Power of Persistence

Last night I finally had a lucid dream I liked. I already had more than 300 lucid dreams, but they were all timid, foggy(low control, low recall) and boring.

If you don't know what lucid dream is, it's a dream where you control the environment, your actions and the story of the dream. For example you can even fly and have lots of fun. Throughout the whole dream, if done correctly, you are aware of what's going on and therefore remember the dream better than normal dreams after you wake up.

I, however, did not do lucid dreaming correctly. For many nights  struggled with different lucid dreaming induction techiques, many in sleep techiques like spinning to prolong the lenght of lucid dreams, but all dreams turned out to be extremely boring and seemed like they were totally not worth it.

They were not worth it, but ony till last night. Last night I finally had a dream where I did what I wanted to do for a very long time: I was fully aware I was dreaming, remembered in which bed I was lying(for instance I could lie in a different bed if I was on vacation), talked to my subconciousness(which normally gives great answers, but this time they turn out very well as I only talked to it for a minute) and flew while being aware of it(flying and not feeling like it's real life-like is incredibly dull).

So what have I did that I managed to have an enjoyable lucid dream? Absolutely nothing. The only thing that changed was the lenght of how long I was trying to have such lucid dreams. The key element was persistence. Even though I gave up throughout the last two years for several times, I just somehow knew I would achieve my goal.

Well, suffice it to say I haven't really achieved my goal but that doesn't matter. I know I'm heading in the right direction.

Objective reality and death

I guess you have probably heard about subjective reality. You are and born and temporary lose your memory of your previous life outside this reality, you grow up, play with your life a little bit, grow old and die, therefore returning to the your real life where you origin from.

But let's take a look at the objective reality and death from that perspective. Many of us think that death is something painful, cold, when our lives are lost and over, etc. We all think our lives are precious and should be "used" correctly. I completely agree with that.

On the other hand, however, I don't agree we should play safely by the rules, so that we don't screw up the one chance we have on this precious Earth. From the day I remember, I couldn't understand why are there silly rules in this world like unwritten social rules and especially laws.

Instead, I believe if reality was objective(I actually believe it's subjective) and there would be no God, afterlife or similiar, how we lived our lives wouldn't matter at all after we died.

While I don't believe we should live our lives in anarchy, ignorance, slacking off all day and not caring about anything that's going on around us, but we should not worry too much how we live our lives.

Songs you should avoid

-Dead and gone by T.I.

-Lonely by Akon

-My life by The Game

By the title I mean the types of songs you should avoid, mpre specifically the songs that are by their nature depressive. This list is also by no means exaustive.

What I mean to say with this is some songs are just rather depressive to listen to, and if yiu have a tendency to replay the songs in your head, listening to them can have a very negative effect.

Have you ever found yourself being depressed because of listening to such songs? I certainly have and it is quite annoying when you can't get the song out of your head.

Straight back and body height

I've recently discovered that (in young age-up to 25 years) it is possible to increase body height if you have your back straight most of the time.

What an amazing discovery! I always thought I'm stuck at my height, but it seems I was wrong.

School and LOA

Law of Attraction, that is.

Something quite interesting happened to me today. I had three negative subjects(grammar), but my head teacher(again, grammar) persuaded the teachers of the three subjects to make them positive.

This probably happened because I was never really botherered by my negative grades. I always kept a positive attitude towards them. So I believe that Law of Attraction kicked in and the Universe did the hard work for me.

Am I any happier because of this? Not really, I realise that I partly cheated and didn't really face the problem except for holding positive thoughts.

Catastrophy

I didn't manage to masturbate less oftenly than once every two days.

I don't know the reasons yet, but it is surely catastrophic in comparison to my previous achievement, which was 9 days in a row.

[ADULT]How to increase the quality

[ADULT WARNING:This post is meant for 18+ adults only.]

Sorry I'm not talking about sex, since I haven't had one yet. I'm sure the title attracted your attention though. :D I will talk(again) about masturbation though-so you have guessed correctly if you were thinking about pleasure.

