Vincent Musanti

@Draconis Chaser Great story! This is the one most major recurring problem in my life that still did not go away. When I first went into high school, I had beliefs about myself that I was better than everyone and when I realized I was not, it meant trouble for my whole life because my whole self construction was propped up on these assumptions. When those core steel beams were threatened, the whole building was in jeopardy. And this was one of the most major times where I faced this problem. And I tried to solve it with more work. Doing more. Waking up 2 hours earlier than everyone, on weekends too. And similarly, it was backfiring. Even personal development was backfiring. I would break down and lose motivation to do anything and then all of my teachers and classmates would wonder why I am all over the place. When I found out that even my friends were doing more than me, I would have this pit in my stomach that made my heart beat faster. It still happens sometimes today. I began to hammer out this problem by figuring out the root of it. My first conclusion was to focus more on personal development and journaling. Whenever someone talked about school I would turn away and go back to those things. Of course that did not work because I was avoiding the problem. I was simply using those things to make it feel like I was doing more than everyone else. The same problem... The only thing that has been working is just by accepting that I can not be better than everyone at everything and by focusing on things that moved me. Developing a vision that surrounded my own personal values/ It was all because I was insecure with myself in a school environment. But why should I be insecure? Do I need a stronger vision for my life to combat this problem? Or is that simply another distraction? At the core, how do you exactly work through this? And for those who have solved it, do you still have those doubts of yourself?

That's great how much value that brought you. I have a question for those who have abstained. When you guys have started up again, did all of those benefits of nofap disappear? My longest challenge I have done was from June until October last year. Nothing really seemed to change. My body was telling me to start up again. So I did. But I was fine with it because after it all I realized that its basically a mental versus body battle. My objection was this: "If I have the awareness to separate the neurotic desires of the ego from the natural desires of the body, I would no longer be in conflict with my actions or myself". What do you guys think

This is an interesting question because music can give situations more rich context. I like to fit different genres of music to different moods. Sometimes I like to visualize my life vision. In that case I listen to stuff like "Try it Out" by Skrillex. While contemplating death I like to listen to James Newton Howard's Central Park. Sometimes if I want to meditate just to calm down I'll listen to Trip Hop. Music plays such a huge role to re connect me to my source motivations. A lot of people drain me at school so quickly and it causes me to question the strength of my values and insights that are supposed to magically appear and remind me of important concepts. Music used to be the first thing I used to get in touch. However, I find that it can be a trap to rely on music to return to a state. Because if you were not able to listen to music anymore, would you start to change? Its a byproduct of neurosis to rely on something that way. If my gut or instinct is telling me to listen to music I will and if is telling me to pass and think or do something else instead I will do that. But some songs really get your juices flowing sometimes...

I have a horrible 2.5 hour bus ride to school every day because the school is on the other side of the county. Sometimes on the bus its interesting to try to experiment with different meditation techniques. Its obviously hard because the bus is making wide turns and hitting bumps. But usually I like to journal. All of my journals are on my notes app so its easy to access them and it is easier to type than write in most situations. I like to update an insight journal that has a list + theory/explanation of all key realizations I had. And then I have a daily journal where I just like to write down what happened through out the day. Those are the only things that I can do on the bus in focus. I get so distracted easily because I like to look out the window or sleep usually.

