Journey Of Being A Badass

[Zephyr]

"A badass grows more valuable with every passing day. The
most attractive men in the world are more valuable today
than they were yesterday, and will be more valuable tomorrow
than they are today. If you are constantly improving, always
growing both personally and professionally, and taking steps
every day towards becoming exactly who you want to be as
a man, you will be irresistibly attractive to women." Tao of Badass, Josh Pellicer

My name is Zypher, 16 yrs old

I've been really fascinated by the idea of masculinity and femininity. I decided to grow to become more masculine. I don't know where to start really and I don't know where's this journey going to take me or how long it's going to be. But eventually we'll figure it out. I'm excited. 

This journal is just about general self improvement which will also focus on masculinity (I don't think I'll be talking about girls). I won't be covering life purpose, I'm going to be focusing on building a foundation -- pretty much standing up on my feet.
 

Issues:

- Masturbation/Porn Addiction: I think this is a huge one for me. It's not just masturbation it's unhealthy masturbation.
- Gaming addiction: Causes suffering most of the time. 
- Maladaptive Daydreaming: Fantasizing, daydreaming. Takes up a lot of my time. This includes mental masturbation. A little bit of theories here and there are good. Obsession with girls is something to stay away from. 
- General distractions: Aimlessly dancing, being on social media when I don't have to, etc.
- Procrastination: This had been biting me in the ass for years, until now. But I still can be potentially become a procrastinator.
- Anxiety: Social anxiety and not feeling comfortable with others. Some girls can cause me anxiety. Public speaking causes me anxiety. There are certain things that causes me anxiety.
- Boredom: Another low conscious state. It happens when I try to fix my addictions. Only happens when I'm low conscious though.
- Being Judgmental: It's a pain in the ass. See I'm already judging.
- Dishonesty: This one is huge. Really important to work on.

Areas I'm going to be focusing on:

- Work Ethic: Developing a good work ethic. That means doing your work with the best of your abilities. Eliminating procrastination and addictions.
- Consistency: Having a routine is really important. Consistency plays a huge part with developing good habits 
- Surrendering: It might sound feminine, but I think this quite important. Surrendering I think is a root for confidence, assertiveness, and expression -- which are masculine traits. 
- Honesty: This is a no brainier. 
- Being Positive:  ^__^ 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2016 by Zephyr

[Guest]

This forum may be the wrong place for you.

Here we first learn about who we are and if that is all you want then you keep learning until you actualize your ideal personality (the you that you think you are).  This is the road of self-actualization.

The next higher platform of learning is to find out who you really are (not about who you are).  This is the road to self-realization. The goal is to
realize (see the real of you).

After realizing who you are, the ultimate and final step is to awaken to reality.  Then there is no more "you", as you once thought of yourself, but now you are in a world of total freedom where you "play" the necessary roles of a person, a student, a father, a mother, a worker, a career person, a teacher, a teenager, etc.

The above are some pointers as to the nature of the journeys that people on this forum may be experiencing.

If you are still interested then begin with finding out everything you can about yourself.
Find out - what you think, why you think it, what you believe, why you believe it, how you feel about things and how you see and think about others around you, how you think other people feel about things and how they see you.  Find out everything that you can about how you behave, and why you behave that way.  The "why" must not be your opinions - look at how elusive those opinions are, they are mostly lies about yourself, because you want to hear that.  It makes you "macho" or whatever.  It is your self-image.  What is that?  Find out! Learn as much as you can about who you think you are.  That is where to start if you care about yourself.  And you cannot really care about yourself if you do not care about others - because in the end you will discover that you and they are the world and the world is you.

 

joy

 

[Zephyr]

@walt That's okay. I know the word 'badass'  might sound immature especially coming out from a teenager like me. The word 'badass' meant something different to me than most probably most people do. I understand that you are concerned that I am heading the wrong way. But I'm sure that's not the case. I'm a newbie and I can't just go and do the consciousness thing that you and some people do. I know that because I have tried doing consciousness work, but my ego was way to huge as blind spot. 
I got to develop a non-neurotic ego first before I transcend to the level in which you are referring to. What it means to be a 'badass' is simply breaking free from my shackles of neurosis and freely expressing myself, my masculine core.

I think that this is the right forum to which I post journal. If I'm in the wrong place, hopefully the moderators will notify me. 
Good advice. But I'm not on your level yet.^_^

Edited February 13, 2016 by Zephyr

[Guest]

Actually I had no comments or thoughts about the word 'badass' at all.

I'm a pretty badass myself.  It seems that I like to tell it based on where I have been.
I was basically looking at how you expressed your areas of interest and provided some pointers as to what this forum is all about and how you might proceed if you are still interested.

