|
I am a failure. Twenty years old almost twenty one. I have absolutely nothing to show for it. I can't blame anyone but myself. My parents provided me with an extremely nice environment to grow up in and I went to schools that weren't terrible. I didn't have bad teachers, it's simply the result of myself and I'm coming to accept that. However, I'm hoping that there is time to change so I am using this blog as a reference point for myself so I can't go back on my word after this is written. I will change, and I will make something of myself.
1.) School - I currently am enrolled in a community college with a cumulative GPA of 1.4 (pretty impressive that I'm aloud to keep going with this). I was suspended for 2 semesters for constantly failing classes and I've already dropped 4 courses so I can't really drop anymore for the rest of my time in college. I need to shape up.
I would like to raise my GPA high enough so that I can transfer into a good college within the next two years. I would like to possibly go to somewhere like Berklee School of Music, and while that seems like a dream far out of reach, I believe with the proper motivation and work ethic I will be able to get in. My musical abilities are probably the only thing worthwhile that I've done with my life so far. So for this semester my goal is to pass all my classes with a 4.0, that would bring my GPA up to an at least a 2.4 which while not great, is a good start.
2.) Physical Appearance - I've been living in a cave known as my room for the past two years since graduating high school. I play games, I eat in here, I do manly stuff to myself and I really didn't care for my personal hygiene at all. I would go days without showering and until recently may have spent six or seven years with only brushing my teeth a handful of times. I haven't bought clothes since graduating high school and I haven't worked out. These are all things I'm ashamed of. I would like to be able to develop my own sense of fashion so that when in public I don't feel embarrassed about not matching, having clothes that don't fit, and just plain looking unattractive because of what I'm wearing. I have also bought a gym membership and started going four times a week. I'm about 5'5" and 118 pounds. If I was a girl, I'd have a pretty nice body, but I'm not. I'm a guy and I'm scrawny. I will try to put on between 10 and 15 pounds before the summer and I'd like to have muscle definition. I'm also running every day in the morning about a mile. I'd like to push that number up to two or three miles a day but I suffer from asthma so it's taking longer to build up my lung strength (been running since January). And about my teeth.. I have very bad gingivitis, some of my gum lines were receding and my teeth are a rancid yellow. I've bought a special toothpaste that has aleviated some of these things and my teeth are generally starting to look healthier, but I worry I may have caused some permanent damage. I also stopped wearing my retainer long ago and my bottom row of teeth are becoming quite crooked again.
3.) Friends - I have one friend to my name. That used to make me feel extremely sad but, I've come to terms with it and I'm glad I have at least one good friend. Since going to school again I've been introducing myself to new people and have found a study group for one of my classes and I appreciate them letting me study with them, but that's all we do and I wouldn't exactly call them friends, just acquaintances. See, in high school I actually had quite a few friends, but I was willing to do things I didn't enjoy just to get friends. I got involved heavily with drug use, and I'm not going to get into that here. When I finally decided it wasn't worth it I found myself alone basically and had been to insecure after that to go out and find healthy friendships. However recently I find myself lonely and am ready to get myself out there. All in all I realized I don't really care if I get rejected when trying to make friends because I won't be any worse off then before. I'm hoping by the summer time I've built a group of friendships of maybe three or four more people that I can say I feel close to, I think I'd be happy with that.
4.) My Music - I think not having friends was good for me in some respects because it gave me a lot of free time. Being lonely made me fall in love with music. Theres so much beauty in music and I feel very deeply connected with all sorts of music. I listen to everything ranging from Progressive Death Metal to Classical, from K-Pop to Rap, and for the most part I love it all because I know it's someone else expressing to the world how much they love music. That's something I respect. However, even though I'm fairly good at my respective instrument, I've found huge lacks of motivation lately. I used to play in bands in high school and even played several state tours when I was younger. Lately though, I haven't grown as a musician at all. I'm trying to learn a new song everyday, whether it's a simple acoustic song or something technical it doesn't matter, I'm just trying to better myself and keep improving. The other thing I really need to do is get my music out there. I spent a big sum of the money I have to turn my man cave into a low-budget recording studio. I have everything I need to make my music. Several mics, my guitars, a bass, drums, a good mixer, very good pre-sets on my recording software and some very loud high quality speakers. I'm trying to teach myself how to record professionally a little bit before I go off to school to learn, I feel it'll give me an edge and it's also something I'm finding I enjoy more then I thought I would. The other thing with my music is, I've always wanted to learn to sing. I'm an OK singer but nothing great. So everyday for thirty minutes I'm trying to do vocal exercises to strengthen my voice and control it better. My long term goal is that by the time summer comes, I have between six and seven songs that I've written fully recorded and that I can put together a project and start playing live again. I'd really like to spread my music.
