TakeCare

Just before I begin I want to mention that DAY 14 meditation before sleep was a nightmare to me. The amount of negativity coming with my thoughts was almost unbearable. It was the most challenging meditation I had so far. I did not make through 20 minutes, at about 15-16 I felt I was too tired to face more of this vomit coming from my thoughts and went to sleep. WEEK 3 DAY 15 I was blessed with rigid motivation this morning. I went through my morning routine like a tank nothing could stop me. I did not rush it but every time I noticed even a glimpse of procrastination I destroyed it with purposeful action. At work I did well too - working on my posture, staying focused on my task (although mostly unconscious). Coffee without sugar was completely fine. Sugar does not even make it better although I am pretty sure at some point I will have cravings towards it and in my minds eye it will seem like a must-have supplement for my coffee. 20 minute meditation. Was very difficult to relax at the first half. Gradually I calmed down and became sleepy. The usual scenario. I meditate sitting on the chair keeping my back straight and away from the back of the chair. I find it difficult to find a spot where I can feel relaxed and comfortable. I might need more practice or some research on meditation positions. Sitting cross legged sounds too complicated to me but I will try it sooner or later. After that I spent my time making a video from what I have filmed during the weekend. I spent a lot of time trying to save the video which just did not work properly. I felt like I am wasting my time. I spent all day at work so I can have time to do self-development and work on realigning myself with reality but instead I chose to dedicate the evening for making a silly video. I got my shit together in the end. Watched "10 important things you want, but don’t know that you want" was blown away and went to sleep. DAY 16 When I woke up I felt deeply calm for like 10 seconds then the chimp awoke. Chatter chatter chatter.. Nothing special happened at my job. Easily resisted delicious snacks that were shared in the kitchen and worked on my sitting posture. 20 minute meditation. I could not keep myself aware for more than 10 seconds. First I struggle to relax and when I do relax I become sleepy. Only thing that I can do is to bring my focus back to breathing whenever I catch myself wondering about: my job, my girlfriend, game of thrones, alternative version of evoliution where we had infrared vision since we were primates, the theory that I might have problems with my pancreas, people I interacted with today, things that I read in the forums and so on. Big progress is that I did not judge myself even a bit. I calmly noticed my train of thought and refocused on my breathing. Breathe in breathe out breathe in breathe out and I lost it, half a minute later I noticed and got back. Breathe in breathe out breathe in breathe out and I lost it again. And again. And again. It is surprising to me that after I am done meditating I feel better no matter how "good" or bad" the process was. DAY 17 First half of the day I had questions nagging in my head non-stop. I felt a bit lost and just wanted to get away from anything. That definitely did not make my time at work easier. During a lunch break I walked to the shop just to get away for a while. After that I felt lack of energy and had a hard time being productive although still managed to do what I had to. When I came back home all of the sudden I took my freshly acquired diploma and sat for a minute holding it in my hands. It has been a month since I finished university and all is forgotten. It does not matter much - I keep working where I worked before (it is a good place and I like it there, so that is not a problem) and I do not even think about the time I was writing my master thesis. Gosh that was very imbalanced period in my life. I was a wreck. I have to say I am moving to the right direction. Sometimes I might be pushing myself too hard. I know what happens when I do that - I go lightly insane and jump back to my old habits. All must be in balance. 20 minute meditation. Main challenges: Relaxing; Not judging; Not trying to make myself feel better; Being present; Not forcing myself to be focused on my breathing but simply observing the process. Today I did another 20 minute meditation. I noticed that if my back touches the back of the chair even slightly I slowly become sleepy. Awareness is tricky (and sometimes sleepy). DAY 18 All this process is draining me. I think I am pushing to hard. I had a conversation with my girlfriend last night. She thinks that lately I was mostly in a bad mood and I seem to be more negative. Well, I am not smoking, my diet has changed drastically, I do meditate everyday and I am installing new habits. All this takes effort and I need some time to find balance. Shit. Today I just want to watch some stupid stuff on the internet, just to take away the pressure and relax but I also do not want to avoid the (probably necessary) pain. Anyway, going to meditate now. 20 minute meditation. I was not focused, even opened my eyes 2 or 3 times. But I enjoyed it a lot. Now I am calm. I am glad I meditated instead of watching some entertainment on youtube or wherever. I realised something - I