I admit that I overlooked telling you that you have made a neat list of of issues and I particularly like your areas of focus.

sorry that I didn't provide a more balanced commentary.

Thanks for getting my attention.

joy

 

[Zephyr]

Entry 1: Socrates on Video Games

 

"If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality" - Socrates

I played videos games for too long. I think that is (maybe almost) time for me to quit them entirely. "If only I can have this item, this badge, this rank, this that then I would be happy forever. Hehe. Now that I have what I want I realized that I actually had the things that I've been dreaming of having before but obviously I still am not satisfied. It's like there's no difference than where I started. 

We all are seeking for satisfaction. We are not seeking for things but the  feeling that comes with the thing. And when we get exactly that thing then we get the feeling. One problem that I noticed though is that feeling doesn't last very long. We want to experience that feeling but it never last. This leaves me no choice. I can't run on this hamster wheel for too long. I got to quit video games from now on. No, I'm not going to play other games. It's the same thing. It's not going to feel comfortable for the next little while. But it's going to be way more painful if I keep at it.

The second part of the quote tells us that we don't like to get out of our comfort zone. We don't like to choose Growth rather we stay in Safety. If we get ourselves stuck though then we are bound to suffer.^_^

I can already feel the patterns (addiction) slowly deteriorating. I think it's only a matter of time now. Slowly but surely, I will overcome this addiction.

 

 

Edited February 15, 2016 by Zephyr

[Guest]

Hey, you're turning out to be a deep thinker.

You surprised me. 

I am overjoyed that I have discovered that I was too hasty in my initial comments.

Great journal work.  You're going places!

Joy

 

[Extreme Z7]

@Zephyr I feel your words resonate with me. I too am a teenager who used to have a bad habit of playing video games. I got obsessed with earning achievements and getting addicted to excitement. But at 18 years old, I got a sense of lack of fulfillment which eventually pushed me to quit the habit and do personal development work. (I explain this in more detail in my Actualization Journal)

The main differences with me and you is that I decided not to quit video games entirely. I only quit the neurotic habit but the admiration for video games is still there and I do not wish to get rid of it anytime soon. I loved the video games I played as a child and they also influenced my love for music. I dream of becoming a video game composer someday.

However, even though I still play games, I've made a commitment not to seek the following ideals from it
- Satisfaction
- Ego Excitement
- Neurotic Addiction
- Comfort

There are still things I love from video games that kept me from erasing it from my life entirely
- Sense of Adventure
- Fun
- Curiosity
- Enjoying the Present Moment

However, these qualities, in my opinion, are easier to attain when playing video games because they are short term qualities (except maybe the "Enjoying the present moment" one). Satisfaction, however, is a positive quality, probably one of the best qualities to have, but it is absolutely impossible to attain long term satisfaction through video games which is another reason why don't play them as often anymore.

[Zephyr]

@MaxWare1997 cool. I don't think I'm a person who can enjoy the moment playing video games unless I'm already enjoying the moment. For me I play video games for the opposite reason, because I'm lonely and I can't embrace the moment. 

I'm like an animal when I play video games. Like skipping the story lines and stuffs.

[Zephyr]

Entry 2:  The Pragmatist

One really cool thing I've come to  approach only recently, a couple months back is the idea of taking self help as practical. I've discovered self help for over a year now. But I didn't make that much progress because I had a couple of problems. One is that I had no commitment at all. Another big problem is that I was only learning self help. I was only maybe practicing them a couple of times but never really stick with them. Nevertheless, those loops of mental masturbation still is something to be appreciated of. It got me to where I am now. All the knowledge really helped me become better at coming up with strategies. I felt regret after realizing I've wasted one year, but also I would count it as a blessing .

Daily routine starting tomorrow: 

- meditate for max. 1 hour

- read book: 1-3 chapter(s)

 

Practicing Honesty and Surrender

These two are really the fundamentals in order for me to move forward. These are the deepest I can find besides Ambition. If we are cars our Ambitions are only like GPS but Honesty and Surrendering really are like your fuel and engine. From my perspective  one of these two cant work without the other. These two ideas really overlap each other. It's going to be hard for us to be honest if we don't surrender, and it's going to be hard for us to surrender if we are not honest. 

 

[traffy.law]

I'm also a teen so i'll subscribe to your progress man. Haha

Keep it up ?

[Guest]

So Long ... Adios ... Happy Trails ... Adieu ... Never Not Here ... Left the building.

Joy walt

 

[Zephyr]

Entry 3: A Day to Surrender

Woke up at 5:40 am. First thing I did was meditate for half an hour with brain entrainment. Did traditional meditation for the next 10 minute. Then I read my book and  did a self inquiry which I've never done for months. 

