Self-Improvement advice for young people mega thread

[Someone here]

The title is ofcourse inspired by Leo's two videos called life advice for young people. I just rewatched them yesterday and benefited a lot. 

I want to start a megathread of top advice for youngsters.  I consider the range of age from 18-35 as young . Most people aren't fully mature during this range. Although to each rule there are exceptions. 

The reason for starting this thread is an epistemological problem I'm  facing which I made a thread about it before .and that is how to connect relative and practical knowledge with absolute knowledge.  As an example..whats relative could be something like should i take this job ? Or should i leave college?  Or should i join the military? Or should i get married in this age ?etc . And what is absolute is basically i don't know anything. But of course the meaning isn’t that i can't write or read or use the toilet..but i'm speaking on the existential level. I have no concrete clear as day answers to life's deepest questions on the existential level .

i've struggled with anxiety basically for my  whole life .. and it set me back in many ways. Even tho I’m getting therapy for anxiety I still feel hopeless sometimes. Other guys my age have their basic  life together  while I still haven’t got my first job..i live alone so thats handled how moved out or have friends but i don't pay my bills .my family do  .i have no lasting relationship or a girfriend..even though thats something I'm interested in for a while now .i had sex exactly 5 times . 3 of them were phone sex with hookers who you pay them charge cards and you get to fuck them through the phone lol. And two times with a girl who fucked me with a strapon in the best night of my whole life but that's a story for another day .

I’m in college studying business..but I don’t know what I want to do for a career. These are supposed to be the best years of my life but all I do is resent myself. I haven’t accomplished much if anything I can think of. I do have hobbies and things that i enjoy like reading books or watching movies but loneliness also is present in my life . When I get time free I’m on my phone until my eyes physically hurt.and basically  50% of my time is free time. Im either in college or alone at home .and when I'm alone at home you guys know what I'm doing .just look at my post count. Unfortunately most people here accuse me of mental masturbation and I understand but I guess I'm interested and very attracted to philosophy and I like to express myself or ask questions. 

I know that I'm rare..special and unique. Now what? I need practical ways to succeed at life. How to overcome the massive issues i face due to my  overinvestiment in philosophical woo?

 Also my so called spiritual work lead to me having no sense of self and I don’t know who I am anymore. I'm just conscious being and probably the only conscious being and I'm here and now in this present moment observing this universe aaaaaand...well..that's it? What now lol?

 But back to the topic of hobbies..I'm not particularly good at anything and it stresses me out when people ask what I'm talented at..other than thinking about metaphysical stuff I'm not good at that much things .

How do I genuinely improve my self-esteem? I guess taking  self improvement Seriously is the first step .

I've been focusing on myself this past year and virtually stopped caring what anyone thought of me and now people like me and want to be around me. 

I don't I need bro advice. I need Top notch shit. So if you think you've gotten your shit together so tight then I want you to write essays here about that like a professional self-improvement coach .

What are some “self-improvement” tips that actually make you fee better ?

Edited Monday at 04:13 PM by Someone here

[Hojo]

Smash your cell phone. You sitting there and its easy to forget your problems. You cant stop so yet rid of it and then you will feel what you need to feel. You need to take away what you are doing to get away from the feeling. You have negative feeling behind the phone and the phone hides them. You just need to get them out and your problems are solved.

 

Edited Monday at 08:48 PM by Hojo

[aurum]

The biggest gap I see with young guys is with dating.

I'm not saying this is all your fault. Many of these things are extremely difficult to change. I myself struggle with some of them.

But if you're serious about improving your situation, this is what I would focus on taking responsibility for. This is some "tough love":

• You're bitter from your past or current failures with women
• You're hyper-fixated on your looks or you ignore improving them
• You're scared to approach or your approach is way too aggressive.
• Your head is filled with manosphere, redpill trash or progressive, egalitarian fantasies.
• You're emotionally needy or emotionally stunted
• You don't socialize enough
• You don't have enough friends or social circle
• You're trying to influence her with logic
• You don't have a purpose or a world to draw her into
• You want women to make things easier for you
• You think she's being irrational or you don't hold her accountable at all
• You're not proactive enough about leading and logistics
• You don't know how to have good sex
• You want to fight with women rather than do the relational dance with them
• You don't make enough money to seriously raise a family
• You're conflicted about what kind of future you want with her
• You want to fix her rather than be with her

[Someone here]

9 hours ago, Hojo said:

Smash your cell phone. You sitting there and its easy to forget your problems. You cant stop so yet rid of it and then you will feel what you need to feel. You need to take away what you are doing to get away from the feeling. You have negative feeling behind the phone and the phone hides them. You just need to get them out and your problems are solved.

