Escaping wage slavery towards an Actualized Life

[Vali2003]

I also realized that I can’t sacrifice everything at once to be able to work harder. I’ll need to go bit by bit so I don’t burn out. Here’s a list of all the things I could sacrifice to be able to work harder:

• Cooking nice food 

It takes a lot of time to cook, which I could also use for working.

• Spending time with friends, watching basketball/football (soccer) matches together

Costs time of course and fucks with my sleep rhythm. Especially the NBA matches disturb my sleep rhythm as they’re in the middle of the night over here in Germany. But even some football matches — especially Champions League — are too late to suit my optimal sleep rhythm. 

• Browsing the actualized-forum a lot
• I could replace late basketball practices with gym, because it’s more flexible

This one would be super tough for me.  Movement is one of my highest values. And going to the gym just doesn’t satisfy this need for dynamic movement within me. I don’t think I’ll sacrifice this. It would cost too much.

• Taking the bike or bus instead of walking

I love my walks. I average about 9000 steps per day. I walk pretty much everywhere I go. It helps my sleep and is good for my health. However, I also spend a lot of time doing it. But man… I really dislike the motion of riding a bicycle. It’s  so effortful compared to walking and unathletic compared to running. Sorry to all the cyclists 🚴 😌

• Wasting time with social media. For me, it’s YT-shorts, the actualized-forum (although I’d like to think it isn’t wasted, but still), listening to podcasts, YT-Videos. 

Realistically, this is by far the biggest time-consumer in my day to day. This is what I should focus on the most. It mostly doesn’t serve any of my values, stresses me unnecessarily, and wastes by far the most time. The other things are actually important to me. This really isn’t. It’s just an addiction. If I got this under control, I’ll focus more on the rest if it’s necessary.

 Sacrificing will be tough. But it’s necessary if I successfully want to build a business while also getting a degree.

[Vali2003]

I have tinnitus as a result of upper back/neck tension and I think I’ve found one of the most potent stretches for releasing tension in that area (my mom showed it to me, but I’ll take credit for trying it ).

I want to share it, because I think it’s quite cool. It’s a bit difficult however and you need good body-control to do it safely. 
 

You start in this position: 

 

Then, while keeping the legs straight, you move towards this position: 

 

Obviously, you have to be incredibly flexible to get your legs as low as in this picture. But that’s not what counts. Just try to get your legs in that direction. But be gentle. Only go so far until you feel a light stretch. When you’re more comfortable there, you can progress. 
 

If your body control is more limited you can try bending your knees. It will give you more control and the stretch still works. 
 

This is the best stretch I’ve ever found for the upper back.

Edited October 1 by Vali2003

[Vali2003]

Here’s a counterintuitive thing that helps with productivity that I struggle with: 

Nor having any work-related, stimulating or stressful thoughts 1 hour before going to bed.

Examples from my life: 

• Thinking about how I’ll find a mentor for my online business
• Thinking about what kind of design I’ll do for my bedroom
• Thinking about how I’ll achieve anything I ever want 
• Thinking about work I have to do tomorrow

I have these thoughts, because it feels like I’m being productive. But really, it just leaves me too stimulated to sleep and therefore I’ll go to bed later. For me, sleeping early is really counterintuitive all together. Maybe it’s just a force of habit.

Edited October 3 by Vali2003

[Vali2003]

I stopped doing CS50 .

I know I said I’ll definitely continue with it, but I knew already that I’ll talk myself into stopping. I think it was the right decision, however.

I had already put some 30 hours into the course and my understanding of what programming entails is a lot better now than it was at the beginning. Of course, it would be even better, and more accurate had I continued for 5-6 more weeks. But the effort for the, likely marginal, gain seemed disproportionate. I gained valuable experience through doing this. But I’m really happy to focus on my business again. 

I just had this sensation, like nothing more was to gain for me by continuing. David Deida describes this nicely in his The Way of the Superior Man:

“Among signs of fulfilling or completing a layer of purpose are these: 

1. You suddenly have no interest in a project or mission that, just previously, motivated you highly.
2. You feel surprisingly free of any regrets whatsoever, for starting the project or ending it. 
3. […]”

Both point one and point two ring true in my case. I’m happy I started it. And free of regret for having ended it. 

I feel I know, being a programmer is not my biggest passion, but still, I developed some interest for it. And I could imagine myself learning further skills if they’d be useful in a concrete case. 

Is there some doubt about stopping? Honestly, yes, there is. Just a little though, in the background. I think I’ll always have that when I stop with anything. Knowing when I stop with something genuinely, because I think it’s smarter vs. because I’m deceiving myself, is not one of my strengths. That’s for sure. Good quitting is a skill I’ll need to develop. 

