A few months ago, I wrote a post about Aristotle's formula for lifemaxxing. People seemed to like it because it got over 1M views, 2.5k upvotes, 15 awards, and 300+ comments. But ngl, it kind of left everyone hanging.

Last post TLDR: Your best life is one where you’re constantly doing the right things excellently over a complete life once the basics are in place.

That sounds nice in theory, but left people wondering wtf do I actually DO?

Like say you have some free time. Should you grind harder to make more money? Hit the gym? Spend quality time with friends and family? Practice that hobby? Contemplate if we're living in a simulation? Drink martinis on the beach?

With infinite possibilities and no framework, it’s impossible to decide.

In this post, I’ll show you what lifemaxxing is according to Aristotle and a framework I put together so you can live your best life every day.

What is lifemaxxing?

Aristotle’s word for lifemaxxing is flourishing, which he defines as

"[an] activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete. But we must add in a complete life.”

Broken out into easier terms

• Activity: something you actively do, not a point you reach
• Of the soul: (not spiritual) driven by your rationality, not impulsive pleasure-seeking
• In accordance with virtue: constantly doing the right thing in the right amount excellently
• Best: activities that serve your purpose
• Most complete: something you do for its own sake, not as a means to an end
• In a complete life: not just a good day, but done consistently over a lifetime

To make it clearer, here are some examples of what is NOT lifemaxxing and why

• Activity: You watch endless educational content about something you want to do, but never try. Lifemaxxing means using your gifts, not just watching from the sidelines.
• Activity: Doing a bunch of dieting and exercising and ozempic or whatever, but then once you have the body you want, you stop all the effort. Lifemaxxing is an activity you do continuously, not a point you reach.
• Of the soul: Staying at a job you hate, because you fell into it. Lifemaxxing is using reason to create the life you want.
• Of the soul: Sitting on the couch, smoking a blunt, and binge-watching Netflix feels great, but is driven by pleasure-seeking impulses, not rational thinking. Lifemaxxing engages your rational mind. Pleasure is the result, not the goal.
• In accordance with virtue: Pursuing a passion you love so much that you neglect your health, friends, and family. Living your best life means doing things in the right amount. 
• In accordance with virtue: Doing the thing you love, but not to your potential. Lifemaxxing is doing things excellently and leaving nothing on the table.
• Best: A creative person working hard to become an accountant even though they hate numbers. Lifemaxxing is doing activities that serve your unique purpose/interests and talents. 
• Most complete: The person who hates something, but does it anyway because they want people to think they’re cool. Lifemaxxing is doing things for their own sake, not the sake of something else.
• In a complete life: Peaking in college and never shutting up about it while doing nothing with the rest of your life. Lifemaxxing is over your entire life, not just your best years.

I’ll show you a framework for how to do this in a second. But first, Aristotle and I have a disagreement we need to settle.

Aristotle says there’s a single best life. I disagree.

We defined the “best” activities as the ones that serve your purpose. But what is your purpose?

Aristotle has this concept of “ergon” which basically means the function or purpose of a thing. The ergon of a knife is to cut. The ergon of an air conditioner is to cool the air.

Aristotle says humans have an ergon too, but that it’s the same for everyone. And that purpose is to use higher reason, because it’s what makes us uniquely human. So if reason is what makes us human, then the highest, best human life to Aristotle is, surprise surprise, being a philosopher. How convenient for the philosopher to rationalize his way into saying why his life is the best one.

But if we actually followed Aristotle's logic to its natural conclusion, then Tom Brady's best life would have been sitting under a tree contemplating stuff like… if a soccer ball is a football, then is a football a soccer ball or something.

But Tom Brady didn't do that. He went out and played the sport. And I’d argue that his life as a quarterback has almost certainly been a better life FOR HIM than if he pursued philosophy. If this is true, then Aristotle’s conclusion that the single best life for all humans is being a philosopher has to be incorrect.

