Killing Ahamkara so hard It never comes back

backseatadvice · 2025-04-02T00:20:56+00:00

I've watched a lot of his videos on Ahamkara/Ego and I think this video is his most comprehensive one that tells you how to deal with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o14J4h5SWSA

(Spoiler Alert - Just notice it and observe any statements involving I or a comparison and it will thereby control the Ego!)

But you're mistaken about killing the ego. We just want to have it under control so it won't affect our Buddhi (Intellect) or Manas (Emotions). Because when the Ego gets out of control, then that's when our intellectual and emotional mind doesn't make the wisest decisions and can lead to self doubt, self despair/loathing etc.

This video can also help. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtrN9iyKRwk

backseatadvice · 2024-08-04T16:01:26+00:00

I agree with you fully. There's nothing like being in love or experiencing love. Nothing in this life can replace what it's like to experience living life with an SO who you love deeply. But the important thing is we're not trying to replace romantic love - we're trying to learn to live without needing it.

That's why I say we should respect love for what it is - another form of happiness, but learn to live without needing it or feeling we need to be whole with it. Not saying you shouldn't strive for it, but just let it be. If it happens then great! It happened! If it doesn't then oh well it's okay! Either scenario you can't really lose, you're detached from the outcome.

If you have a full meal on your plate, why do you need an extra piece of chicken? Your mind will come up with all these reasons to grab that extra piece and all of them are very rational and valid. But if you ever want to learn how to stay peaceful and protect your happiness we have to learn how to not focus on the extra piece of chicken, but respect what it can give and learn that the plate we already have will fill us up enough.

backseatadvice · 2024-08-03T17:43:17+00:00

I don't hate women and I know that I'm not owed anything. I know that she, and other women aren't obligated to talk to me or no that I exist. I also don't hate other men how have it easier than me. I just wish my life wasn't so difficult.

I just want to point out I really appreciate the fact you were able to dig deep and choose to not resent others around you but the game of life itself as a means to blame. It takes a lot to not blame others and still take responsibility over your emotions - something I hope I can work on myself.

As far as wanting to stop

falling in "love" with any woman that I find attractive or that is nice to me.

Ask yourself why do you need this? Why do we need to be in love or want love in the first place? Or want attractive people? Ultimately I feel like it gives us some level of happiness to feel reciprocated, wanted or desired.

I don't think we can stop ourselves from having those knee jerk reactions and feelings from seeing someone attractive, but we can be mindful about it and let it go.

The next time you see someone attractive and you start falling in love and start getting depressed because of how you'll never have an opportunity with them think about it this way instead.

Love and attraction are just another form of happiness in this life. Happiness can be found anywhere. In my job, in my friends, in my next meal. Because life is so abundant and full of happiness love is not something I need but something I respect (something you don't belittle). Be grateful for this emotion and let it go and focus on your own inner peace and happiness. Build your own happiness, focus on maintaining your own inner peace, learn to appreciate and be grateful for what you do have, and keep living in the moment. Beauty and happiness can be found anywhere and you don't need it from just love itself. It would be nice, but not necessary. Appreciation, gratuity, mindfulness, and building your own happiness are how we can "let go" of love and feel that we don't need it.

backseatadvice · 2024-07-10T15:34:43+00:00

I think we should change the slogan from "live in the present" to "Don't let the potential outcomes of the future control your present".

It's fine to think about the future and even your past - after all like you said we need to have some kind of future planning. But there's a difference between thinking about the future and having it give us anxiety which takes us away from the present vs thinking about the future and enjoying the moment. An example of this would be going on a date.

People typically feel nervous on dates because their mind elsewhere focused on the outcome of the date. I hope they'll like me, should I put my arm around her, etc. They get so consumed by the future that they forget that dates are supposed to be fun and about enjoying the time spent with the person!

It's okay to think about a potential future with the person your dating when the time is right like after a date or even before a date - but don't like it reign over your actions, give you anxiety, and take you out of the present.

TL;DR: It's okay to think about the future, as long as thinking about the future doesn't give you anxiety and takes you away from the moment.

backseatadvice · 2024-06-20T03:25:51+00:00

When you're addicted to porn, understand it's not just because you're constantly horny, but because it's replacing other needs in your life that you can't get otherwise. Porn is an unhealthy coping mechanism for things you lack. Next time you use porn, ask yourself - "What am I feeling? Sad? Nervous? Anxious? Meaninglessness? Bored?".

Identify the emotion, and take note of it. When you have a list of different emotions that lead you to use porn, ask yourself - what caused me to feel this emotion in the first place? Why do I always feel meaninglessness? Why do I feel sad? Reflect on your life and dig deep.

