Could be physical, mental, philosophical, religious etc
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“Perfect is the enemy of good enough” This changed my view about so many things: Exercise, it’s fine if I don’t go 100% everyday. Work, it’s perfectly fine to negotiate agreements. Etc.
- Meditating (not very good at it, but getting better and it’s seriously helping)
- Blocking Reddit on my router, blocking political communities in Lemmy
- A consistent, normal sleeping schedule (a bedtime routine is more important than a morning routine, imo)
- Yoga every morning to help my body work with me throughout the day
- Reading more books
- Getting outside more often
- Paying closer attention to the thoughts that cross through my mind and stopping them when they’re not helpful - this also helped me realize the underlying anxiety that’s been with me for who knows how many years
- Drinking more water
Edit: Oh I also:
- Quit drinking alcohol, almost at the 1 year mark
- Quit smoking weed, almost at 2 months fully sober now
I did these things one at a time, not everything at once. Mostly just sharing what I did here, but if you plan to do the same - listen to yourself. Start with #7 imo so you get a better idea of what you’re up against. If it feels like too much, take a step back and slow down. You’re not failing when you do this, you’re helping your future self not fail entirely.
Oh at the first two words of point 8., I thought there is finally something not like what every adult would tell youngsters again and again, but no. Water. You said water. What a missed opportunity!
But in all seriousness, very good tips, all of them. I’m implementing all of them (though I’m struggling with 4 and 6), I would add just one and a half:
- No phones in bedroom. This is the absolute prerequisite for number 3 (sleep schedule) and can be an enabler for reading books.
- You may or may not get enough excercise from yoga and getting outside. If needed, add more.
Don’t compare yourself to others, compare yourself to your past self.
If more of us were doing that, the world would most certainly be a much, much less shittier place than it is!
Oddly, that works in negatively for me.
If you dream of a past high point and wish to return to it, it’s better to use it as inspiration and look to create new high points that belong to your current self.
I’m still fat by these rules … damn
Journaling and meditating.
This sums it up for me too.
Getting rid of victim mentality. This is the biggest curse you can put on yourself (that being said I’ve not tried heroin).
Every week I write my weight on the giant whiteboard in the kitchen. I don’t erase it, just keep the log running all year long, for anyone to see. It’s an amazing motivator.
Stopped drinking alcohol.
Started walking more and taking the stairs instead of elevators whenever possible.
Sorry this is unedited because I’m on a train, winding its way through Fukushima at the moment.
Let’s go the Moc masterlist:
- Drinking coffee black. Used to think that I wouldn’t like coffee without milk and coffee. Turns out I love it, just needed a few weeks to wean myself off sugar and milk and learn to enjoy it. Lost heaps of weight by doing this.
- Weightlifting three times a week. Gaining muscle mass helped me look and feel good in my 20s and now 30s. I was never a good looking teen, but now in my 30s I get compliments from people pretty frequently.
- Losing weight. I have sleep apnea. Losing weight is the single most effective treatment for it.
- Getting jaw surgery. I have TMD, and this constricts my breathing at night. As part of my orthodontic treatment, I opted to get my jaw extended by 7mm. This was very expensive, but I’m in a high paying profession and I’m good at saving. Between this and losing weight, I sleep much better and don’t snore at night. I never used to feel like I ever got any rest.
Getting my ADHD treated
Getting medicated. I have ADHD. If you’re clever enough, you can brute force your way through the entire education system; school, undergrad, and postgrad without realising you have ADHD. It’s only after a couple of years in a demanding profession (SWE in my case) that I realised I needed help. I was prescribed Ritalin (methylphenidate hydrochloride) and the difference is night and day.
Because I don’t have to wrangle my brain into submission the entire day, I’m no longer completely mentally exhausted after 4 hours of work. I can focus for long hours now and feel pretty normal at the end of the day.
Dealing with high cholesterol Listening to scientists instead of keto idiots. I went to my GP for the third year in a row for my physical and got told I have the highest cholesterol of anyone in their 30s he had ever seen (I was 31).
He wanted to immediately put me on statins, because he had never seen someone with my level of cholesterol who didn’t have familial hypercholesteroloeamia. I asked him if he could give me six months to try and fix it through diet.
I had been following fitness influencers, and had lost 10kg cutting calories and eating heaps of beef, butter, and eggs. I cut that out, and upped my plant protein, lean poultry, and fish protein instead. I feel and look heaps better, and am still gaining muscle at about the same rate I was before. I just try and eat heaps of fibre (veggies) and aim for about 100g of protein a day.
I went for my most recent physical and have the cholesterol of a normal person now. Doctor isn’t trying to put me on statins anymore. I couldn’t believe it.
Deciding to be an optimist
I, like my late father, was a pessimist. My whole extended family is and was locked in generational poverty. I took advantage of my intelligence and work ethic and got into university, but my pessimistic attitude towards life persisted. And it seriously limited me.
I had to actually decide to be optimistic, and believe in myself before things got better. I won’t go into too much detail on this, but my outlook is that;
Pessimists are more mentally prepared for hardship, but optimists and more emotionally prepared for hardship. Maybe, It’s better to weigh the risks, and still take risks than forever be risk-averse.