These are things I've thought about and never really had the drive to get done. I don't know what made me realize I'm fucking my life up, and I don't know where I'm getting the energy to fix myself. But I'm hoping to find encouragement here and stories of people who have had the resources to do well but couldn't push themselves to do it as I have. If you came back from you're own self destruction or not I'd like to hear. Sorry for the long write up but I really hope that I can look back at this as motivation to keep myself on the right track. These are just the stepping stones to becoming the man I want to be, there will no doubt be more things added to this list in the future.
 
|
Make this your browser homepage, so you can't ignore what you just wrote and it will pop up in front of your face whenever you go online.
|
Good luck to you. It's easy to write about changing and still fall back into your comfort zone.
But as you said, stepping stones. 
|
|
|
I honestly think the solution to most of these kind of blogs' problems is the computer. Step away from the computer, distance yourself from it. Don't touch it for a week. And most of your problems will solve themselves. Computer or any type of external stimulation like tv, phone, ipod, everything stimulating.
|
I'm at the end of my work day so I'll keep it short (haha yes I am slacking until the very last minute):
1) School: No excuse for failing school, courses are designed for an average person with less-than-average work ethics to pass with a 2.0 or higher. Good that you realize it yourself, hope you can attain your goals and bring your CGPA up.
2) Appearance: working out 4 times a week, that's good enough as long as you do a 'proper routine' every time. Did you check the TL Health & Fitness section? It's under Sports & Games (check to the left!). There are lots of friendly, sometimes blunt, but always honest advices to find there. Also, please do spend a good amount of money on buying yourself clothes that fit. It's not like wearing oversized T-shirts because parents thought you'd grow a foot in a month - now it's time to take care of your own looks. I am tempted to copy/paste a short guide I wrote on another blog regarding how to approach a girl but I'll refrain until you post a girl blog (if you need to, lol). Short summary: work out properly, get good posture, let your confidence flow from the inside and show it proudly to others.
3) Friends: Quantity != quality. However, you may want more than just one... join some clubs?
4) Music: I don't know how important this is towards your career goals, but I would probably keep music at a 'hobby' level and focus on your marks. Marks aren't everything, but right now at your 1.4, yes marks are hella important. Let music relax you and relieve your stress, but don't let music steal your focus and concentration. Oh, and going back to the friends one, make friends via music? My best friends are also my bandmates and well we became bandmates because we were best friends... we're no longer active, but back in the high school days we were winning battle of the bands and rockin' hard!
Good luck TLer, hope to hear good news from you in the future!
|
|
|
Set clear plans of action, and don't try to do too much at once. Good luck.
|
|
|
Well, by acknowledging that you are not satisfied with your life and explicitly stating which areas you want to improve in is a good start. If I were you I would start with your physical appearance. Honestly, it doesn’t take that much effort to brush your teeth and take a shower every day. Hopefully it will make you feel better about yourself which should improve your confidence. With a better confidence it is easier to make friends. Finally, from personal experience, it is a lot easier to study with others so a bigger circle of friends might improve your results in school.
It is important that you set goals that are reachable and that you don’t get discouraged if you don’t make improvements right away.
|
dont post on the internet for sympathy/advice about your life, everyone has problems and they themselves need to find the best way to fix it because they are the only ones that understand everything about them and how they work.
|
you are 20 years old. if you were pushing 60 i would say something, but you are SO YOUNG, you have too much time to fix and change. remember it is never too late, and for youngsters like you there is no such thing as late. chin up.
|
On February 10 2012 06:30 Golgotha wrote:
you are 20 years old. if you were pushing 60 i would say something, but you are SO YOUNG, you have too much time to fix and change. remember it is never too late, and for youngsters like you there is no such thing as late. chin up.
I think you are giving him bad advice, words like these are what enable people to fuck their life up for so long, you need to change now if you want to be happy in the future, every desicion you make should be a long term goal if you are really unhappy with yourself and want to change.
|
I've actually been down a similar path and can relate pretty well with your situation. After dropping out of high school I ended up living in my own "man cave" for a few years playing wow all day and ended up becoming an anti-social 19 year old. At the time however, I didn't think that there was anything wrong with it. Like yourself, I was going to community college and ended up dropping a bunch of my classes and skipping semesters at a time simply because I didn't want to admit to myself that I was fucking up my life.
