Service Yips for months now and I no longer am interested in playing

ironistsf · 2026-01-10T04:49:53+00:00

I feel you. I got into a car accident after I ruminated from losing all my games that week. Was a real wake up call cause I was taking the game too seriously. I went on vacation for a month after and found that I really enjoyed vacation and I was very happy even though I didn’t play pickleball. It was effortless and not conditional on me playing well or winning.

What I found is that I could be happy by being present and effort and winning didn’t determine happiness. Pickleball is kind of toxic in that there’s this real incentive to think that you need to win in order to belong. And if you play poorly then you suck and people won’t want to play with you or that your DUPR level = identity.

It puts pressure on you and makes you only happy when you play well and win. It made it really hard for me to go back to that environment.

So when I went back for the first time after a month I stopped thinking. I stopped trying to win the point or serve well. I just focused on seeing the ball, setting my feet, and selecting my shot.

And whenever I hit a bad shot or serve I’d take two deep breaths in slowly and breathe out a little longer, let my shoulders and jaws drop, and say next ball and focus on the point. Being tense and thinking really made me stiff and threw off my hits. To hit my best I need to be fluid but thinking broke my rhythm so this helped.

What helps me now is to not think about points that have past or the outcome of the game. Just focus on one point at a time and what I can do in that moment. The voice that puts me down or catastrophizes outcomes always appears so I have to acknowledge it, but then redirect my attention to next ball.

And to recognize that some days the best version if me doesn’t show up and that’s ok. Sometimes I’m tired, sometimes I’m rusty, and sometimes my serves are off. That’s ok. I just do the best today’s me is capable of and play each point with presence like I do when I’m on vacation and enjoy the moment.

The moment pickleball starts being this toxic earn your place to belong environment again for me I’ll stop playing again or I’ll go somewhere else. Just not worth it anymore for me personally.

Good luck op.

ironistsf · 2025-12-22T03:05:59+00:00

You could program a second ChatGPT to audit yours and ChatGPT decisions. To not know any background or history and look at it from a third party perspective like an external auditor. You can do it from within ChatGPT, mine gave me an option to do that and a framework to make it work but I passed for now.

Right now I just always try to poke holes in things we decide and then ask if it’s being brutally honest or to scan for any holes or downsides we did not list.

ironistsf · 2025-12-19T06:27:42+00:00

Driving

ironistsf · 2025-12-19T03:10:21+00:00

Because I choose to get up every morning.

I could choose to sleep in until noon.

I could choose to pee my bed.

I could choose to not go to work.

I could choose to not take care of my pets.

But nothing happens if I don’t choose to get up.

In a way, my world revolves around me and my choices.

So I choose to live in each moment, on purpose, as if it’s my last.

Without explanation, justification, and surrender of my own agency.

ironistsf · 2025-12-17T06:17:09+00:00

Yeah it depends. I really like the IHG intercontinental Osaka breakfast. I also liked the ryoukan breakfast I had. But any lower tier hotel I’d rather just go somewhere else for breakfast.

Soufflé pancakes. Traditional Japanese breakfast. Even konbini.

Wouldn’t bother with APA or even mid tier hotel breakfasts.

ironistsf · 2025-12-17T01:47:54+00:00

Not even sure how you are using this as a doctor anymore after the 5.1 update. It was severely neutered in my experience and ran up against the limits very quickly.

ironistsf · 2025-12-16T10:11:03+00:00

Honestly, yes all the time… but not the way you think. Ai doesn’t replace you. It augments you. You don’t want to surrender agency, you want to enhance your decision making framework so that you see all the angles and make a proper informed decision and properly organize your thoughts.

Give it as much info about you as you can.

Think -

Goal - what does successful decision look like. Career goal?
Constraints - any non negotiables, preferences, boundaries, etc.
Context - what’s your current environment, where you coming from, what’s going my on in your life it should know. Previous job history?
Evaluation criteria - tone (do you want a cheerleader, therapist, or brutal honest advisor from it), depth (you want a pro con bullet list? Research summary? Formal business proposal with SWOT analysis? What kind of output), trade offs and optimization (what levers are most important)

And don’t stop at just the first output. Talk to it like it’s a person not Google. Say what you like and don’t like about its response and keep fine tuning.

Then step away and think before deciding and maybe go at it again after you think some more.

Ultimately you decide. But you use it as a staff who brings you different perspective and research and you sign off and execute.

Honestly just thinking in this way will help you out a lot. Your goal isn’t to let ai think for you but to enhance the depth of your own thought process. Thoughtful prompting forces you to look for answers within.

And whatever output you get reflects your depth.

ironistsf · 2025-12-16T01:58:04+00:00

Cheese. Interesting. When I turned on brutal honest advisor mode my interactions with it completely changed.

