Draconis Chaser

@youngshinzen C'mon dude! You are SO close! Just a bit more, and then you'll send it, print it, and be DONE with it. A MASTERS thesis! That is a HUGE accomplishment! and you are more then halfway done! I have a particularly nasty subject this year in PhD, and keep thinking and dreaming about the bottle of expensive-ass wine I will pop open on the day I pass the goddamn thing! We can celebrate together!!! [Also, on the subject of fear, the thing that helped me and might help you too - I used to start every chunk of writing with a smartass comment like (and I'm not making this up): "IntroFUCKtion to this bullshit nobody cares about", write intext all the cusswords I felt, all the "blablabla confirmation (some asshole et al.)", and that helped me get it out of my system. The next time I read it, I fixed one thing at a time, and reading and re-reading helped focus my thoughts and clean up my sentences. The point is to fill up as much of the the page and spit out as much text as you can. Just get it out, spit it out, smear it on the page, bask at the horror that is (non-existent) grammar, and at one point, in the midst of all the fuckery, a cohesive train of thought will catch on and you will slide into productivity. If you do that, though, make sure you highlight all the colorful commentary, so nothing gets to your mentor. That... would be bad. ] Good luck and keep us posted!

@outlandish I have thought about leaving my PhD program long and hard, but in the end, I don't believe I will be doing that. The thing is - PhD programs in my country last almost 8 years, that's about double the standard 4-5 years in Europe. By the time I'm finished, i will be well into my 30's. The thesis that I do and the research I was assigned to are ultimately pointless, and are purely theoretical. On top of that, I am employed full time, and I do a LOT more then just my thesis, and the opportunity to advance is almost non-existent. So there is ridiculous amount of stress and responsibility going on, with little rewards (if any). Given all that, its pretty easy to feel discouraged and feel like I'm wasting the best years of my life on something that doesn't feel even remotely fulfilling. Still, I would feel like an utter loser if I just dropped it like a hot potato, so I probably won't do that. That being said, the job realistically has SOME advantages. It is a fairly prestigious place to work at, my mentor is involved, so I'm not on my own all the time, and the money is decent. And I do get a dr in front of my name, which is also a sweet thing. The problem with me is that it does not feel like I do my best in that branch. I know I can do better when there is some emotional juice going on, and also where there is an application to the theory. Maybe it's naive of me to say this and I'm being a spoiled brat, but I refuse to suffer mindlessly through a decade of my life. That's why I wanted to try and change things a little bit at a time. Maybe start my own business, maybe go in a different field, stuff like that. I decided to invest in the Life Purpose Course to help me navigate it all, and maybe release a bit of the guess-work involved. @7thLetter @Harikrishnan I will definitely take everyone's advice and try at least as long and hard to dig out the little nuggets of gold there are in my situation. Especially in the down time of saving up for the course. Thank you all so much! All the best!

In my last year of Uni, I had 14 classes instead of regular 10, and that was a NIGHTMARE to navigate, so I understand you very well and the struggle is real! A lot of my classes had many tests and practical examinations, lab work and such. Lab work demands time and understanding, so if you have those, and if they are big on your grade, definitely invest some time there. As far as tests go, I usually crammed what I could. There is so much time in a single day, you sometimes physically can't manage to go over everything more than once. The cramming sometimes paid off, sometimes failed ridiculously, but it's still better then not even reading the materials once. Exams are a different bird altogether. My exams were almost always oral exams, so there was quite a bit of presentation involved. In the nightmare that was the finals week(s), this is what I found helpful. Make a schedule and try to stick to it. But also be a bit realistic. 20 pages a day is doable. 100 might not be. Also, try and mix classes that are varying degree of difficulty. For me that was molecular biology (hardcore) and ecology (fairly easy). Some classes you cant mix and they need their own time. Also, i got really excited to study whenever I got new stationary dedicated to a single subject. And I tried to make a bullet journal and track my studying. That I think helped as well. For the harder exams I would write out flashcards by hand, make posters and hang them all over my walls and draw A LOT of mind-maps. Make sure you are sleeping enough, drinking water (although I mostly ran on coffee) and if you feel a technique is definitely not working for you, customize it so that you get the most juice out of it. As a side-note, this might not work for everybody, but in the dark of the finals week, i really dug deep in my ego and made it work overtime ("there is NO WAY I will fail if a dumbass like that passed", "I managed worse shit than this, I can do a stupid exam", "I am going to dominate this thing tomorrow and everyone will be impressed" - stuff like that), just make an effort to be conscious about it. I hope that helps, and good luck with your exams!