 

Thanks but I do need the phone to follow up with my professors and classmates at college. 

[Someone here]

8 hours ago, aurum said:

You're bitter from your past or current failures with women.

True .

8 hours ago, aurum said:

You're hyper-fixated on your looks or you ignore improving them

Neither . I look good and dress sharp. I consider myself very handsome and good-looking. 

 

8 hours ago, aurum said:

You're scared to approach or your approach is way too aggressive.

Pickup doesn't work the same way in US and India.  We are a Conservative society and most women in the area I live in consider approaching as harassing. 

8 hours ago, aurum said:

Your head is filled with manosphere, redpill trash or progressive, egalitarian fantasies.

No.

8 hours ago, aurum said:

You're emotionally needy or emotionally stunted.

To some degree . I said before that living alone and having to do everything for myself like cooking and cleaning is daunting on me . I need a live in girl or wife .

8 hours ago, aurum said:

You don't socialize enough

True .

I see all of your points around dating .but this is not exclusively about getting girls brother .it's about improving on all aspects of my life .

Thank you .

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Someone here said:

I consider myself very handsome and good-looking. 

Self-deception?

[Someone here]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Self-deception?

At least I have a well-styled hair..not some shiny goblet 

[Xonas Pitfall]

Radical self-responsibility and awareness

1. Clearly define your values and what you want from this life.
2. Not sure what that is yet? Then you need experience. A lot of it. Go out, try things, and self-reflect.
3. Explore widely. As you reflect, practice open-mindedness. Don’t judge the things that genuinely interest or excite you. Take note of them.
4. Be cautious of your ego and self-deception. Become deeply aware of both the good and evil in the world and within yourself. You’ll lie to yourself sometimes without even realizing it.
5. Keep cycling through experience and reflection until your direction becomes clearer.
6. Once you know what you want, pursue it with unreasonable persistence. Iterate so many times that failure becomes almost impossible.
7. For what you can’t control, practice acceptance and gratitude.
8. For what you can control, practice personal responsibility.
9. Apply this principle to every area of your life, and you can build a truly beautiful existence on this earth! 

[Someone here]

 

6 hours ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

Radical self-responsibility and awareness

1. Clearly define your values and what you want from this life.
2. Not sure what that is yet? Then you need experience. A lot of it. Go out, try things, and self-reflect.
3. Explore widely. As you reflect, practice open-mindedness. Don’t judge the things that genuinely interest or excite you. Take note of them.
4. Be cautious of your ego and self-deception. Become deeply aware of both the good and evil in the world and within yourself. You’ll lie to yourself sometimes without even realizing it.
5. Keep cycling through experience and reflection until your direction becomes clearer.
6. Once you know what you want, pursue it with unreasonable persistence. Iterate so many times that failure becomes almost impossible.
7. For what you can’t control, practice acceptance and gratitude.
8. For what you can control, practice personal responsibility.
9. Apply this principle to every area of your life, and you can build a truly beautiful existence on this earth! 

Thanks brother. This is very useful. 

[Hojo]

@Someone here then use it for that only. You have to get off it to improve. You said you spend 50 percent of your life on your phone.

Edited Tuesday at 01:30 PM by Hojo

[Someone here]

10 minutes ago, Hojo said:

@Someone here then use it for that only. You have to get off it to improve. You said you spend 50 percent of your life on your phone.

Yes but I need a healthy alternative . What am I supposed to do with all this free time? (I have a answer but looking to hear your feedback).

Edited Tuesday at 01:40 PM by Someone here

[Ulax]

For any problem, research-experiment-reflect.
 

That is something I believe in and I don’t see where it wouldn’t. But I still have lots of things to solve in my life, so I can’t be too confident in the general advice I give.