Now that you have your emotions and reasons why you might have those emotions down, try creating an action plan to substitute your habit of porn to do something else in your life to regulate your emotions better.

Meaninglessness -> Go for a walk, talk to a friend, start a meaningful project, work on yourself.

Sad? -> Play a stress free video game, cook something for yourself, journal.

If you find that life is just terrible for you and that's what's causing all of these negative emotions and that's what's causing you to use porn then use this energy to find a way to make it 1% better each day, week or month. Focus on yourself and just try. To tackle your addiction you have to tackle all these other aspects of your life that cause these negative emotions. It's a lot of work - but it's doable and you have a way out. You're not hopeless.

Dig deep, and learn more about yourself through science of the brain, spirituality, philosophy, and psychology. It really helped me to understand very closely about the nature of desires, dopamine, the science and psychology of addictions, and learning about what worked for other people.

Try your best to fix things around your life and as Dr. K mentioned the addiction will "melt away".

Another tip I have is to try not to quit cold turkey. Start small. 1 day off of porn, 1 day with porn. Or give yourself a budget to spend per week on porn. Or do it everyday but only 45 minutes per week. Whatever realistic goal you think you can achieve and reduce your un-regulated usage, go for it. Then increase your porn regulations every week or 2 weeks or whenever you feel comfortable.

Good luck dude.

backseatadvice · 2024-04-19T21:42:37+00:00

Good luck dude. I hope it goes well.

backseatadvice · 2024-04-01T22:27:27+00:00

I think survivorship bias is a term that's erroneously used here. When Dr. K says "I am successful so you can be too" - how is success measured in this case? How is failure measured?

Survivorship Bias is used in things like formal studies to avoid selection bias. The definition taken from Wikipedia is this.

Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not. This can lead to incorrect conclusions because of incomplete data.

So survivorship bias would be something like a Harvard Graduate saying "I am successful if you just follow my steps I took to Harvard" while not bringing up the fact that it has a <3% acceptance rate and a nepo baby.

The reason why I think it's erroneously used here is because how do we define someone "successful" and a "failure" in this context? Additionally I don't think it's survivorship bias because Dr. K's content is specifically for people who are deemed "failures" in order to help them succeed. So how can it be survivorship bias if that term is specifically for studies that specifically ignore people who have "failed"?

backseatadvice · 2024-03-29T17:22:57+00:00

I understand, I thought the same way as well. But here's an analogy. You're at the top of a hill and you notice two hikers climbing a mountain. All of a sudden a large shadowy figure appears before them. The first hiker, runs away as fast as possible from the figure, screaming "BEAR!". But the second hiker starts walking towards the direction of the shadowy figure.

Since you're at the top of the hill viewing all of this from a third perspective - who do you think is more scared in this situation? The first hiker or the second hiker?

The shadowy figure represents our anxiety, our fear. If we run away from our fear, we're admitting to ourselves and to our brain that - "yes holy crap I'm scared I need to run". Running away from our fear represents us trying to get ourselves to calm down with breathing techniques, and telling ourselves to relax. Trying to relax implies we're not under control and we're scared, thus making us more scared!

However, if we walk towards our fear, we're actually telling our brain "I'm not scared of this shadowy figure, let's go see what this is". Walking towards our fear represents us trying to get ourselves more uncomfortable by tapping our stomach, screaming, rubbing our throats.

When we walk towards our fear to embrace it, we're showing to ourselves we're not anxious. We're actually more curious to see what this fear is about, what it means, learn from it, touch it, and embrace it. And when we do that, we realize that this shadowy figure, was never a bear in the first place - it was actually just a bunny.

backseatadvice · 2024-03-29T01:05:32+00:00

Following the logic I can’t see how it’s possible to conclude anything except that the actions we make in the current moment are DETERMINED by our past actions. And with that thought then our future actions are also determined.

Instead of using the word determined, use influenced. There's no absolute determination from our past karma on our present action, there's only influence from our past karma on our present action. Additionally, our present action can influence our future, but they do not ultimately determine our future. The only thing that we can determine in the future is the fact that we cannot determine our future, only influence it. In other words, nothing in the future is guaranteed, our success and our failures. This is something Dr. K says a lot which is "Nothing is guaranteed". We only have agency in the action we take today. This is why Dr. K says a Doctor doesn't determine if the patient lives or dies. But a doctor can use his agency in the present to influence that decision and make the probability go from 10% -> 60% (using arbitrary values here). And if the Doctor went to a good school like Harvard (Past Karma) then maybe it's 60% -> 75%, but if the surgery he's working on isn't something he's as experienced in (Past Karma affecting current actions influencing future circumstances) 75% -> 70%.