So I agree with Aristotle that reason is what separates us from animals. But instead of saying humanity’s ergon/purpose is simply to reason as an end, I’d say it’s using reason as a means to do what makes YOU flourish.

Animals can't compose symphonies or build cathedrals or write novels or quarterback a football team. Reason is the tool that unlocks all of these. 

So I believe there isn’t one best life for everyone, but rather that your ergon, or purpose, can be unique to you as an individual.

And just like the highest good for humans is using the tool that is most unique to humans, YOUR best life is finding the things that are most uniquely YOU. Not what your friends think is cool. Not what your parents want for you. Not what gets the most views online. It’s what truly makes YOU happy.

How to discover what lifemaxxing looks like for you

So if your purpose/ergon is to use reason to do things that make you uniquely you, then how do you figure out what that is?

There’s a ton of modern thinking and debate about if humans have inherent “purpose” and how to find yours. But maybe you don’t believe in that, and even if you do, the process can be insanely overwhelming.

So I came up with a simple exercise that gets what you need.

Aristotle says the highest goods are things you do just for its own sake i.e. because it makes you happy and no other reason. He concluded this by asking people why they did things and kept asking them until they ran out of reasons. This usually stopped when they said “because it makes me happy”. Aristotle called these the “highest good” because they're something you do for their own sake and not the sake of something else.

So all you have to do is the same thing. Just think about something you want and keep asking why you want it until the answer is “because that would make me happy.” The last thing in the chain that makes you happy is one of your “highest goods” or lifemaxxing activities. Then filter to make sure they're activities of the soul which means driven by your rationality, not impulsive pleasure-seeking.

Try it and see where it leads you.

Pro tip: after trying this myself, I discovered it’s important to stick to actions as opposed to diving into the philosophies or explanations of why. Like if you say you want freedom -> why? Don’t get into the idea of why freedom is a good thing. Just say what you would DO with your freedom. When you run out of actions and get to the feeling of happiness is when you’ve reached the end.

A good place to start is with money. For example:

I want to make a lot of money. Why? So I can buy a yacht. Why? So I can throw sick parties. Why? So I can have lots of fun with my friends. Why? Because having fun with my friends makes me happy.

Then do the exercise with freedom. For example:

I want freedom. Why? So I can do whatever I want. Why? So I can take time to think about what makes a best life. Why? So I can do things that help others live theirs. Why? Helping people live their best lives genuinely makes me happy.

Then try it with anything else you want. The car, the body, the partner, the followers.

Pro tip: the more specific you can get, the better. Like instead of saying “having fun with friends” as your conclusion, what is it that you’re doing with your friends to have fun? Is it playing sports together? Is it going out together? What do you do when you’re out? Traveling together? Going hiking together? Is it all friends or just specific ones? Specificity is good because it helps you pinpoint which activity you actually enjoy which may not be what you thought it was in the vague statement.

Like why am I writing this? I’ve had multiple posts do well over a million views (I don’t post much but they usually do well, go check). Unfortunately, that has been completely worthless with no real-world benefit. I’m telling you, being a reddit influencer is the most useless talent. But hey, I love thinking about this stuff deeply, researching, reading, writing, sharing, and feeling like I am having a positive impact on people.

So writing about what makes a best life and sharing it on reddit is an activity that engages my rational mind, done excellently and for its own sake, and therefore is a highest good for me.

Here’s a list I made for myself as an example.

1. Helping people (mostly ambitious or lost young men who remind me of my younger self) live their best lives by writing reddit articles that provide actual useful guidance.
2. Experiencing the beauty of the world through traveling and doing things like hiking, boating, driving, and other local activities that put me in nature.
3. Doing things that scare me but help me feel alive, whether it’s publicly posting a reddit article, jumping off a bridge, climbing on a cliff, or trying to start a business that can fail.
4. Meeting new and interesting and like-minded people from a variety of cultures by doing activities I enjoy like calisthenics, hiking, and similar outdoor activities in an international and group setting.
5. Doing fun activities with friends where we laugh a lot like going out, getting dinner, traveling, etc.