So let's get to the point: how did I improve pleasure of masturbation? If you have been following this site for a longer time, you have probably noticed my 30-days no masturbation trial. You have read that I've managed to go 9 days without masturbation, and I'm also doing quite fine right now, which is 4 days without masturbation.

So this is how I improved my quality of masturbation. I just decided to not masturbate as oftenly(which was every day), and gee, the results have been incredible. You just won't believe what happened to me in the bathroom. :D

Now you know. I won't say that it'll work the same for you or that it will even work for me in the future. But it's definitely worth a shot.

Face your fears! trial

No, this is not another 30-day trial, and no I'm not taking (too) big risks because of the courageous title because I believe that would be stupid.

Instead I am reportint about my attempt to face my imaginary fears such as fear of girls. Even though this might turn of to be one of the wierdest blog posts you've ever read(except if you're reading Steve Pavlina), I think that following my advice will help you at least as much as it helped me.

Once again, the fourth time, I think, I'll recommend you to take challenges in your life, however this time I'll give you a much better example of what to do.

So back to my imaginary fears.  I happen to be a 10% mental retard(my definition), so I have a problem of understanding of what's going on around me, which consequents in low ability to act correctly in social situations(my psychologist's definition).

That's why I decided every time I don't understand something, I fully confront it. So if I don't know if a girl is giving me a flirtious look, I look right at her to figure it out(I happen to be a bit of a machist =)  ). If I don't know if I believe someone is thinking I'm not self-confident and tries therefore to make fun of me(remember my low understanding of how reality really looks like) I look directly at him to show him I am more than self-confident.

If you had a problem understanding the second example, I'm sorry this is the best explanation I can provide :=).

So anyways what I'm trying to say is not to follow me directly in what I'm doing as I believe that's clearly not your lifestyle. Instead take a look at what seems challenging to you and attack it head-on(just make sure it's not too challenging) and you will realise that either(or both or altogether):

a)the problem you are facing is actually not that bad and is quite fun to be doing

b)the situation is not as scary and terrifying as it first seemed like

In other words, problems might not be only there for you as obstacles, but also as opportunities to grow, have fun, learn something, etc. If you want a more detailed explanation and where I got that crazy idea, take a look at the Joy of Solving Problems blog article by, again and perhaps for the 20th time, Steve Pavlina.

Conscious choice

I have a favourite quote from Roswell(old TV show), but I don't remember it quite well, because I can't look it up, since I deleted the episode along with all the others, when I decided to go 

anti-piracy. :) So here it goes:

"I'm sorry Dad. I'm going to dance with Maxwell because I love him. It's my choice." Liz Parker, Roswell

Ah, young love, isn't it beautiful(I'm young and have been in love myself :) )? Again, I don't remember it literally, so don't bash me, my fellow Roswell lovers, for this terrible treshold.

Anyways, what I learnt from this saying(which was created this way for a reason), is that you shouldn't always listen to what others are telling you to do, even if they are your parents, especially if they're holding you back from doing what you love to do-yes, even if it's risky, challenging, or both.

So follow your heart's true desires. Don't just go with the flow. Rock the boat(don't follow that literally, though :) ).

End of the 30-day trial on masturbation

I ended the trial at day 10(meaning I finished 9 days), but I don't consider it a failure because:

• I broke my record in resisting masturbation by 6 days
• I didn't end it because I gave in, but because I thought it was no longer necessary-of course I did because of the temptation as well, but that wasn't the only reason at all. I thought it was no longer necessary because I already accomplished enough and I have other ways of building my self-discipline

It was a good trial! :)

30-day no masturbation trial, DAY 9

Today has been extremely difficult. I'm thinking about quitting, but I don't worry it, since I have already done a remarkable job breaking my record by 6 days.

It is new to me that I have the same thoughts that previously made me quit, but I just don't quit. It's really interesting to see my self-discipline improving at such a fast pace.

