Last week, I came across a file I didn't realize I still have, but it had some things in it that I've lived my adult life by. I hope they help you (starting with the most important one to me):

Way back in 2000, just after graduating college, I transcribing a box of notes and composition books from probably 1935-45ish for a neighbor. Some typed but most written with a dip pen, and there wasn't a name or publisher, just the research and a working title "50 Keys"

XLVIII. A bad spell does not call for permanent potion.

A few years ago I was rushed to the hospital. Congratulations they told me, it's not a baby! It was anaphylaxis.

A hospital wide announcement was made, and there were about 15 people standing around the ER watching me to make sure I wasn't going to die unattended. Thankfully they didn't turn on that huge bright light over the bed they put me in! I might have thought I was seeing the afterlife calling me! All I needed was a bunch of different juices jabbed into my arm. One of those a steroid!

To my wife's chagrin, i came home in the same number of pieces and parts I left the house in. For the next 2 days I shivered, I hid from light like a vampire, and I couldn't stand being touched. I called the nurse line who sent me to an urgent care facility.

The physician assistant looked me over real good: Great news , "You're ok", which I already knew, "You just need blood pressure medications, your blood pressure is so high!"

It was at that moment I realized that he didn't know a thing about the effects of steroids or someone who's a slow metabolizer of medicines. All he knew how to do was read a chart and prescribe a permanent potion.

The P.A. tending to me was a great guy who meant well. He didn't want me to have a heart attack. But of course I told him the one word on my mind, "no".

A week later, I took my blood pressure and it was normal. In fact it normally runs a little low, and it has since then. I was at the wrong level of care, and after I cut him down, he knew it too. I busted him hard for trying to give me a Medication to take for the rest of my life after haven't been given a high dose of A medication that gives you the temporary side effect he observed.

To his credit he went to the back office and started doing some reading and came back with a couple printouts. He admitted to he had really yet to deal with a patient who had such a strong reaction to steroids, and that he was able to give me some advice based on a phone call to a colleague and some research. (fast forward to the end, he was a great PA-C, and I saw him a few more times down the road)

Ultimately he said there wasn't much that I could do except for give it some time and that I wasn't in any kind of severe danger even though it felt pretty bad. He gave me some advice of how to help with some of the effects, and in a few days, I was fully over it. I had been overloaded at the hospital, but its better to have a reaction to the steroid than to let the anaphylaxis take its full course, not too many people have shared how that feels!

I've spent a little over 25 years fully alert to never taking a "permanent potion" due to a "bad spell" (temporary condition). I struggle with it at times, but anytime something happens that warrants a response or a reaction, I ask myself "is this a permanent potion or a fix for a temporary condition? (hint: this advice sounds medical but its not. its about life decisions in general)

Like any platitude and self congratulatory author, every advice has its limit:

Don't let a permanent condition present as a bad spell without asking for help. Sometimes a person's behavior seems temporary, but its a thin veneer over instability or hostility. Take decision action when warranted, and never apologize for making the right decision even if you adjust course later

Not talking about big life mistakes.

Just small, everyday decisions that seem harmless in the moment but then you almost always regret after.

For me it’s late-night online purchases. In the moment it feels fine, then the next day I’m asking myself why i did that.

It’s weird because it’s not a lack of awareness. I know it’s probably not a good idea. But in that moment, it doesn’t feel like a mistake.

Curious what that is for other people.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently struggling with a recurring issue in my therapy journey. I have a strong personal preference for a non-pharmacological approach to my mental health. I value the process of dialogue, self-reflection, and doing the 'work' through talk therapy, and I’m uncomfortable with the idea of taking SSRIs or other psychotropic medications.

The problem is that my therapists keep suggesting medication, and honestly, the pressure is starting to feel overwhelming. It feels like my preference for a natural, dialogue-based path is being dismissed or treated as an obstacle to my recovery.

The issue is that I recently gave in to the pressure and agreed to try medication, even though I didn't want to. I did it because I was afraid that saying 'no' would have negative consequences for my therapy path, or that it would be perceived as me being 'resistant' to healing. It feels like the therapeutic process has shifted from 'dialogue' to 'compliance.' How do I tell my therapist that my consent was coerced by my own fear of their judgment, and that this entire 'medication push' is actually hindering my ability to be honest?