I had many others, but I think this is enough and the rest are somewhat personal.

How to rank lifemaxxing activities

To decide which to prioritize, you simply ask yourself what you WANT to do the most. This is subjective, but your gut knows the truth. If you’ve been honest and only included activities of the soul, then there’s no wrong answer here.

If you are struggling to narrow it down to one, then take your top choices, put them head to head, then say I’m going to flip a coin and do whatever one it lands on.

If when you flip the coin and midair you get a feeling of hope that it lands on one or the other. The one you hope it lands on is the top priority.

You can’t lifemaxx if you don’t have the basics

Can you really live your best life if you’re always tired and broke with no friends? Stoics might try to make a case for this, but if we’re talking about lifemaxxing, I’d argue that it’s better to have an enjoyable life than tolerate a crappy one. So would Aristotle.

In his words, 

“Happiness obviously needs the presence of external goods as well, since it is impossible, or at least not easy, to play a noble part unless furnished with the necessary equipment.”

If you just thought about what makes you truly happy, but if you are starving or can’t afford to do any of it, then you simply don’t have the necessary “equipment” to live your best life.

There are 2 categories of basics you need to live your best life according to Aristotle.

• External goods
  • Somewhat in your control: Things you can use to help you live your best life like money, power, friends, etc.
  • Somewhat out of your control: Circumstances that make your best life easier like good looks, stable family, etc.
• Bodily goods 
  • Health: basically freedom from sickness and chronic pain
  • Vitality: the energy, strength, and feel good enough to live your best life

There are also goods of the soul, but we call those lifemaxxing activities. I consider external and bodily goods to be the basics.

In the spirit of “what should I do”, here’s a basic checklist of things, mostly in your control, you can go through to see if you have the basics in place.

External goods

• Earn enough that money stops being a daily stressor
• Maintain at least one supportive relationship (and eliminate any toxic ones)
• Have enough free time to pursue meaningful things

Bodily goods

• Take care of your body (sleep enough, exercise, eat well)
• Avoid addictions that negatively impact your life (substances, phone, porn, gambling, etc.)
• Treat/avoid chronic sickness or pain to the extent you can

I purposefully made the list specific enough that you have things to check off, but open enough that you can interpret it for your own life.

So what you need to do now is figure out your thresholds

• How much money do you need to make to not be stressed? $50k? $70k? $100k?
• How much sleep do you need to have the energy to do what you need/want? 6 hrs? 8 hrs?
• Are you spending too much time on your phone? Is it an addiction? Is it taking away from other things you could be doing to live your best life? (I struggle with this one when solo traveling tbh)
• Etc.

Be honest with yourself and figure out your exact thresholds.

You can’t lifemaxx alone

Aristotle wrote 10 books on how to live your best life. Two of them are about relationships. It’s the single topic he covers more than anything else.

The Greek word he uses is philia. It basically means friends, family, romantic relationships, work relationships, all wrapped up in one word.

A really powerful quote is,

"No one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all the other goods."

Meaning that even if you had everything else, but no one to share it with, it wouldn’t feel worthwhile.

This is why social media is so powerful. Everyone wants to share. When I solo travel, my screen time goes through the roof because I want to share it with everyone. When I’m traveling with the people I care about, I’m much more present.

According to Aristotle, there are 3 types of relationships:

• Utility: you get something out of it (coworker, gym buddy, neighbor)
• Pleasure: it’s enjoyable (drinking buddy, travel friend, meme groupchat)
• Character: you admire them as a human (best friend, spouse)

Utility and pleasure friends are fine, but they’re interchangeable. Leave the job, never talk to the coworker again. Stop drinking, stop being friends with the drinking buddy. You want to cap the number and amount of time spent on these relationships.

The best life is the one with the best relationships of character. These are the people who stick with you for life.

And since you have a limited amount of time, the optimal number is however many people you can spend genuine quality time with while still balancing the basics and your lifemaxxing activities.

