I'm a loser

[nmmfm]

Can I tell you how it is? I feel I need help. I've been stuck for so long in the same kind of unproductive, unhappy pattern and I want a way out of this cycle.

When I have time to myself I don't know how to spend it wisely at home. Before I know it I'm jerking off compulsively. And I mean really compulsively. I sit down to get something done - vague thoughts of getting cracking on my todo list, which contains items like "buy a new piano", "buy new shoes", "make list of music schools".

I have three pairs of shoes: a pair of Chucks that looks cool and fits my style, but is too small for me and has given me blisters, Clarks brown boots which I love dearly but have holes in the bottom of the soles, and Clarks black shoes that are too smart for most of the time but which I'm forced to now wear. I feel too overwhelmed with buying the perfect pair of new shoes: I don't know what shops to go to. The selection in my country is not great and I hate wasting time going to a shop only to not find anything I like. I've done searches online for shoes multiple times but never actually buy anything. And so it is for the rest of the things in my life. If I can't even buy shoes how am I supposed to make decisions like whether to go to a music school or move country?

I come home and I don't know where to start on anything. I feel pressure to spend my time wisely. Sometimes I do - I practise drums and I feel good, I feel myself improving and I enjoy the process. Then I fall off the wagon and forget what I was working towards.

I get rushes of motivation where I feel like I'm finally going to get my life in order - I'm going to look cool, I'm going to be healthy, fit, strong, I'm going to be a badass drummer and a creative person and I'm going to collaborate with other cool people, and I'm going to be fulfilling my dreams ...

And inevitably I get faced with the reality: that I need a new pair of shoes, for example. That I've needed one for months if not a year. And then I get self-loathing. Why am I this way? Why am I such a goddamn loser? Why can't I be like M, K, and all my other cool, successful peers? I was going to write 'friends', but they're not close enough to be friends. I wish they were, though. I've always felt inferior.

So I feel paralysed and I resort to masturbation. (Over and over again - I repeatedly squeeze even my flaccid penis, with no more semen left, tensing up my muscles to force myself to orgasm. It's ugly.) Then perhaps I'll get up and have something to eat, use the toilet or whatever, tell myself I'm going to break the cycle, that sure, I fucked up, but now I can get started on something productive - but I feel overwhelmed all over again and I fall right back into the compulsive masturbation. It's like a heroin addict unable to stop shooting up.

I have potential. I'm a pretty good drummer and I can sing decently. I wrote a little bit of music I'm fairly proud of (although it took me years of on and off work ...) I'm quite good-looking. I think I'm quite a kind person, certainly I'm conscientious. I guess I'm pretty smart. People tell me so. Although when I look at what a loser I am, I doubt it. Probably I'm average and the idea of that makes me uncomfortable. Am I a narcissist? Probably not a full-blown one. I used to think I was destined for great things, but at 26 going on 27, with years of consistently proving to myself that I'm a loser, now I see those dreams as shameful delusions of grandeur.

What a mess.

Maybe I'm just putting too much pressure on myself. Maybe I'm ridiculously perfectionistic. Maybe the solution is to just do stuff. Just go buy a pair of goddamn shoes and fuck it if it ends up being a waste of time.

I just constantly feel like I lack something basic that other people same to have - common sense, or confidence or whatever it is. Every time I somehow manage to muster up the will to get something done (like buying shoes), I doubt myself every step of the way. It's like an ordeal! To buy shoes! Can you see how ridiculous I am and why I can't really stand myself?

Then I get lonely. When I'm home, trying to do something productive, I feel like I'm under my own scrutiny. How can I explain this?... I'm watching myself, and finding myself to be pathetically insignificant, average, a loser. I often go out to a coffee shop to journal or get some small things done on my laptop. (More often than not, it's just planning and managing ever-growing todo lists that never actually get done.) Outside, assuming I'm dressed ok, and my hair is OK, I sort of "like myself" - I can smile at people, and feel their warmth as they smile back, I can strike up a conversation with the cute bartender. I feel like a blank canvas with potential. But back at home, or whenever I'm actually trying to do something, I'm back to the depressing reality.