@7thLetter @Harikrishnan Thank you so much! I am not afraid to work hard for something I belive in. And 5 years is a small price to pay for a lifetime of direction. I realise things are not going to fall in my lap from the sky, and I'm prepared for the grunt work. I just need to know that there is something behind it, a faith, if you will, that it will produce results if I stick with it. So I'm glad it can actually do that. I might be pushing it now, but do you have any advice on how I should approach my job in such a way that I do quality non-sloppy work, even though it is absolutely draining and demanding, and still have enough energy after work to invest in the Life Purpose Course? Any idea is more then welcome! Thanks again and lots of love, Draconis

Hi, everyone! I am in a bit of a tricky situation and would like y'alls oppinion. So, I am currently enrolled in a PhD program, and am working in the field. I absolutely loved that work while I was finishing up my masters thesis, however, lately I became dreading the work. I don't find it appealing anymore and I find myself procrastinating or debating wether or not I should do a sloppy job and be done with it, or suffer through imense amount of emotional and mental labor. I still hold myself to a certain standard, so I don't go full slob, but the truth is that I don't find it enjoyable anymore. Quite the oposite. Furthermore, I don't see any meaningful contribution in what I do on daily bases. Oftentimes I think of myself as of a McDonalds worker, just the type that does lab work instead of flipping burgers. I feel incredibly stuck in this situation. I can't drop the program, but I don't want to keep at it anymore. And even if I did drop it, I would have nothing else to turn to. Since this is the first time I'm actually earning money, im saving up for the Life Purpose Course, and to be honest, I feel like Im grasping at straws a bit. I lay all my hopes in that course of helping me find a direction in life, for the first time in, well, ever, and help me find out what it's like waking up excited and energized, and start loving what I do again. Do you think I am overleaning on it, or could it really give me what I need? If you have any comment, idea or advice to spare, I would be more than grateful to hear them. Thanks in advance! Lots of love, Draconis

@Belay kelemework I watch (well, listen to) maybe one to 1.5 hours a day max. I had mayor problems with implementing Leo's advice before, so I started listening to the videos that could help solve my problem time and time again, while making breakfast, walking to school, in the shower, doing dishes, stuff like that. I think I might have made a trigger out of Leo's voice along the way, because I find myself being much more productive after listening to a video, then not. But 4 hours daily on watching videos is a bit overkill in my opinion...

@Matt23 You know, for the longest part of my life I've been feeling the exact same. Lost, alone AND lonely, unloved, ugly, stupid (this was huge), incapable to do anything right (another huge one), so I understand you very well. The motivation to do just about anything is simply not there.. What I realized, however, is that it never really comes. You have to build it from the ground up. And I believe it is so for pretty much anything, love, career and relationships included. So, on the point of motivation, I would urge you to start small. Real small. If your goal is to, say, run 5 km every day, start by walking 500 m. But do that daily. It will build your momentum so much, at one point it will be easier to do it then skip out. And at one point you're going to fail. Life happens, you get busy, your momentum will dissipate, and when that happens, you have to be wise enough to recognize it for what it is. I like to think of a graph of a damped oscillation (at least I hope that's what it's called in English, there is a picture below). So you start from zero motivation, force yourself to do the things you know you need to, and then you build your momentum really hard, you work on it daily, you get some results, life's going better. Then the same life happens, you are busy, you get into a time-crunch, you miss out, you feel bad, the momentum starts going down. Again you don't feel like doing shit, and your performance drops, except now you are below zero, and even worse then when you began this whole thing. So that is the point where it take hard work and discipline to get first to zero, and then to surpass it. From that point on, it becomes easier until life happens again, and the cycle starts anew. The wise thing in all this is to see is that, even if you have to crawl your way back from the negative into the zero and eventually into a positive, and if it takes you weeks just to get to the previous starting point, you are still making progress. And huge one at that. The real success is not measured by your achievements, but by the character you develop along the way. And eventually, those fluctuations reach a steady state (which at the graph is zero, but you get my point). At one point, it will become a habit to do what you wanted to do and it will keep itself in that steady state. Because then it takes more effort to not do it, then to do it. And also, I think you have to develop the love for yourself first. Yes, friends are nice, a loving partner is nice, a good family is nice, but at the end of the day - the only one you have to the very end is you. And you should build this relationship that you want with yourself, so when the low strikes, you have that feminine, caring voice inside of you to reassure you and comfort you. And when you are being lazy, you have that masculine voice to train you and push you further. You become your own best friend. And together you go and bring all the people together. I hope you find this a bit reassuring. Lots of love! Draconis And here is the graph:

@abc Hello again! First thing you need is awareness that you are not doing the thing you should be doing. So you got that one off the list. Nice Then comes the awareness of the what you ARE doing instead, and WHY NOT the thing itself, right. The short answer to this is simply the case of there being sth that hits all your sweet spots with greater intensity right now, and every time you change your behaviour, that source of pleasure gets cut off. You then, naturally, feel voulnerable and go back to what it is that brings you happiness. This thing is most likely sth that you don't even realise is bringing you relief and pleasure. Could be as subtle as telling a white lie, or as alarming as doing drugs or smoking. So what happens when you go "shut up and just do it" on your ass, is that you remove the rare pleasure and you probably substitute it with sth that you attach pain to. And then what happens? You lose pleasure and on top of that gain pain. Not good. Not sustainable. Not healthy. Please don't do that. Identify what it is that is pleasurable to you right now, and see if there is a way to press the same buttons, but with a bit more actualizing action, right. And also keep in mind that in a battle of pain vs pleasure, pain always looses. It can only get you so far. If prolonged beyond that point, you will just bend and twist your psyche to gain pleasure from what used to be pain. Again, don't do that! Humans are not made to be stressed all the time. We think our way into it. Everybody deserves to feel happy and fulfilled! Hopefully, that helps a bit. Take care and have a great day!