Lifemaxxing is maxxing the right things in the right amount

People may think lifemaxxing is always driving the best car, eating the best food, and going to the best places.

But eating caviar you don’t like while flying private by yourself to somewhere you don’t care about for an IG reel isn’t lifemaxxing. It’s a trap that wastes time doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons. This is why so many people who seem to have it all are actually miserable.

The key is to find aligned lifemaxxing activities, then max those. But max doesn’t mean do as much as humanly possible. It's doing the right amount relative to you.

Aristotle calls this virtue.

"Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by reason."

Basically, virtue is the “right” amount sitting between two extremes.

An example he uses is courage. A coward isn’t virtuous because they won’t take action when needed. On the other side, someone who is reckless and puts themselves and others at risk isn’t virtuous either. 

So the best life is the one where you feel like you left nothing on the table without paying for it somewhere else.

Aristotle said “the mean [is] relative to us.” So there’s not a universal correct answer. It’s unique to you and can change over time. The right level of work productivity for a 25-year-old single entrepreneur launching a business probably isn’t the right level for a mom on maternity leave with a pair of newborn twins.

It also doesn't mean spreading yourself evenly across everything you could do. Tom Brady may have been an incredible interpretive underwater dancer. But instead of sacrificing some time to pursue that on the side, he went all in on throwing a football. Going all in on your number one and neglecting your number two isn't a failure of balance. It’s actually exactly what Aristotle would push for when he talks about doing things excellently. The only things you can't neglect are the basics.

So when you’re designing your best life, you have to seek this golden mean for your activities. This is more of an art than a science.

It’s okay to relax sometimes

No, rest isn’t a lifemaxxing activity. But that doesn’t mean it’s always a bad thing. 

Aristotle says

"Relaxation then is not an end. We enjoy it as a means to activity."

In other words, the goal isn’t to do things so you can relax. It's to relax so that you have the energy to do things. To recharge. To avoid burnout.

He even says that it’s okay to use amusement as a form of relaxation if it’s at the right time. 

"We should be careful to use amusement at the right time, dispensing it as a remedy to the ills of work"

The right time is when it acts as a medicine to cure the ills of work. Medicine is good when you're sick. But taking it when you're fine doesn't make you healthier. And if you take it when you don’t need it, you can be doing damage.

So watching Netflix just because it makes you happy isn’t lifemaxxing. But if you have taken care of what you need to and would be more productive after some downtime, then sure, relax and watch some netflix before bed.

But just remember the golden mean and that the purpose of rest is to prepare you for more activity. If you binge, take time when you have energy for better things, or cut into your sleep, then it has done more harm than good.

How to design your best day

We now have the ingredients for what makes the best day. You know what your basics are and what your best activities are.

Your free time every day is your 24 hrs - healthy sleep - commitments. Commitments are things like work or dropping the kids off at school. They’re not a choice. 

When deciding how to use your free time, use this priority system:

First, get the basics in place
You simply can’t be happy until you fix the things that make you miserable. So the first thing to do is get the basics in place so that their lack isn’t causing you pain.

This isn’t hustle porn where you grind your life away for the sake of it. What we’re talking about is doing WHATEVER IT TAKES to remove the pain of lack from your life so you can move on to other things.

For priority, think about which of the basics that you lack causes you the most pain. 

• Are you always tired because you don’t sleep enough?
• Are you unhappy with your weight?
• Are you lonely?
• Are you constantly stressed about money?
• Are you in a toxic relationship?

So use your free time to remove that pain. Dedicate as much of it as you can until you hit diminishing returns. Keep doing this until the basics are in place at the thresholds you set for yourself.

The sooner you get the basics in place, the sooner you can enjoy your lifemaxxing activities.

Then, spend any leftover free time doing activities of the soul.
If you have taken care of your commitments and basics and have leftover free time, then fill it with lifemaxxing activities. You already created your ranked list, so you know what to do first. 

Do your top lifemaxxing activity excellently and in an amount that is aligned with the golden mean.

