#drvn30

So, this is going to much different from her onwards.

Father, I know that you understand this pain I’m feeling right now. And to be honest, this very well could be right on par with the most intense emotional pain and feelings of loneliness I’ve experienced ever in my entire life.

I honestly just want freedom, more than anything. Freedom from this roller coaster of mood swings and feelings of being directionless and alone, of feeling betrayed.

I want freedom from feeling like I don’t truly have a home...I don’t even remember what that word means anymore. My life has involved moving over, and over, and over, and falling out of touch with people left and right. And now, I think that the reason I feel possibly the greatest pain I’ve felt in a long time, is because even now, in this moment, when I have nothing to hide from anybody, most especially God, I STILL cannot see eye to eye with the one person who has been a major, pivotal part of my life ever since I was born. I have no excuses, and no false front to put up, and yet, things are the way they are.

Is this a small taste of what it felt like to be on that cross, alone, and in incredible physical and emotional pain, more than anybody will every have to face, ever? I truly believe that at least some of these times have to be endured and experienced before I can more fully understand and grasp that great sacrifice and trial that was endured by Jesus all those years ago.

“Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Now, more than ever, I see that need that I have...and I have no choice but to throw myself to his mercy, and see what He will do. That’s all there is for me at this point. The world would’ve only led me further and further away from who I was really meant to be, and would’ve darkened my heart even further, and made it all the harder to free myself from this web of lies I’ve been stuck in for so long.

I just hope and pray that I will finally see some resolution to all this confusion and pain, and live in my true purpose, 100%.

“There is no pit so deep, that God is not deeper still.”

-Corrie Ten Boom, Holocaust survivor, and author of The Hiding Place

Monday, March 13th, 2023 [Day 16] Turning Point

Phew...reality is, for a long time, I've been on a spiritual roller coaster of sorts, and I used my confusion about myself, and the world, to excuse running away from God over and over. And me going down the "self-improvement" route is just another way I've been trying to make myself think I'm doing something of value of my life, another way of me putting a band-aid on the pain that's been inside for so many months. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if I reach a point where I'm making tons of money, and giving lots of it away, if people aren't made aware of what this life is really about before they die, then it isn't worth anything. My life has been a lie, and I'm done living a lie. The truth is...Jesus Himself. And the reason I'm saying this is because I 100% believe it, and I'm ready to stand on that. I'm done hiding behind a fake façade, trying to blend in with others, while I realize that me ignoring God and not telling others about what His Son did 2,000 years ago, dying on that cross, is just be spitting in His face. And I care too much to not say anything. Either way, I will be praying for whomever reads this, and I hope you sincerely consider what I have to say. The Bible itself says "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Which basically means, "What difference does it make if you gain everything you've ever wanted, but still die without spiritual hope and eternal security?"

And it also means that there is NOTHING, absolutely nothing that you can give in exchange for your soul, which will last forever.

My DMs are open for anyone who wants to talk about this further.

Do I feel completely "at peace" about everything? No...but I can go to sleep tonight realizing that I'm living the true reality from this day forward. There can only be one Truth, and if you get it wrong, you'll be paying for not only the rest of your life, but more importantly, when the "real life" (the "afterlife" as many cultures have called it, it's really the "eternal life", in one place or another) happens. Once you die, there's no second chance...so place take a moment to ponder over the brevity of your life. Maybe you won't die from some unicorn virus, so to speak, or an earthquake, or nuclear war, or whatever, but the fact is, you will die. Everyone faces "the end of the world", in one way or another. Please don't take it lightly. It's not about what you've done, or what you can do in your strength, it's about Him, what He's done, and how He enables you.

Sunday, March 12, 2023 [Day 15]

So, how on earth am I supposed to feel right now? I now know that that “I don’t belong here, but I don’t belong there, either” (in regards to where I’m living, and where I was going to possibly be moving soon), but I feel so incredibly weird and mixed up inside. It’s almost as if everything “out there” makes me uncomfortable and retreat into myself. Church gatherings, being around other people...but...being alone, disconnected, and without a purpose and goal bigger than myself is just as bad.