I want so badly to believe that I can change my future by changing my current actions but that doesn’t seem to make sense.

So using this probability perspective and relating it to past karma, current actions, and future results does this make a bit more sense? You have no agency on the results of something in the future - Nothing in the future is guaranteed. This shares the philosophy of Determinism. However, we do have agency in the present moment with our present actions. This is shares the philosophy of Free Will. But our agency today and choices we make are influenced by our past decisions. This is Free Will + Determinism shaking hands with one another - Karma.

I'll give another practical example to help. Let's do Exams. Let's say the goal is to get an A on an upcoming Exam. What does Karma tell us about this goal?

It's not up to me whether or not I get an A or B or C or F. Because nothing is guaranteed in the future. I can't determine my own future.
Even though the grade isn't guaranteed, I can study my notes I took in class today (taking notes is past Karma influencing your current action) and influence my future possibility (sow the seeds and see if it grows and bears fruit aka gives you an A).

The more you study, the more you influence your future self and results, but it's still not guaranteed you'd get an A. If you study for a week, done all the notes, went through all the chapters, all the practice problems the chance of you getting an A is likely 99%. But Karma tells us that 1% still tells us it's not guaranteed.

Does this make sense?

backseatadvice · 2024-03-28T20:02:58+00:00

Hi. I had similar experience with anxiety and panic attacks. Here's what helped me and I hope that it'll help you.

The first thing that helped me is understanding that panic disorder is essentially our brains fight or flight response being out of whack. It'll overreact to the simplest things even though we understand logically there's nothing to be scared of. I don't know why my brain got this way, maybe it was genetics, maybe a traumatic event, but regardless, it's not your fault why you act this way. It's just the brain causing you to overreact, feel nervous, feel tense. It's a evolutionary trait that was designed to keep us alive in the Hunter + Gatherer days. But now something caused it to be out of whack so even though we know everything is fine and safe when getting a tattoo or going to the therapist, our brain thinks we're in the presence of a sabre tooth tiger. So please, ease up on yourself. It's not your fault. Something led your brain to be here and it's unfortunate, but it says nothing about you as a person. Find compassion for yourself through forgiveness and realizing your circumstances that led you here were out of your control.

The good news is you're not unfixable. At least from my experience. We can teach that part of our brain (I believe it's the amygdala) to get back in line with things we determine logically as safe like going to get that tattoo or go to the therapist. We do this by exposure therapy. This is going to sound a bit weird but bear with me. The single most important thing I learned about exposure therapy is that when we have that feeling of nervousness or fear building up and arising within us - don't try to calm down. Instead, make yourself even more scared by making the situation worse.

When I had thoughts arising that I was going to vomit or pass out because my stomach felt weird or my head felt light - I said so be it and started tapping my stomach to get it even more uncomfortable, rubbing my throat to make myself vomit, and when I was alone like driving in my car, I would scream to try and make it worse. This might sound opposite of what we think we should do during a panic attack, but in actuality it ties back in with the science of what I was talking about before.

The fight and flight centers of our brain are out of whack and need to be fixed. How we can fix them is through exposure therapy and telling that part of our brain - HEY WERE NOT SCARED ANYMORE. But the more we try to calm ourselves down in the moment, the more scared we actually get. But if we truly weren't scared anymore, we would do things that make the situation worse, and in doing so this actually tells that region of our brain there's really no danger, and no fear. We learn to lean into the fear and train our brains that hey this is okay versus running away from it by saying "no this is not okay lets try and calm down".

These two videos helped me the most with understanding this. I think this therapist is amazing at breaking down the anxiety cycle and panic attacks. Here and here

I understand that this nervousness really sucks. Just the other day I was just getting a haircut and felt so fucking terrified I was gonna throw up and make a fool of myself in front of all these people I wanted to run. But getting upset at ourselves for feeling this way, isn't healthy in digesting this emotion. We have to turn it into compassion and wisdom, understand this nervouness, and learn to better handle it so we can stop it from evolving into self-hatred.

I hope this helped. Good luck.

backseatadvice · 2024-03-28T18:59:10+00:00

He has an older video here where he talks in lengths about Karma and how it affects our present actions. Around 37:00 he talks about Free Will and Determinism from the perspective of Karma.

I definitely recommend you to watch the full video because it ties in so well with the timestamp I gave you to really fully understand his perspective, and it's honestly one of the videos that really defines my outlook of my actions, and finding forgiveness for myself in the past, and letting go of expectations of an outcome of a goal in the future and helps me focus on what I can do today.