still judge myself a lot. There are not many obvious addictions left (that was my main reason for self-judgement) but new things have emerged and I still have a hard time accepting reality. Oh well. DAY 19 First half of the day was pretty intense. Nothing intense happened in the external world but inside I was totally lost. Emotions of fear, uncertainty, anxiety and constant self-criticism which was very subtle. For a long time I actually did not notice this was going on. Second half of the day I was more relaxed but not really present. I seem to be way more neurotic around other people that I am not very close friends with. I came back home and had a 20 minute nap. After that 20 minute meditation. This was different than usual. It is difficult to describe. It had a feeling of flow and calmness. I was present for longer than usual. And the calmness I felt… It has been a very long time since I had a feeling of this clarity. DAY 20 I was visiting home. Had a conversation with my mother where she carelessly said that I am the guy who always breaks things accidentally. That was a trigger. I was relatively calm but emotions have sparkled inside nevertheless. I asked for examples what did I break exactly and all she could give was two cases (third one was false). I personally remember maybe three occasions which I have been constantly reminded of by my parents. Whenever I wanted to use something of my parents there was a distrust. They would remind me: "oh, you broke the antenna on your radio one minute after you bought it." That is how I became a guy who breaks things by accident. Throughout entire conversation I had an evasive understanding that I do not really care about that. Even if that were true, why would it matter? In the end this realisation became primary focus of mine. Emotions have calmed slightly but were still vibrating strongly. Parents are probably are the best at pushing my buttons (in this case accidentally). Later I met with some friends and noticed many small details that I was not aware of before. The time we spent together made me realise that I have to get ready before meeting with people (had a similar problem before). Something has to click inside to keep that sense of presence up. It is very easy to lower your awareness to the level of the people you are communicating with. Some time ago I watched a video where Eckhart Tolle told a story where he was meeting his mentally ill wife or mother (do not remember exactly) and she would become more conscious and less paranoid in the light of his awareness. That is something I want to experience. I want other people to become more present because of my awareness. It is a great gift one can give to other people. DAY 21 20 minute meditation. This time I did it in the morning. Had a strange feeling in my belly as if something was tense there. I do not think it was tense for real but it felt this way and this feeling stuck with me through entire meditation. I tried to focus on it and just feel it. Not very enjoyable. Today I played table tennis with my brother. I saw it in a totally new way. This game is a lot about focus. Ability to notice the way your opponent hits the ball and being able to respond accordingly is crucial. Of course, it is a fast game and it is very intuitive but I noticed that I perform much better when I am conscious. It was an interesting experience, felt a bit like meditation. REVIEW OF WEEK 3 Thoughts I am doing great so far but… …it is scary. I started to notice more about myself and the environment and I fucking do not like most of it. I know that it does not matter because this is reality. I simply have been ignoring it and it hits me hard now. Like a truck full of bricks made of shit. Sometimes I feel an urge to hide - to go eat just for the sake of eating, to watch some entertaining stuff online, to game, to smoke and so on. It is challenging just to be with myself, especially when I notice that sometimes I can be neurotic egoistic self-righteous craven. Things have changed immensely and it is like one third of the first step in the journey. All in all, I am experiencing a different mix emotions than before. This mix includes anxiety, anger, dissatisfaction as well as calmness, curiosity and peace of mind. What almost disappeared from the emotional soup is my most apparent addictions and feelings of fast pleasure followed by feelings of guilt. Tips for myself * Be strategic about meeting with other people, anticipate possible pitfalls. * Do not touch the back of the chair when meditating! Not even a little! Otherwise, get the pillow ready, because you are going to zzzzz.... * Beware of the game of Black&White. Life is not that simple, be flexible dear sir. * Give yourself a pat on a back, you are doing splendid! Goal review Quitting smoking - Check. Solid week without smoking, minimal effort required. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Check. (although I watched a video-stream for like 10-15 minutes until I realised that I am not really interested to know how the game goes) Limited social media time - Check. (although I spent more than 10 minutes on weekend) Eating healthier - Check. Exercising in the morning - Check. (Might have missed Saturday but it was physically active anyway) Meditating for at least 20 mins everyday - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Healthy sitting posture - Check (this one is tough to land 100%) No alcohol - Check. Did not have any external temptations. No sugar in coffee - Check. Almost no effort required. These goals are not black and white anymore. These are not strict rules, these are guidelines. I believe I can be happy without completing all weekly goals 100%. I do not really care too much if I have a cigarette here and there. I just do not want to have a NEED to smoke. If I feel that it is the best thing to do at some point I am fine with it. I do not care if I watch some video-game streams or play some. If I consciously believe that for some reason it is the best way to spend an hour or two that's what I will do. Same goes with eating healthy, exercising, social media, alcohol although I am going to be strict with meditation and sitting posture. For me meditation is a link between separate days and weeks, it is an island of awareness in the ocean of chaos. I still quite often do not really want to do it but I am almost always happy after I have meditated. All in all, good job. New goals — No more excessive finger cracking. Thank you for reading, TakeCare. Next updated scheduled on 2016.07.24

WEEK 2 DAY 8 Slept well. I noticed that lately I have been focusing more on being present and not on feeling pleasant which counter-intuitively made feel more pleasant. Every time I notice myself sitting incorrectly I fix my posture. Working on it consistently. Situation: My co-worker started complaining about the weather because it is cold and it is raining and that is not what summer should be like. I had a short flash of anger inside because I thought it is stupid to complain about weather because weather is exactly what it is supposed to be, every summer has some rainy and cool days. Immediately, I was struck by realization, that me getting angry inside because of what she said is equally (or even more) stupid to being angry at weather. I did not want to accept the reality - her saying what she said. My anger vanished instantly. Meditated as soon as I got back home. No procrastination today. Felt sleepy, tried to adjust sitting posture. That helped a bit but I often lose focus and start falling asleep. Wanted to smoke after dinner but I did visualization in which I recalled several situations where I regret smoking or wanted to quit. More and more often I notice the emotion of anger. Was it always like this or this is because of all the addictions I am liquidating right now? I had a coffee in the evening. Was not worth it at all. Taking a mental picture to help me to make the smart choice next time. DAY 9 Did not get enough sleep because I went to cinema yesterday. I get irritated very easily. Doing fine at work but at home I get triggered for barely any reason. Not sure how to deal with this emotion or triggers, need to do some research. After few hours I watched Leo's video about anger. I suppose I need to keep meditating and practicing my awareness because anger in its core is denial of reality. The more in touch with reality I get the less anger I will have. I want to mention that it is not the anger that follows me through entire day, it is more like few sudden bursts that fade out quite quickly but leave some vague dissonance in the background for few hours. Working on my sitting posture a lot today. This needs some time. Every 15 minutes or so I notice that my posture is messed up. Towards the end of the work-day I had strong cravings for a smoke. It persisted for a couple of hours so when I came back home I consciously smoked a cigarette with peaceful mind. I focused on how it made me feel and kept asking myself is that what I really want? Lately I have been trying to avoid looking at things as black or white. Quitting smoking requires willpower, thats for sure, but I do not want to brute force it, what I want is to emotionally understand that I actually do not want to smoke. After a cigarette I did not feel bad about myself (which alone is an achievement for me). I used to smoke 10-20 cigarettes a day and now having occasional smoke may be fine. I do not have answer to that yet but I will keep working on it. At the moment I still believe that quitting entirely is the best option. 20 minutes of meditation. I feel that I have been more present than previous days. I thought about ton of things and I saw many weird things but I tenaciously kept bringing my focus to breathing. This session felt very good! DAY 10 Today is a day off for me. 20 minute meditation session. It was difficult to meditate, I was anxious and irritated. I had some plans for today (visiting my father) but nothing was clear till the end, I made a lot of calls and in the end I decided not to go. Felt a bit guilty though. This and few other little things that happened today made it emotionally very difficult to meditate. In the end plans have changed again and I traveled to meet with my relatives. My father told me that I look "unusually calm" although I did not think that I might look different than usual, I was simply being a tad more present. Sad realization was the fact that food and alcohol was the core of our gathering. I had a bit of alcohol and once again I understood that it is just not worth the price. Even small amounts cloud