I think this is due to my frequent school skipping, which I did as a kid/early teenager. I’d lie to my mom about being sick and then I never knew when it was actually legitimate to stay home sick. I always felt like I was lying to my mom, even if I was actually doing bad.

It’s the same now. I’m always gonna feel this slight doubt. At least for now.  

 

Edited October 3 by Vali2003

[Vali2003]

I’m feeling anxious this evening. I spent all day doing stuff. Not spending a lot of time outside, or doing physical activity. But I’m not anxious because of that — at least not for the main part. It’s more because of the dopamine detox, I have a social media addiction after all. I strongly feel the urge to look at the sub forums here, or just open my laptop and turn on an episode of Modern Family or some other sitcom. Not to be dramatic, but it feels like I need it to survive. It’s not the most kick in the nuts kind of fear. It’s more steady, and fed by lack of social media or the quick dopamine hit to shut it off, within the next hours. 

[Vali2003]

I feel it would be powerful to talk about what precisely scares me so much here. But also, I’m really frightened to speak about it. I’d have to face my demons. That’s what would make it powerful, I guess. 

[Vali2003]

Fuck it, why not. Here we go. 

I’ll have to reach back a bit to properly explain my fear so this will be quite a long post, I reckon. 

I have a tinnitus. Like I mentioned before. I have it on both ears, but differently. The left one is more steady, and the right one is more dependent on how much direct pressure was on that side of my jaw or neck. For example, the noise will be louder, if I sleep on the right side. 

Anyways, when I first got this tinnitus at age 16, I  developed a big fear of silence. Or more accurately a fear of lack of noises. Since this would always reveal the tinnitus and force me to confront it. It was probably the biggest fear I ever encountered up to that point. It may be hard to relate to this fear for people without tinnitus. I’ll try to explain it a bit.

The way, fear of tinnitus works is that the noise feels like a threat to your survival. At least in the beginning. It’s incredibly frightening for something in your consciousness to suddenly change and not know where it comes from, if it will ever go away again, if it’s dangerous etc. Because of this, you develop a sort of protective stance of the noise. You try to block it out as a sort of mental position, but also with music, white noise, people talking or whatever noise is available. This way though, whenever this is not possible, fear arises. You can’t run away anymore. Now you start listening for it. You put your attention there hoping not to find anything. 

Is it still there? 

It is, of course still there. And then, sometimes, you hyperfocus on the noise anxiously. And the noise grows stronger, and you grow more anxious, until you cope in some healthy way, or find something that donates enough dopamine quickly, so you feel alright again.

Now, the tinnitus doesn’t scare me anymore. I’ve grown accustomed to it. But since probably over a year, I sometimes hear this ringing as a very faint siren noise. It‘s worse when there’s some noise in the background, like the radiator, or dishwasher. The siren noise isn’t really there. If I focus my attention on where in my consciousness it lies, I notice that it’s just the ringing. It’s like a smokescreen, sort of. But still, it scares me. 

It does, because I can’t fully grow accustomed to it. I fear that this is not actually somehow a result of my anxiety combined with my tinnitus, but that I suffer from schizophrenia, and I’m slowly losing my mind. The fear is perverse, because it combines the two greatest fears I’ve ever had. It combines this listening for the noise, like I said above, with my fear of mental illness: 

Is the noise still there? 

And, if this is answered with a yes, does that mean I’m mentally ill?

Of course because of my fear for the answer, just like I used to fear the tinnitus still being there, I hope not to hear the noise. 

I already did some sort of test for psychosis — or more so, if my mental state would suggests a tendency —and I don’t actually have any of the symptoms. Also, it’s somewhat common for people with tinnitus to develop such things, although I’m not as well read in this as I could be. 

However, fears don’t answer to logic, so here I am.

I guess, if I really want to free myself from this fear I’lll have to let go of certain parts of my identity. Of those parts that would be ruined, destroyed, or killed by my fear materializing. For example, I cling to having a family at some point, to having peace of mind, to being successful in this world, to have great relationships, to be normal, to have sanity etc. All these things would likely be ruined by psychosis, which is probably why fear of mental illness is so common. Mental illness destroys many of the parts of life that we hold closest. To defeat that fear I’d have to be willing to give all that up (mentally at least, I’m not saying I’d have to actually stop pursuing them). Safe to say, that is quite a tall task.

If you read all this, hi and thanks and good night 

[Vali2003]

One more thing: Today, I prepped everything for finding my mentor. I found about twelve potential candidates and their contact infos. Tomorrow I’ll use the cold-outreach strategies I learned from Alex Hormozi to contact them.

