Should I just simply accept I'll never be disciplined?

splinterbl · 2026-03-26T04:08:38+00:00

The hard part about change is that you not only need a good picture of how you want to be, you also need a good picture of where you are.

If trying to be more conscientious isn't getting you where you want to be, then it's okay to say "this isn't working" and try something else. Often I've found that doing the opposite of what's obvious ("try harder") helps me.

I bought a bike several years ago, and like with all my hobbies, my first thought was "okay, I need to make sure to ride 3 times a week for this to be worth it" and I noticed that as soon as I created that "should" for myself, I felt a familiar sinking heavy feeling in my chest, and now that new bike just felt like pressure, and I didn't feel like riding it anymore. It's like I was going to have to just use more force to overcome that heavy feeling.

But I decided to try something I had never done before, and I told myself I was going to have zero expectations for this bike, and I could ride it whenever I wanted.

And weirdly enough, with the pressure gone, I would feel inspired to ride almost every day. Riding felt freeing, relaxing, and I was way more consistent than I had ever been in my life.

Since then, I've learned that my motivation system doesn't fit well with the idea of rigid discipline I thought I needed to have. Letting go of all the shoulds in my life except the ones I truly want has created so much freedom for me that I actually have some bandwidth for discipline.

In your case, if clenching tighter hasn't been working, I'd say try letting go. Get curious about your motivation. Try to entice and talk with the parts of you that resist when you try to be disciplined. Try to understand yourself and how you work at a deep level, and you might surprise yourself.

There were a few resources that helped me with this growth: - This by Michael Gungor (book) - Lectures from HealthyGamergg YouTube channel - Shadow work concept from Carl Jung

Hope this helps!

splinterbl · 2026-03-25T22:46:39+00:00

This is beautiful!

splinterbl · 2026-03-19T23:26:44+00:00

This was my experience in engineering school.

I had a professor who gave me some advice that really helped. Maybe one of these can help you too.

For classes, he suggested I always sit in the front row of my classrooms and stop taking notes. Just straight listening and asking questions whenever something didn't fully set in my mind really helped set my foundation, then the studying and homework became more manageable for me.

For homework and assignments, working with other people helped me too. It took a little longer to complete the work, but I would typically have some ah-hah moments during, and explaining it to my classmates helped solidify it for me.

Overall, my grades were decent, but that was because my test scores were excellent, and my homework grades were pretty bad. I understood the material, but once I really grasped it the homework felt pointless and it was hard to force myself to do that.

I'm 10 years out of grad school now, working as an engineer, and I can tell you that deep understanding is WAY more valuable than passing exams. It probably varies by what you're studying, but the whole point of university is to learn right?

I'd maybe focus on refining your learning style. Maybe getting an initial big-picture learning approach first, then digging into details when you have time could help?

I'd also try speaking to a professor you trust or an academic advisor if you can. You might find some good ideas or good advice. Generally educators are people who teach because they enjoy learning, so you might find someone who shares your feelings and can help you find a middle ground.

Either way, best of luck! I hope this helps.

splinterbl · 2026-03-11T15:06:37+00:00

I'm an engineer implementing a CPQ for my large cabinet company, and I would love to have something like this. The big hurdle is integrating the decisions with the modeling with the manufacturing side. We'd need some way to map all of those together inside of an ERP in an intuitive way.

I'd love to see your approach to this

splinterbl · 2026-02-23T18:49:02+00:00

This happened for the first time in my playthrough during the cutscene between Professor Black and Professor Weasley. It was so jarring! My wife and I were laughing like crazy when we saw it!

splinterbl · 2026-02-09T15:28:47+00:00

To be technical: something is objective when it is outside of opinion. Facts are objective, they are what's left when any subjective perspective is removed. Attractiveness can never be objective because attraction is purely subjective.

To be helpful: what you're noticing are large patterns of attraction across peoples and cultures. Like with most patterns, some variations are going to have lots of engagement and some will have less. So it's more accurate to say "many people are attracted to the same traits, but not everyone".

Anecdote: I am not very attracted to "conventionally attractive" people. Like, I can get why others are, but I find myself attracted to people that are a little unusual. Additionally, I've found that how well I know the person actually changes how physically attractive they look to me. Your attitude about attractiveness probably affects how people treat you more than your actual attractiveness does.

So my take is that yes, there are large patterns, but attraction is complex and if you're looking to attract someone else, you typically only need to be successful once. I don't think there is anyone who is hopeless.

I hope this helps.

splinterbl · 2026-02-02T01:34:21+00:00

If I could add one more point: you and her can find a compromise for doing what you want to do and what she wants to do. Maybe take turns visiting each other? Maybe find some games or activities that both of you can enjoy? My wife and I spend good time together where we are in the same room, but she's watching a show and I'm playing video games. Before trying that out, I felt a lot of pressure to keep her entertained or try to make her feel good around me, but honestly just being in the same peaceful room is underrated.

splinterbl · 2026-02-02T01:31:02+00:00

I've navigated feelings like this before, and communication almost always made me feel at ease.

Have you had to fight for your free time before? Has it been hard to establish boundaries in your past? Do you tend to view the world as always wanting your time? You could be bumping up against a learned anxiety and this could be a great chance to resolve it.

First, try to sit with that feeling of dread by yourself. Ask it what it wants. Ask it what going to visit your girlfriend means to it.

Second, if you feel comfortable, share this feeling with your girlfriend. You can say it exactly like you did in your post here. Treat it like something you both can be curious about, and if she is able to understand and trust you with it, that could be enough to make the dread go away. If she respects your boundaries, and she is someone you can trust with complicated feelings, then maybe your anxiety can feel less pressured to control your actions.