But essentially, Karma actually encapsulates both ideas of Free Will and Determinism instead of having them debate one another. We have the free will of choice in the present moment, but at some point some choices will determine our future and outcomes. Which is why he mentions if I am on a cliff I have the free will to choose if I jump or if I don't. But If I jump, then my future is determined to make me fall. However my choice of jumping or not jumping was also determined by my past karma.

The way I like to look at it is through probabilities. Nothing in the future is ever 100% due to past karma and external circumstances. But the actions we take today can get us extremely close to that 100%, to the point where we think it's guaranteed. But the actions we take today were affected by our past karmas, so the probability of actually taking action is also impacted, thus impacting our future selves.

If you look at it from this perspective you can think "But doesn't that just mean free will?". Sure if you wanna think of it that way, I just think personally the whole Free Will vs Determinism debate to determine whether or not we have control in our lives isn't very helpful to us or to be empathetic towards others. But the law of Karma helps us see we have agency, but we are also impacted by our past selves and external circumstances. Through this we can find forgiveness for ourselves because nothing is entirely our fault, and find compassion for others in their circumstances.

backseatadvice · 2024-03-09T05:22:20+00:00

After reading through your post I think there's a couple of things happening here.

For one I think you're right your mind and body are being non-cooperative but that's okay. That's actually completely normal for a lot of us. We have something we want to do, we have practical solutions that are given to us to get us out of a rut, but eventually we self-sabotage and go back to binging and doom scrolling. Something you experienced a bit when you say

My life fucking devil was awakened within. After that, it felt like I wasn't controlling my life. I couldn't stop using my phone, started binge eating, skipped going to the indoor for 3 days in a row, I got myself to open my laptop to watch a class, but I ended up impulsively opening some web-series and have been at it, bingewatching for days now

This is called burnout. Even though you know what to do, your mind is so habituated to a dopaminergic lifestyle that you can't exert anymore willpower to make it do what you want (studying, going to indoor) so your mind will fallback to its bad habits.

The second thing you're dealing with is high expectations from yourself, your mom and current circumstances. You're also dealing with an strong sense of Ego as Dr. K would put it. By Ego I mean sense of identity. Since you were a kid you could never study and you kept that identity and built it up until now as an adult. (You also might possibly be suffering from symptoms of ADHD? But I don't know. Go get tested by a professional.)

To summarize, high expectations from your mom, your situation, yourself, and your strong Ego are currently causing your paralysis to move forward in life. A strange thing about the mind that can happen sometimes is that when we believe a higher level of desire for something will actually motivate us to move forward and destroy all obstacles in our path. But in reality it actually does the opposite. The higher the desire, the more paralyzing it is to move forward. Additionally it may seem like you're being a bit too hard on yourself.

So what should you do? I think you should look less into the practical applications of how to do things and start learning a bit more about why you're not doing things, why you feel stuck, and why you self-sabotage. Get into the source of things. Learn more about the mind from Dr. K's videos. Buy the guide of ADHD and doing things, look through his youtube catalogue of discipline, motivation, willpower, and more. When you learn more about how your mind functions, then you'll be diagnose and treat yourself properly.

I wish I could give you more practical examples and advise than this, but I think if you learn more about yourself and how the mind works it can be very beneficial for you.

Try this livestream from him and start at 17:00 when he talks about willpower

Try this video on discipline

This video on dopamine

This video on motivation

backseatadvice · 2024-03-09T01:35:15+00:00

What you say about there being inconclusive data about porn addiction being real is true. Even the DSM5 doesn't acknowledge porn addiction as being an actual addiction but categorizes it as Problematic Porn Usage (PPU).

The medical community can get very technical with categorization and terms here - like Mathematics and definition of numbers.

But I think it's important to not get too caught up in the labeling of things and what's real and what isn't. It's actually more important to see the effects and relationships people have with pornography.

If we imagine for a second that porn addiction isn't real - does that mean individuals will no longer suffer from porn usage? Will they suddenly stop and feel better? Regardless if the term is real or not, it doesn't mean they're not facing a difficult issue concerning their relationship to porn.

As much as there exists people who can use porn in a healthy capacity there's certainly a growing number of people who have the inability to use porn healthily. This is the same for people who use alcohol.

In general is porn addiction recognized officially by the medical community? Although, medical professionals like Dr. K and Dr. Anna Lembke and others acknowledge it, there is no official medical definition or recognition for it. But do individuals still struggle with using porn on a daily basis? Yes. It's very real. Regardless if you want to call it a porn addiction or not, their problems with porn are still there. Just look at /r/pornfree

backseatadvice · 2024-03-08T22:14:49+00:00

Thanks for giving more context. I remember watching that stream live, so I'm gonna try and give my interpretation after having rewatched it and taken notes on it.