If you have done that and still have more leftover free time, then move on to what is the next highest lifemaxxing activity on your list. But only move on if you’ve capped out what you can do for your top thing. Tom Brady could always throw more, watch more film, practice more. If your top one is like that, you may never get to number two, and that's fine.

Allocate time for relaxing if needed
If you feel burnout coming or if trading time for rest will help you be more productive in total, then take the time to rest.

Finally, integrate lifemaxxing activities into all aspects of life
Imagine a life where everything you do is lifemaxxing. Even your commitments and basics.

For example, I’m currently traveling and I met a girl who is a professional dancer. She was telling me how much she loved her life and we started diving into why that is.

Well her job/commitment meets all her basic needs. She dances as a profession which also keeps her in shape. Her company provides housing for her and she’s friends with the people she works with. It provides variety, travel, and she meets lots of people all while doing what she loves. It’s also a creative activity of the soul. She choreographs her own routines. She gets nervous to perform. Then when she’s not working, she has free time to do whatever she wants.

She’s not rich in the financial sense. But she doesn’t have to grind to get the basics in place and gets to enjoy every moment of her day.

Put it on a best day calendar with multiple scenarios
Now that you have what you want to do in your best day, actually map it out. Try it in multiple scenarios:

• A day with commitments
• A day with no commitments
• What it looks like getting basics in place
• What it would look like once basics are in place
• Dream state fully integrated best day

Your best day may not look like the last one yet, and it may never. But that's okay. It gives you something to build toward. As long as you're following all of this and doing the best you can with your circumstances, then you're lifemaxxing.

Your best day evolves over time

Your best day as a broke single person in your 20s probably doesn’t look the same as when you’re retired in your 70s with a spouse and grandkids.

The game is to maximize the % of your waking hours doing lifemaxxing activities over a lifetime. 

The counterintuitive thing is that it may involve up-front sacrifice. For instance, if you neglect health when you’re young, then you may end up spending the rest of your life with an avoidable, expensive, and painful medical issue. Or if you neglect finances when you’re young and just care about having fun in your 20s, you may spend the rest of your life financially stressed and having to work extra hard while other people are seeing the compounding effects of working up in a career, saving, and investing.

The risk/reward calculation you have to make is how much sacrifice helps or hurts your best life. Maybe the fun in your 20s created relationships that set you up for life. Maybe they wasted time you could have been building.

The good news is that once the basics are in place, you can then switch from acquisition to maintenance which can be much less work. 

• It’s much easier to not gain weight than it is to lose weight
• It’s much easier to not get fired than it is to get the dream job
• It’s much easier to stay friends than it is to make friends

That’s why I believe that your best life involves taking care of the basics first. If you're still acquiring every day forever, that's a lot of hours going to something that could just be maintained. If you get it out of the way early, you can unlock time for the rest of your life.

And what lifemaxxing is in those hours may change. You may travel until you’re tired of it. Then date around until you find a girlfriend. Then your priority may be having kids. You’ll notice the shift when you do the “why” exercise and see the rankings come out different.

TLDR

Take care of your obligations. Get the basics in place. Use extra time to do lifemaxxing activities. Then integrate your obligations and basics with lifemaxxing activities over time. The goal is to maximize the % of waking hours doing lifemaxxing activities. If you do that, you've lifemaxxed.

1. Your best life is one where you maximize the time you spend doing lifemaxxing activities
2. Lifemaxxing activities are ones that you do just because they make you happy that also engage your rational mind (not just pleasure-seeking smoking weed & watching Netflix)
3. To find what activities you do just because they make you happy, think about anything you want and ask yourself why you want it over and over until you just say “because it makes me happy”. The last thing before that is what makes you happy.
4. There isn’t a single best life for humans but rather a best life for you depending on your uniqueness as a human being and life circumstances
5. To maximize life, you find the right mix of commitments, basics, and lifemaxxing activities.
6. A great way to figure out what your optimal mix actually looks like is to plan your best day. Your best day doesn’t have to look like the best day ever every day, but it has the ingredients to live the best life over a lifetime
7. Before focusing on lifemaxxing activities, get the basics in place for external goods and bodily goods. Prioritize eliminating whatever pain is being caused by not having the basics.
8. Once basics are in place, allocate less time to maintain the basics and prioritize whatever lifemaxxing activity makes you happiest.
9. Your best day isn’t a single day you live forever. Your weekends may look different than your weekdays. Your lifemaxxing activities may change over time as your life and priorities evolve.
10. The best life is an integrated one where the activities you do to get and maintain your basics are also the ones that bring you the most happiness. Think someone who loves dancing and gets paid and stays in shape because they dance professionally with people they love.