So the next question is, what are you supposed to do when every single option in front of you feels like it could be the wrong one? And I genuinely mean, like I would be making a mistake that would lead to even more stumbling through life, and even more confusion and possible alienation from the people who used to be a bigger part of my life (aka former friends and family)?

I’m just getting really tired of the whole “out of sight, out of mind” thing when it comes to me and my connections with others. That is, when they don’t see me, then contact and connection falls off very quickly. And beyond that, I’m getting tired of feeling like I’m from a different planet than the people around me. It’s honestly been something that I’ve struggled with for years, and it seems that the more my ideas and ideals change, the stronger that feeling gets. I know I’ve basically already said this, but I want to..realize...no...I want to live yet again with a strong sense of community. Not isolation, not being sheltered from reality, but community. And what I mean by that is facing the world and struggles together, doing things together, without me having to lose myself and try to conform to somebody else’s ideals in a vain attempt to be part of something.

And now, here we are yet again. I have no idea where I’m going to be living a week from now, and I can’t seem to come up with any immediate solutions where I would have peace about it…

Again, sometimes you’ll have those moments in your life where doesn’t seem to be a right direction or answer, regardless. My brain is so incredibly tired and slow right now...toodaloo…

Saturday, March 11th, 2023 [Day 14]

Holy Chicago. I don’t think it’s any exaggeration for whatever reason, me starting this challenge has coincided with some much-needed soul-searching and upheaval in my life, and decidedly, one of the craziest (if not the craziest) turning-points and moments in my life.

Now, before I go any further with this entry, I have to state that I allowed myself last night to stay up past midnight. And no, I’m choosing to not restart at Day 1. Why? Because of the reason I was awake that late (or early, rather). Part of the reason I started this challenge in the first place was to help me to re-focus on my goals and look inwardly more, and start expanding my horizons in terms of self-development and taking myself out of my comfort zone. So to restart the challenge would mean that what I did was counter-productive to the challenge, which it wasn’t. Part of my problem is being so afraid of “putting myself out there”, and being afraid of social interaction in general.

I was up later simply because I was on a “Discord watch party”, and part of that was having the option to have microphones on, which I did. Yes, I understand that to a degree that there’s far less pressure in that setting, because you’re not there in person with anybody, but it can still potentially be nerve-wracking to somebody who not only has been far too isolated (again, even before 2020), but who has a lot of work to do on their social skill, and their self-confidence. So no, I’m not “starting over”. Starting over would imply that I literally have to follow a rule of “no socialization past a certain time”, and to me that would be self-defeating, and not really practical, since at this point, I need what I can get, 100%.

But playing off of that, there are three things that I’ve noticed with myself, that may seem very simple to someone else, but to me, they’re quite a big deal. Firstly, just being silent and letting others talk is a must. Now, I have this weird dichotomy where I can go for long periods of time without talking, or even having the desire to do so. But when I feel more at ease in certain places or settings, that will probably cause me to talk more, and what’s more, talk more freely. Which brings me to my other two problems. One, I need to not over-compensate for feeling out of place by not saying random stuff out of nowhere in an effort to be funny or fit in (so, “get a feel for the room”), and secondly, once I say something, and just own it, over time I must accept that I don’t need to feel bad or awkward just because EVERYONE around me didn’t accept it the way I would like.

I would ideally like to strike that balance of being myself and not holding back not to just be a people-pleaser, but also not just speaking my mind without showing tactfulness and consideration for others.

The final piece is that when I am in social situations, it causes me to analyze myself and my belief systems more, and make me think about why I think the way I do, and about what kind of people I want to be around longer-term.

Phew...so ya see, this is still Day 14, and I rest my case.