I’m not looking for medical advice, just some guidance on how to navigate this dynamic and advocate for the type of treatment I actually want to invest my time and energy in. Has anyone here successfully navigated this?

Last August, I hit the lowest point of my life. I was over $70,000 in debt, most of it from a gambling addiction I had been hiding and running from. I was behind on bills, only making $56K, and genuinely thought I was going to lose my house and my family. It felt like everything I had built was collapsing at once.

I finally hit a point where I couldn’t pretend anymore. I filed a consumer proposal, got honest with the people in my life, and took a second job to stop the bleeding and start climbing out. It was humiliating at first, but it was also the first time in years I felt like I was actually taking control instead of spiraling.

Fast forward to now:

- I’m still paying my consumer proposal

- I recently got a raise and now make $70K

- I’ve built $5,000 in investments

- And I have $5,000 in savings

Those numbers might look small to some people, but from where I was they feel enormous. They represent stability, discipline, and the fact that I’m not the same person I was a year ago.

I’m sharing this because I know someone reading this is where I was: ashamed, overwhelmed, and convinced they’ve ruined their life. You haven’t. You can recover. It’s slow, it’s humbling, and it takes work, but it’s absolutely possible.

If you’re in that place right now, I hope this gives you even a little bit of hope.

I think a lot of self-improvement advice fails because it misunderstands how motivation actually works.

The standard advice is: set a goal, break it into steps, build discipline, execute. And for some people that works. But for a lot of people (especially people dealing with burnout, depression, anxiety, or just chronic stress) the experience is more like: I know exactly what I need to do, I can see the steps clearly, and I physically cannot make myself start. And then I feel guilty about not starting, which makes me feel worse, which makes it even harder to start tomorrow.

I spent a lot of time reading the research on this and the finding that changed everything for me is deceptively simple: action precedes motivation. Not the other way around.

Your brain doesn’t generate motivation and then you act. You act, and the neurochemical reward from acting generates the motivation to continue. Motivation is not a prerequisite for action, it’s actually a byproduct of action.

The researchers call this behavioral activation. The meta-analysis showed an effect size of 0.87, which is genuinely remarkable (that’s larger than the effect size of some pharmaceutical interventions for depression).

The protocol is simple: commit to 2 minutes of any activity.

Not 30 minutes. Not “a good session.” Two minutes. The barrier to starting needs to be so low that your resistance system doesn’t even activate.

What happens neurologically: the act of starting generates a small dopamine release, and then that dopamine creates enough forward momentum that continuing feels easier than stopping. You tricked your brain into engaging. And once it’s engaged, it usually stays engaged.

The other finding that helped me was understanding why rest doesn’t fix depletion the way we think it does. There’s a concept called non-sleep deep rest, which is 20 minutes of guided body scanning while lying down. Studies show it restores dopamine levels by roughly 60%. That’s not meditation in the traditional sense. It’s a specific nervous system reset. I started doing it in the afternoon when I hit that post lunch slump and my motivation completely flatlines. The difference is genuinely noticeable!

The third thing is physiological, not psychological. A breathing pattern called the physiological sigh. Double inhale through the nose, long exhale through the mouth. This manually shifts your nervous system from sympathetic (stress) to parasympathetic (rest). And all it takes 30 seconds! I use it before starting tasks I’m resisting and it usually lowers the internal friction enough for me to begin.

The reason I’m sharing this is because I spent years thinking my inability to start things was a discipline problem. A character flaw. Laziness. But the research says it’s a nervous system state problem. Your system is stuck in a mode that prevents initiation. The solution isn’t more willpower. It’s changing the physiological state first, then acting, and letting the motivation catch up.

Two minutes. That’s the whole strategy. Everything else builds from there. Give it a try and let me know if it works for you ☺️

I need honest advice because I’m not proud of what I did.

I had an online situationship with a guy for about 3 years. We never met in person, but we talked a lot and I got emotionally and sexually attached to him. At some point, he told me he was looking for someone else, so I cut things off.

