Saturday bookend: Neurotic anxiety, 30 minutes to face 2023 goals, then food is love.

[troebia]

...Reddit (averaging four a day for last five years[!])

Are you referring to hours a day?? May I ask what your interactions there are, are you posting and are we all here missing out on something?

[oak]

Are you referring to hours a day?? May I ask what your interactions there are, are you posting and are we all here missing out on something?

Hi Troebia. Yes, four hours each day, for five years. Thirty hours a week. And it is 99% doomscrolling.

I am of two minds:

1. This is one of my greatest regrets. I could have gone a long way to solving one or more of the very serious problems I'm currently facing: (1) obesity/sleep apnea, (2) loneliness, (3) underearning, and (4) I work in a dangerous neighborhood due to lack of career options.

Had I spent half of that time on anything (yoga, guitar, Spanish, coding), my life would be vastly better today.

2. While I have lots of serious problems, I'm at zero (in the words of author David Carr). Said another way, to be age 47 in 2023 and survived the Covid area, that is an outcome I'll take. Said a third way: lots of people my age who didn't make it through Covid, or worse got long Covid, would gladly switch places with me.

I see this waste, deeply regrettable as it is, as a wash.

Having endured an ongoing midlife crisis, I have a new reason to live. I have a clear plan for fitness, professional success, and dating (see below).

And I know that four hours a day of Reddit will keep me mired where I am.

I had plenty of courage in diagnosing your choices with alcohol and Xanax, and suggested a way forward.

I'll ask the same of you, Troebia: setting aside my indefensible use of Reddit up to the present, how would you advise I move towards the future I want?

Put more specifically: I've scheduled a professional certification test for Aug 15, a kettlebell competition for Oct 15, and want to learn a classical guitar song in August.

How would you advise I decrease Reddit to practice these worthwhile pursuits?

[troebia]

I'll ask the same of you, Troebia: setting aside my indefensible use of Reddit up to the present, how would you advise I move towards the future I want?

Hi Oak, I 'll give plenty of advice but I think you've already taken the first step: "This needs to stop." I can only tell you things from my own experience, interesting or not.

I had a similar problem with masturbation to internet porn and as you say, if you summed up the endless hours wasted and instead had concentrated on something actually worthwhile... I have my own "situation" under control now and I don't think back about it with remorse. Firstly because regret is useless, but also because I was different then and in a different situation: work stress, relationship troubles, severe anxiety, even thinking of suicide. I got better not because of some conscious plan or because someone confronted/criticized me about it, but because life changed. Somewhat paradoxically getting laid off and being basically unemployable, and accepting a life with much less turned out to be positive. BIG footnote: we were finally without mortgage and debts. On the other side of the spectrum, we have an acquaintance that is semi-retired and now has started two businesses, is always busy, always on the go, "hungry" for more...that's not me, it could not be me. Whenever someone asks me now for a favor related to my old job or commission me some pottery or a drawing, I instantly freeze up as in PTSD and realise that I wouldn't be able to carry the load as before. I'm not 100% happy about it, but this relatively boring life is the only one I seem to be able to manage.

Also, I hadn't realised before how important it is to try to surround yourself with the right people. For example, I joined an urban sketching group and get away to remote places from time to time. My wife and I joined an Italian language course, and have gotten new friends we occasionally get together with. We have pruned away others, such as obnoxious cousins and "friends" from the old workplace.

So Oak, you mention kettlebell and classic guitar. Are there some other people around those activities that you could consider upgrading to friends? I don't mean just for practising those activities, but more having a bite together, maybe helping out with something, maybe visiting some fair together... Meeting people IRL is very important for honing social skills. You don't have to become intimate friends, but just the fact that they are there beside you sharing a meal means acceptance, peace, positiveness. If you get to know somebody new, these people will usually know others who could potentially become part of your circle. Maybe to a group one day, that guy you almost never noticed will bring along his female single cousin and you find her extremely interesting... You can't force these things, they simply happen. But to happen, one has to make an effort to get out there and also be prepared to suffer mild disappointments along the way, together with the good stuff. I don't enjoy the company of all the people in the sketching group I go to, for example. In fact, I even quit the first group because they were so "stuck up" and decided to go to one in another city. Also I'm praying we don't get the same Italian teacher this year because she was so demanding and dry, but in spite of her it was worth attending.