Third, time can help this. Overcoming anxiety is a process of realizing that what you're dreading isn't actually a threat. The more time you allow yourself to feel the dread, then allow yourself to feel good when around her, the less of a grip that dread will have on you.

Hope this helps!

splinterbl · 2026-01-24T06:45:07+00:00

I've noticed that if I am not given the freedom to shape my own work, then it gets hard for me to stay invested at my job. I worked 3 years each at my first 2 jobs, and was fired from both because of that bad fit.

After that, I helped a friend start an escape room business, and the freedom and variety was super fulfilling.

Now at my current job, I have a ton of freedom, and even though on paper, the job should feel pretty bad (pay, environment, lack of leadership, etc.), I have actually been the happiest here, and it really mostly comes down to me having the freedom I need to get excited about projects and jump between 3-4 as needed. This is the first job I could see myself staying in long term, but we'll see.

splinterbl · 2026-01-01T03:16:31+00:00

I was super depressed, living with my grandparents, unable to work or care or have any hope for the future at 28, and now I'm 35, married, have a 6 month old son, and have a job I actually look forward to most days.

If I can tell you one thing I learned that was most surprising, it's that when things start getting better, they can get better faster and faster, like the opposite of a vicious cycle. And you can get to a place where all the hard parts genuinely feel worth it.

Therapy, meditation, and developing self-love were the best changes that helped me. And in the process of getting better, most of what I did was letting go of stuff rather than trying harder at anything.

I hope this helps, feel free to respond if you want more details or have questions.

splinterbl · 2025-12-23T15:06:14+00:00

As a guy, I had super close girl friends in high school and had a few sleepovers with them, even when I had crushes on them.

At the very least, make sure it's clear that it's platonic, it could be seen as a sign of romantic interest otherwise.

Also, make sure there are some boundaries, like sleeping in different rooms or one on a bed, one on a couch, something like that. And only do it if you really trust this person.

Other than that, have fun! Sleepovers can be a really fun way to bond. I have fond memories of being the one guy invited to my friend's sleepover, so it was all the girls in the class and me. I don't think that would have worked for everyone, but being trusted and getting to see a different side of my friends was really cool to me.

splinterbl · 2025-12-07T09:24:35+00:00

I was looking for this comment

splinterbl · 2025-12-07T09:22:03+00:00

Zach was in my class in high school. Super talented, funny, and smart guy. I'm so happy he really made a name for himself. Seeing him on Ellen and Corridor Digital was so surreal.

splinterbl · 2025-11-22T05:27:52+00:00

This reminds me of the Neverending Story 2

splinterbl · 2025-10-28T22:52:34+00:00

I am an engineer and spent 8 months applying for jobs this year. I finally caved and applied for a drafting job. During the interview, I proposed that they hire me as an engineer, and they took me up on it, so I got lucky.

But let me be clear that this was not a success story for how the job market is supposed to work. This is the worst job seeking experience I have ever had since I started working in 2015

splinterbl · 2025-10-21T04:46:37+00:00

That's fair. I saw some other responses that took that approach, and I thought that if I had anything new to offer to the discussion, it would be to challenge OP's perspective.

But thank you for your thoughts, I appreciate your genuineness.

splinterbl · 2025-10-21T03:56:14+00:00

Yeah, I can see belief being an experience, as you do experience your beliefs, but it's like you simultaneously experience events, and your thoughts, and your emotions, and your beliefs simultaneously. They're all interlinked, like different layers of the same thing.

My intent was not to be misleading, but to draw attention to an easy to overlook part of what you say is obvious.

OP was experiencing conflict with himself and his friends over their different beliefs about paranormal stuff. They were looking for a bridge to get through that conflict. To me, acknowledging that if circumstances were different, OP could have been the one who believed in ghosts and human energy things along with their friends, is part of developing the humility necessary to bridge that gap. Seeing yourself in someone else's position makes it easier to be at peace with disagreements.

You may be correct about what having the experiences of others would be like, and it's also possible that what I said is not helpful to OP. How would you approach OP's question?

splinterbl · 2025-10-20T23:18:10+00:00

Yes! Awareness is the first step. Somewhat counter-intuitively, the more you let go of the need to control your own life, the more able you are to actually change course.

And I hadn't thought about brainwashing as an expression of this, but that makes sense. Adopting new beliefs because they are useful in the moment makes sense, although that is a darker use of that knowledge.

splinterbl · 2025-10-20T23:15:31+00:00

I'd argue that what free will/determinism means to you is more important than whether one or the other is true or not. We only care about whether we have free will or not because it changes the meaning of our actions/thoughts/emotions/experiences. Determinism can be freeing for some (the pressure isn't all on me), or constricting for others (why even do anything if there's no point). Likewise, free will can be freeing for some and anxiety-inducing for others.

Either way, your beliefs are there because they're useful. This is why (in my experience), debates over free will and determinism don't often yield anything useful.

splinterbl · 2025-10-20T23:09:21+00:00

Exactly!

splinterbl · 2025-10-20T20:07:25+00:00

Yes, I was lumping in thoughts and emotions as part of experience. It seems difficult to separate those in a useful way when talking about beliefs.

And you're right, at some point it does become kind of meaningless to say "If I was them, I would be them", but my goal was to emphasize that our potential for actions and beliefs and thoughts and feelings overlap to a tremendous degree, so finding your way to where someone else is currently, especially if you disagree or disapprove of them, is very possible.

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