awareness pretty well. I also became more neurotic which really made me think about completely removing alcohol from my life. I wanted to watch some video game streams today. I know there is a big tournament upcoming and even though I do not know what happened during 10 last days I do know that something is happened. Resisted. I was aware about how much of a step back it would be for me. Also I wanted to smoke couple of times but I reminded myself how I felt last few times after smoking. I managed to recall the feeling of "it was not worth it" very vividly and my desire to smoke evaporated. DAY 11 Morning was great. I had some extra motivation today and did well at my job and I enjoyed doing well though in the end I got quite tired. I was more aware about my posture than every before and kept adjusting it to the correct position. When I got back home I had one cigarette. I have never had a time in my life where I would smoke a little bit one day or another. It deos not bother me much although it also does not eactly allign with my inintial goals. After smoking I once again realized that it probably was not worth smoking. I was tired and it seemed like a innocent thing to do at that point but it did not give me what I was looking for. I assume go straight to meditation would have been a much better choice. No regrets though, I am learning. I am really glad that I am in a better relationship with myself and I do not bash myself to death for every "wrong" thing I do. DAY 12 Every morning I feel very vulnerable to all kinds of triggers. Sometimes I need just a little push to go off track. I have to be extra aware in the first few hours of my day. All in all day was fine. What I want is more awareness at work. It is very easy to drift in a dream-like state and not notice anything. Things just keep happening. I managed to keep my sitting posture in a good position most of the time and I also had few moments where I was aware of what I am doing exactly and this made me enjoy the process more. I do want more of that but for now I am not able to be present as much as I want to. I will keep working on my awareness and I believe it will gradually improve. It is only day 12 I should not overestimate short-term results and I should not underestimate long-term results. 20 minutes of meditation. I had an idea to draw some general guidelines for myself that would help me to enjoy whatever I am doing. Next two days I will be away from home and I might find some time for drafting these guidelines. After meditation I was inspired to look for some competitions that I might participate in by myself or together with the office I work in. I played many scenarios in my head and that triggered something emotionally. Unfortunately, it was not positive at all. I fell into the state that is in between my normal state and a panic attack. In the beginning I did panic indeed, although as the time went by I accepted that heavy scary feeling and it slowly receded. I fell asleep without fully realizing what has happened there. It was an emotion from my past. It keeps coming back from time to time. Like a tornado wrecks all my sand castles and leaves me all paralyzed for a while. This is something I will have to work a lot on. DAY 13 This weekend I was travelling. I smoked and ate too much. Later I had time to reflect on that. Today I had my first meditation in nature and I really enjoyed it. After that I started reading Epictetus and spent some time contemplating concept of awareness. Here are few things I wrote down: My expectations of other people is my problem. I should try meditating in the morning. Awareness itself eliminates negative habits but there has to be a remarkable consistency for that to happen without any willpower. Excess of anything is never a virtue. I had an obligation to attend a birthday of my girlfriends friend. I only knew a couple of people there and not too well. I was put under continuous pressure to drink alcohol. I had one beer and one shot of jack daniels. Apparently, folks there just can not accept someone not drinking without a "reason". To avoid endless offers to have a little bit of this or that you have to be pregnant, ill or very old. All in all I felt like I just have to kill 6 hours (which in the end turned out to be 7 hours). Conversations were shallow, most of the jokes were funny only because they were not funny. I tried to observe and learn but it worked only for short periods of time. I kept going to smoke with my girlfriend because I just wanted to get away from all that nonsense. I promised to come there and so I did. Not going to make promises like this anymore. This will cause problems in our relationship for sure but I value my life too much to keep spending time like this. I am a people pleaser kind of guy and this will be difficult for me to reject other people initiatives to spend (or rather waste) time together. DAY 14 All the new habits that I am creating were greatly challenged these last two days. One thing is to do well at home and totally another is to manage to follow through when visiting my girlfriends parents and friends. I was simply not ready. Next time before any big change of environment I have to set some time to evaluate upcoming challenges. I smoked about 8 cigarettes today. When I smoke 1 cigarette