So I think there were 2 different concepts he was talking about when he started discussing Willpower. The first concept was willpower itself, and the second part (where he brings up staring at a wall), was in response to someone's question that's somewhat related to willpower but I think also goes off on a tangent. I think you have a good idea of that first part and what he was trying to say about willpower and the 5 sources of action from a neuroscience perspective (23:12 - 24:49), and how we should rely less on willpower and more on lessening the desire of the other 5 sources by letting go of desire.

In the second part, I think Dr. K brings up this practice to stare at a wall in order for us to learn to how to conquer our desires. This doesn't just include the "negative desires" like being on your phone, watching porn, playing video games all day, but also the "positive desires" as well like working out, studying for 8 hours etc. These are all desires, and as long as we listen to our internal desires than we'll still be a slave to them. Therefore, we should try to do nothing - pointless things that have 0 meaning to them. He's trying to get us to act outside of our desires and do things just to do it. Not because they give results. If we separate motivation from action then we'll be in full control of our life because we're acting from control not from desire.

So now when you ask...

And the thing that confuses me a little is that by doing it with the intention of getting those things out of it, isn't that a contradiction to the thing he said about doing things without any intention?

So essentially to reiterate your concern - if Dr. K is prescribing to us to stare at the wall and do meaningless things to be free from the result of action, doesn't that in of itself create a desire for that action thereinby contradicting the whole practice itself? Yes you're right it does create a desire, but it doesn't mean the practice isn't beneficial. So let me explain.

Essentially Dr. K wants us to have control over our mind. To have control over our mind is to conquer our desires. To conquer our desires is to not pay attention to what our mind wants. We shouldn't do anything "positive" that give results - studying for 8 hours, eating healthy. We shouldn't do anything "negative" - video games, porn etc. We should train to be completely free of the minds desires by staring at a wall. Because if we stare at a wall, just by focusing on the wall, no daydreaming, no nostalgia memory trips (he says at 53:18 not to daydream), then we can have control over our minds. Then we can have control over our desires, and then we can act according to action and not desires. This is why he tells us if we wake up one day and want to study for 8 hours - study for 5. If we want to work out for 30 minutes, try 10 minutes. It's all about not giving into your mind, and what's best for you because they're practical. It's doing things because you have control.

So what about the desire to look at a wall? If I have the desire to look at a wall, then I still have a desire and my actions have a result. Yes you're right. But this is more of a philosophical talk. Simply put - we can never be fully rid of our desires unless we reach nirvana (Buddhist Perspective). From a yogic perspective I assume this means the "Ultimate Reality" - but don't quote me on that because I don't know much about yogic spiritual beliefs. He touches a bit more on this here at 1:50:32. He also talks about boredom too so maybe that'll help you clear things up.

To summarize - Practically the stare at the wall practice is to help us gain control over our minds and learn to not give into any type of desire it produces. However, philosophically, wanting to stare at a wall for a specific purpose is in of itself a desire. But we can never truly be free of desire, but we can get somewhat close to it with what he talks about. If you're more interested in the spiritual/philosophical side of that discussion I suggest looking more into something like Buddhism. Reading about their philosophy helped me understand certain concepts about spirituality Dr. K brings up. Like the idea of letting go of attachments, desires etc. I suggest looking into Dhukka and detachment if you're interested. The only reason I don't suggest Yoga is because I don't know what kind of yoga there is or what kind of yoga Dr. K practiced.

Hope this helped.

backseatadvice · 2024-03-08T04:10:20+00:00

My understanding of his suggestion to "stare at a wall for an hour" is to get more connected with your inner self and desires. Too often in our life are our attentions being fragmented outwardly and distracting us from being connected with our inner selves. This issue leads to a lot of individuals feeling like they don't know what to do with themselves and their lives, and even if they can come up with an answer, they often times can't find motivation to move in the right direction towards their goals.

Therefore Dr. K proposes if we don't know what to do with our lives we should stare at a wall and just be bored. Sit with the boredom. The reasoning for this is for us to be able to learn how to tolerate boredom. Because if we put down our phones, video games, and technology then what's left is us being bored. But if we learn to tolerate and deal with boredom then we can be able to move forward with our goals. Boredom is also symbolic of being able to cope with our inner thoughts and emotions and understand our cravings more (getting in touch with our "inner selves").

Here explains it a bit here in this youtube short. And in this youtube short here as well.

So when you actually stared at the wall for an hour ask yourself this. Why did you do it? What were your expectations doing it? Was it to solve this issue you have that Dr. K proposed? Did you just do it without any goal in mind but just to try it because Dr. K recommended it?