The other thing I’m starting to really come to terms with is the fact that yet again, you cannot have all the next steps in place before you move forward. You can’t steer a car that isn’t in motion. No matter how hard you stare into that “fog of war” (Age of Empires 2, anyone?) it isn’t going to magically disappear. And no matter how many Google (*ahem* DuckDuckGo, screw Google, seriously) searches you do on “how to make money online”, “quickest way to make money online”, whatever, you’re seriously going to be missing the point. You first have to have your head in the right place, and secondly, you need at least one reliable, caring person on your side cheering you on and keeping you going.

And for me, the weird thing is, despite all these storm clouds that are increasingly gathering, because, let’s face it, 2023 is going to be the worse year yet since 2020, I’m feeling more optimistic. Because I’m beginning to see more “pieces of the puzzle” when it comes to being successful and taking advantage of the good times, and in this case, the horribly, wrongly bad times. And one of those is getting yourself around more people who think outside the box, who are where you want to be, and who won’t steer you away from the person you’re trying to become.

Been starting more of my days by just lying in bed “thinking aloud” to myself about what the next steps should be, asking myself questions about how the past week or day has gone, and what I should be doing to make the next step forward today.

Decisive. That’s the word that I want to characterize me in the next 3 to 6 months. No more messing around, no more waffling between “business ideas” and such. It’s just going to be about taking steps forward, even if I have NO flipping clue what the next 2 to 3 steps will be after that one. Wasting time worrying about 1,001 different outcomes is not a luxury I have right now! 1,001 Outcomes. Now there’s a book title. I should publish that. And literally all it would be is one page that says what I just said about not wasting time.

So, what does that mean exactly? Well, right now, it just means more of the same, but more focused. It means getting up in the morning to demo trade 3 days a week consistently. It means thinking more seriously about where I want to move, because that will mean thinking about what community I want to be integrated into. And then longer-term, getting into a business-buying mastermind, so that I have sustainable income that’s not dependent on day trading, so that I can keep the same amount (and more) money coming in consistently. And more importantly, build the life and world around me that I want to see.

Which leads me to the last and final thing I want to talk about. I’ve officially decided that while I most certainly don’t want to live in a neighborhood like the one where I currently am (houses super close to each other, neighbors sorta kinda socialize, streets are super narrow with nerve-wracking blind spots at corners and street intersections), I also do NOT want to be super isolated, with my nearest neighbor being like half a mile away or whatever. I’ve lived both, and neither appeal to me. No point in squirreling away resources and isolating myself so that I can “be safe” a bit longer, and just die alone. But also no point in living in a congested, stereotypical suburbia area where I have a tiny backyard and not much else. If I can find somewhere that somehow simultaneously manages to be more like the neighborhood I grew up in (everyone knew each other, kids played together outside and on the street, and in each-other’s yards, there was a real sense of community), but is somehow more connected with nature and living more independently, that would be a dream come true. That would be my ideal. So, if I so chose to have times of being more alone and working alone, I could, but I’d still have neighbors and friends nearby to talk to and help me if I needed them. I’m done with all my relationships and friendships being restricted to what they are right now (no offense to the amazing people I’ve connected with online, of course). I just know from personal experience that there is something so incredibly special about real human interaction. Nuts that we live in a time where I feel the need to say that, but there it is. And even many people who make their living as content creators (such as Mr. Beast, Ryan Trahan, and Graham Stephan) have said that “remote meetings” are no real replacement for what happens when people are actually in a room together. And I agree. It’s not rocket science, it’s just reality, and we can’t argue against that. And if anything, I would say that the right kind of content will foster a great wonder and curiosity about the world, and a greater desire to explore it, alongside other people.

Okay, I’ve said that I didn’t have a longer, more deep blog entry. There ya go lol. I think I’ve more than made up for that.