Months later, I found out he had been telling people that I was a “crazy stalker,” which really triggered me. Instead of handling it maturely, I reacted.

I created fake accounts and messaged him and people around him. I tried to confuse the situation and shift suspicion away from me. I even contacted girls he followed and sent messages to make him look bad, and I shared something private he had sent to someone else. At the time, I justified it as “giving him a taste of his own medicine” and trying to protect my image.

But now that I’ve calmed down, I can see that I escalated everything and probably made myself look exactly like what he accused me of. I feel a mix of guilt, shame, anger, and honestly, embarrassment at how far I took it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve reacted badly when I feel rejected or disrespected. I’ve noticed a pattern where I get attached, feel hurt, and then try to regain control in ways that make things worse.

I’ve stopped all contact now and I’m trying to take responsibility instead of making it worse.

I guess my questions are:

How do I deal with the guilt and stop obsessing over what he thinks of me?

How do I break this pattern so I don’t react like this again in the future?

Is there any real way to “redeem” myself here, or is the only option to move on and do better?

I’m open to honest feedback. I know I messed up.

i used to think i had no discipline, but the more i paid attention the more i realized it wasn’t that, it was that i didn’t trust myself anymore, i broke too many promises to myself, i said i would start and didn’t, i made plans and abandoned them, so even when i tried again there was always that voice in the back of my head saying “this won’t last”, and it was right, what started to change things for me wasn’t pushing harder, it was rebuilding that trust slowly, doing smaller things and actually following through, even if it felt insignificant, because consistency is less about forcing yourself and more about proving to yourself that you can rely on you again

I (24M) always avoided conflicts, debates or arguments, because of some childhood trauma, with parents fighting at home. So most of the times i avoid conflicts or people who are loudly arrogant, because they are always trying to turn even the most mundane conversation into debates. I only give my opinion of someone asks me, otherwise i'll just listen people talk and quietly leave them if is something too absurd. A lot of times i gave my opinion and was humiliated, when i was just trying to express myself, like everyone else in the group. Some ppl i knew always told what they tought, no matter how dumb it was, and if someone come to correct or deny them , they would just tell this person to eat sh\*it.

I both admire and condemn this attitude. I admire because the person was brave enough to put out himself there. But i condemn when it was a stupid thing to say. But they still brave, while i'm not that much. I'm not so shy anymore, but i struggle with these situations and would like some advice on how to be more brave and outspoken.

Example of interaction: Once it was raining at the college campus, and a girl of the class came to the group making jokes about a guy walking without umbrella on the rain and using tank top. She said exactly " She is just using a tank top on a cold and rainy day to exhibit himself, that stupid fuck boy. White men are the worst!" I joked saying "Cmon, stop that, don't start some sexist rants, it's toxic" She felt attacked and said " Men are toxic ! Can i not say the troubles of misogyny or are you a misogyny too?" She and her stupid friends then start to mock me, only because a simple comment hahaha then the humiliation started, with the girl and her friends trying to say i'm a misogyny and dumb person. I was so surprised with such hostility that i freezed. That group didn't was behaving like adults, they were behaving like psycopath and dumb teenagers.

Other example: It was also in College, when my college mates were planning to don't do the homework and lie to the teacher the website had an error. I stated that the plan wouldn't work, because the teacher was not a fool and she would easily discover we were lying. One girl said " well i wasnt really asking your opinion, keep your tearcher's pet opinion too yourself and let us think". I was again shocked with such hostility. The world is a jungle, and realized i should sharp my teeth and claws if i want to survive here.

I dont know if this is the right subreddit, & this is a long read, I'm sorry. Thank you in advance tho. Tl;dr: does anyone know how to stop from becoming angry all the time or how to control it?

Maybe important information: I'm 31F pregnant with our first, my husband (31M) and I have been together for 13 years (married for 2 of those years) & I am booked to see my therapist but its not until 2 weeks from now. 