Once the real world becomes more important to you, your Reddit use will probably taper off. I don't think quitting cold is the solution. I'll still wank to internet porn, for example, but it doesn't eat up my day anymore or stay in my thoughts. Oh that post-nut clarity.

To finish off, a friendly minor warning/criticism: don't gloat about being a clean survivor of Covid. Life isn't fair. Life can give you the most incredible opportunities and pleasures, but also hit you with full force in the nuts where and when you least expect it, with perfectly customised cruelty and insult. There was recently an excellent episode on the philosophy podcast "Very Bad Wizards" where they tried to pinpoint the meaning of the character Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men". I sometimes think that someone like that could knock at my door any time. Is he the devil? Pure evil? No, he's just a product of life like the rest of us. Maybe if I hold my breath, he'll pass by.

[oak]

Troebia, thank you for your honesty, encouragements, and real-life examples.

I am in agreement with everything you wrote. By spring 2024 I want to be out, in the IRL, most evenings.

If, by the end of this post, please say so if you think (1) I misunderstood anything in your post or (2) I am wrong about the conclusions I've drawn, or am missing anything.

Covid and other recklessnesses
Facing difficult realities: next eight months, plans for spring 2024
Taking action this week
Two small encouragements

Covid and other recklessnesses

I am agreed that I've been haughty in my luck vis a vis Covid, which as we know lurks.

Were that not bad enough, I am daily reckless with the following:

Having sleep apnea, working in a dangerous neighborhood (a colleague was carjacked at gunpoint two weeks ago), and living paycheck to paycheck.

Said another way: I am being very cavalier with life threatening and ruining habits and choices that are wholly in my control. While I'm doing okay this moment, I am in enormous danger at any given moment: long Covid, sleep apnea, and crime can show up any time, as my colleague found out.

Facing difficult realities: next eight months, plans for spring 2024

By early 2024, approximately May, any of the above mishegas could easily take or ruin my life. I know I need to change, and my efforts have been dilatory, diffident, and dilettantish.

Said another way: I am making real, if limited, efforts for weight loss and professional skills.

But, as you pointed out so well, life can show up at any time: am I being diligent enough?

That said, with enough effort and some luck I can start anew in 2024, getting out of the house most evenings.

Taking action this week

After reading your post, I emailed the local chamber of commerce to volunteer for this upcoming weekend's art's festival. I can also prepare for the professional skill certification test, scheduled for two weeks from tomorrow.

Two small encouragements

1. I am demonstrating real skill at pickleball.
2. I am surprising myself at not sucking at my skill at the first few bars of this Adagio on classical guitar.

So there you have it, Troebia and other friends. While there is limited value in defending the indefensible past, today/this week/this year is a chance to effect good actions to mitigate some (not all) of the very real consequences life can deal out at any moment.

[troebia]

Oak, I was reading your other thread about needing hugs. You can have my "bro" hug anytime

What I'd want to say to you over a couple of beers is, don't be too hard on yourself.
It's good to have goals, but why not begin by setting the bar at a place juuust out of reach right now? For example instead of thinking about losing double digits of weight, maybe try losing single digits by the end of the month. Instead of thinking too much about hugs (and maybe even sex) right now, why not feel content with taking tiny steps in the direction that could take you there? Anything involving positive human interaction eventually leads to intimacy, because we all hunger for it. A friend will introduce you to a female friend etc. And be a useful, reliable, unjudging companion and eventually, lover.