My house is a mess and it's my dad's, so the changes I can make are limited. I do not feel particularly at home there. Not even in my own room - which has been the same since my childhood. I lack basic skills like cleaning - I don't think I've ever washed a floor in my life, and even with something like that I don't know where to start, how to get it done. I've googled many times and watched YouTube videos, and yet I still somehow manage not to know what to do. Should I go to a shop to buy my own cleaning supplies? What do I do with this sponge when I'm done using it? How do I store this thing? Why does every stupid, little thing seem endlessly complicated to me??

The sponge stays on the side of the sink, languishing there - my pathetic ineptitude made manifest. I never actually get round to having a system that works. Why do I need a system for everything? Other people just seem to know how to do stuff automatically.

 

[nmmfm]

I've achieved some cool things - I've recorded drums on a couple of cool albums, I've been in a couple of fairly successful local bands, I managed to graduate with a computer science degree (although it took me much longer that it was meant to, and I was depressed and in turmoil for most of it). But I feel I could have done so much more if I wasn't such a loser (in the way I've been describing.)

I've had sex with a number of attractive women - I even scored a threesome once. I had long cool hair and that worked well for me. Now it is thinning and I'm much less confident in my looks - although I'm still fairly good-looking I think, and I've still been able to pull (perhaps not as much as when I was in my early 20s though.) I think I can be pretty fun company and I can be quite charming. People like the way I dance, and have complimented my "energy".

I've done bad things - I once was infatuated with my bass player's girlfriend and I ended up betraying him and fooling around with her. But I mean well. Really. I tried to make amends. I felt genuinely sorry.

I just ... disappoint myself. So consistently. It's been this way for years and years and it's so, so tiring.

This is all ego talking. I've been attracted to spiritual paths at various points in my life - trying to find a sense of stable peace. I reach moments of insight where I recognise that things like free will, and its flipside, the sense of separate self, are an illusion - that actually, we're all connected witnesses to this mysterious condition of consciousness, and in that way we're all equal, and worthy of compassion. Even a guy like Hitler.

But before I know it I'm back to worrying about my hair loss and hating myself for not being the way I want to be (productive, creative, interesting, etc, etc ...)

Before I know it, I'm back at my laptop, on my kitchen table, overwhelmed with where to start in the project of not being a loser, and compulsively masturbating instead.

Now what? Running out of things to say.

Most of the time, I'm only productive because I have obligations to other people - being in a band and having to play a wedding gig, or some other kind of job where I'm expected to show up. And I do. But it's entirely possible that an hour earlier I was sitting at home paralysed and overwhelmed and compulsively masturbating. Nobody knows that. God knows how shocking it would be if they knew the truth. Even I find it kind of surprising that I've managed to do certain things despite everything.

Or perhaps they can sense it. Perhaps I appear like such a loser to people. Although some people *were* fooled by me - they thought I was something special, when I spoke to them charmingly in a bar or whatever - I've heard things like "you're so cool/artistic" or whatever.

I'm pretty pretentious. I use words like "perhaps" instead of just saying "maybe". I kind of shape my accent sometimes when I'm talking to new people. It's automatic. I'm fake!

Every year that goes by I feel more and more like a fuck-up - I feel that I'm running out of time, that before I know it, I'm going to be old, expired, and any chance of achieving that sense of potential that I still somehow cling to will be zero. Thanks to hair loss, the deepening line on my face, and the general sense that I'm no longer a young kid, I'm already feeling expired.

Honestly maybe the answer is simple: drop the perfectionism, start anywhere, get things done bit by bit, no matter how uncomfortable it feels ... I just get so overwhelmed and lost and before I know it I'm hating myself! I don't believe I can do it so simply. I feel like something is fundamentally wrong with me. I *am* a loser.

Anyway. Maybe it's time to actually read Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff.

M comes to mind. I find her cool and she was in love with me. It made me feel whole. Now she is gone. Every time I succeed in scoring a woman it's like a shot of heroin: ahhh, peace. Oh, it's temporary though. Before I know it I'm back to feeling like a loser.

I compare myself to other people relentlessly. I just want to be talented and cool/normal like my peers I admire.

