It's time to change
- Thread starter logicprox
- Start date
101 days. Really starting to notice a return of nighttime and morning erections again. Not at 100 all the time, but both frequency and strength are noticeably returning. Also starting to have that feeling down there when I encounter a beautiful woman again like before porn. Not like I am getting an erection (which is probably good out in public) but just that little sensation. My brain seems to be starting to remember that they were supposed to be the trigger of healthy sexual desire, not some pixels.
That's great to hear. Do you think it's time to post a success story in this section of the forum? https://forum.rebootnation.org/index.php?forums/12/
Not yet honestly. I have seen improvement but not to where i would call it success yet. Hopefully soon.
107 days.
American culture has an obsession with talent and I fell for it for most of my life. I wanted to be the out of nowhere sensation, whether it was in basketball, music, or some other of my random endeavors. This manifested itself in the way I approached all the things I cared about.
Completely randomly. After all, Mozart just let inspiration come to him, right? He had bursts of creativity without putting in effort, right? Michael Jordan came out of the womb dominating the basketball court, right?
Absolutely not. Mozart in particular has a reputation for being as child prodigy, but the actual story of his upbringing as a musician is much more similar to the stories of Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters than to Link from the Legend of Zelda. His father was a brilliant musical teacher whose methods of teaching spread the world over and he had young Mozart practicing hours and hours a day. As a composer he was known to write and rewrite sections of his music over and over again. Michael Jordan was known to have a work ethic to intense that it led to fights with teammates at practice.
But the facts be damned in our culture. Talent over all. Which of course is an utterly useless approach to viewing the world, for those of us who aren't spectacularly gifted (ie. 99% of us). And yet there I was, hopelessly flinging basketballs at the hoop in hopes my shooting % would magically double without ever stopping to do the real work of identifying what could be improved with my form, or identifying which muscles were engaging at what stage and what it felt like when I made a shot. I started playing guitar at 17. For 20 years I waited to inspiration to strike so I would write the great song that the world would recognize as genius. I never studied theory beyond the basics I learned on piano as a child, I never studied songwriting techniques, I never paid attention to how other musicians used different rhythms or different melody and chord relationships, or how they brought different elements of the song in and out to create and release tension, or how different synthesized sounds were achieved. I never even bothered to notice the different tempos and the way they impacted people's desire to move.
I finally started trying to learn these things in 2023, at 37, and I have made more progress as a musician in 3 months than I made in 20 years before. Not an exaggeration. I will likely never be a big star, regardless of how good I become, as it's tough to get famous at 37 in our youth and beauty obsessed culture, but for the first time it actually seems entirely possible that I could become a producer and songwriter for others in a couple of years.
I used to think it was important to be successful with a lack of effort, which is absurd to say out loud (metaphorically here), but in reality it is how most of society thinks. I brought this attitude to my self development (or lack thereof) and to my attempts to quit PMO. I didn't want to read self-help books. Those were for lesser losers. I didn't want to apply some special strategy to defeat my bad habits, I shouldn't need such crutches.
Equally stupid mentality, born of the same fundamental misunderstanding of the world. Perhaps some people are especially talented, but you probably aren't one of them. And most of those rare few we will never know existed because it's only combining talent with at least SOME work. Behind every overnight success story I have heard is a mountain of work. And plenty of untalented people have become successful than the talented few because of their mountain of work. But not just haphazard efforts, waiting for inspiration. Smart work. I probably worked on music for 10,000 hours from 17 to 37, but it was just playing whatever happened to come into my head, so it didn't count. It wasn't until I became intentional that anything began to happen.
And nothing happened in quitting PMO until I became intentional either. Until I dispensed with the idea that I shouldn't need a strategy, that it was weakness to seek out the wisdom of others and learn what they did, and to learn what the collective knowledge of science tells us. There is no shortcut to success in anything. You can spend your whole life trying to be special, talented, successful without careful study and effort or you can do what it takes to succeed. Those are the choices.
I am putting my pride aside and doing what it takes.