I am fine. When I smoke more in the end it makes me feel bad emotionally and physically. If I smoke 1 there is a chance to smoke more. If I do not smoke daily there is a chance I might smoke 1 someday which I am fine with. Although if I am totally honest with myself I do not need these emotional crutches at all and that is the conclusion that I keep coming to. 20 minute meditation will be done after I finish this blog-post. It is really late and it is tempting to skip it for today but consistency is the essential. REVIEW OF THE WEEK 2 Thoughts I keep waiting for something or thinking about things that are going to happen in the future. At work often feel as if I can not practice awareness or something is just not right and I have to wait to go back home to deal with that. Usually when I am more aware at work I understand that this is utter bullshit but I rarely manage to keep my awareness there. I read a lot of other people journals here and I get lost sometimes. Some people go really far with their meditation dedicating large chunks of time, some people seem to be dissatisfied with themselves for various reason even though they really do put a lot of effort towards actualization. I get lost because meditation and heightened awareness are relatively new concepts to me and some people seem to have gone really far. I will move forward on my own pace and I will see where it leads me. I believe it will be easier to understand as the time moves on. There are a lot of things to explore and that really excites me. More and more often I am in peace with myself and the world and one thing that I do not want is to have neurotic approach to self-development. There is one qoute that I found in the forum which really resonated with me: “The person who can freely acknowledge that life is full of difficulties can be free, because they are acknowledging the nature of life - that it can't be much else.” Also somewhere (forgot where) I was introduced with an idea which basically says: "If you stop constantly trying to make yourself happy it counterintuitively makes you more happy" That’s just pure gold to me. Tips for myself: * Take time to get ready for the change of environment. * It is worth to try meditating in the early morning. * Drinking tea before is sleep is not as bad as coffee but still pretty bad. * Smoking is never good for me and never makes me long-term happy. Just fucking end it I am tired of this in-and-out relationship. Goal review Quitting smoking - back to the start. This will end. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Check. Limited social media time - Check. Eating healthier - All good except weekend. Have to plan in advance. Exercising in the morning - All good except weekend. Meditating for at least 20 mins everyday - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Healthy sitting posture - Check (still working on it though) Smoking visualization - Failed. Forgot about it after few days and I remove this from my goals. I do not want to think about smoking from one perspective or another. New goals: — No more alcohol. — No more sugar in my coffee. Next update planned on 2016.07.10-11

I love your methodical approach to setting goals and planning. I guess that is because I like planning, schedules and schemes myself although in my experience very strict schedule for the day creates a lot of tension and does not really give adequate results, however, if it works for you that is great. One more thing that I can say for sure is that your journal has a new follower. Good luck !

WEEK 1 DAY 1 Slept poorly. Did not wake up early enough to exercise. Mouth feeling really dry. First morning without a smoke. Levels of motivation at work mediocre or slightly below. I observe more and the thing that struck me the most today is how consistent I am about being neurotic in public, worrying about all kinds of random things. Barely avoided a smoke while sitting in the balcony with my girl. 20 minutes of meditation. DAY 2 Slept poorly. Woke up in time. Made an attempt to exercise but that barely counts. Mouth still dry, expected it to be better this morning. Level of motivation at work - mediocre. About 3-4 times had some thoughts about smoking. Resisted. Today I got my diploma and had strong feelings of fear before going on stage to get diploma. Dining with my relatives and being all funny and talkative while barely aware of what is actually happening at that moment. 15 minutes of meditation (it got interrupted and I couldn't continue after, this happened because of procrastination). During meditation I felt very sleepy I had a hard time keeping myself awake. Meeting with friends from university. Feeling good but still surprisingly neurotic. Had one beer. DAY 3 Slept poorly again. This is uncommon to me. Not sure if it is mostly because of how hot it is these days or because of the changes that I am implementing. In the morning I was angry because of bad sleep. I found a jar of jam which was spilled out in the fridge and that triggered me pretty strongly. I actually punched a fridge at one point because doors kept trying to close while I was cleaning it. Later recalling this episode I could not resist a smile. My conclusion is that punching a fridge might not be the straightest path to self-actualization. Tadam! Finally managed to do proper morning exercise. At work motivation is still inconsistent. I kept pushing myself forward though. My back hurt so I had to sit with my back straight while not touching the back of the chair. This does not sound too difficult but it actually requires one thing that I really should work on - consistent effort. Walking from work was amazing. I felt quite centered (although with really neurotic background noise), I observed the city and appreciated the beauty in front of me. Once again realizing that I have graduated from the university made me feel uplifted. I met with a friends for a half an hour. I was not really there consciously. 