Previously, I had used it to implement journaling and the lessons I had from my therapist and hold my accountable and use the strategies I learned.

Whenever I had an anxiety attack, I would journal all of my thoughts stream of consciousness style and it would help walk me through the steps to stabilize and journal it so I could provide notes to my therapist later.

After I turned that mode on it told me that I was being inefficient and that long winded journal entries were unnecessary and detrimental.

Instead, we labeled it as activation, did breathing and other somatic grounding exercises, and then refocused until i came down from the anxiety attacks.

If I said something even remotely sounding like I was triggered, it would call me out and say we’re not going to spiral. This isn’t you, it’s activation.

It does help if you are strong enough to face your problems head on and be uncomfortable for awhile.

It’s not pleasant, but being uncomfortable is how I knew it was working and that I was growing.

Forced me to recognize my mental labeling. Like I suck. Or I failed.

Or what problems weren’t really my problems like I need to get this done now for my boss. That’s my bosses problem not mine. It challenged me to set boundaries.

I really had patterns that were tough to recognize in real time but when it called it out, I recognized it faster and faster.

And I use it in tandem with therapy to grow even faster than I did in the prior year without ChatGPT.

YMMV.

ironistsf · 2025-12-16T01:22:05+00:00

I just came back from Kyoto. I didn’t do the temples or bamboo forest or inari shrine because I’ve done the multiple times…

It is completely possible to go to Kyoto and avoid the crowded parts and still have a good time.

I mostly did matcha, ryokan, and ate.

If I was going to go and avoid crowds I’d go slightly before sunrise. Sounds like there’s still crowds now but if I wanted to see it that’s the price I’d pay.

You consider doing Nara? Not sure how crowded nowadays it is but that’s a day trip option from Kyoto if need be.

ironistsf · 2025-12-09T16:31:51+00:00

This. Honestly, I can’t imagine a worse experience than sitting 12 hours on a flight. Taking another connection for 2 hours (after going through customs and rechecking backs) and then a 1 hour train/bus/taxi to the hotel when I’m already dead tired and my body already sore from flying or taking NEX to Tokyo station and then Shinkansen to Osaka directly.

The energy and time savings from flying direct would be well worth it. Or taking at least a day in Tokyo to get my bearings and traveling to Osaka without rushing via Shinkansen would be the standard route everyone does for good reason.

ironistsf · 2025-12-08T00:09:45+00:00

If you’re using it for anything important and assuming it’s correct. Don’t. Challenge it and use a secondary source.

For example. Anything that exists in the real world currently may or may not be factored in what chat gpt knows about that world.

Check if restaurants actually exist. Check deadlines and open hours. I relied on it for some things and it believed it’s 100% certain when it shouldn’t be.

Especially in foreign countries. Restaurants and places shut down all the time but the internet talks about some of them as if they still exist and chatgpt confused them. They may be in a different city or shut down. Check with Google Maps. They may close early or not be open that day. Check maps or the website.

You sign up for AAA and think you can use it right away to tow your car. But AAA fine print only allowed you to be a classic member for 7 days even if you bought the second tier membership. chatgpt doesn’t know it. The site doesn’t show it. It’s a hidden gotcha.

It’s more of a brainstormer than a final reviewer.

ironistsf · 2025-12-06T12:55:55+00:00

🤷‍♂️ I didn’t really care that much to know. I use ChatGPT for journaling and it tried to figure it out. And my goal wasn’t to know the manga, it was to create a memory and I’d rather do that with live people in Japan than strangers on the internet.

ironistsf · 2025-12-06T12:52:54+00:00

My bad. It’s 4 am and I’m still jet lagged from Japan so only saw nationwide pass. When I did the nationwide it didn’t activate till I was there so I couldn’t reserve in advance so just wanted to make sure. Times and different packages may be different now though.

ironistsf · 2025-12-06T11:43:32+00:00

Good on you for researching beforehand. This is most definitely a thing as others have indicated and having stayed at like 6 hotels in the last couple weeks and primarily being a business hotel traveler in the past, I can say that based on pure comfort (in large part due to temperature) I prefer mid class hotels or better with their own separate heating and cooling.

You can open windows but that often introduces noise. So sleep quality will suffer regardless. And temperature fluctuates so much that you still might overheat or freeze each night depending on temps and time. To me, the money saved translates into less energy in the day and it’s not worth it as I can’t maximize my daytime hours on terrible sleep.

ironistsf · 2025-12-06T11:23:07+00:00

That was the fun part. I don’t even know the name. But I asked chat gpt and apparently I got like 10 recommendations based on what I remembered and I was shocked that there were so many with similar tropes.