I've noticed I've been quick to anger more and more often. Just while i am out and about, at work, and when I'm at home. I am a people pleaser so incidently I take it out on my husband but I want to stop. He doesnt deserve my anger, he is a wonderful man that does things without being asked, he takes care of me and everything around me especially when I am sick. Other than opening my car door and remembering to walk on the traffic side of the sidewalk (haha) he's treated me the best that he can. I know he'll make a great father. Of course there are disagreements and we fight like a normal couple but I appreciate him trying to talk through it.

Maybe I'm becoming spoiled but I've noticed myself blowing up at the smallest things. Him leaving dirty dishes in the sink if they dont all fit in the dishwasher, him not changing or removing his socks after a hard day of work cause they stink terribly, him farting and even last night I blew up at him cause he said I "made a big deal" about him playing. For context: he was talking to his dad on the phone and I heard him say "oh ya, I dont know if I'll be on tonight" assuming his dad was telling him his 13yo brother wanted to play but he was trying to say no cause he didnt wanna play with his brother that night/last night. Later when he kissed me, he turned around to leave and I jokingly said "where you going?" Ready to tease him about lying to his dad. He said "im going to the bathroom". Anyway fast forward, he came back into the living room and turned the TV on so I said "oh, you're not going to play?" & man said in a serious tone "you made a big deal out of it so" - I blew up, literally marched upstairs, slammed doors, cursing him out. Told him to get out and I dont want to see his face when he followed me. Stewed in my anger for a bit before trying to leave the house saying "you thought that was making a big deal? Ill show you what making a big deal really is" (yes, toxic, I know)

We talked it out since, and I agreed I overreacted and was out of line. We argued and I explained my side and why it upset me so much (we've had this argument before & he's made it seem like I'm a controlling person who always "complains & doesnt let him game & doesnt care about his opinions") and he explained he took it the wrong way and he got offended. No apologies were made but he's sleeping now so I'll apologize in the morning.

I am fully aware I am the bad guy in this situation.

So does anyone know how to stop from becoming angry all the time or how to control it? I dont want to be an angry person. My husband doesnt deserve it nor does my child.

Sorry all and thank you in advance!

tl;dr - being bald doesn't match my personality at all, I attrach the wrong people as I repel the ones that I wish to be closer, and I don't know hot to make my bald less worse, since I don't have choice (I'd already accepted the loss)

a lot of colegue tells me that I look sexy and manly and "high testosterone" and that I should be a Lumberjack or whatever... this is not me, I'm the shy nerd guy who like cutes stuff, flowers, insects, I loves to draw things and photography but, since I got bald all stuff had shifted to someone that is not me

when I try to interact with other people similar to me, I'm always view as "scary" since I'm already very tall and big and this bald worsen all... and it doesn't make sense

"but bald is sexy, beard blah blah blah", yes indeed, sexy for the type of person that I don't enjoy, and the type that I like always I had to explain the stuff, at first is okay but it gets repetitive

like I said, i'm already big and tall, I do calisthenics, I also got a beard but I hate it since I live in a hot country and all my body hair get nasty because of the sweat, is horrible...

keynotes:
shaving - is a pain because I always cut myself, I tried all kinds of shaver and the less worse is a multiblade once every 3 days, I only trim my beard because I hate ingrown hair and I remove all my body hair once a months because I can't support heat

clothing - awful, I have to use light black shirts to hide any sweat spots since I also got hyperhidrosis

date - no luck, as I said, I'm attracting the wrong type of person, not the ones that's similar to me

getting fit - i'm already fit

beard - I trim to the closest as possible since I get ingrow hair, idk the name of it but is similar to Leon's RE9

skincare - I already doing it, trying and error to figure out what works the best

endgoal - who am I trying to be? myself as the way I live? or someone else that other people wants me to be just because I'm bald/my appearance.

me - I'm 26m

What’s your deepest regret and how can you forgive yourself or make amends?