Eissac (DRVN challenger partner, and author of “From Rock Bottom” blog here on Tumblr) actually just asked me the very thing I was thinking about more: “Are there any creative projects that you’re working on now?” And again, time to stop thinking about what I don’t “have the time and energy to do right now in my current surroundings”, and just do something! Because at the end of the day, more creative work will help me pace myself with the more intellectual, “practical” work. So, I guess some video editing is in order for tomorrow. Awesome!

Until next time. Toodaloo…

Friday, March 10th, 2023 [Day 13]

Still easing in to riding the bicycle. Don’t feel too keen on riding on these streets, even on the sidewalk. Too many blind spots at street intersections and driveways. Hopefully I can get over to the bike trail sometime soon. As it is, the nearest connection to it is just over a mile away, and that’s a mile with parts that don’t even have sidewalks for me to go on. Drivers are a bit delirious and crazy around here at times, so I’m so sure about venturing out that far, even if I was capable of it.

Spent a good amount of time today both with refining the trading plan, and watching more videos on trading. Another conclusion I’ve arrived at with that: less is more. I cannot approach it with a 9 to 5 mentality, and expect that the more I stare at the charts, the more I will make. Nope. It doesn’t work that way. It’s more like, there are certain days of the week, and certain times of those days that will work the best for me, and I will focus on them exclusively. Because there is one thing I keep hearing from other traders who are way ahead of me: the best traders trade less, and just stay consistent and disciplined. And an extension of that idea is that the most successful people are really good at a few things, or even just one. And not only that, but they get more and more selective within their own field of work or entrepreneurship (and life in general) about what deals they go after, what friendships and connections they choose to make, and circling back to what I was saying before, what’s really important to them. And that last one (what’s really important) helps drive their decision about all the other stuff in that list.

Inwardly, I’ve been trying to stop and catch myself when I do the “It’s been___months/years since I did this/saw this/talked to this person/this happened”, because I know that’s most likely coming from that negative “looking backwards” mentality. Because honestly, at this point in my life, basically freaking anybody in my position would agree I have more than enough discomfort and restlessness concerning my current position and circumstances to motivate me to change things ASAP without also unnecessarily (yet again) tapping into pain from the past. I don’t know why my brain insists on being so obsessed about dates and how much time has passed, or whatever, but it’s honestly getting very...old. Wow, our concept of time (whatever time is, we don’t really know), is so prevalent in the way we talk, isn’t it?

Especially after what took place yesterday, I’ve implemented a practice for when I go to sleep. No matter how tired I feel, I will at least feed my brain some positivty before going to sleep (espeically with my hyper-active, vivid dream creating brain) by at least just saying words with the positive feelings and future I want to have. So, let’s say I’m too tired to say something like, “Why am I so positive and enthusiastic about the future?”, or “Why are my thoughts and dreams so positive and pleasant [or peaceful], hopeful and happy?”, I’ll just say, “Happiness...Hope...Positivity...Peace...Prosperity...Healing...Hope...Creativity...Calm.” See what I’m doing there? It’s quite simple. I choose words that are easy to remember that are what I want my thoughts and dreams to be while I’m sleeping and in bed, and choosing pairs that are both synonyms and have the first letter. This makes it easy for my brain to remember them and chain them together.

Also been more seriously thinking about how ticked off I am about all the lies mainstream media is giving us, and how it’s been hurting folks, most especially children (hello “emergency use, experimental” gene therapy). And I’ve been wondering how do I do what I love, and make the impact I want, without “getting canceled”, basically. Like, it makes no sense to get all obsessed over fictional worlds and characters (or even real people who I look up to) and how heroes make a difference and stand up for the weak, and those who can’t speak for themselves, and just live life on the sidelines, collecting money and personal trophies, so to speak. Yet another thing I need to give more serious thought before too long.

Toodaloo...

Mood/State: Happy, relaxed, satisfied, enthusiastic, accomplished

Finally got through to scheduling a date for something I wanted to do for YEARS and I’m also pretty happy to have finished my classes. Only 5 more to go, should be done by August this year :)

As for completing this challenge, holy crap I am proud of myself and I kinda surprised myself. Now I know mentally ill, chronic pain-burdened people with no income or will to face the world can change given enough effort lol. Told ya, negative, hopeless past me! It did get better.