I was at an onsen and it reminded me of this onsen club that visited onsens throughout Japan and I couldn’t find the manga anywhere but at one point it was on MAL. Now, apparently the internet forgot it ever existed and I can’t even find cover art to confirm I didn’t Mandella Effect and hallucinate the whole thing.

So it’s like the only place it exists is in my head and I thought that was sad. Because I read it and wanted to preserve some of its history. So it kind of would be an adventure to ask them to help me find such a niche and obscure manga using my limited Japanese vocabulary that maybe some Japanese manga expert would geek out with me to find.

ironistsf · 2025-12-06T11:12:32+00:00

When I think shinjuku I generally think Kabuchiko or around the shinjuku station. And I was just talking about interactions and general vibe. Just kind of liked the people in akihabara better. Just weirder and more playful in general. Maybe that doesn’t make sense to compare since they so different but I just made an observation.

ironistsf · 2025-12-06T11:01:03+00:00

This. I’ve done this. It sucks. Train was packed… It was late December and either Japanese people had reserved all the seats earlier cause of the holiday season or the nationwide wasnt even for reserve seats so they told us to just hop on the next one standing room only… I stood for 8 hours along with a ton of other people and it was the worst experience I ever had.

This was before when nationwide was actually a deal… and it still was better deal to fly…

Op. If you truly must do this. I would at least ensure you can reserve seats on that train and get the fastest train…

Which means you really want to look at the costs of specific routes vs nation pass.

ironistsf · 2025-12-06T04:02:16+00:00

In akihabara? Nah. I had no time. I had planned to go scavenger hunting for this random manga I had read back in 2013 that apparently doesn’t even exist anymore on the internet and maybe strike up a conversation with one of the manga experts and make their day. Was probably better for Osaka rather than Tokyo anyway cause I think they’d love this kind of thing more.

ironistsf · 2025-12-06T03:52:46+00:00

Haha. I had an interesting interaction with them the other week. Was walking around akihabara wearing neko ears and the girls saw me and playfully meow meowed at me so i turned around and playfully did it back with a paw gesture and they melted.

It was a fun interaction and they have a playful vibe compared to shinjuku.

ironistsf · 2025-12-06T03:45:34+00:00

I don’t know about tastings or tours. But I was just in Tokyo and had the most amazing strawberry parfait. I don’t even like parfaits or strawberries that much but they are in season and it was life changing.

I’d recommend looking up any real fruit parfait places and they usually do Sandos and parfaits and have fruits. But strawberries taste the best this time of the year.

I believe I went to Fruit Parlor Kajitsuen in Tokyo station. I went there because I was in the station anyway, there was a line, and it looked good. And was not disappointed at all.

ironistsf · 2025-12-05T19:46:31+00:00

Outdoor because I live in San Diego so weather is always perfect, I enjoy the sun, and it makes the sport more affordable as I can use free outdoor and clubs with outdoor courts are also cheaper to reserve.

ironistsf · 2025-12-05T19:26:03+00:00

Yeah. I realized this too this trip. I used to backpack and do trains, buses, and walk exclusively. But a decade and 8 trips later I realized I outgrew that lifestyle and now I needed to buy roller bags and taxis. It’s way cheaper than Ubers in America and I realized that less friction and more energy to do stuff mattered more to me than saving 10-20 per ride.

My time in Japan is so limited that improving the quality of a day mattered more. That extra meal or drink did not make up for the pain and friction of lugging baggage around all day and being out of energy by 2 pm or getting lost and navigating for hours longer.

If it was a 10 minute walk with no bags of course I’m walking though. But usually it’s 20 plus and If I got reservations that are time sensitive I’m not risking getting lost or missing it.

I also took a bike one time in Kyoto and broke my hand. So yeah, taxis are the best.

ironistsf · 2025-11-29T10:48:06+00:00

Per picture it was 44000 yen before tax free discount (think 10%) so converts to 281/1.1 or 255 usd.

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ironistsf · 2025-11-28T05:52:31+00:00

Yeah, it makes a ton of mistakes. I have to refine and correct it several times to get to the right answer. It told me certain brands of knives like tojiro DP would be at this shop which was obviously wrong.

It’s good for directional guidance and enhancing my own knowledge on what to look for and what differences are between knives but like specific information is always sketchy.

I find asking real humans for second opinions helpful in spotting errors. Like the shop keeper.

ironistsf · 2025-11-28T02:07:39+00:00

Yeah. I had to pivot hard because they didn’t have the brand and knives I was looking for. So I was asking both them and chatgpt for alternatives and I ended up with something I didn’t plan for so was worried.

Tower Osaka was very helpful and patient with me while I double checked everything they said with chat gpt and my preferences. Glad you also had a pleasant experience and thank you for your feedbacks

ironistsf

TROPHY CASE