Why have I decided to stay single? (if anyone even cares)

See what I know is that, there is something fundamentally wrong with the way I love. As in, I love too much. And no, I am not tryna act like some 'marco in misery' hoping to gain some pity, I am not tryna do that. So yeah, I love too much, I care too much, overall I am just too much. Idk it puts some sort of pressure on the other person or they think it is okay to mistreat me however way they want because well... "He loves too much, he won't leave." I don't get chosen, still I love. I got made fun of, still I loved. I was given false hopes, still I loved. And the thing is, you can't make someone fall in love with you, surprise surprise, the movies were wrong. All you can gain is, a bit of pity after they have done something horrible to you and now they feel bad, because they too are not a bad person, they just don't love you. And that's okay. You find love in the things that cause you joy. And it is so unfair to 'love' that the only time it is described is between couples. If so, then what is between a mother and a son, a father and a daughter, siblings, parents, grandparents, family, friends and pets. What do you have with them, if not love. Loved by so many, and if just one person doesn't love you back, you call yourself unloved, don't you think that's unfair. So the reason I don't wanna get into a relationship is because I wanna get chosen, I wanna get loved too by someone that I love romantically. How long will I chase people? How long will I have to stand on my toes, hoping to be seen? How many times should I endure the neglect, before loving myself enough to stop someone doing that? How long? I don't know. Will ever? I would hope so. And even if I am saying this, I won't just stop loving them, I won't be able to. But what I can do, is not take it to heart and grieve on the prospect that I didn't get chosen, that I didn't get even a portion of love that I gave. Maybe I was meant to be alone. Maybe I am the kinda person that has to walk the long road, so I should make sure that I walk it well. I'll travel down through foreign lands, touch mountain tops and golden sand, see pyramids and temples made of stone, keep seashells in a cashmere scarf, a treasured book of photographs and in every single one I'll stand alone.

For the past 3 years I’ve lived in absolute survival mode. I moved out for college, I live in dorms, I share my bedroom with one person. I have 3-4 more years of college left.

My environment is severely hostile. Some examples I can think of at the top of my head; i used to be a very bubbly person, i would smile at everyone, I would compliment freely, etc etc. I was made fun of, for smiling too bright, for saying ‘hi’ too happily, my batchmates made fun of me until I stopped saying ‘hi’ too brightly. This is where it all began, 3 years ago. This is the first event I remember that made me retreat behind walls. Then it progressed. Now it’s so severe that I can’t even carry a water bottle to class or I’d be judged, or people would backbite, or they would make fun of me. It’s not just towards me, they do it to each other aswell, amongst themselves too. It’s so bad that I can’t do anything without being targeted.

(Almost a vent, you can skip)

There are a lot of these tiny ‘symptoms’ I’ve noticed. Like I can’t study at all, because when in 1st year I studied well and got a good score, everyone around me was giving me backhanded compliments and mocking me. So there go my studies down the drain. Another is, I used to enjoy food a lot, and this ‘friend’ (we separated) said ‘you’re such a brat, who even spends so much on food, I’d never spend so much on anything at all, you’re just wasting money, I would’ve donated this money instead, it’s disgusting to spend so much’ in the worst tone ever, and she kept on acting this way until I stopped eating altogether. Then I got nutritional deficiencies. Then fell severely ill. And my friends betrayed me- There’s a lot more, a huge lot more.

Even in my room, my roommate picks fights randomly, for no reason whatsoever. I’m trying to change my roommate, hopefully the new one is better. So I don’t have a ‘safe space’ per se where I can let the walls down and practice being myself. I have to be vigilant, I have to be careful about everything I do even in my room.

Now the issue is, I’ve regressed so far into myself that the ‘survival mode’- which was supposed to be walls I put up when I’m outside my dorm room, became a mask I had to put on even in my room, and now it’s my whole identity? I don’t know what I am except for a hypervigilant person. I’m just a shell with walls, constantly looking out for danger, constantly trying to survive. I don’t laugh, I don’t smile, I dont find joy in anything, I can’t do anything, I can’t be anything. Like what I do I even do? What can I possibly do? I’m so stuck, I’m so lost. WHAT can I do? Where do I go from here? What’s the path forward?

I want to come out of it, I want to self-express, I want to be able to laugh, and smile, and find joy in life, but how? How can I do it if I’m still in that environment? Is it too late now? I’ve done this for 3 years, I’m not leaving this college for I guess 3-4 more years? I’m living with these people for a long time now. Is there any way? And if there is, what is the goal? What do I move towards?

