Writing my thoughts down and seeing them on paper gives them a feeling of legitimacy. They sound so nonsensical when they’re still in the mind. In the mind, they’re fluid and constantly changing. I fear my thoughts will get lost or go in the wrong direction. So I adapt by thinking too much.

It’s been a lot more than a year since I’ve been trying to get through these 40 day resolutions. And here are some reasons why I always fail. First of all, all 7 of them are integrated. If one fails, all 7 fail. If one survives, the other 6 are on much stronger ground.

Only one of these 7 resolutions actually requires me to do something significant: keep a schedule.

In order of difficulty,

(1) Don’t disable the filter: what can be easier.
(2) Write down a schedule the night before: this can, in its most basic form, take as little as two minutes.
(3) Don’t lie down, except when I go to bed: how hard can that be? I’m exhausted? Don’t lie down for a nap. Brush my teeth, set a schedule and go to bed.
(4) Don’t look at porn: this has unfortunately been a long-term struggle for me. I remember days when I was hopelessly addicted. I literally couldn’t function without it. Now it seems to be less so. I’ve drilled into my mind enough times thoughts about how damaging it is. These days it seems to mostly come up when I’m surfing the net otherwise.
(5) Don’t surf the internet without a schedule: This is very difficult. For so long, the internet has been my life, my entertainment. My sin. My soul. My mind becomes lonely and scared at the thought that my computer be shut down for the night. How horrible! How inhumane! NO Ilyusha! These are precisely the kind of self-destructive mental loops that these resolutions are designed to get me out of.
(6) Don’t touch myself: I couldn’t live without it since I was 12. I’m so scared of stopping. I feel like I’ll self-combust if I do. But it glues me to these vicious, self-destructive cycles. I’m not a real person when I’m masturbating. I’m daydreaming. I’m pretending I’m someone else. I’m getting my body used to sensations in such a way that they detract from pleasures of real women.
(7) Keep to a schedule: This is the most difficult one. If I can do this, I am nearly guaranteed of accomplishing all of the other 6 resolutions combined. I have to be smart about this one. I have to know my limits before hand. I can not schedule more than those. Otherwise I’ll do less.


What did you expect?