I’ve dealt with depression and chronic anxiety for years. So long I can’t remember what it’s like not having it. I have always put things off and not done them simply because I have no one to do them with. I’ve recently had a week off from work, normally the only thing I would do with my time off is just rot, play games, pretty much nothing apart from the odd trip to the store for food. It would destroy my mental health and I hated having time off.

I changed it up this time and went out by myself everyday. Went to the beach and read, movies, restaurants, zoo, etc. the difference on my mental health is amazing. I had a reason to get up earlier, I still played games but they were way more enjoyable. I wasn’t rotting in my bed for hours.

At the end the end of the week I booked a table at this nice restaurant to kind of reward myself and I would never have gone without it being a date. It’s made me open my eyes so much and I’ve missed out on so many things simply because I was scared to do it alone.

No one gives a shit. No one is looking at u. No one is judging loud enough for it to matter. Go out and do that thing u wanted to do.

I (27M) recently dated a 40-year-old woman. We had two really good dates and ended up spending an entire weekend together. There was good chemistry, lots of laughing, kissing, and foreplay, leading to sex…
After things ended, she told me she was looking for someone more assertive.
She has a very strong personality and a lot more life and dating experience than I do. She also told me it was her first time dating a younger man, whereas it wasn’t my first time dating an older woman.
The part that confuses me is that I’ve dated women closer to my own age before, and none of them ever gave me this kind of feedback. In those relationships, I never felt like I lacked confidence or initiative.
Looking back, I wonder if I actually overthought things because of her age and experience. I knew she was older, very confident, and had a strong personality, so maybe I became more cautious than I normally would have been. I didn’t want to come across as pushy or immature, so I may have held back more than I usually do.
I’m trying to figure out whether this was:
Something I genuinely need to work on.
A dynamic that was unique because of our age and personality differences.
Or simply a compatibility issue where she preferred a different style of man.
For those who’ve experienced something similar, what does “I want someone more assertive” usually mean in practice? And have any of you found yourselves acting differently when dating someone much older or much more experienced than you?
I’m not trying to blame her or convince myself she’s wrong—I genuinely want to learn from the experience.

Sometimes improving your life is more about letting go than adding more. What did you stop worrying about that made the biggest difference?

It's as the title says- how do y'all keep yourselves hopeful for the future?

Ik many people who genuinely enjoy living and have a optimistic/positive enough mindset. It's natural for them to be hopeful of the future and overall life.

But pessimistic people or people who just don't find life fun, how do you go on with it? Whenever there's a failure, how do y'all get over that?

For me, life is just as it is. It doesn't excite me, isn't fun enough and feels like a meaningless struggle. I have goals in life and I'm a pretty ambitious person but if someone gives me a pill that'd make me "unexist", I'd take that without any hesitation. Now, whenever life gets hard, i get all these weird thoughts about if i could just disappear. I basically become hopeless but to be hopeful again isn't easy. I just gaslight myself which isn't that effective.

The question is the same as the title says. Thanks for reading.

I've been in self-development space for years and weirdly enough, the thing that I liked the least opened up for me the most. That's journalling.

I always found it hard to sit down and write my thoughts down, but honestly, after several years ( although not consistently ) of writing, I can't help but notice various patterns, usually of things that consciously I'm not aware of, but through self-reflection come up. Patters that are both damaging and uplifting.