American culture has an obsession with talent and I fell for it for most of my life. I wanted to be the out of nowhere sensation, whether it was in basketball, music, or some other of my random endeavors. This manifested itself in the way I approached all the things I cared about.
Completely randomly. After all, Mozart just let inspiration come to him, right? He had bursts of creativity without putting in effort, right? Michael Jordan came out of the womb dominating the basketball court, right?
Absolutely not. Mozart in particular has a reputation for being as child prodigy, but the actual story of his upbringing as a musician is much more similar to the stories of Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters than to Link from the Legend of Zelda. His father was a brilliant musical teacher whose methods of teaching spread the world over and he had young Mozart practicing hours and hours a day. As a composer he was known to write and rewrite sections of his music over and over again. Michael Jordan was known to have a work ethic to intense that it led to fights with teammates at practice.
But the facts be damned in our culture. Talent over all. Which of course is an utterly useless approach to viewing the world, for those of us who aren't spectacularly gifted (ie. 99% of us). And yet there I was, hopelessly flinging basketballs at the hoop in hopes my shooting % would magically double without ever stopping to do the real work of identifying what could be improved with my form, or identifying which muscles were engaging at what stage and what it felt like when I made a shot. I started playing guitar at 17. For 20 years I waited to inspiration to strike so I would write the great song that the world would recognize as genius. I never studied theory beyond the basics I learned on piano as a child, I never studied songwriting techniques, I never paid attention to how other musicians used different rhythms or different melody and chord relationships, or how they brought different elements of the song in and out to create and release tension, or how different synthesized sounds were achieved. I never even bothered to notice the different tempos and the way they impacted people's desire to move.
I finally started trying to learn these things in 2023, at 37, and I have made more progress as a musician in 3 months than I made in 20 years before. Not an exaggeration. I will likely never be a big star, regardless of how good I become, as it's tough to get famous at 37 in our youth and beauty obsessed culture, but for the first time it actually seems entirely possible that I could become a producer and songwriter for others in a couple of years.
I used to think it was important to be successful with a lack of effort, which is absurd to say out loud (metaphorically here), but in reality it is how most of society thinks. I brought this attitude to my self development (or lack thereof) and to my attempts to quit PMO. I didn't want to read self-help books. Those were for lesser losers. I didn't want to apply some special strategy to defeat my bad habits, I shouldn't need such crutches.
Equally stupid mentality, born of the same fundamental misunderstanding of the world. Perhaps some people are especially talented, but you probably aren't one of them. And most of those rare few we will never know existed because it's only combining talent with at least SOME work. Behind every overnight success story I have heard is a mountain of work. And plenty of untalented people have become successful than the talented few because of their mountain of work. But not just haphazard efforts, waiting for inspiration. Smart work. I probably worked on music for 10,000 hours from 17 to 37, but it was just playing whatever happened to come into my head, so it didn't count. It wasn't until I became intentional that anything began to happen.
And nothing happened in quitting PMO until I became intentional either. Until I dispensed with the idea that I shouldn't need a strategy, that it was weakness to seek out the wisdom of others and learn what they did, and to learn what the collective knowledge of science tells us. There is no shortcut to success in anything. You can spend your whole life trying to be special, talented, successful without careful study and effort or you can do what it takes to succeed. Those are the choices.
I am putting my pride aside and doing what it takes.
Blondie
Respected Member
My God, this post is gold @logicprox.
There is truly no "instant success" story out there. Everyone has to put in the work, the unsexy work, so as to make it look "easy" one day in the future.
Since I've gone back to school I've noticed a few things of this nature. The subject I'm studying is a great pleasure of mine, and something I've been working on for the last ten years by myself. However, some people (professors, fellow students) almost think I just have this "talent" and that I'm "automatically" gifted in it, which is possibly ten percent true, but what about the other ninety percent? Although my ego might like these compliments, deep down inside they also rub me the wrong way, because it's not even half the story. How about all the unsexy nights I was working on it when everyone else was out partying? How about all the times I felt like giving up, but I kept on marching on no matter the odds? None of these facts are ever mentioned when discussing my "talent".
So called talent only gets you so far in this life, it's what's you do with it is all that matters.