Difficulty level for today (out of five): ⭐

What's on the menu? (Diet):

- Breakfast: Egg and Canadian bacon breakfast sandwich

- Lunch 1: Quesadilla with cream cheese

- Lunch 2: Yogurt with granola

- Dinner: Green beans, quinoa, sweet potato, chicken (oh god this is GOOD)

- Snacks: Protein bar, yogurt with granola, crackers, granola bar, trail mix

Exercise: 30 minutes Pilates session

Mindfulness: 15 minutes mindful art project session

Journaling: link to today's post about my biggest, most persistent negative thought 

BONUS JOURNAL!: Link to my reflections, discoveries, and plans moving forward from the DRVN30 challenge

Extra personal habits: 

Write book: ✅

Coding lessons: ✅

Read: ✅

Accountability: If this post is not up before 11:59 March 2nd (MST) then I failed this habit.

Challenge tip of the day:

Don’t celebrate until after you’ve succeeded. That’s the easiest and most frustrating way to fail at something you worked hard for. However, take time to revel in your accomplishments after you’ve achieved them, for you have earned them and deserve to praise yourself. 

Screen time:

Extra cool fun fact: I did use some physical trackers of my own for this. It's pretty satisfying to see everything checked off :)

This challenge has to go up on my list of Hardest Things I Ever Done. It’s a challenge full of discomfort and frustration and limitation. It’s a challenge that went against my previous lifestyle and pushed me far out of my comfort zone. The challenge itself isn’t hard nor were the habits. Not one bit. 

The challenge was maintaining and learning focus, motivation, habitual, and memory skills that I didn’t have prior to the challenge. The challenge was making yourself do the required tasks even though you’re tired, in pain, and just want to sit down and play a game while eating some chips because you’re so mentally drained. 

Honestly, thanks to my mental illnesses, doing this challenge is far harder than it would be for someone who isn’t burdened by dissociative episodes that completely disrupt the day-to-day in an uncontrollable way or the chronic pain that gets so bad sometimes I literally faint and pass out and can’t manage to move for hours.

These are real deal issues and not "just excuses", but sadly I eventually turned them into excuses. I lacked the discipline to get back into motion as soon as possible after I recovered. The episodes quickly became week-long “off days” in which I just didn’t do anything useful.

The biggest things I learned are: 

How to knock off using my illnesses as an excuse when I have flare-ups

How to manage recovering after flare-ups and getting back into reality

How to directly combat and manage symptoms of my illness when they come up to lessen the impact and consistency of flare-ups

How to build and maintain good habits 

How to be consistent with habits

Memory hacks to improve memory

These habits are actually way nicer than my old lifestyle. I actually enjoy the benefits of them.

I do have discipline

The most interesting thing I noticed from this challenge is just how much I used social media, general media, and junk food as a coping mechanism. While there’s no issue in watching a movie with friends or indulging in sugary goodness when you had a shit day, the frequency at which I did it was remarkably concerning lol. 

I found that when I get bored and am tired, I tend to entertain myself with the thing that has the least resistance, which happens to be YouTube. When I get bored, hungry, and tired, I turn to easy to grab junk food. If there’s anything I know about myself, it’s that boredom is an extremely distressing state of being. Somehow, it’s worse than being overwhelmed but that’s just me. What I learned to do instead is learn to be okay with less stimulus and pick up one of my projects or do something productive to combat boredom.

I don’t really even miss social media. I realized just how BORING and useless it is. I do miss music though lol. Sometimes I just really want to listen to something because too much and too little silence is distressing, but that’s just a weird neurology thing.