20 minutes of meditation. My chimp mind is working full time - either I am thinking about some past or future events or I am falling asleep. I keep getting back to the present but I don't stay there for more than 10 seconds. I am sure it will get better. DAY 4 Sleep quality slightly better. Exercising was not a problem this morning. Today was a busy day at work and I liked it. Time flew by as I dove into my tasks. More and more often I feel comfortable. I am split in how I feel about that. In a way that is a result of my efforts. The emotion itself reduces my motivation to keep doing what I am doing. Having strong vision is the only way to stay motivated. 25 minutes of meditation. I was interrupted once (had to go open the door) but I took it very calmly and continued what I have started. It was difficult to relax at the start but in the second half I did better. Towards the end I might have relaxed too much - almost fell asleep. I spent almost an hour cleaning the oven (it was in a terrible condition) at the same time listening Leo's video about "should" statements. I have an overall feeling that I am on the right path. DAY 5 I slept ok tonight. Lovely. Did my exercise with no problem. Day at work was quite simple. Though inside I was a bit tense as usual. I can relax consciously but there is something inside that keeps me in some kind of alert mode. Maybe I am just not accepting something in reality and it creates a resistance that won't let me just be in peace. I went to a social event where I had a few drinks. I felt pressure to drink some and I gave in quite easily although the amount of alcohol I consumed was small. I didn't really like the way I felt when slightly intoxicated. All in all, it could have ended much worse. Also I did not make any decisions about cutting off the alcohol, lately I naturally tend to drink very little. Oh, and by the way, I had an offer to smoke but I declined. 20 minutes of meditation. A ton of thoughts went through my mind this session. Also I procrastinated my meditation again by being busy with other things. It was the last thing I did before going to sleep. DAY 6 From the very morning till about 11:00 I was irritated for reasons unknown to me. Maybe I needed more sleep. Every simple problem was difficult. While mindlessly consuming snacks I thought about eating. I always do it fast while thinking about something. Practicing mindful eating sounds like a good challenge for the future. I can not imagine myself mindfully eating very fast, too much or choosing poor quality food. I spent entire day actively with my close friends. Before sleep I smoked a cigarette. Did not feel bad at that moment. In fact, I did not feel anything. I did not regret smoking, on the other hand I remotely understood that it was not a good choice after all. Did not meditate. Mainly because I did not spent any time alone today. DAY 7 Since I spent last day with a company I did not get enough sleep. I was reminded on how closely will power is related to having a good night sleep. In the beginning of changing habits I do really need will power, therefore I ought to value my sleep even more than usual. I was a quite anxious today. A lot of things were bothering me: am I pushing too hard? Am I to neurotic in my approach to self-actualization? Am I too dogmatic? In the end I thought about how self-actualization is a never ending journey, so if I am moving forward it is great and it does not even matter where I am right now. I do not necessarily need to have obvious results to be happy about how I am doing. It takes time and I will keep reminding myself to be patient. I smoked two cigarettes today. Surprisingly, I did not feel bad about that until I started thinking about smoking a third one. At that moment I recalled all the main reasons why I decided to quit in the first place. I remember when I was younger if I had smoked a single cigarette after quitting I would start smoking out of control once again. This time I had gone off track a bit and but I am getting back in. I was doing fine until the weekend when my routine has changed. During the day had some elusive visions in my mind where I enjoyed all the challenges I faced and managed to remain in harmony no matter the circumstances. 