One reason why I think the myth of instant success is so popular, is that it takes all responsibility away from those who speak of it. If success is only for the gods then I don't have to feel so bad when my half-assed efforts don't give me any positive results. I think what I learned about teaching myself this hobby over the last ten years, I also brought into quitting porn. Which is why I always say we should think of quitting porn like climbing Mt. Everest, or shit of that nature, because it's true. There is no magical formula for quitting porn. We all have somewhat different philosophies in our approaches (mine being a clusterfuck of them all!) but in the end, those who are "successful" have gotten over their ego, gotten over their "god complex" and have asked and sought out help, either in books or professionally, or both.
There are no shortcut to success in this life. The sooner we realize we're not rock stars, the sooner we might actually become one.
Love this post brother!
Best
There is truly no "instant success" story out there. Everyone has to put in the work, the unsexy work, so as to make it look "easy" one day in the future.
Since I've gone back to school I've noticed a few things of this nature. The subject I'm studying is a great pleasure of mine, and something I've been working on for the last ten years by myself. However, some people (professors, fellow students) almost think I just have this "talent" and that I'm "automatically" gifted in it, which is possibly ten percent true, but what about the other ninety percent? Although my ego might like these compliments, deep down inside they also rub me the wrong way, because it's not even half the story. How about all the unsexy nights I was working on it when everyone else was out partying? How about all the times I felt like giving up, but I kept on marching on no matter the odds? None of these facts are ever mentioned when discussing my "talent".
So called talent only gets you so far in this life, it's what's you do with it is all that matters.
One reason why I think the myth of instant success is so popular, is that it takes all responsibility away from those who speak of it. If success is only for the gods then I don't have to feel so bad when my half-assed efforts don't give me any positive results. I think what I learned about teaching myself this hobby over the last ten years, I also brought into quitting porn. Which is why I always say we should think of quitting porn like climbing Mt. Everest, or shit of that nature, because it's true. There is no magical formula for quitting porn. We all have somewhat different philosophies in our approaches (mine being a clusterfuck of them all!) but in the end, those who are "successful" have gotten over their ego, gotten over their "god complex" and have asked and sought out help, either in books or professionally, or both.
There are no shortcut to success in this life. The sooner we realize we're not rock stars, the sooner we might actually become one.
Love this post brother!
Best
Last edited:
A gold response as well. It took me a very long time to realize that my half-assed efforts were in part a defense mechanism. But an ill-advised one. We live once. All our efforts may fail, it's true, and we may not achieve everything we dreamed. But we sure as hell won't achieve it if we don't truly try.
I think a clusterfuck is the best approach to be honest. We may all have different core strategies, but any little thing that give an edge, a 1% better chance of success, moves the odds towards our favor and could be the difference between success and failure. So do it all.
Last edited:
Blondie
Respected Member
Truth. The human propensity to blame everything but ourselves is utterly shocking. If there is some outer forcefield we can lay the burden on, be it, God, our parents, the latest shit Star Wars movie, we will gladly do so than to look upon ourselves as the cause of our own problems. There's a Grand Canyon difference between loving ourselves and bullshitting ourselves, unfortunately, it's very easy to fall into the latter category without even noticing it.
Yes. Fear of failure can and will destroy us.
"I think a clusterfuck is the best approach to be honest. We may all have different core strategies, but any little thing that give an edge, a 1% better chance of success, moves the odds towards our favor and could be the difference between success and failure. So do it all."
Same here. That's why you'll never find me pushing one method or another around here, because what works for one person, sometimes doesn't work for another. But yes, as for myself, I just pick and choose whatever works for me, and cast out whatever doesn't.
Best
Last edited:
I think it's also the case that what works at one phase of recovery isn't necessarily the ideal silver bullet for later phases. Sometimes we're working on physical issues, sometimes on reframing past upsets, sometimes on learning how to meditate or socialize, or whatever. Flexibility itself is a necessary skill in life.
You’re totally right and I hadn’t thought about the phases before. Great insight, will chew on that.
Admittedly I have a tendency to get a little excited about what is working for me and push it
. Something for me to work on!