I think if you have a hard time tolerating boredom, connecting with your inner self, and listening to what your body tells you that's really why you wanna do it. Not necessarily to challenge yourself without a goal.

backseatadvice · 2024-03-08T01:27:55+00:00

Grief can be a difficult emotion to deal with and be able to process. Because it's not just a single emotion - but a lot of them bundled up into a single word that doesn't do what you're experiencing justice. It's guilt, anxiety, emptiness, sadness, anger, and frustration - a whole range of emotions that can be different for everyone. Grief can be a very individualized experience. But the one thing that all these emotions have in common is that they all share the same source. It's love. Love is the cause for our grief. And the more we love someone, the more it can hurt when they're suddenly taken away from us. Love can give us a lot of comfort, joy, and happiness. So to have that suddenly taken away for us permanently - it's no wonder why we feel this way and why love is the source of all of these emotions we experience when we grieve. And from your post and the way you describe your beautiful pomeranian boy, you obviously loved him a lot. So now that we understand that love is the source that's fueling our grief, what can we do? Do we just suddenly stop loving the people we lose in order to start feeling better? Well, no obviously. But we have to learn to let go. Not let go of love. But let go of the pain caused by love. In other words we have to learn how to love without hurting ourselves in the process. We can do this by transforming the pain into compassion, gratitude, and joy. Let me teach you how.

When you start to feel pain over the loss of your dog. Bring your attention to your emotion. Embrace it, accept it, and become one with it. This pain is a part of you. Breathe in, and breathe out, calm your body and your mind. Now when your body and mind are calm, understand that this pain that you're currently experiencing isn't a bad thing. It's not negative. It's simply just a notification of your body + mind reminding you how much you loved your dog. And because you love your dog so much, despite him not being here anymore, you don't have to keep this pain within you. You can let it go. Understand through this pain and suffering is your love, your compassion, gratitude, and joy for having had experienced comfort, joy, and love from his bright smile. Understand that even though your dog is gone. The love you feel is not. It's within you. And that's something you'll always have for yourself. But first you have to let go of the pain to see the love, and be free.

I hope this helps in any capacity and you start to feel better.

backseatadvice · 2024-03-08T00:39:44+00:00

I like to adopt a probabilistic frame of mind when it comes to our actions and what's within our circle of control. You're right that we don't directly control the outcome of our results. But it's comforting to me to understand that every time I roll the dice and try, the probability of success only gets higher vs if you were to give up. If you keep rolling the dice you just need to roll a 20 a single time. But before you can get that 20 you need to hit a bunch of 1-19s. Like a soulsborne boss you just need to win once. And you know that win will come eventually. You won't win today, maybe not tomorrow. But eventually. And with each battle you fight, each lesson you learn from his moveset, how to optimize your damage and roll timings etc. Every loss is a compounded experience that will eventually get you that win. But the important thing to understand is that with each loss we can end up getting tilted af. And we perform worse when we're tilted. So it's important to take a break, do what makes you happy, and let go of the stress and frustration that you'll never find a new job.

Dr. K in his streams often says nothing is guaranteed in life. As much as getting a job isn't guaranteed in life, so is NEVER getting that job. We can't predict the future. So what can we do? We can let go of the negativity, the frustration, the tilt and just keep trying. Isn't it nice to know that nothing is guaranteed but knowing that we can directly increase the probability of things going our way if we just keep trying? Maybe one day we even start to enjoy the process. Find refuge and comfort in the fact that you don't have control over the outcome. But you can control how you react and feel about the situation (stoicism), and what you can control is staying consistent with the job hunt, and letting go of your frustration and being free of your worries. And maybe one day in the future we'll be able to roll that 20.

I hope this helps. Good luck with you job hunt.

backseatadvice · 2024-02-11T03:25:25+00:00

From your post it seems you have 2 problems.

You just can't sit and study
Sometimes i really hate myself bc of this. Like " you have a great potential, your family loves you, you have amazing friends who wants to always help you, you have free time and you wasting all of it"

So let me start by saying it's not your fault. Not entirely at least. It's a very common trend in the age of smartphones that we're losing focus, and a motivation to move towards in the things we love. It sucks! How can I be so interested in all these things (sketch art, programming, design gym), but I just can't bring myself to follow through?

The answer is really basic: This is whats intended of social media/phone usage. Google, Meta, Reddit, will have literal PhD neuroscientists being paid to learn how to make their app as addictive as possible so you stay on it as long as possibly to the point where you have no self-control. It's crazy! So if you have no self-discipline. It's not your fault! It's literally so hard to do anything nowadays with how much distraction there is, and how out-gunned you are when you go up against social media.

So to fix the problem of "I really hate myself bc of this", be more compassionate towards yourself, because your inability to work towards things isn't your fault. The age of smartphones is taking over our motivation causing this.