10+20 minutes of meditation. REVIEW OF THE WEEK 1 Thoughts I am surprised how well I manage to function with this elaborate collection of neurotic habits that I have. This realization struck me deeply. My back pain is a constant reminder that actually makes me take action. Maybe some of the negative emotions I have could do the same by reminding me to do self-work. An insight about meditation - I do consciously want to meditate but when the time comes I do procrastinate a bit. I still meditate in the end but there is something that I am trying to avoid. It is quite challenging to observe the inner chimp. I once again realized how annoying it is to listen to myself talk when I am tired. Maybe silence is a better option. Getting rid of addictions is a challenge. Often I do feel a void that I want to fill with something. Tips for myself: * Appreciate the little results, because that is the most important thing right know. These results is foundation of my further self-development. * When tired it is probably best to talk only when it is necessary. * Do meditation right after work, procrastinate the procrastination. * Appreciate the value of full night sleep. Review of my challenges: Quitting smoking - 1 cigarette on Saturday 2 on Sunday. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - check. Limited social media time - check. Eating healthier - check. Exercising in the morning - started slowly but doing fine now. Meditating everyday for at least 20 minutes - check (except Saturday) Setting at least one hour per week for review - check. New challenges (previous still count!): — Healthy sitting posture. — Everyday after meditation few minutes to reflect on the reasons for quitting smoking + visualization on how it feels to smoke and that in the end I do never feel that it was worth doing. This kind of format will be used for the next journal entries. If you have any ideas or suggestions please share. I am interested in making this journal useful and easy to read. Thank you for your time ! Next update planned on 2016.07.10-11

Sure you can have some temporary happiness by going out ant having some fun. But you will never become fulfilled this way. I personally believe that I have exploited all the drinking and partying pleasures and I just do not enjoy it anymore. I still go out to meet my friends, have a drink or two, but often I come back disappointed because of the low quality of social interaction. My advice is - do not chase happiness, it is a feeling, it comes and goes. Look for fulfilment. Meditating is the right way to go. I have just started my meditating habit and what I noticed is that I always feel a bit uplifted after meditating (even if it does not go so well).

Today is day 4 when I am not smoking. Main things that helped me to get there: - Noticing how much worse I feel physically after a cigarette; - Noticing how much time I spent during the day smoking and how much time I am thinking about it; - Having some serious concerns about my health; - Understanding that I really do not want to keep smoking through my entire life and I have to quit sooner or later; - Understanding that addictions are extremely toxic to my consciousness and that they prevent me from dealing with problems from their roots; (this one is quite recent to me and it is very important) And lastly, I have much bigger plan for myself and quitting smoking is just one of the first steps I am taking. I believe it is much easier to get rid of smoking habit than some neurotic thinking habits that I have. I am working on clarifying the vision for future and there is no place for smoking there. I smoked for 10 years and I can assure you time to quit is never right. My advice is - do not complicate it. Just quit it.

I do not think that talking fast is necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it is just an expression of your personality which is perfectly fine. Generally the way people talk represents the way they think therefore if you meditate and work on your awareness the way you talk might slow down naturally. If it doesn't that is fine. My guess is that you are high energy person. If I were you I would not force myself to talk slower but as @Mal said making pauses is a good idea and it might help you (or anyone else for that matter) to express thoughts in a more constructive way.

Maybe it is a good idea to start being mindful while listening to other people. I believe this is easier to accomplish. What I mean is focusing 100% to the person that you are listening to, noticing voice tone, intonations, choice of words, body language and so on. It makes conversations much more exciting and other person feels that you are centered and is more likely to naturally give his full attention to you. Having a conversation with a quality like this might help being more mindful when you are talking. I believe it is much like a muscle - the more you practice the more mindfulness you will have.

This was very interesting to read! I am currently setting a foundation for my self-development plan and this was really inspiring. One thing that I noticed is that you are quite critical about your meditations not being as perfect as you wish they were. Maybe you don't experience any hard feelings because of that but it is hard to figure from the written text. I think you are doing great and this is exactly the way it is supposed to go. I believe meditation is process oriented so therefore noticing how it has improved from day 1 to day 77 tells me you are on the right path. I think meditation does not have to be good or perfect it simply has to be because being itself is the essence of it. Once again it was very interesting to read and I wish you all the best !