I think, tomorrow, I’ll focus on the best five candidates, contact them over all mediums I have available, and do this probably two or three times spread throughout the day. I must be consistent in trying to reach them, because there aren’t so many potential mentors in my niche. I gotta make the ones I found count. 

Calling them will be the biggest challenge. I also feel slightly guilty for doing this approach but I think they would truly be very happy about the offer, as I’m willing to pay them a good amount for some simple mentoring. 

I also already prepped the criteria for what the person needs to have, and a written agreement — or contract if you want. 

Edited October 3 by Vali2003

[Vali2003]

I use too many commas, lol.

[Vali2003]

Sleep is so sensitive to interruptions or irregularities in schedule. 

My sleep the last three nights has been really good. Still, every morning except today I felt tired, and sluggish in my mind. Just because for one night before that, I slept late, and didn’t get enough sleep / the quality was too bad. It only takes one night to accumulate enough sleep debt that it takes three really good nights to make up for it. 

Usually, at the point where I’ve just made up for my sleep debt, something comes in between and I have a bad night of sleep again. This time, I’ll try to extend my good nights streak to at least a week or something like that. 

I’m visiting a friend of mine in Hamburg tomorrow and I said I’ll sleep over at this. I will probably cancel this, and see if we can meet earlier so that I can get home in time to get into bed.

[Vali2003]

I sent a bunch of messages to potential mentors, but I don’t think anyone is gonna work out unfortunately. That’s fine though, I got Alex Hormozi. I also enjoy the process of figuring stuff out on my own, although it definitely isn’t the most efficient. But yeah, there are free resources out there as well, so I’m not on my own. 

[Vali2003]

My three day social media detox ended today at 6PM. And… right away I spent too much time here on this forum. The thing is, especially if I engage with posts, they become incredibly magnetic to me. I check them way too often, look for answers etc. It has to do with my need for approval. 

At the moment, I’m doing a three day social media detox at the beginning of the month and at the half-point. But I need to find a solution that is more permanent. Less of this up and down. 

Most of my social media problems come from this forum, YT-Shorts, and YT-videos. So these are the ones I need to limit. I also sometimes watch some Netflix before bed, but that’s not a problem for me. 

I could say that I limit my use of this forum (except for this journal) to 0 minutes during workdays and 60 minutes during the weekends. And I’d do the same with YT. This way, I think I’d get away almost completely from my addiction, while not having to cut myself off from it completely. Maybe I can lock YT via my phone so that I can only use it on the weekends and then have a time limit of 60 minutes. 

I’ll flesh this out tomorrow. Am too tired now.

 

 

[Vali2003]

It’s nuts how good I feel when I consistently sleep well.

[Vali2003]

Still lots of things to improve with my sleep as well. Making it colder and darker in my room are the two main things.

[Vali2003]

I’ve rediscovered the Sedona Method. Aka just letting go of stuff. It’s so simple yet powerful. It works really well for me, especially if I let go of the same feeling several times, in close proximity. I’ll try to keep in mind that it exists for the future, but probably I’ll forget about it again soon. 

[Vali2003]

I feel I’m making progress with my business. Not in terms of being very close to having paying clients yet, but in terms of discovering effective principles and aligning with them. 

[Vali2003]

My social media use has been annoying though. Tomorrow morning, I’ll decide how I’ll deal with that. There’s not time to mess around.

[Vali2003]

There was one very positive development today: I’m finally able to believe that I can succeed. It feels tangible now, and possible. Before, I always had a lot of doubt whether a new online business could even work in this AI-age. But I’ve realized that this thought is quite detached from reality. 

[Vali2003]

I’ve decided, not to use the forum and YT at all from Monday to Friday. But I still allow myself to watch a bit of a sitcom before sleeping, listening to podcasts, to music etc. This is quite balanced and I think will work out better than anything I’ve tried before. I’ve probably done about 10 dopamine detoxes before — some as long as thirty days — and I’ve learned quite a lot about how to properly do it (for me). 

This is not a detox, however, it’s a permanent change. I will reassess how it works in two weeks and then I may tweak some stuff. I currently do not have a time limit for the weekend so we’ll de how that works. 

[Vali2003]

I have to really focus now, on getting my room properly set up. I still don’t have a desk, lol, so I do all my work sitting on the floor. 

It’s a bit annoying because I’d much rather work on my business and I don’t care all that much about my room. But I know the smarter thing is to do it nicely. A workspace that I love will do a world of a difference. Gotta bite the bullet now and be patient. It’ll take about 2-3 more days since I have to paint one of my walls.