I think the fact that you can actually admit that the way you're living your life isn't what you want is a huge step forward. A huge catalyst for change in my life was when I realized how badly I was fucking it up. I actually felt an enormous amount of guilt towards my parents because they had made so many sacrifices in order for me to live comfortably. I had every opportunity to excel, but I simply disregarded it and ended up wasting my time on trivial things. It took me a couple of years, but I ended up sticking it through community college and ended up transferring to university. If you have a supportive family, they'll actually play a huge roll in the whole situation because they'll acknowledge every step you make towards your goal. I'm actually 23 now and will be graduating next winter; if it weren't for my support groups (family and friends) I'm not sure if I could have made it this far.
|
Regarding your personal hygiene, what makes you not want to take showers, or even brush your teeth? Is it because you're lazy and you'd rather just sit in your chair and play games? You're afraid of permanent damage and I think that's reason enought to spend 10 minutes (5 minutes in the morning/the other five in the evening) to brush your teeth. Force yourself to take care of yourself and after a few days, these things should feel automatic.
If you can't create the will to brush your teeth, you will definitely not be able tO gain weight and put on muscular mass. It requires a great amount of discipline to stick to a strict diet and force yourself to workout. But if you decide to do it because you are sick of your poor lifestyle, I suggest googling "gomad" diet since you sound like a hard gainer. For a beginner workout, I suggest Starting Strength (google it to see example workouts on bodybuilding.com forums and buy the same titled book to know how to properly squat and deadlift). If you stick to this diet you should see an easy beginner gain of 15-20 lbs. I'm not going to say all of it will be muscle mass (a bit of fat too since gomad isn't really clean bulk) but you will look amazing in clothes, and feel strong as shit too.
|
I got an idea your 21... lol u have a lot of time left in your life to make something happen relax. NO i didnt read everything i just read the first paragraph and was like ... your 21 lol understand this is the time of your life to make the biggest mistakes ... not when your older .. but right now haha
|
On February 10 2012 06:39 SeizeTheDay wrote:
I got an idea your 21... lol u have a lot of time left in your life to make something happen relax. NO i didnt read everything i just read the first paragraph and was like ... your 21 lol understand this is the time of your life to make the biggest mistakes ... not when your older .. but right now haha
While what you're saying is true, it's better to start earlier than later. If you keep this kind of mindset you'll end up putting school/hygiene/working out off and keep telling yourself you still have time left.
|
On February 10 2012 06:30 Golgotha wrote:
you are 20 years old. if you were pushing 60 i would say something, but you are SO YOUNG, you have too much time to fix and change. remember it is never too late, and for youngsters like you there is no such thing as late. chin up.
Well said, 20 is really young, faster you shape up the better OP!
Set specific goals for yourself. delve deeper into each specific thing you want to fix, just like this blog. Write them down on paper, realistic achievable goals, be it fitness, social life, or academia related. That is my advice, it really helps and keeps you focused.
GL fellow TLER!
|
On February 10 2012 06:37 matiK23 wrote:
Regarding your personal hygiene, what makes you not want to take showers, or even brush your teeth? Is it because you're lazy and you'd rather just sit in your chair and play games? You're afraid of permanent damage and I think that's reason enought to spend 10 minutes (5 minutes in the morning/the other five in the evening) to brush your teeth. Force yourself to take care of yourself and after a few days, these things should feel automatic.
If you can't create the will to brush your teeth, you will definitely not be able tO gain weight and put on muscular mass. It requires a great amount of discipline to stick to a strict diet and force yourself to workout. But if you decide to do it because you are sick of your poor lifestyle, I suggest googling "gomad" diet since you sound like a hard gainer. For a beginner workout, I suggest Starting Strength (google it to see example workouts on bodybuilding.com forums and buy the same titled book to know how to properly squat and deadlift). If you stick to this diet you should see an easy beginner gain of 15-20 lbs. I'm not going to say all of it will be muscle mass (a bit of fat too since gomad isn't really clean bulk) but you will look amazing in clothes, and feel strong as shit too.
I've showered every day since january, and I brush my teeth twice a day, I don't know why I didn't before but i think it was because I was so depressed that I just couldn't motivate myself to do anything, thanks for the suggestion on the gomad diet I'll look it up right now.
|
You... you sound exactly like me... like everything lol, except the hygiene (i had bad hygiene like 4 to 5 years ago tho) and drug part and well, i've been training for a year or so now. But everything else is so similar if not the same. Even your hight and weight are almost the same.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