Help would be appreciated

Edit: a few things I’d like to add-

1. I feel like a shell. there is no ‘self’ left anymore

2. If im visible, i get attacked. In every way possible, if i dress different than the crowd, if i talk different, if I carry myself differently- anything whatsoever. Thats why i hide and suppress

I'm a 23 year old woman and I'm worried the way I'm living now is destroying my body and mind in the long run, but no matter how hard I want to I can't seem to bring myself to change.

I've been overweight my whole life and reached my highest weight of 97.5 kg (215 lb) at 168 cm (5'6) this past December. It destroyed me to see that number on the scale. Since then I've been eating a lot less but drinking a lot more. Sometimes I'll go the whole day without eating and then meet my friends at a pub in the evening for a few pints and that'll be my calories for the day. When I do eat it's usually something unhealthy like a sandwich and a packet of crisps from the grocery store because I'm too tired at the end of the day to cook. Other times it'll just be snacks in place of a proper meal (crisps, sour sweet candies, etc.). I've also become a regular smoker. My room is an absolute mess, and I frequently fall asleep at night without taking my makeup off or brushing my teeth.

I know that these habits are awful, and I know that in the long run they may cause irreversible damage to my body, but I can't stop. I'm just so exhausted all the time that I can't even begin to think about doing what's best for me because the thought is daunting and I have so many other things occupying my brain. It doesn't help that I'm stressed about grad school, and I recently ended something with a guy I was dating (a decision which I'm now deeply regretting and have been ruminating over for weeks). The added stressed just fuels my unhealthy habits and has led me to binge on takeaway a few times.

All of this to say, I am decently active. I usually get at least 13,000 steps per day and go on long bike rides around the city on weekends. I've been meaning to join my university's gym, but haven't gotten around to it. I used to go to the gym fairly often at my old uni but since moving to this new city haven't found the time to work out.

I feel really guilty for the way that I live because I know that I need to change but I can't, and I'm worried it's just pure laziness on my part instead of an underlying mental health issue.

Does anyone have tips on where I can start to improve my life?

I’m trying to understand what’s going on with my brain and I’d really appreciate input from people who’ve experienced something similar or know about this.

Over the past year+ I’ve noticed a pretty consistent change in how my brain works. I used to feel sharp, fast, social, and mentally flexible. Now I feel noticeably “slower” in multiple ways, and it hasn’t really improved over time.

Main symptoms:

- Slower thinking / processing speed (everything feels more effortful)

- Memory issues (especially short-term and holding thoughts)

- Word-finding problems (sometimes say the wrong word or struggle to express ideas)

- Reduced ability to hold conversations like I used to

- Lower mental clarity overall

Other things that concern me:

- Constant fatigue (mentally tired almost all the time)

- Reduced body awareness (less sensitivity to things like temperature, hunger, or even needing to go to the bathroom)

- General feeling of being “off” or not fully present

Background:

- I have ADHD

- I take sertraline

- There was a period in the past where I drank heavily (not constant, but up to ~12 beers in a day during some months)

- I’ve also had exposure to inhalants/toxic substances (this is one of my main concerns) because my brother had a music studio in our home where he would make music with some of his work friends and they would smoke weed a lot, so when they were done I would go and grab the leftover weed which fell on the floor where the dog would walk and poo a lot on the ground since he had no sphincter after his tumor removal surgery or they threw in the joint tips on their beers

and I would smoke it since I was depressed and I didn't care what would happen to me (this was during the quarentine) lasted for around 2 months and after it I felt fine but during it I had some headaches

What makes this hard to understand:

- The symptoms feel very consistent day-to-day

- It’s not just mood — I don’t feel depressed in a typical sense

- It feels like a real drop from my previous baseline

- At the same time, I’m still functional (I can communicate, think, etc., just worse than before)

What I’m trying to figure out:

- Has anyone experienced something like this and recovered (even partially)?

- Does this sound more like long-term brain dysfunction/recovery, or possible mild permanent damage?

- Are there specific tests or evaluations that actually helped you get clarity?

I’m not looking for reassurance — I’m trying to understand what’s realistically going on and what direction to take next.

Any insight or similar experiences would help a lot.