Years of pessimism grinding my spirit into a pulp has beaten this into me. It’s only by adopting an optimistic outlook, working hard, and taking risks that I managed to finally achieve a better life.
What I’m working on
At the moment I’m trying to get into the habit of journaling, and quit coffee (drinking green tea instead).
I need to do better with mental habits such as journalling, not browsing Reddit and YouTube, and doing hobbies such as writing and reading instead of playing video games.
That is far more thought than I put into this comment.
Congrats! Sounds like the world is your oyster my man
Many of your thought patterns are actually just habits, rather than an intrinsic part of who you are. It’s not easy and requires consistent effort like any habit change but they can be changed.
I found Jesus. Well, he actually found me. Just kidding, it’s booze. Don’t take this world too seriously. It’s an actual joke. Focus on doing the right thing, everything gets much clearer.
Finding Jesus is unironically great. His golden rule was “Love your neighbor as yourself” with a side of “hate the sin, not the sinner”, he called out hypocrites and corrupt religious patriarchs, comforted the sick. Jesus was based af.
Institutional Christianity, on the other hand…
Ngl, my neighbours are pretty hot, so I’d actually enjoy finding Jesus.
Yeah, but they’re the same old teachings of every other religion before Christianity. You gotta remember it’s super-duper young compared to most others. Every modern religion just gets the same old human morals we had before religions and bundles up a bunch of really bad shit with them so they seem good.
If any of its true, the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing people he was God.
Sure it’s the same as it ever was, but the Christian nationalist perspective can only be excised in favor of this more reasonable, accurate interpretation of religious material by overpowering it. Christianity (or any religion) isn’t going anywhere, so in my mind it’s easier to push for positive change in a religion’s prevailing interpretation, instead of hoping people lose their religion and maybe learn the right lessons in the aftermath.
I guess my point is I’m less concerned with whether any religion is true (simply unverifiable) and more with socializing people to interpret their beliefs in the best way possible. That’s doable: far right conservatives did the reverse to American Christianity, so it must be possible to repair.
Sure, doesn’t mean he wasn’t based, and for most in the West it’s the most convenient package. My personal theory is that Jesus went east, learned Buddhism, and brought it back in a Jewish accent.
No disrespect, but an awful lot of people figured out “don’t be a bigot” and “take responsibility for yourself” without all of the religion. I think you’re smart enough to just be a decent human without all of the dogma. If you need “Jesus”, ok. I think you can do well without it.
They specifically call out that Christianity isn’t what they’re talking about, but finding Jesus. No different than taking inspiration for being a better person from any other character from a story, be they Captain America or Captain Picard. I think we can all take inspiration from the Jesus who upon finding a capitalism happening in what’s supposed to be a place of respite flipped the tables and whipped them the hell out of there.
We finally agree that Jesus was a capitalist. Rush Limbaugh once quoted the scripture, “Jesus trickles down to the needy.” Let’s take a moment the consider how powerful that is.
Sure. I did just fine on my own without. I only came around to Jesus after I started reading what he said outside the context of religious dogma. Lots of people figured out lots of things, some people compiled a great number of those things into a poignant and easily digestible package. I think Jesus was one of those people.
Another thing he figured out was “Your relationship with the divine is between you and the divine, you don’t need priests to tell you how to pray, and doing it out in public so people see how pious you are is cringe”. Jesus was about being a good person without the dogma. I doubt he’d be thrilled at the dogmatic institution erected around him.
I’m just glad you’re trying to be a good person.
Getting my sleep fixed. Specifically: going to sleep at the same time every night, waking up at the same time every morning, cutting out caffeine completely, no or very limited sweets at night. My dad has bad insomnia (and habits) and I had sleep issues myself growing up. If I was late to high school one more time, I would have failed; and then I was late to graduation lol. Now I wake up every morning feeling refreshed and not tired. Every time I wake up before my alarm it’s like 10 minutes before it goes off anyway. I set no alarm on the weekends and I wake up at the same time anyway. Caffeine is a shitty thing to get addicted to. You’re not a soldier in a watchtower that needs to watch for an invading army every night, cut that shit out!
Loosing weight starts at the supermarket.
If you decide to buy sugary delicacies, you’ll have to resist the temptation at home, which you’ll inevitably fail. Just skip that boss fight entirely by not buying tempting things in the first place. Ok, maybe once a week, but certainly not every other day. You just need to resist the temptation for a few minutes at the store. Once you’re at home, you have no option but to eat normal food, because unhealthy food simply isn’t available.
I quit drinking for a while there and when I did I picked up this peculiar habit of drinking tons of soda water. Still do it to this day. Love my tiny bubbles.
FYI Soda water is still highly acidic and will therefore erode your enamel on your teeth.
I know a lot of people don’t believe in it, but fluoridated water is a proven way to combat this. If you drink a bit of water after a glass of soda water, it will protect your teeth against the acidity of the soda water.
PS: I’m not interested in debating anti-science idiots on this matter. You don’t need to listen to this advice, if you don’t want to.
Carbonic acid is a bastard
Bidet hits all of those things
Joining a sword fighting gym. Absolutely fantastic community, and while I’m currently laying in a hot tub to soothe my absolutely dead legs, I’m definitively in the best shape I’ve been in in my adult life.
Geralt?
One day, when I’m in actually GOOD shape, and have a bit more grey.
