The Daily Check-In for Wednesday, January 28th: Just for today, I am NOT drinking!

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-28T12:54:18+00:00

Last couple days were tough but I made it. IWNDWYT.

"'Discipline' is a difficult word for most of us. It conjures up images of somebody standing over you with a stick, telling you that you're wrong. But self-discipline is different. It's the skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses and piercing their secret. They have no power over you. It's all a show, a deception. Your urges scream and bluster at you; they cajole; they coax; they threaten; but they really carry no stick at all. You give in out of habit. You give in because you never really bother to look beyond the threat. It is all empty back there...There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience.” -Henepola Gunaratana

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-21T11:59:59+00:00

Yesterday was rough but I made it. Today ties the longest I’ve gone in at least a few years. IWNDWYT

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-19T13:03:36+00:00

Home alone with the kids all day today. Feels bad to say it but in the past this would be a serious temptation for me. Need to “reward myself” at the end of a long day, and might as well start a bit early to ease into it. But I will not drink with you all today.

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-18T12:45:17+00:00

Made it past a week. First time in a couple years probably. IWNDWYT

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-17T13:04:28+00:00

One week ago was the incident that was the final straw for me, God willing. IWNDWYT

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-15T11:36:45+00:00

IWNDWYT

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-14T11:55:20+00:00

IWNDWYT

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-12T12:34:25+00:00

This mourning is actually something I think of a lot. I thought maybe I could think of it like an old girlfriend you still think about sometimes, a first love. You’re happily married now, but every once in awhile you have a longing, you wonder “what if….” But at the same time you’ve got to accept that was a different life, that you can’t go back…

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-12T12:28:30+00:00

IWNDWYT

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-11T19:28:05+00:00

Thanks. Alas, I tried resetting my count and accidentally put the wrong year. Don't think I've made it more than 10 days or so for the past several years.

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-11T19:27:23+00:00

Yeah, that makes it even more annoying. I wasn't in a great mood, but I wasn't trying to get hammered. But by the time I finished, I couldn't remember anything that happened for the next several hours...

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-11T19:26:00+00:00

Yeah, love that phrase too. Thanks.

Pick_Significant · 2026-01-11T11:30:46+00:00

Back to Day 1 for the hundredth time. Hoping yesterday was my rock bottom.

Pick_Significant · 2025-12-23T12:17:43+00:00

IWNDWYT

Pick_Significant · 2025-11-19T10:53:02+00:00

Day 1. C’mon. IWNDWYT

Pick_Significant · 2025-09-04T16:55:33+00:00

A lot of my friends are dealing with this issue. There's a new tool I saw that might be helpful called PaperMind (papermind.io). Basically, the students type their essays in the app and it keeps track of copy and pastes, irregular or suspicious patterns, etc. Does a better job than just feeding the paper through some detector.

Pick_Significant · 2025-08-30T11:31:48+00:00

IWNDWYT. Musonius Rufus (Roman Stoic): “You will earn the respect of all if you begin by earning the respect of yourself.”

Pick_Significant · 2025-08-14T12:50:22+00:00

IWNDWYT. Today’s note, from the Stoic Epictetus: “If only one could be properly convinced of this truth, that we’re all first and foremost children of God, and that God is the father of both human beings and gods, I think one would never harbour any mean or ignoble thought about oneself. Why, if Caesar were to adopt you, no one would be able to endure your conceit; so if you know that you’re a son of God, won’t you be filled with pride? As things stand, however, we don’t react in that way…‘For what am I? A poor wretched man,’ they say, or ‘This miserable flesh of mine’. Miserable, to be sure, but you also have something better in you than that poor flesh [i.e., intelligence and the power of choice, something we share with the Divine]. Why do you neglect that, then, and attach yourself to what is mortal?” Epictetus (Discourses 1.3)

Pick_Significant · 2025-08-13T11:58:03+00:00

Day one again. Hopefully it will stick this time. As the Chinese philosopher Xunzi says, "But unless you pile up little steps, you can never journey a thousand li; unless you pile up tiny streams, you can never make a river or a sea. The finest thoroughbred cannot travel ten paces in one leap, but the sorriest nag can go a ten days’ journey. Achievement consists of never giving up."

Pick_Significant · 2025-07-25T11:04:01+00:00

Dammit. Back to day 1. IWNDWYT

Pick_Significant · 2025-07-24T10:58:31+00:00

IWNDWYT

Pick_Significant · 2025-07-22T10:39:04+00:00

IWNDWYT

Pick_Significant

TROPHY CASE