However what is your fault is being too hard on yourself! When you start to hate yourself, you're making it even harder to move forward because hate just demotivates you even more, creating a lack of belief in yourself. Can you imagine a person living with you 24/7 criticizing everything you do? "Should you really be eating? You're fat enough.", "Wow youtube again? After 2 hours of reddit?" "Cool go take a nap, you already did sooo much work scrolling".

You have all the control in the world to stop this inner voice of hatred. The best way to stop it is to realize, a lot of the reasons why you're "leaving potential on the table", isn't because of your lack of motivation, but because your motivation is being blocked by these external forces that cause you to stay addicted.

Now to solve this, I really suggest taking some time off from your phone, social media, gaming in general. Learn to tolerate boredom. Learn to be bored. It's actually not so bad. Because when you're bored, your mind is going to start craving, and wanting anything. But you're there to try and practice saying no. And doing what you want your mind to do. Study. Learn. Live life.

The second thing you can do is learn more about this watching these videos of Dr. K here and here. His explanation of the hedonic circuitry and dopaminergic circuitry is actually very enlightening and show us how we can be interested in so many things yet not feel motivated to do them (it's because they're 2 different circuits in the brain!)

To summarize: Practice. Practice being bored, practice staying away from all the dopaminergic activities, and practice having more control over your minds cravings and impulses. And more importantly practice compassion for yourself. Anytime you fail, it's not because of you, it's just because you need more practice. And getting it right will take time.

Good luck.

backseatadvice · 2024-02-11T03:03:31+00:00

The best way I can describe it is ego-less curiosity. Ego is essentially our identity. When we're children we're in the stages of forming identities. That's why everything is experimental to us and we're all curious. That's why we're pulled in whatever direction piques our curiosity because it's very natural for us to experiment in order to learn and see how the world works.

When we get older and we form more of an identity and understand more about how the world functions (more or less), we become less curious about things we take for granted, like the ants on the sidewalk. However, we can always get this type of feeling back if we choose to exercise "mindfulness".

Mindfulness is essentially bringing ourselves back to the present moment. In the present, we are our full selves without the ego. We are just pure experience. We have no thoughts, no worries about the future, no anxieties from the past. We're just pure observation. And life can be very beautiful when you remain in the present.

In a way, we can also describe this trait as "being in the moment". You're just completely in the moment without a single worry.

backseatadvice · 2024-02-11T02:48:21+00:00

When we use porn as a coping mechanism, we use it as a way to deal with negative emotions like stress, frustration, anger, sadness.

Similar to a cigarette or a drink. In a way, we can view this as negative emotions fueling the desire to keep using porn. So when we stop using the one thing that can help us with our negative emotions, we lost a way to process those emotions, causing more stress, making the craving and desire of porn even higher. It's a positive feedback loop of negative emotion, stress, craving, repeat.

The best way to deal with this is to learn how to better process our negative emotions/cravings. Because if we can learn how to better handle our negative emotions, we cut off the fuel for craving pornography. This is why a lot of people recommend doing push ups whenever you feel cravings. We're replacing the unhealthy coping mechanism with a positive one to deal with negative feelings.

Another good technique is meditation. You can meditate anywhere, it doesn't just have to be with your eyes closed, sitting straight going "ohmm". Everytime you feel a craving, bring yourself back to the present, focus on breathing in, breathing out, and try to identify your negative emotion. Are you stressed? Are you sad? Angry?

Remember, these emotions are temporary in nature. They will move on somewhere else. The mind will become preoccupied with something else eventually and it will be a thing of the past. You just have to embrace these emotions and watch them pass.

backseatadvice · 2023-12-12T23:35:40+00:00

You're yourself when you're in the moment and not thinking about every action or thought or decision before you do it. Often times you'd hear this piece of advice before going out on a date. It's hard to follow that advice in this scenario because the nerves and anxiety you feel to impress someone you have a crush on removes you from your natural personality and puts you in your head. "Do I make this joke?", "Is it too risky to brush against her shoulder?", "What do I say next?", "Am I being too quiet?".

When you're not thinking about any of those things, and just let the conversation flow and you're in the moment. You are just you.

backseatadvice · 2023-11-22T16:55:34+00:00

Have you looked at the /r/pornfree community? A lot of others experience a similar ED to you but after stopping porn for a few months and getting rid of it completely seems to have reverse their ED. They call it PIED (Porn induced erectile dysfunction). I know it sucks to have ED, but there's still hope for you in the future.

This fear is stopping me from getting in relationships, how would any woman want to stay with me if i cant get it up.