While doing all these I noticed that my body was stressed. I could feel in my chest, which I can't feel now any more since its relieved. I had to the a presentation of some sort which of course would involve public speaking. I didn't prepare any slides so I have to This was a great opputurnity for me to put Surrender into effect. I had a really dope experience. I found some cool insights during my meditation.

1. In order to let go of control you got to go deeper than what your trying let go of. First we might begin with saying 'let go of fear' but that's not going to be easy in fact for me its probably not possible espcially the fear of public speaking. Then we move on to saying 'let go of trying to let go of fear' .. Then we would realize and say 'danm, I wasn't surrendering. I got to let go of attempting to let go of trying to let go of fear.' And so on. It only takes a slight chance until we finally surrender. One thing I noticed though is that when we do surrender it feels like no body is surrendering at all. Then we would feel silence within then mind. From tidal waves right into ripples. We don't surrender to Truth. We surrender to love and acceptance. We don't feel oneness of course but it's peaceful. It also feels like our ego just got burned. Very cool stuff to experience once in a while.

2. Another thing I realized is that I am actually part of the World not separated from it. As David claims we as men treat our Women the way we treat the World. I thought there was me (body&mind), Woman, and the World. In fact there's only the World. My body and mind are just like the Woman and the World. I thought I had control of my body. I thought I had to control the mind. But I myself is just like the Woman, destructive, unpredictable, uncontrollable force, I'm like the ocean. This is probably how masculine men become dauntless^_^ they are good at tolerating fear, boredom, anxiety, pain, anger, etc... This also links to surrendering. It also kind of like burning my ego. It's nice to tolerate outside circumstances but I got to remember to also tolerate the raging ocean within. 

 

 

 

[Zephyr]

Entry 4: My lesser known approach to Affirmation

 

I've never really done affirmations that much, not at all. Meditation is already a pain for me. One thing I invlountrarily do is daydream -- a lot. I'm probably not aware but I think I daydream more than half the time I'm awake, especially of course in a very low conscious state. 

This morning I learned something cool, though I got up at 7:00 am, which i didn't have time to read and meditate. When I was in the shower I noticed my self day dreaming. From that moment I might just have learned something regarding with my sub conscious mind. When I day dream about being nervous of talking to certain girls it happens in real life. When I daydream about making strong eye contact with people and being all relaxed it also kind of happens in real life. 

 

One thing I realized really is how much daydreaming has influenced my agreements. I can't really say much on how I end up finding this insight, but here's what I've learned: 

I was thinking that I can be able to use my impulsive daydreaming habit as means to be an advantage rather than something that pulls me down. Daydreaming sometimes really drags me down. It makes me feel bad about myself since I get these thoughts of not being able to pull things of in real life. And I've done this habit since childhood as far as I could remember. However, it's okay since even if I might not be able to stop myself from daydreaming I can at least control it. Most times daydreaming are all unconscious, but sometimes I also take control of it. So my plan is every time I start daydreaming I would turn it into some kind of affirmation session. Most of my day dream are all narcissistic and stuffs^_^ so my ego really plays a huge role. If I had to turn this thing into an affirmation session it would mean that it's got to be something that the ego would feel comfortable with. From now I'm not going to be aimlessly fantasizing and creating random images. I got to use my internal voice for this a lot. I would have to set up a scenario where I like to express myself in a narcissistic way like being interrogated/interviewed by someone. If I want to make changes with my public speaking fear I just use my internal voice to conscious saying things like "I'm pretty chill with presentations. I don't really mind doing them. I get less and less anxious about it since I've been just letting my fear flow and just welcoming any stress and all that." Attracting girls "dude is that even a question. Every girl want me. They want my attention. They all want to be around me and tend to be nervous. In pretty chill with that I don't really mind that." Motivation for school work "I'm kind of like that guy who loves to learn. I'm really fascinated about school 'stuffs' and everytime I go to school I just get excited."

 

This is really cool. We are turning negative things to positive. Remind of that time where I have to pay 15 minutes of meditation before fapping ^_^didnt work out though. Who knows if this daydreaming affirmation thing during showers would work or not. I guess there's only one way to find out.

 

[Zephyr]

Entry 5: Accept them. Love them to Death.