[Hojo]

@Someone here you will figure it out when you get off it for awhile. I don't know what you want to do you do but you are hiding it behind the cell phone.

[kbone]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

Yes but I need a healthy alternative . What am I supposed to do with all this free time? (I have a answer but looking to hear your feedback).

Spend time in nature: go hiking, learn how to camp for 1-2+ nights, try fishing, live closer to the earth, etc... all while leaving electronics behind. Deconstruct your mind's dominance over your 'self-improvement model'. If you can't, it will keep believing in all sorts of nonsense that like-minded people tell you, and you will walk in idle circles within the confines of the comfort zone prison cell of your mind. Your OP expresses the prison well. 

I'm very experienced and ridiculously confident at outdoor endeavors and can tell you I've never met anyone else who's done such things and regretted it. Usually they want MORE. If you're still in uni, then you have a ton of life ahead of you. Live it authentically. I have traveled, trekked, and lived in various mountain ranges around the world for months at a time, and I was always amazed by the depth and breadth of nonsense there was upon my return to society.

I even met my gal out in the Hindu Kush range. We have been the best of friends for 2.5 decades and have continued to share the awe, splendor and wonders of nature. After a night of watching billions of stars next to a fire fading into the oblivion of a nourishing sleep, and waking up in the mountains, making a cup of tea/coffee on a fire or stove, watching the sun come up over the peaks and fill a river-filled valley, and then taking care of the camp before heading out for the day's adventure.... beats any drug-induced fantasy. And who knows, maybe the Great Awakening actually does take place during one of those moments of utter simplicity, staring into and out from the very core..... changing the trajectory of life forever.

Edited Tuesday at 03:55 PM by kbone

[Princess Arabia]

57 minutes ago, Hojo said:

@Someone here you will figure it out when you get off it for awhile. I don't know what you want to do you do but you are hiding it behind the cell phone.

It's not about having a cell phone or not, it's what you do with it. Stop telling the man to throw his phone in the trash or get rid of it. That's asinine.

[Hojo]

@Princess Arabia hes spending 50 percent of his life browsing on his phone. The easiest thing to self improve is to stop using it. The easiest way to stop using it is to smash it into peices. If he spent 50 percent of his time doing meth the answer would be to throw the meth away. Its the same thing.

Edited Tuesday at 05:01 PM by Hojo

[kbone]

7 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

It's not about having a cell phone or not, it's what you do with it. Stop telling the man to throw his phone in the trash or get rid of it. That's asinine.

That's fair, but the context is that @Someone here was asking for advice in a 'self-improvement' thread, and @Hojo noticed that he spends 50% of his time (his 'free time') on a cell phone while the rest of his OP spoke of anxiety, therapy, existential angst, and/or addictions. As such, I think it was just meant as self-help advice, not the kind of realization you tend to point to.

That said, I have observed how unconsciously attached many appear to be to their devices and their activities with them, and it is an interesting phenomenon. 

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Someone here said:

Yes but I need a healthy alternative . What am I supposed to do with all this free time? (I have a answer but looking to hear your feedback).

Meditate 1 hour, lift weights, do high-intensity cardio, brain training, hang out with friends.

[kbone]

1 minute ago, Hojo said:

@Princess Arabia hes spending 50 percent of his life browsing on his phone. The easiest thing to self improve is to stop using it. The easiest way to stop using it is to smash it into peices 

In this day and age, doing without a cell phone might be more trouble than it's worth, not to mention that he'll just end up buying another one. Does anyone actually NEED one? Probably not. I treat phones in much the same way I use mind which, as I've said, works better as a tool than as a master. If one's addicted to thinking or phones, then becoming more conscious of how they are used is key. Purddy hard to do when one's whole world is unconsciously centered around it. So yeah, I getcha, sometimes getting extreme does arise as the thing to do. Depends....

[Hojo]

@kbone if he needs it its fine but maybe down grade to one that barely works for what you need it to do. Its good to have but easy to abuse and if you are on 50 percent of time awake on it and see that its a problem then simply putting it down is way harder.

Edited Tuesday at 05:15 PM by Hojo