothing all day. Has anybody gone through the same problem, and could you help me? Any tips, videos, courses, or books would be appreciated. Thanks.

I asked something on this forum a few weeks back and someone mentioned that I should do qigong. I have no idea what that is. If anyone can send a book, video, audiobook, course, etc. explaining what it is or how to do it that would be great.

@Albert Roiterstein @Preety_India I do have some more questions. I always try to sit down and focus on what I need to do and say, "okay for the next 1-2 hours I'll only do this one thing." But It almost never turns out like that. I sit down really really motivated, and then I look at what I need to do and do it well for 30 minutes. Then I convince myself I need to go on a break or check some email or something. Then I go down a rabbit hole of youtube videos, movies, porn, youtube shorts, and generally doing stupid shit on my phone and laptop. A lot of times I'm conscious of what I need to do while I'm doing all that stupid stuff. I know I need to do some work or do something productive, but my body has a mind of its own. And on the rare occasion that my willpower wins over what I'm doing, I sit down, open some books or some video in the LP course, and I'm just hit with this wave of resistance and I just feel paralyzed by it. when I push through it, I do get some good stuff done, but I can't push through it every time. Every single day I use my willpower and sit down to focus, and actually do the work and have a productive day, there are 5 other days where I don't do that and I procrastinate the whole day long. It's very frustrating, because I have 2-3 good weeks of doing good work, and then one day I just fall off it and go back to my old ways when I thought I was done with them for good. I know you're right when you say this stuff is a muscle and you have to train it, but what do I do if I can't even sit down to train it? Are there things that can help me improve my focus/concentration to do work? I notice that I can't really on my willpower all the time. Is it all just brute willpower and strength? Are there techniques or habits that can help (I'm already doing meditation and concentration btw (more than a month strong))? And when I do build up the muscle of sitting down, concentrating/focusing, and doing my work, how do I increase the time that I do my work? Thanks. The problem is that it's not just "some" enjoyment, it's a full-time job's worth of enjoyment time. I waste way, way, way too much time. I have 0 discipline and it really ruins a lot of stuff. It's like I have this beast or fire inside me that wants to accomplish all the greatest stuff, work 100 hour work weeks, conquer the world, etc., but it doesn't know where the hell it should be going. I have no direction, no clarity, no disciple, lots of addictions, and a monkey mind that refuses to shut up. I try to build a work ethic and it goes well for a few months at most, then in one day it just crashes down. I did this maybe 5 times in the past. I even do it with the LP course: I got stuck on those values assessments a month without making progress. I redid the whole LP course a second time from the start, but I got to the values assessment and I got farther, but now I feel like it's repeating itself and I going to be stuck on it again. My discipline is so bad that I even take getting motivated too far. I wanted to watch the rocky movies because I thought they would inspire me, and they did, but it's not really productive to watch 3 of them in one sitting now is it. Even though I got motivated as shit with the training montage in Rocky IV, what did it do for me? I wasted that entire day "getting motivated," only for nothing to change the next day. It's all repeating itself. I did this in the past with self-help. I would watch a bunch of Thomas Frank, get motivated to be productive, and do nothing, or if I did do something it would be negligible. Every time I try again the beast inside me gets hungrier and it gets stronger and stronger, but every time I fail, the pain of it also gets stronger and stronger. I am making progress every time I try and fail, but it gets really frustrating and demotivating when I do fail. How do I break out of this cycle that I'm in? It has to be more than just brute force willpower, right? Am I missing something? Am I just overcomplicating/overthinking all this? Thanks for your help.