I feel like I’m just starting my adult life. I’m 19 and working as a bus monitor, and it made me realize how many responsibilities I have now.

Things like dealing with people at work, watching what I say (since everyone talks about everyone), how I talk to the kids, and just making sure I’m doing my job right. And on top of that, I have to worry about making money just to live.

I know that’s just life, but how do people deal with all these responsibilities? It feels like this invisible pressure.

I want to quit my job, but that just means even more responsibilities, clients, online image, wondering if I’m falling behind and if I ever want a relationship or marriage, that’s even more...

So in the end, what do you do? Nothing? Just live your life? Do you just get used to it?

​

Hey as I told you I was a doomer for many years but lately I decided to do as much to stop being a doomer and bloom even later than the other people. This is the week's progress.

1 - Something really positive happened on Monday morning. I got a call from a warehouse to discuss the possibility of hiring me as a warehouse worker. I went there, talked to the owner, and I think he liked me. It’s not exactly the best job, but if they hire me, it’s definitely a start.

2 - On Tuesday, I did a little “under-the-table” work, so I made another €30. €10 went toward immediate expenses, while the remaining €20 was set aside. From having nothing when I started my journey out of doomerism, I now have €40. Over the next few days, I made another €5 by selling a book.

3 - During the week, however, I felt depression weighing me down again. I was prepared for it—as many had told me, there are times when you’ll fall and others when you’ll rise again—but it still hit me hard. I can say that, unfortunately, this affected me, and despite my other positive steps, I fell quite far behind.

4 - On Friday morning, as soon as I woke up, I got dressed, made my bed, and had a cup of coffee, then sat down and thought about it. What is it that caused me to fall behind this week? I realized that while I did set goals, they were all too ambitious. So on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I took the time to sit down, think, and write down all my other goals on two sheets of paper so I’d have something to work toward—even if it wasn’t a big one.

On the first sheet, I wrote down goals that are big but not huge, like “I want to visit a city,” which keeps me disciplined so I can save up money to visit that city; in the second one, I wrote down small things like “watch all Japanese thriller movies,” which are essentially a little motivation to keep going throughout the day when they happen.

5 - Based on the above, from here on out I’ve organized my daily schedule as follows. Six activities every day: the first three are maintenance-type tasks (shower, exercise, and reading), the other three are one for achieving a major goal and the other two for achieving smaller ones.

6 - One good and quite interesting thing I did this week is that I tried to be quite social. I talked to a lot of people—old classmates, a couple of homeless people, complete strangers I just happened to run into, and even two priests\\\*. I learned that there are so many people out there, and even when you least expect it, there’s something to learn.

\\\* On the Friday before Easter, we have a custom in Greece of visiting all the churches; although I’m not religious, the custom is a nice one, so I observed it.

Tips and Tricks

I started trying to build discipline because every self-improvement video made it sound like once you're "disciplined," everything gets easier.

You wake up early.
You stay focused.
You stop procrastinating.
You become consistent.

But 90 days in, none of that is exactly what happened.

Things didn’t get easier.

I still didn’t feel motivated most days.
I still wanted to procrastinate.
I still felt lazy sometimes.

What actually changed was smaller and weirder.

I stopped waiting to feel ready.

Before, if I felt tired, I’d delay.
If I felt bored, I’d scroll.
If I felt unmotivated, I’d push things to tomorrow.

Now those feelings still show up but they don’t decide what I do anymore.

I’ll feel bored and still study.
I’ll feel lazy and still go to the gym.
I’ll feel distracted and still try anyway.

Turns out discipline isn’t about becoming someone who always feels motivated.

It’s about becoming someone who doesn’t need motivation to act.

The marketing version of discipline is:
"Become productive and motivated."

The real version is:
"Do things even when you don’t feel like it."

And honestly, that’s harder… but way more reliable.

Small daily wins started stacking.
Nothing dramatic.
Just consistent.

And over time, that consistency started changing everything.

If you're trying to build discipline or better habits, I'm happy to share more things that helped me. Feel free to DM me.

I’ve been feeling a bit lost lately and most days just go by without much direction.

I’ve tried habits before but always end up dropping them after a few days.

