I had seen this thread bumped multiple times and bookmarked a few weeks ago for later reading.
Today I closed a deal on a house. I take possession in two weeks. Normally I think I should feel what other people feel when they purchase a property; elation, happiness, triumph.
Instead I felt somewhat angry and frustrated. I looked at my friends; one announced they were expecting their first child. Another one of my friends is getting married next month. Another spent the weekend picking out the best projector and lounge furniture to go into his recently purchased house with his fiance.
I couldn't help but feel I wish I had a stable LTR to celebrate something like this with. Instead I haven't told anyone except my brother and my parents and this post. I was frustrated at work so much that I couldn't concentrate and was looking for music to fix my mind. I couldn't wait till tomorrow when I could go to my sparring training and just punch the shit out of a focus mitt.
Breaking bad spoiler below (meh not really a spoiler, but just in case)
It reminded me of that Breaking Bad episode where after Jesse has made it big, he asks Walter if he wants to go go karting later. Walter says he has to go home to his family. The episode ends with Jesse driving around the track alone while yelling out because in spite of his success and was surrounded by people at his party earlier, he still felt alone.
I was in Italy a few weeks ago by myself; my friends were going to arrive the next day. That evening, I approached a young woman who looked like a tourist and talked to her for about an hour. Neither of us had dinner, so we went to a place and grabbed dinner, nothing happened after.
When my friends arrived the next day they asked what I did the day before. I said walked around, saw some stuff, had dinner with a random girl. They thought it was incredible (they are quite blue pill betas) that I could just go up to a random girl, talk to her and not have to have dinner by myself sitting alone at a restaurant in some foreign city. But I knew that the forum members here would have been able to convert that into a bang, so I still felt it was a failure and actually left a bit of a mark on my first day there.
I look back and see how far I have come. But I look forward and it is somewhat dispiriting how much further I have to go. When I was at the one of the meetups, Roosh said specifically to me "You have to put in the hard work". I look at my friends who I mentioned before, they would find the views in this forum 'abhorrent' and 'mysogynistic', so it makes me think: I only have 48 hours per weekend, how best to spend those hours? Gaming for paltry results, or doing something I genuinely enjoy?
I've been told that it is bad to be comparing yourself to others. But when every man can run and I can still only crawl, its is a form of bitching out to tell yourself feel good bullshit like "don't compare yourself to others".
I guess I just wanted to say thanks for this thread, it resonated with me. Earlier today I knew when I came home, I had to finally read it. Rep given.
This thread reminded me of the Stockdale Paradox, an idea by the highest ranking officer POW in the Vietnam war:
Quote:Quote:
When Collins asked who didn't make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:
Oh, that's easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.
Stockdale then added:
This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.