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.