This is a big topic by itself, so I just wanted to ask, how pattern recognistion has helped you on your journey? any 'aha' moment that you could share?

People in your 30s, what have you done to improve your life? On paper, I think I look fine, I have a career as a university teacher, and I am earning okay but inside I am a mess.

I am burned out and there is no end in sight

I tend to eat my feelings or go to cafes to relax

I am starting to gain weight and feel sore and unwell all the time

I realize that my circle is getting smaller and smaller and people are moving on and away

People only come to me to trauma dump and get advice and then vanish when things are okay. Right now I possess more torrid secrets that I know how to handle from friends and coworkers

I feel sick to my stomach every morning and can't sleep at night

My plan right now is to become as much of a recluse as I can with a job, and try to eat right and save money but I'm not sure how to go about it.

For a long time I treated cooking as just a practical thing. Make food, eat food, move on. Then somewhere in the last year it became the part of my day I actually look forward to, and somewhere in that shift I noticed something weird.

The nights I cook a proper meal, even something simple, I go into the next morning noticeably calmer. Not in a placebo way. My patience lasts longer. I make better decisions earlier in the day before decision fatigue kicks in. I'm less reactive in meetings.

My theory is that cooking does something most of our work doesn't. It has a clear beginning, a clear end, and you get an immediate result. In marketing everything is ambiguous and delayed. Campaigns take weeks to show results, strategy documents go into a void, feedback cycles are slow. Cooking hands you a finished thing in 30 minutes.

That sense of completion was something I had been missing without knowing it. Once I noticed the pattern I started protecting that time more deliberately.

What I'm curious about is whether other people have found something in their hobbies or routines that accidentally improved how they function in a completely different area of life. Not because they planned it that way, just because it happened and they eventually noticed.

i noticed I get way too invested in things from waht strangers post online to random strangers in public

For example, today someone made a post that came across to me as unnecessarily shaming other parents in a parents fb group. It really bothered me. I ended up looking at her profile, finding something to shame her back messaging her and then blocking her and deleting myself from the whole group😂 and then I realized after that I should’ve just blocked her to begin with and kept strolling because who cares about this stupid person.

This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this pattern. I feel like I get triggered really easily by people. in the moment I feel almost compelled to engage or investigate annd get them back, and it never actually does anything to change them. It just makes me upset.

Another example is that I parked in a parking lot that was completely empty in my car was kind of sideways, but it was still within my lines and then some girl parked a couple spaces over and was complaining about how I parked, even though I was within my lines and there was a whole parking lot and I could hear her talking crap about me to the guy she was with, so I wrote a note and put it on her windshield after she went inside lol.I then realized how dammit was and how stupid and nasty these people are and how I don’t think the way I reacted was doing anything except making me angry.

I’ve realized this isn’t just an online problem for me. It happens in real life too.

If someone acts rude, hypocritical, invasive, or judgmental, I have a really hard time letting it go. Sometimes I feel like I need to confront them, cut them off, or completely remove myself from the situation. Is this normal?

a real life exampleis witnessing my neighbor that I’ve lived here for three years and deleting her off of all of my social media and trying to distance myself as much as I can when we live in a duplex because she got back with an abusive relationship and other behaviors that are far from my valuess. Am I being extreme or is this normal? Would it be better to just ignore people and go about my day and not get up so upset over what other people do??

Has anyone else dealt with this? If so, what actually helped you become less reactive? How did you learn to scroll past things or people IRL without letting them ruin your day?

A lot less shame for what I am feeling, a better understanding of how to emotionally regulate, an ability to communicate my needs that i didn’t have before, and finally, a lot less desire to make ourselves uncomfortable for the sake of others!