Well I have a fight with my *cough*, so I gotta go!

30-day no masturbation trial, DAY 8

Today(or yesterday, I'm writing this one day late) has been quite rough concerning the temptation, probably because I exaggerated on the challenge(wrote about it a couple of days ago), and instead of stretching myself, I overstretched myself. Because of too much pressure and strain, my thoughts self-discipline fell and I was closer to giving in.

Btw, today I was writing an essay in school about a book, and it turned out really damn better than I first planned for it to be.

30-day no masturbation trial, DAYS 6-7

Just like I mentioned in the recent post, my brother took mouse and keyboard of my computer so I have to write on a public library computer.

I can't really say what happened on days 6-7 since it's really harder to remember two days instead of one. I can say, however, that I didn't experience any problems with resisting the temptation like I did before when I haven't started building my self-discipline.

So that this won't be just another generic post in the series of the trial, let me suggest to you to start building your self-discipline, since it is really a worthy pursuit, or at least it is in my case, since everyone is different.

Oneness World

Once again, I mention Steve Pavlina's book(and provide a link to it). But I've remember a wonderful exercise from the book. It's called the Oneness World. If you're not familiar with the concept of Oneness, it is a theory that everyone in this world(or even Universe) is the part of the same whole, everyone is a cell in larger body of the Universe, and if something bad happens to one cell, the whole body suffers.

So here a couple of suggestions of what I believe would happen if the entire world was in the state of Oneness:

• no laws or moral laws
• consequently, no prisons
• no wars, poverty, violence, rape
• no gangsta rap music
  

I am writing this to familiarize you with another perspective of how life looks like.

No computer

My mother siezed my computer today(she took the mouse and the keyboard), so I'll be using the one from the public library.

This means only one post in two days max.

30-day no masturbation trial, DAY 5

I know I skipped a day and I'm sorry. :)

This day I've been feeling extremely well, though I don't know if it is because of no more masturbation. Through the day I've been feeling no nervousness and had no need to do shake the hands with Denis, which is actually I huge improvement.

What I forgot to mention and is very important is why did I feel the need to stop masturbating:

• I want to build my self-discipline, and I picked masturbation because it is hard for me to quit, so it was a challenge
• I wanted to know if I'll feel any better
• I don't like addictions: I never smoked cigarettes, drinked alcohol(at least never been drunk, I drank a sip here and there but never have never been addicted). drinked coffee, or smoked pot

30-day no masturbation trial, DAY 3

Much easier than anticipated, but it still wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done. There was a bit of nervousness, which are probably withdrawal syptoms, probably especially for those that have problems with their nerves like me.

Other than that, this has been my best day 3 so far in this type of trial, plus what's even much better tommorow I'm going to break the record of how long I've went without masturbating! It might not sound like anything special, since many have no trouble not masturbating for weeks, but for me it is something great.

30-day no masturbation trial, DAY 2

I know this might seem a little weird, but I'm starting with posting of the day two of the trial. I just didn't feel as confident I'll complete the 30-day trial yesterday as I am today. This mostly(or completely) the result of the taking on challenges, which I described more deeply in the recent Challenge article.

So anyways, the day two is going better than ever before, because the ammount of confidence I have is just insane. I don't have to push myself anymore just to not masturbate-I used to back out exactly on day two, and I was lucky if I got that far.

This time, however, I feel absolutely no resistance, because I'm confident that I can do it.

By the way, I am also getting results elsewhere because of this boost in confidence. Just for example, I am finally doing enough math exercises that I'm actually getting good at them. Also I'm having a straight back and... well, the list is getting longer and longer. :)

Anyways, as for the day two of the trial, like I already said, I'm doing quite well, especially comparing to the last 2-day trial.

Life is beautiful, isn't it?

Directness

This blog wouldn't be named Story of My Life if I haven't ever written a post in a diary fashion. :)

Once again, I adopted this from Steve Pavlina's book.

