Vali2003

I know that, ultimately, nobody can answer this but myself and that it would be best contemplated. BUT, I'm scared shitless to do that and face the truth. I'll try to give a good, honest and fair picture of the situation. I'm 22, been with my girlfriend for 3,5 years now. She's my first girlfriend ever. I've been seriously thinking about breaking up for 1,5 years -- I know that's insane and I feel ashamed about it. If I write it like that it seems like I'm obviously just a pussy that's too scared to break up, even though I know it's the right thing to do. But I think it's not so easy. Because we actually have a good, mature relationship, I think. We communicate well. We are fair to each other. I trust her enormously. She has never crossed or disrespected any boundaries we've set in the relationship -- neither have I. And I love her. She's intelligent, she's pretty, she's kind, she's extremely openminded. But especially I love all her little quirks. The noises she makes when we cuddle, how confused she is when she wakes up in the morning. It's not all butterflies & roses though as you can imagine: She struggles with anxiety and when she's anxious she is very irritable, and can be quite mean and hurtful. She's not very socially competent. Which is a problem for me -- especially if we are with my family. She can come across as rude, non-chalante and mean to others because she doesn't talk much, is lost in her thoughts a lot, and looks -- frankly said -- annoyed. I know that's not how she feels in the inside, but other people can not know this. She rarely takes responsibility when we fight or have conflict. She can only accept having done something wrong if I take FULL responsibility first. This can be really exhausting emotionally on my side. The problem is that she dreams up SUCH strong assumptions and expectations of how something is supposed to go perfectly -- for example a date -- that she just cannot stomach it if she messed something up that ruins her expectations. Also, our sex isn't great but that's definitely an US problem. There are also issues with me in the relationship I have fear of commitment. I resent her for some things that are my responsibility, like stopping me from going to sleep early, working more etc. -- even though that's on me to just be consequential with. I can be arrogant. I can be hypocritical and sometimes blame her for things that I do myself. I can be moralistic and judgmental -- this especially comes out in social situations (I don't blame her in the social situations but these feelings arise then and come out later, when we're in private). BUT, all these things -- or at least most of them -- could be dealt with and solved. So that's not necessarily a reason to break up. Although you can also argue, of course that there's a better fit for me out there. However, there are a couple of other issues that go much deeper: She's the only person I've ever had sex with. I have really strong karma in this area. If I imagine myself on the deathbed only having had sex with one person, I feel deeply regretful. I feel like time is passing by so quickly, and I'm missing out on so much sex right now since I'm in college and it would be quite easy to get laid. Really, I don't see myself being together with her forever. I can say that with relative certainty. I don't see that kind of potential in us I must say if I'm being honest. When I write this, it seems clear that I should break up. BUT I love her. And breaking up -- eliminating THE person in the world that by far knows me most intimately from my life, forever -- because I want to fuck around seems like a silly thing to do. 'Fucking around' is a strawman though. I know that. It's deeper than that. There are moments where it feels clear what I should do (break up). But then, things are really nice again and I think: Why would I ever want to give this up? I'm really quite lost. And, like I said, it's been like that for probably 1,5 years. When I think about breaking up with her (actually doing it), it feels impossible. She wouldn't expect it at all. I honestly think it would break her heart. We've just been on vacation together after she was studying abroad for 4 months and she told me, time and again, how happy she is to have me, how much she loves me, what she wants to do with me in the future. I just don't know if I feel the same way. Breaking up with her would be destroying the deepest bond I've ever had with a person and never regaining it again (with her). It would honestly be horrible. I'm lost. I don't know what to do. I'd appreciate your help.

I also have faults. She is interested in growing and personal development and has grown a lot over the last three years. That isn't a breaking point for me. But, in the end, you're probably right regardless.

Re-reading them, I guess. You could also follow the strategy in the video below, but it's quite a pain in the ass. I find that applying the ideas from a book, discussing the contents with friends or mulling them over through the day also helps. It kind of depends what sort of book it is. If it's the practical kind, applying it to whatever topic it's about is probably the best method. For politics, discussing it helps. This video is if you really want to remember shit and study it. But, like I said above, it requires a lot of effort. But you can't get around that anyways. And, if the book is great, it may be worth it.

@Salvijus Thank you. Where is that from?

Thank you. I'm afraid I'm too scared to turn inward and find out what the truth is about if I 'should' stay with her or break up. In the end, both decisions are good, I just should make sure to quit this 'in-between' space.

And how do I know what that is? Write an angry letter to God?

I feel, maybe I'd be able to do it now, knowing what to expect. But I would never want to go through that if it wasn't necessary or the right thing to do. Of course it's impossible to know that with certainty. I find it mindblowing that most humans go through this pain of breaking up with their partner. It made me realize how much depth everybodies lives have.

That's great.

Thank you, I will try that. I don't tend to feel my body too much, but when I contempate, I focus on feeling 'truth' and penetrating the feeling, not thinking.

@Elliott Thank you. ❤️ The truth is, I tried to do this before. I said 'I'm breaking up with you' because I felt it would be the right thing to do -- out of love. It felt as if I pushed my best friend down a cliff without a reason. I instantly took it back and broke down crying. I wasn't able to deal with it. It felt so wrong in that moment. Is that what breaking up normally feels like?

You're oversimplifying. Are you really trying to understand my inner conflict? I mentioned above that we have talked about this openly before.