@abc Honey, I think you need to cut some slack of yourself. You are trying to make it work, and no doubt, you eventually will. Failure is inevitable in the begining of any practice, but the whole social construct to it is really unnecessary. You can't start doing sth for the first time in your life and expect yourself to excell at it straight away. You are learning from the very best there is, so the standard is already set pretty high. I'm not saying you should go 'screw it, this'll do' for a low quality result, just don't drive yourself insane with unrealistic expectations for yourself. If you decided you'd like to start writing with your non-dominant hand all of a sudden, you probably wouldn't expect the ability to write bad-ass caligrapy after a week, right? It's the same thing with anything else, really. Just continue working at it. A little goes a long way. Secondly, you are awfully young and going through the phase where your body is running wild with hormones. Mood swings are quite common, and unfortunalely, so is feeling down and depressed. What you can do, however, is stop worring about the things you CANNOT change at this point, and focus on the ones that you can. What you can't change would be your family, friends, their opinion, the society and it's wry ways. You can change your view of it all, though. If you have any sense of what your passion might be, I would start with that, and make it a safe heaven for myself. And also, don't despare that your life might not be what you expected. Don't think yourself into depression and helplessnes, no matter how fucked up you think you are. Work at it. Find your resources and fix what is broken, build what you'd like and hunt down and sistematicly destroy the things you dislike. A child weeps when it is unhappy, because it is helpless. When that child takes things into it's own hands, it is no longer a child. It's an adult. So allow yourself to grow up. Come to the grown up side- we don't have cookies, but we can teach you how to make them yourself. Take care, and all the best to you!

Hello everyone! Lately, I've been contemplating on my life and more importantly my death, and have reached a conclusion that a lot of things currently present in my life were the result of "me going against the world". While some of them have served me nicely (such as personal development work), others have caused me more pain than pleasure, and so I've decided to break those patterns and develop new onces. My problem, I guess, is in this - how do you stop associating pain to the actions that are good for you in the long run, and start associating pleasure to them? That is, how do you develop love for the things that you currently hate, or strongly dislike. For example, I been trying to exercise regularly for a few monts now, but, boy, has it been a struggle. And it's not getting any easier. I simply hate it. The same goes with studying regularly. I can cram, due to the pain of failing involved, when the deadline is close, but not before. And that has been dragging me down for quite some time now. If anyone could spare any advice on this topic, I would be more than grateful! Thank you for yor time, and have a great day!

I'd just add this little thing- watch for the promise land of being kind. Kindness often doesn't pay, and you get little to no recognition for being kind. If you have problems with that, than maybe you are comig from the "Fake-kindness", as @Natasha said, state of mind. I did a lot of that because, you know, I am a nice, kind person who does nice kind things. And I stopped doing that when I realised that I was being kind for recognition and not for the sake of being kind. In my oppinion, when you get to the state of wanting to help for the sake helping, and expecting absolutely nothing in return, then we are talking about real kindness. Someone wishes you evil, and irregardles you are kind towards them because you want to be, expecting no difference in their behaviour, then I'd say that is the real kindness.

@Actualizer That is exactly why I think communities like this one are a goldmine. If I do end up too dogmatic and too in my own head, there is always someone here to call me up on that. And I would be that more open to trusting them because we agreed on ideas before. That is my take on that, at least...

@Actualizer I don't know about other religions, but if you look at Christianity for example, there is more disagreeing than not. About pretty much everything. Honestly, I think having everyone agree with you for the sake of being agreeable is a bad thing. But if you are onto sth, in my oppinion, it is better to solidify that idea, than have it blown out by non-actualizers. If I am terribly wrong, on the other hand, I would like to know that as well.

@JevinR Yeah, the "just do it, bitch. DO IT!" has failed for me every single time. And don't get me wrong, I'm not wallowing in self pity here. Yes, tough love works wonders, but only when you are not paralyzed with fear, confused and feel alone. And also, let's not forget that the op is a kid in Romania with little to no support, and has been that way for (if I understood properly) most of his life. I live in neighbouring country, and the conditions really are that bad. The family by default puts enough pressure on you to become either a doctor or a lawyer because it pays well. Well, better than the rest. Again, that is not, and should never be an excuse to go with the least resistance path and not get off your ass and work towards your goals. All I'm saying is that sometimes people (and especially younger, lonely, depressed people) need to be told that it's allright. And that it will be, no matter what. It serves as an initial nudge into "Just do it" phylosophy, if you will. Take care.

@Zane hey dude! I am not a veteran in PD, but have been dabling with it for almost 7 years, and 4 of those actively. I could be your PD partner if you'd like. I still remember how it was in the begining and remember all the stupid mistakes I made. I am into enlightment work, also "more practical" work, scientificly oriented, but I'm working on being radically openminded, so anything goes, really. I guess, if you are interested, you can send me a PM. I'd love to share my experiences and learn from yours. Take care!