So what happened to me was that I finally told my friend to stop teasing me and (almost) insulting, because I behave more open-mindedly(read:unordinarilly). So I used a very direct approach and told him to just stop it or I won't jog with him anymore. Might sound a bit harsh, but I had to told him.

You should really try it some time. It sure worked for me. It takes a bit of courage, but results are worth it.

Three trees

I got the idea for this post because of reading about Oneness in Steve Pavlina's book Personal Development for Smart People, which I described(but not reviewed) in a recent post.

Recently our neighbours decided to buy our orchard, which really belonged to the state, to turn it into a parking lot to expand their advocate bussiness. We immediately decided to lawsuit them because they decided(and did) to cut our trees without permission. They later bought the orchard, but deep down I haven't been calmed down.

My brother commented that they were just a bunch of trees, but I didn't fully agree with that. I believe cutting those trees had much greater importance than it first seemed. According to the principle Oneness, which states that we are all connected with the entire universe, cutting those trees(in metaphor) cut many other trees across the world.

By putting money before the planet's health, our neighbours did a very unconscious thing. I believe that only preserving a couple of trees, we make ourselves as a comparison for how people should behave towards the environment, in this case for all the people who know about this, and in theory, it even unconsciously affected people across the globe.

What a waste.

Morality and Law

I don't fully agree with morality being the cornerstone of society. Many will argue that without moral, unwritten laws, everyone would behave like barbarians: lying, cheating, etc. To stir things even more, I believe that we would also survive without written laws.

So let's start with moral laws, before you jump out of your skin and pound my head to make it run more effectively. Why do I think that moral laws are useless? Because I believe they are the actual cause of immoral behavior, since they steal person's freedom by forcing them to act like a slave to others, consequently acting unfreely, constantly wanting to be express their freedom. Unfortunately they do so by acting immoraly.

Same goes with prisons, they make people feeling like slaves since they fear going to prison, consequently commiting crime.

However I believe that removing written and unwritten laws should be done very progressively. If they were removed all at once, immorality and crime would only expand. But if it was done progressively, we would all greatly benefit from it.

Personal Development for Smart People Book

No this won't be the thousandth review of the book, because I believe there are enough of them already. However, I will post my experience with the book, more specifically so called Principles; if you would like author's description of the book, click here. If you want to read the free chapter of the book, click here.

I will tell you how I have applied the seven principles in this book, starting with the primary three, and then moving to secondary ones. So, here it goes(I suggest that you read the material in both links presented above before you continue reading this article):

• Truth: This one was by far the easiest principle to apply, probably becuase I was already good with it before I've read the book.
• Love: I haven't had much luck with applying this principle, but I successfully applied the exercises in Steve's book, connecting with the objects and close ones.
• Power: This is for me by far the hardest principle to apply, turning desires into results, but I've had some minor progress in this area, as you could read in my recent article called Challenge.
• Authority: The easiest thing to apply from this principle was from the section Orchestrate Small Rebelions. This might sound weird, but I've intentionally behaved differently than social standards require. I've made eye contact with total strangers(even though they refused to return it) and tried to tell jokes even though I have low social skills and I could embaress myself.
• Courage: This one goes without saying-I've taken small risks to stretch my courage(or Courage) capacity.
• Oneness: I've spent time in nature(by the way, our country looks like a rainforest compared to USA where you can mostly see skyscrapers, traffic lights,...-so it wasn't that hard to find natural places): I observed trees, grass, our garden, listened to birds and the feeling of oneness was great. I felt so connected to everything and everyone.
• Intelligence: This is probably the hardest principle to understand(at least for me), so I haven't had the opportunity to apply it so far.

I hope this helped you understand the seven principles of Life.

Truth is unchangeable

Many people percieve truth as something permanent, unchangeable, timeless. The problem with this mindset, however is that we cannot truly percieve the truth as it is. Anything we can do related to truth is hold certain beliefs. We cannot truly percieve the truth, however.