 

My favourite poem written by Rumi. I've been learning more and more about Surrendering. Right now as I was writing this journal I kind of realize something new. I've been meditating and synchronizing surrendering to it in which I develop a moderation technique similar to Do Nothing technique. One thing I learned is that I just can't just rationalize my way through Surrendering. I got to use my feeling. I litterally have to approach everything with love especially my emotions and my demons. To slay thy demons we got to do the opposite. Instead of fighting we love them. We entertain them, both our demons and angels. I like to use words like "embrace" and "surrender" because it really generates certain feelings in the inside. They are different than saying "love" and "accept"  although they probably would mean the same

In terms of progress I have noticed a slight difference if we compare them within the range in a week. Comparing myself from last year I've actually gotten more conscious. I'm able to be more conscious in places and surroundings that I'm not the most conscious in. I'm more aware in school. I'm becoming more tolerant.^_^

The only time I suffer is when I am tense. I'm attached and unaware. When I try to build a pool out of my inner ocean.

[Zephyr]

 Entry 6: I think I'm forgetting Something

I've been having a lot of trouble lately. I can see drastic change in me. I have not masturbated for 8 days straight -- twice. Have not played video games for more than an hour for 2 weeks. These are something I never expected that would happen to me. Still, I have been suffering. I realized that because I did not have a Direction. I really had a little bit of idea of how important after reviewing some of Leo's videos and reading a little bit of David Deida's book. I realized that my Direction is weak. I realized that I still have so much potential but I'm not tapping into them. I'm really struggling and suffering right now. So much fear is holding me back. It seems that my goals are just too vague or they are too unrealistic. I've even having doubt on whether they are really authentic or not. Regardless it's time for me to take the pain and make sacrifices. It's been really rough. Its quite hard to stay on track since I don't even know if I'm going to make it. But I'm sure I'm just saying these words due to my state right now really. 

Regardless, I'm still grateful for sufferings. I know for sure that if I get way too much of it then it would just light a fire on my ass and would push me back up. Overall, currently low on confident, having doubts, losing hope, low willpower, distracted. These are just the bad stuffs really, but I'm still grateful for them cause this is call out for me. This is really a test, and I must respond to this with what I have. 

The good news though are amazing. So powerful. I've realized the importance of Direction and I've tasted the Power of it. Just a little tiny bit of it, and it really made me do things that I would have never done otherwise. For today, I've become socially confident. It almost drained the pity thing of caring what others think of you. Another awesome thing is 1 hour of meditation. Holy shit, man. If I practicing both of these and devote myself and suffer and sacrifice and pragmatically commit fully, within a few months I'd condition myself into a solid rock. 

I can do things with my body that I would have even thought I would ever do through physical condition. Bboying is practical. My question is how practical would this journey be and what kind of amazing things would I be able to do? 

[Zephyr]

I went down the valley for a while. While it is not very fun to live in misery and suffering it is also something to be greateful for. Since suffering and life itself really is your teacher. 

While on downward trend I learned some stuffs, and became a little more aware. 

Concepts/Things I learned from Sufferings:

1. Depression: it only happens when I have resistance while in recovery state. Resistance + Recovery State = Depression. When your body becomes fatigue and your mind goes black and white this is when what I call 'Recovery State' starts.. For me it can last for weeks. I think it's a mechanism that puts us in economy state to conserve energy. This is for you to recover from the backfire you created through excessive exertion of will power, brute forcing, beating yourself, neurotic motivation, etc. This forces us stop Resistance. Resistance is pretty much the 'shoulds' and 'ought to be' that creates this conflict. The more resistance we have and the less awareness we have the more suffering we will likely experience. Especially for a person who don't meditate. When in Recovery State one should be aware of ones resistance. From personal experience recovery state just put me into involuntary awareness/meditative state. For people who never done meditation before this might be a different experience for them. They might add more layers of resistance since they are afraid of not thinking, not doing and just being. This only makes recovery state stronger, and then if one has low awareness  the resistance will get also become stronger. This is why when I am depressed I play a lot of video games and masturbate to escape the recovery state which only is inviting me to the present moment -- to stop doing and just be. So this is suffering at it's finest. Eventually this leads to suicidal thoughts unless if awareness is shone to the conflict. 

Deep inside we all want to choose recovery state over resistance. This is why you can't just go up to a person who has depression and say "just cheer up" because that's not Recovery, that is Resistance. We no longer want to be happy (superficially) but we want to be happy. This is why that person just want to be left alone if he/she is not understood and accepted. Saying "cheer up" just pisses that person. We, as a society are just conditioned to Resistance. This is why depression is not rare in our society. This is why when someone is depressed we must choose understanding and presence rather than trying to fix the external problem that is causing the 'depression' ... Deep inside we want to be more intergrated rather than our problems fixed. 

Recap: When someone is depressed deep inside they want to be happy not to be superficially happy.

That was cool experience being in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. A little bit of insight.