Before nofap, I had no direction to life. Almost everything was just going through the motions and really just taking a passive front seat to my own existence.
Whether it was in my studies, friendships, relationships, etc. I was simply not “active”. I wasn’t present. Now, I had known about nofap for awhile but I had always just thought of it as an interesting idea and not something that I would really do. I had a change of heart when my first long-term girlfriend broke up with me. (It was a rather traumatic experience for me and I prefer not to go into it.) I was already depressed and a complete mess before that happened, though. My life made me feel like a scared kid on a never-ending roller coaster; I had no control over anything and I just wanted off. After the breakup I hit my absolute low. After wallowing in complete misery for awhile I realized that I couldn’t live like that anymore. I was either going to die, or force myself to start living. “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.” were my actual thoughts and I have the Shawshank Redemption to thank for that. It wasn’t a resounding spring-up from where I was, but I decided that I owed it to myself to try. And I did. I tried hard. Through lots of reading and self-reflective writing, I started to get better. Slowly but steadily I was healing myself. And it was around this last June that I started browsing nofap more in my search for improvement…
Building my base for success:I admit that my PMO habits weren’t as severe as many of yours. In fact I didn’t think that I had any kind of addiction at all. That is, until a decided to quit. The longer I abstained from PMO the more I realized that it was just an empty outlet for pent up emotion, a numbing for the lack of positive things in our lives, a submission to your body and by association, a submission to your potential, etc. Anyway, I went cold-turkey and that stays true to this day and I don’t plan on changing that. One thing that has been monumentally helpful in beating my addiction is simply telling myself that I don’t PMO. Too many people start with this passive approach of “I’m going to try and stop!” or “I relapsed but I’m gonna try harder this time!”. The problem is that the word “try” and the attitude behind it leaves room for you to fail. It shows lack of faith in yourself in your endeavors. Trust yourself, because nobody is ever going to trust you more than you can/do. Nobody is ever going to know you better than you do so why not start knowing yourself in a positive way? Start knowing the self that you want to become simply by becoming that self. “I don’t PMO” has so much more power behind it than “I try”. Your incentive is that you’re right that you don’t PMO as long as you simply don’t. You all know that you are your own most powerful, important judge. Make those judgments positive ones.
Benefits: Quite honestly there are way to many to count. When I really take a look at my life now from a macro-view I can say that this journey has impacted every aspect of it in a fantastic way. Quitting PMO lead to further healthy shifting of my outlook and that’s what I hold to be most important: Mindset. We’re all limited by what we process through our minds but through building a healthier outlook on myself I have in turn created a healthier outlook on everything else around me and this is what gives you “superpowers”. Without the brainfog and all that other hormonal crap that gets in the way on PMO, you open yourself up to thinking about the things you don’t really want to think about (the things you should be thinking about) and THAT’S WHAT MAKES YOU GROW. I have benefited 1000x more from my struggles than I have my wins. Notice how I didn’t say losses? You will never lose if you never quit. I know this is all very cliche sounding but I really just feel the itching need to hammer this into everyone because it’s vastly important, and those of you that don’t quite understand what it really means now, will at some point.
Anyway if you guys care about the more micro-view of progress here’s a list.
-More sociable: Not like that fake kind of sociable where you can tell that you don’t really care but the real genuine kind of sociable where you actually care about what the other is saying. Those that you’re communicating with notice this! This one has given me better relationships with everyone around me and it’s an incredible experience.
-More energy: I don’t feel lethargic and exhausted all the time anymore and when I do, I don’t relish in it like I used to; it’s a scary thing when you realize that you were comfortable being exhausted/lazy/unhappy..
-More “life”: You’d be surprised just how much the world opens up to you when you start living actively instead of sitting along for the ride.
-More improvement: it’s funny that once you are successful in something you start to seek success in other things, sometimes things you’ve never done. For example I started working out (seriously this time) and started my own business. Both of which, are going pretty well.
-More health: (I would have just said “healthier” but I feel the need to stick with the “more” thing. Note that quitting PMO doesn’t cure OCD or neuroticism) For whatever reason, be it lack of stress or better attention to hygiene/diet/exercise or d) all of the above, my skin looks better, I hardly ever get headaches, I used to have chest pains and now I don’t, my junk is all-around more healthy too.
I could go on if you’d like but at this point I feel as if I’m just rambling. If any of you have any kind of specific questions for me about anything at all, don’t hesitate to PM me.
To 92 and beyond: To wrap things up, I just hope that you all realize how noble all of you are in taking strides to your ideal images of yourselves. If anything that I said has helped, motivated, shocked, resonated, or provoked then this post has done it’s job. The same job that many of your posts have done for me.
I just want to thank you guys for being such a spectacular community. There aren’t many groups of such diverse individuals that can survive, grow, and thrive together such as this: a collection of individuals who are truly trying to do something great; something most people never take any conscious step towards or maybe even think about: building a better you. Everybody here is taking the patience and strength to improve and this should be an incredible source of motivation and pride for all of you. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I am proud of you. Keep up the good work.
LINK – 0 day (+1): Reporting in!
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