So it is smart to not identify with our beliefs and recognise that we could be wrong.

Challenge

Recently I decided to put several things in my life in order:

-stop procrasinating

-have more discipline

-have less naps

I think you see the common pattern underneath all of these. I accomplished all of these things just by deciding to take on challenges. I don't know if it will be this easy for you if you try it(since everyone is different), but I wanted to share this with you since I had amazing results with this technique.

If you're also interested in what ways has this helped me, here it is:

-as I already mentioned, less naps

-greater self-confidence(I have a "friend" to whom I don't respond like a coward whenever he insults me-in a teasing way)

-cleaned up and tidied my room every day

-never throw the trash on the floor

These all seemed challenging to do at first, but once I started on them, all the actions flowed almost effortlessly, or at least easier than it first seemed.

So I encourage you to do the same: take a look at everything that's challenging to you and make a list of the easiest challenges. Then slowly progress from the smallest challenges to bigger ones and cross them off the list.

Optimistic View of Life

Here is a website that might enchance your general view of how life looks like:

StevePavlina.com

Personally I try to keep a positive perspective of how life looks like, even about things that I don't fully understand. This way it's not even required to understand something: you just know for sure that it's beautiful. :)

Vegeterian Vs Vegan

I haven't tried vegan diet yet, but I'm going to do it as soon as possible.

But let's take a look at how I believe vegeterian relates to vegan. From what I've heard, vegan enchances mind, emotions and health. However, while vegeterian does increase mental capatibilities and health, it does NOT enchance emotions, which vegan does in a great way(again, from what I've heard).

So if your primary goal is to achieve happiness and inner peace-why even go vegeterian? The answer is simple: I believe it is a great tool to bridge the gap between meats diet and vegan. It decreases the problems with emotional detox that happens when you start vegan diet. :)

Great Video About Animal Vs. Plant Food

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1549763175867837730

I am a vegetarian myself, can't wait to become vegan! :)

Greatest Fear Method

By me. :D

I was thinking a couple of days ago about my fears and realised something very interesting: I'm afraid of someone putting female hormones into my food, turning me into a female.

I mean, Jesus Christ, what are the odds of that happening? :D

What is your greatest fear? Is it absurd and there is a small chance of it happening? By observing your fears you can acknowledge if they are even reasonable, rendering you a better perspective at your fears.

Direct Approach to Problems

I've been bullied by two schoolmates, verbal bullying that is, because I'm not good at volleyball, so they constantly annoyed me about why "are you not concentrated?" "why don't you just hit the damn ball" during the physical exercise classes.

My problem is with concentration, I've even been to a psychiatric clinic because of it.

Fortunately, though, it was not meant to last. :)

I talked to each one of them, and realised they didn't even meant it seriously. One of them even told me to just relax since it was only about that he was motivated for the game, so he want his team to perform well. :P

So what I'm trying to say here is that using direct approach to problems can really change things greatly, so what you have to do is muster some courage and just say "the heck with it", and do it.

You won't regret it.

Mindfulness and joy

Mindfulness brings joy to one's life. -me

This might not seem quite obvious, but the more you're capable of controling your thoughts, the more happy can you become.

Ask why

Have you ever asked why are you doing the things that you're doing? Like for example why did you go jogging today? To enchance health, to have fun?

I asked myself this question for what I do and realised that for most things I just do them unconsciously and automatically(instead of consciously and deliberately).

1.Why do I think that reality is subjective?
2.Why do I go jogging every day?
3.Why do I study?
4.Why do I play computer for 5 hours a day?

To all of this questions the answer was "Just because...". Hmm... So let's take a while to answer those questions:
1.Because I've read it somewhere.
2.Because I like to hang out with my jogging buddy, and because I already lost 2 pounds because of it.
3.Because I want to have some knowledge(no, it's not for getting a better job).
4.Because I have nothing better to do.

I hope this will help you look at your daily habits.