I'm really glad to see that there are other teenagers who have been in this conundrum. From what I found after struggling and opening my mouth too much is that you can still have fun and do certain activities in high school while also pursuing personal development. Because personal development is about optimizing your life to run more efficiently, personal development is about optimizing your psyche to perform the activities and fun things in life. What I realized is that neurotic tendencies like neediness and attachment to your cell phone is developed out of fear. Leo has a great video on how society is designed to distract you from looking inward. By observing the way the school environment behaves, you can understand how these 'bad habits' you have are set up to avoid doing inner work. Another thing you might realize is that certain activities like addiction to the internet or TV or your phone actually are not too fun after a while. In my life, bad habits have emotionally drained me. I do not know other people but I feel like after a while bad habits and addictions do the same to them. We see everyone from the outside having fun and enjoying playing on the phone. We think of TV as an enjoyable task. Those tasks are supposed to de stress you. That is from the outside. But it is hard to detect the inner world of those people and sometimes yourself. What usually is going on is that you are avoiding your higher self. The higher self is the part of you that wants to pursue personal development. It motivates you to do greater things. The higher self does not go away. You can distract it with more and more obligations and such. But realize what happens when all of the noise goes away. This may be late at night when you are alone. There are these 'nagging' thoughts that arise. What is causing these? The calls of the higher self. By suppressing the higher self, ordinary tasks will start to feel like chores. Life will seem to start going down hill. Its imperative that you answer the calls and listen to your 'gut feeling'. My realization is that everyone has the higher self in them but some have more distractions that cover it up to evade inner contemplation. Maybe this is why some of the happiest people have the least material wealth. Maybe this is why money can not buy happiness. Moreover, the quote really means that "material wealth will not make you happy if you can not be happy without it". If the higher self never disappears and only gets suppressed, if you have awareness to follow the higher self always, your life runs smoothly because you will never be in an internal conflict. However, it is definitely a challenge to maintain awareness and focus onto an insight or vision in a school-like environment. By pursuing personal development, what you can do is sprinkle a little bit of insight into your everyday life. By making insights more relevant, they can sneak their way into your language and strike people emotionally and move them in subtle ways.

I wonder if enlightened people feel lonely and upset that everyone else around them is still stuck in the illusion.

Cool!! I love the drive and passion in your goals!