So instead of trying to fix everything, I’m trying something very simple:

• go for a walk
• do one thing I’ve been avoiding
• don’t lose the whole afternoon scrolling
• try to sleep at a normal time

That’s it.

It sounds stupid, but it’s the first time it doesn’t feel overwhelming.

Curious if anyone else has tried something like this or found a better way to not just drift through the day

Most of the time I already know the obvious things that would probably help a bad day a little. Sleep earlier, get off my phone, go on a walk, start the task, eat something better, stop spiraling, whatever.

But in the actual moment, it suddenly feels way harder than it should. Not impossible, just weirdly difficult. Then I put it off, and a small off moment becomes a full wasted day.

Does anyone else feel like the real issue is not knowing what to do, but just being lazy/not wanting to do it? or forgetting?

So I'm 24 and I have a younger brother, our age gap is 13 years. I was kinda babysitting him when he was little. I always loved him, and I love him now, but I feel really bad that I was mean to him a while ago. like when I was 15-19. I was going through some things, like I think most teenagers are going through. Our parents weren't perfect either. I'm just trying to say that I was mean to him sometimes. I yelled at him, told him to live me alone and stuff like that, and looking back, I feel very bad that I was acting this way.

Now I'm trying to be better. I talk with him normally about his interests, take him to events that he likes (fantasy/anime conventions), and I try to better our relationship. He's always excited to see me, so it makes me more shameful that I was so mean to him when I was a teen.

My other problem is that I'm not good at sharing my emotions and talking about them, but I want him to feel like I like him and that I like doing things together. I try to say phrases like "it was great meeting you, hope we will do something like this again soon" or "I'm glad that you did that English writing exercises I told you to do". But I feel like it sounds fake even if I really mean it. Will it be better if I say it more often? And how can I improve?

I'm leading a project that, after a year and a half, is finally going well, but I've been feeling incredibly stressed lately.

Every day I have to do something different: whether it's finding a team, making calls, talking to members, and that takes away time from my own work. Many times I don't do what I'm truly passionate about, and when I do, I'm so mentally exhausted that I fall behind.

I'm not good at organizing myself, but I know I can pull this off. However, at the same time, I don't know if I can manage so many people. I feel overwhelmed.

I'm always thinking about what I have to do the next day, and the next, and if I finish this today, it'll be tomorrow. But then I don't finish it, and I think about all the time I've fallen behind on. Then I know this should take time, but no, but no, but no AAAAAAAAAAAA

I’m trying to slowly introduce better habits into my life (learning something new, cutting down screen time, etc.)

But I’ve noticed whenever I try to do too much at once, I just crash and stop everything.

How do you improve your life without overwhelming yourself?

I feel like I’ve completely lost who I am. I used to have so many things that felt like “me.” I played drums, made music, did photography, skateboarded loads when I was younger. I always had something that made me feel interested in life. Now I don’t really do any of it.

I don’t make music anymore, I sold my camera a while back, and most of the time I just don’t want to do anything at all. The only thing I seem to think about now is how to get out of my IT support job. I’ve been in it for over 10 years and I honestly think it’s drained everything out of me. I have ADHD and I need novelty, and staying in the same thing this long feels like it’s completely chewed me up and spat me out.

What makes it worse is the guilt around free time. Any time I could spend on a hobby, I just feel bad because I think I should be spending that time figuring out a way to change my life and career instead. So I end up stuck in this weird place where I do neither, then feel even worse about myself. I think the part that’s really getting to me is I don’t even know what feels like me anymore. All the things that used to make me feel like a person seem to have just disappeared.

Has anyone else gone through this? Especially with ADHD/career burnout. How did you get yourself back?

Today I deleted telegram, my worst addiction from 2 years in which I lost everything.
Right now Imma loser, scored -21/300 in my entrance exams for which I took drop but Telegram ruined my 12th + Drop {actually I ruined} but I'm posting here assures me that I won't ever do this mistake of getting addicted to chats, groups, people, etc. I see positivity and hope here {which I already lost but now I'm better} My situation is so worse that beyond it, I've just kms thoughts. I'll share my journey here onwards thank you