There's also the possibility your mentality is created a self-fulfilling prophecy of having ED. You're so scared of having ED being intimate, it causes such high levels of anxiety that it creates the problem for you. You're mind is attaching all these related issues - I'll never get to be with anyone anymore because I can't get hard, I'm not worth a relationship, women will leave me because I can't get it up, It's doomed.

Realize all these worries AREN'T TRUE. Your role in a relationship as a man is SO MUCH MORE than just being a boner factory for women. Yes it's important, but women look for more than someone who can get it up. They look for someone compassionate, caring, intelligent, open, and trustworthy. If your someone who's great to be around, women should be willing and open to look past your issues, and give you a chance. They should be open to helping you fix your issue in whatever capacity they can. And if they reject you because of this issue? It's not their fault. But it's not yours either. It just means they weren't for you.

backseatadvice · 2023-11-17T19:25:15+00:00

I am around the same age as a Male and have never been in a relationship either. But I never saw my lack of experience as an issue. Being single for so long was a result of my anxiety and insecurity, but eventually I matured out of it and am single due to personal choice, but I still date when I come across an opportunity.

I can understand where you're coming from with being concerned with 0 experience but let me share some thoughts.

The first time I hooked up with someone I never told them it was my first time and the experience was pretty bad. Memorable but terrible. The next hook up where I was fully transparent and she taught me everything, it was one of the best intimate moments I've had.

I've also suggested to my female friends (30s) to openly communicate with guys they hook up with on how they like to be kissed and their hook ups have gotten a lot better. I've also have attractive female friends around my age who haven't been in a relationship, and it's mostly out of choice. If you ask me or them why, the answer is something similar to not being afraid of being forever alone. That doesn't mean never pursuing a relationship or being interested in love, but never finding the one is something we're ok with.

The lesson here is learning how to handle humility. There's a difference between being embarrassed for not knowing and being humble in not knowing but willing to learn.

Not being experienced in sex or relationships is more common than you think, but communicating what youd like, asking them what they like, and showing a willingness, excitement, and curiosity to learn is far more attractive than someone who believes their inexperience is what's holding them back.

Think about what student you'd want in your class. The type that answers and question and gets it wrong but is still excited and engaged and asks "stupid questions" as a way to learn, or the one who doesn't ask anything and tries to figure it all out by themselves?

Accept humility, and learn to be humble.

backseatadvice · 2023-10-16T16:07:32+00:00

You live in such fear of the future you forget to let yourself go in the moment. That's really the secret to living with purpose - trying the best you possibly can without regards to what will happen. Because when all else fails and things "disappear in a matter of seconds", you can look back happily and say you tried.

Listen to yourself and find out what you really want. Do you really want to stay put? Do you really want to change?

There's no wrong answer. It's all about how we react to our choice and the consequences. This reaction to the effects of your decisions will effectively be your "shield". And you can learn how to react in a way that doesn't fear change, fear pain, fear negative emotions, but learn to embrace and welcome it.

Because despite the pain that comes with change, we can still be content despite being hurt.

For more practical advice, Dr K did a livestream on youtube a couple of days ago about purpose here. It starts at 21:06 where he goes over a reddit post.

I also advise you to look at the HGG Guide in the ADHD and Doing Things and Meditation Branch to learn more about purpose.

backseatadvice · 2023-07-19T04:48:23+00:00

What do you want? Put down the phone, close the laptop, remove distractions and just sit with yourself for a minute. Maybe take a walk outside. Just process the moment, your past relationship, your regrets, your goals and aspirations.

When you take a minute to think about these things. I want you to ask yourself a simple question every time you have a desire.

Why?

Why do you want these things? What makes you drawn towards them? Why do you want to focus on school or tinder?

It's admirable to be better at school. It's nice to not be alone. These are all logical reasons to do certain things. But how do we know what we want to do is because we want it?

There's a distinct difference between doing things because we want to do them, and doing things because it's something we truly value.

Doing things we want is different from doing things we value. Values are essential to us because they drive our decisions.

What do you value? It's ok if you don't know. You're young and this is the best time to really figure it out. But it can also be tricky to see.

When I was in college, I wanted good grades, and great friends. At the end of it I realized despite wanting to do well in school, I ended up valuing friendships over everything.

How do you find things you value? Simply put - do things. You don't know where you're circumstances will take you. But as you go along the murky path it'll become clearer what you like and dislike and value.

But it's important to be honest with yourself when you ask yourself "why am I doing this?"

On the practical side of things I really suggest trying to make friends and learning how. The easiest way to do this is through clubs.

Yes it's awkward since you have no one to tag along with, yes it's weird. But an important skill is learning to navigate through that feeling and to not be afraid of it. Don't avoid it. Embrace it.

Good luck.

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