My Corruption Point and Insights I felt compelled to write this to preserve an accurate representation of my current thoughts and insights as they arise and to share them as well as to share my story and some realizations that have helped me... To start off I'm Vince. I'm originally from Russia but was adopted and moved to the NYC/NJ area a while back. I like to say that my self-actualization journey started because it was fueled by an unhealthy, neurotic desire to compete with everyone around me. While I have the insight now how wrong I was, I'm still glad that I had a motivation so strong to start personal development because who knows how different I could be without it. It all began back in June of 2014 when I typed into YouTube "how to wake up early every day" and watched a video titled "My Morning Ritual" from Project Life Mastery or something. Still to this day I'm not sure how I had a vision so strong that it immediately pulled into action. (Maybe influence works strongly and I happened to be at the right place at the right time). Not quite sure... I instantly acted, buying a set of journals to take notes. A red composition notebook titled "Personal Development" and a black one titled "Insight Journal" still sit in my desk drawer. Since then I moved them electronically. It is so easy now to pick up my phone and type in some new insight I have through out the day and title the paragraph. Journaling has been the one process I have continually done every single day for the past 1.5 years and it is extremely liberating. I feel like it is key to be able to refer back to my thinking patterns and thoughts during a certain time of life when I'm out of touch with my purpose or vision. The insight journal and my daily journal in particular have been the two most habits I have started in my life. I finally was able to wake up at 5 and started my own schedule that week in 2014. Primarily, I focused on destroying limiting beliefs every single morning, meditating, and using incantations and tony robbins-such stuff with a down-to-the-second rigid morning routine. But a new phenomenon began when I realized I couldn't actually control my limiting beliefs or emotions 100% of the time. I was so mad at myself because it felt as if my progress was going no where. I lacked insight into how the mind works... So all of my progress crashed and burned during the end of the year. I stopped writing music and lost touch with all of my passions (including my backyard underground tunnel). It drove me crazy. I felt as if I was the only one who had no control in life. I was really hard on myself and tried to reverse this 'losing progress' feeling. I tried doing 30, 100, and 200 day challenges by quitting crap foods and nofap, expecting to feel empowered by 'defeating the low-minded, weak competition of society and defeating the inner selfish desires'. Of course that did not work. Looking back at it now with the insight of how neurosis works (trying to fight reality), it all makes so much sense! But that was all part of the process!! Going through those annoying cycles of extreme action followed by frustration and quitting WERE NECESSARY to have the insight in the first place and to grow. I watched the first Actualized video titled "How to Become a Millionaire" on August 13, 2014. I wasn't really bought into this idea of 'self actualization' yet. I was simply not ready. I like to use the terminology "The Corruption Point" to describe the point in time where society distracts you so much that you stray from your authentic self and become disinterested in your passions and life purpose as a kid. (When life is no longer vivid and exciting). When most of your neurotic tendencies develop. For me it was as high school began. I was accepted into a technical-math based high school and should have felt excited to go but I was not. I realized how much of a toll the desire to compete with everyone was taking on my psyche. It was rotting me from the inside out. No longer was I excited all the time, I was not worried about being the best and woke up panicking every day. I'm glad I had a foresight to know that something was not right and did not blame it on anyone except me. I had the recurring desire to compete in every part of life with everyone at school. Looking back at it now with the insight of enlightenment and especially how the conceptualized self is constructed, it makes so much sense once again! I had certain beliefs that I held as central core columns of my psyche and when those beliefs were challenged and put in a competition-based environment, it risked to destroy the entire building... But still at the time, I felt as if personal development was my clutch to compete. I'm thankful that my corruption point arose at the right time so that personal development made sense to me and stuck naturally. I'm glad that I was not close minded either and returned to just normal. I like to visualize how different life would be if all of these did not happen together... 2015 was perhaps the most important year of my life because it was the first time I got in touch with an authentic passion for personal development. Even though I'll admit I was a big talker a lot last year, getting in lots of trouble trying to convince friends and family about the importance of PD, talking about enlightenment, and writing long YouTube and quora comments advocating a certain way of life, I got just a taste of what life could be like if I kept going. However, still through out the year, there were times where I was skeptical if I was following the truth and authentically working on my life or was just doing it out of competition. This question still arises today but I feel more confident that I'm on a better path. I followed actualized through out the whole year, gaining key insights that have caused radical psychological shifts: Conceptualized world versus the actual world How neurosis causes all suffering Why meditation is key to enlightenment (raise consciousness) Why source motivations are key to getting back on track with writing music Masculine versus Feminine psyche How all emotional suffering is caused by refusing your body to let the emotion through Why I quit so easily (process versus result based mindset shift) Even atheists are dogmatic because dogmatism is a function of the human psyche How the ego is the sum total of all conceptualized beliefs of the self Happiness is simply a fleeting state and it is neurotic to fight and try to be happy always Why you can never suppress the higher self (it is nature to actualize your life)! Why early mid-life crises are crucial A possible explanation for the spread and start of religion How to honor the truth practically by telling people what you really think or feel How to temporarily unwire the abstract labeling mechanism in your brain How society is constructed to prevent you from looking inward Why solitude and alone time is crucial to fulfill the higher self Why death contemplation is actually liberating Why attachment is dangerous and leads to toxic friendships How you can release habits of mental resistance Most importantly, I learned why open mindedness is perhaps the most important trait to have in this society. One of my favorite terms to use is "The Insight Train" because it makes so much sense. By understanding how insight works, I was able to refine the learning process down to its core: that humans naturally learn through insight. Aha moment are localized to you because you have a distinct, individual world model. When you have an insight or aha moment, you understand something so deeply that you instantly change many beliefs and thoughts in your world model. 2015 for me was about understanding the human psyche because this understanding was applied to almost every single situation. Right now my main focus is applying the insight of no free will practically by not fighting authentic desires; developing a creative state to write music; break down a damaging ego before destroying it completely... Another thing I battle is how to actually talk about personal development. I spent a lot of time journaling and learning and stuff but do not know how to "put this on a resume". I still have conflicting thoughts and I wonder if i am on the right path when I am constantly surrounded by people who all have completely different mindsets and beliefs. When I go back to school I feel as if I am relinquishing the higher self to just follow the system. That is why I'm so glad this forum is now running... Well that is it. I'm so glad that I crossed paths with Actualized.org and will stay onboard with personal development... Thank you!!