The exercise habit was extremely exhausting, a combination of working long hours with little rest on off days, easy muscle fatigue, poor nutrition and fitness, and chronic pain. However, I enjoyed the results both mentally and physically. (I apparently gained some muscle and lost fat without even trying to thanks to the diet and exercise)

Changing my diet and exercising helped lessen the severity of my chronic pain, increased my fitness, and surprisingly took the severity of my migraines. Yeah, today I had a bad one, did some exercise, and the sucker was gone. Interesting.

While there are limits and a lack of freedom for the rules with some habits that I will have to adjust, I actually do like the system. Moving forward, I will be continuing the DRVN30 habits (though the rules will be modified to better fit my personal needs). I also liked the idea of the “discomfort challenges” so I will set new ones to accomplish every month. 

I will be turning down the blog post frequency to twice a week because honestly, once a day is excessive and super difficult and causes my posts to lack true quality (in my own opinion). It’s just unsustainable. I will also be keeping my daily tracker journals to myself and giving end-of-month overviews of habits and achievements and whatnot.

I think we all have our own unique negative thoughts that just continuously circulate in our heads. These vary drastically between individuals, some are related to your perception of the outside world, your appearance, your relationships, you name it. There’s usually one that seems to dominate and bleed into all aspects of our lives too. I call these “chronic recurring negative thoughts”. 

These are the ones that are so habitual they become a part of your personality without you even knowing it and control your choices. They’re rarely in the forefront of your mind, but they are omnipresent in your day to day life. They gnaw at you but you barely pay them any mind. They are the slow, barely seen killers of our self esteem and confidence.

During this whole self-development thing, one of the constant journaling exercises I hear gurus and coaches recommend time and time again is to identify and unravel your negative thoughts. I thought I got every single one of them out on display and ready for extermination but I didn’t realize this one, the one that hides so well but comes up much more often than the others.

The thought revolves around the fact that “I am not enough.” I am not man enough. I am not enough for the people I love. I am not disciplined enough. I am not determined and driven enough. I am not talented enough. I am not fit enough. I am not attractive enough…

And so on. These thoughts pervade nearly every aspect of my life but they’re so constant that my brain just filters them out. I didn’t even realize I was having these so much until I started this journey and began reeeeally digging in and improving my mindfulness. 

It all came to the forefront when a specific incident caused an influx of these thoughts. I’m not going to fault myself for having them, but they kinda crushed me and caused me to spiral into these “not enough” thoughts. Then it hit me, a lot of my insecurities and goals are directly connected to this “lack of being enough”. I need to knock that off big time.

My situation is weirdly complicated. I have a literal split in my sense of identity (yay, weird neurology!) that causes me to basically have two varying views of myself. I think I’m a cool and interesting guy. I think I’m talented. I think I have what it takes to get where I want to be. Then, there’s a part of me that’s stewed in this idea that I need to be more than I already am.

It's counterintuitive as hell honestly. I think its a matter of I managed to be truly confident and love myself, but haven't fully disrupted the thoughts. I don't always listen to them nowadays, but I guess they became habitual.

I can’t tell if it’s a result of me wanting external validation, or if I feel I have to meet certain expectations of human-ness that I have not yet achieved, or if it’s a cause of some trauma stuff I long since forgot but held onto. Whatever caused it, they’re there, and they contribute to a slew of problems I have in areas of my life. 

Now that I am aware of them, I can work on them. I need to remind myself that improving myself isn’t about becoming more for other people or to prove myself to others, but rather to prove myself to myself and grow into a person I’d like to be. 

In reality to society, we will never be enough, but also be more than enough, but also be just right to the people around us. It’s funny how I can be both too energetic but also kinda silent and boring depending on who you ask. It’s contradictory to be very attractive and charismatic to my girlfriend but ugly af to another woman. 

If we uphold our sense of self worth to others’ perceptions, we will constantly rely on other people’s validation. We will also put far too much legitimacy into people’s criticisms, jokes, and negative perceptions of you. If we uphold ourselves to societal norms (which only a small handful of us can fit into to a tee) we feel inadequate and worthless if we don’t fit in.