I don't feel we're communicating very effectively here. The reason I believe that I need a decision before (maybe I don't need a decision, but at least more clarity) is because we have talked about these topics before and not much came of the conversations. I said, in one such conversation, that when I'm in the present with her then I love it and greatly appreciate our relationship. But that I feel -- necessarily -- it will need to come to an end at some point in the future. She agrees with me and feels the same. We both, at this point, felt as though in the present moment, in the NOW, it would feel wrong to end the relationship. She even has mentioned before that she wished I was a complete asshole and we'd just have a really bad fight, like other couples do, so the end of our relationship would come naturally. This sounds crass but I get where she's coming from. It shows my and her inner torment between other desires and the appreciation of our relationship, of our love. Now, it's been over half a year since that conversation. So maybe her opinion has changed completely since then. I doubt that, however. Do you see more where I'm coming from now -- that I need to have more clarity before going into such a conversation again? Or is it still not making sense from your POV?

I think I just need to bite the bullet, go within and contemplate my feelings (I still appreciate advice, of course): Why do I desire to have sex with other women? -- What's the core of this desire? Why am I scared of committing to her? Why am I scared of breaking up with her?

We already talked about the sex part several times. Saying how we both would still like to make more experiences with other people, feeling like we're missing out a bit on the college experience etc. I appreciate the advice, yet simultaneously I also feel/realize there are much more nuances here than I can express without rambling on for pages. I do feel that going into this conversation openly (without a clear decision on my side) would not be productive. Is it fair to her to go there, tell her about my mush of feelings and expect something good to come of it? Isn't it my responsibility to be clear on what I want and come to her from that frame? My head feels like I just tried solving math problems for 4 hours. Not a gramm of clarity left.

You are right about me having said I'm clear that I don't see myself being with her forever. I guess maybe you could say not telling her that is gaslighting. However, it's not like I'm telling her that I want to be with her forever. I don't think I could see that with any person at this stage of my life.

@Hojo I don't understand what you're saying. If you're referring to the quote above, those feelings are related to my confusion about wanting to continue being with her or not.

@Hojo No. It would be immensely stupid to do that. If I tell her my feelings it will be after I've made sense of them. Doing it while confused would just be dumping them onto her and expecting her to make sense of them for me.

@Leo Gura Will you be working with a professional editor for your book? I have a feeling it really makes the end-product a lot better. However, may be hard to find someone that gets your content deeply enough and has editorial skills. Also, must be annoying to always have people tell you what they think you should do.

@Leo Gura They could never give me as good existential crises as real Leo.

Always forget them too. Mostly what changes my life about books or writing is the changes in state of consciousness — through insights — that I get by reading them. I wouldn’t be able to pin it down on a specific quote.

Muay Thai warmups

Good luck in rewiring the mess and thanks for the reminder.

Building some sort of technology or technique — I don’t know how this would work yet — that enables artists to experience their work as though seeing it for the first time ever. This sounds simple, but would actually be incredibly powerful. This technology would make creating amazing art much more doable for anyone willing to put in the work. Not being able to view your work objectively is one of the biggest hindrances for any artist, in my point of view. For other services, feedback works just fine — and as of now this is all we have for art (editors for example in writing, offering an outside perspective). However, I feel for the artist themselves to see their work completely objectively would be much more powerful than external feedback. It would cut out the middleman, decrease the inaccuracies. The upgrade is equivalent to, instead of language, being able to use telepathy to communicate. I had the idea when I watched the movie ‘Spirited Away’ two times in a period of ~2 weeks. The second time I watched it, I thought holy fuck this movie is completely different than the first time around. I literally couldn’t experience it in the same way — at all. I wondered how the fuck it must be for the director — or whoever is in charge of the movie. How do they feel after having gone through it potentially hundreds of times? They must be so far disconnected from the objective reality of this movie at that point. Reality proves that this is already a problem people have. However, they purely rely on external feedback or on giving them some time between and then having gained space after which they have more objectivity. If you could build a technology that makes this much more effective, it would be so powerful. If there’s someone here who has good technical skills and would be interested in developing this technology, I’d actually be down to try! No idea how it’d work yet, but I’m certain that it’s possible. What do y’all think of this? Leo, I’d also appreciate your feedback on this idea.

I’ve been sporadically wearing earplugs over the last two-three weeks and every time I did wear them, my sleep was significantly better. I originally bought the earplugs because it can be noisy in my shared-flat sometimes. Think, game night, someone coming home late at night, late-night kitchen action etc. I didn’t plan to use the earplugs every night. However, I’ve noticed that every night that I’ve worn them my sleep is significantly better than without them. I don’t wake up in the night at all. And there’s a much more “solid” feel to my sleep. I also wake up feeling more recovered. Note that it’s not just better than my sleep in those noisy nights. It’s better than my sleep even when in nights when it’s “quiet.” So, what I think happens is that (in my case at least) there always are micro-noises (a car driving by, someone using the bathroom, some neighbor..) that disturb my sleep. But they aren’t loud enough to wake me up. On some level these micro-noises make me not sleep as deep even though I don’t consciously notice them. When I put in the ear plugs that flies out the window and hence my sleep is better. Earplugs for the win. I think silence is often underestimated in the “improve sleep discussion,” because there can be these micro-noises disturbing your sleep quality without you being able to consciously notice them. So I wanted to share this.

Yes you should start jogging on soft surfaces like sand, and then transition to harder ones. Concrete is the final boss.