This is a total whine-fest. I'm resenting myself for even writing this whole thing and being such a whiner. Ironic. I'm whining about how much I've been whining ...

I'm judgemental of others and of myself. I'm judgemental of myself also for being judgemental of others, and for being a social-climber.

 

[Androg]

I've achieved some cool things - I've recorded drums on a couple of cool albums, I've been in a couple of fairly successful local bands, I managed to graduate with a computer science degree (although it took me much longer that it was meant to, and I was depressed and in turmoil for most of it). But I feel I could have done so much more if I wasn't such a loser (in the way I've been describing.)

I've had sex with a number of attractive women - I even scored a threesome once. I had long cool hair and that worked well for me. Now it is thinning and I'm much less confident in my looks - although I'm still fairly good-looking I think, and I've still been able to pull (perhaps not as much as when I was in my early 20s though.) I think I can be pretty fun company and I can be quite charming. People like the way I dance, and have complimented my "energy".

I've done bad things - I once was infatuated with my bass player's girlfriend and I ended up betraying him and fooling around with her. But I mean well. Really. I tried to make amends. I felt genuinely sorry.

I just ... disappoint myself. So consistently. It's been this way for years and years and it's so, so tiring.

This is all ego talking. I've been attracted to spiritual paths at various points in my life - trying to find a sense of stable peace. I reach moments of insight where I recognise that things like free will, and its flipside, the sense of separate self, are an illusion - that actually, we're all connected witnesses to this mysterious condition of consciousness, and in that way we're all equal, and worthy of compassion. Even a guy like Hitler.

But before I know it I'm back to worrying about my hair loss and hating myself for not being the way I want to be (productive, creative, interesting, etc, etc ...)

Before I know it, I'm back at my laptop, on my kitchen table, overwhelmed with where to start in the project of not being a loser, and compulsively masturbating instead.

Now what? Running out of things to say.

Most of the time, I'm only productive because I have obligations to other people - being in a band and having to play a wedding gig, or some other kind of job where I'm expected to show up. And I do. But it's entirely possible that an hour earlier I was sitting at home paralysed and overwhelmed and compulsively masturbating. Nobody knows that. God knows how shocking it would be if they knew the truth. Even I find it kind of surprising that I've managed to do certain things despite everything.

Or perhaps they can sense it. Perhaps I appear like such a loser to people. Although some people *were* fooled by me - they thought I was something special, when I spoke to them charmingly in a bar or whatever - I've heard things like "you're so cool/artistic" or whatever.

I'm pretty pretentious. I use words like "perhaps" instead of just saying "maybe". I kind of shape my accent sometimes when I'm talking to new people. It's automatic. I'm fake!

Every year that goes by I feel more and more like a fuck-up - I feel that I'm running out of time, that before I know it, I'm going to be old, expired, and any chance of achieving that sense of potential that I still somehow cling to will be zero. Thanks to hair loss, the deepening line on my face, and the general sense that I'm no longer a young kid, I'm already feeling expired.

Honestly maybe the answer is simple: drop the perfectionism, start anywhere, get things done bit by bit, no matter how uncomfortable it feels ... I just get so overwhelmed and lost and before I know it I'm hating myself! I don't believe I can do it so simply. I feel like something is fundamentally wrong with me. I *am* a loser.

Anyway. Maybe it's time to actually read Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff.

M comes to mind. I find her cool and she was in love with me. It made me feel whole. Now she is gone. Every time I succeed in scoring a woman it's like a shot of heroin: ahhh, peace. Oh, it's temporary though. Before I know it I'm back to feeling like a loser.

I compare myself to other people relentlessly. I just want to be talented and cool/normal like my peers I admire.

This is a total whine-fest. I'm resenting myself for even writing this whole thing and being such a whiner. Ironic. I'm whining about how much I've been whining ...

I'm judgemental of others and of myself. I'm judgemental of myself also for being judgemental of others, and for being a social-climber.

Maybe have a look at a book called “Taoist secrets of love: cultivating male, sexual energy“ by Mantak Chia. I think you will find that when you have some gas in your tank, you will be able to execute your plans a lot better..