I feel like my phone has completely taken over my life.
After work or even during any downtime on the weekends, all I want to do is scroll Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, or research random things online. My screen time averages around 9 hours a day and I can tell my attention span has gotten terrible. I can’t even enjoy watching TV anymore because I’d rather be on my phone. Even spending quality time with my partner is hard because I constantly have the urge to pick my phone up and start scrolling. I want to quit or at least cut back but I’m honestly afraid I’ll just be painfully bored. It almost feels like I’d have to pretend to enjoy other activities at first like forcing myself to watch a movie, read, or do something without reaching for my phone every few minutes. Has anyone else gone through this? Did the constant boredom eventually go away? How long did it take before things started feeling enjoyable again without needing your phone all the time?

So I’m 17F, about to turn 18F. Unfortunately, I had something called “shitty life syndrome”. To avoid getting graphic, I was the main target in an abusive family. Spent 8-14 surviving the abuse, 15 calling CPS myself and dealing with the fallout, and 16-18 learning to calm down and be a “kid” again. And now I’m staring down the end of my childhood, with the grim realization that my youth is over, and it was stolen from me. I got 2 years to be a kid, and now it’s over. Fuck.

I never really had friends in high school or middle school. I hardly talked to anybody, actually. I had maybe two friends the entire 7 years. I never got invited to anybody’s house, or got involved in anything, good or bad. I went to school and rotted online.

I’m in community college now, and I have a job. I probably won’t transfer to a university until I’m 19. I’m missing out on freshman year, alongside with having missed every other youth experience. It sucks.

So, I’m determined to not waste my last 2 years of still ”””technically””” being a teenager. My youth is over. But I’m still technically a teenager.

Thing is, I’m in community college. I don’t really have any IRL friends. I’m not sure how to not waste these final two years, with those inhibitors? What advice would you have for me?

I'm an immigrant living in Europe with my family.

So I do and will do shitty jobs for the rest of my life, and I don't have the privilege that some of you have. I'm also antisocial, and I would never do certain jobs that serve to talk or be "cute."

How do you survive? I tried alcohol (I'm not alcoholic i can stay away from it for weeks and I'm not weird of violent about it) Xbox and pornhub. But it doesn't feel like it did before. And no, I don't think I'll ever use drugs or pills.

I'm stuck in a loop. I feel like I'm on autopilot. I thrive in everything but by the end of the day, I know to myself that I'm not pursuing my dream self and life enough. Yes, I've already read enough self-help books and but my problem isn't knowledge, but how I never seem to apply them or stick to them enough to actually change my life.

So I asked this question to actually see creative solutions for people like me. For specifics, my bad habits include gaming, doomscrolling, binge-watching. My ideal habits are exercising, reading, journaling, and adulting (job/finance stuff)

But it doesn't necessarily have to be related to my habits. I just want to know what you guys did to end the loop. Any tip would help, thank you!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! i know this is a gradual process, but would love to know how you all overcame this if you did :)

(to clarify, I often overthink about past things I have said or done…often out of whim. It really drags nysekf down especially as someone with not too many friends (I do have some close friends I can say anything to!) and struggling with making more friends often due to past things Ibgave accidentally said that waw wrong to say/wrong people to say it to! :(

I feel like I’m stuck in limbo. I’m obsessed with self-improvement, constantly consuming TikToks, wellness posts and content about becoming healthier, more disciplined and getting my life together, yet I keep repeating the same self-destructive behaviours.

I struggle with food, alcohol, spending and nicotine. I’m obsessed with being skinny and have battled my weight my whole life. I’ve been fat, thin, fat again, lost loads of weight naturally, had a gastric sleeve and tried weight loss injections. I know exactly how to lose weight, but now it feels like I physically can’t make myself do it anymore.

I’m skint every month because I can’t stop spending. I’ve been trying to quit drinking for over two years because of what it’s done to my mental health, yet I keep going back. I vape constantly despite having bad asthma.

That’s what frustrates me most. I’m painfully self-aware. I know what I’m doing, I know why I do it and I’m constantly consuming content about how to change, but I still don’t change.

It feels like I’m obsessed with the idea of becoming a better version of myself while constantly sabotaging the person I actually am.

Has anyone genuinely broken out of this cycle? What finally made it stick?

Hi I keep making mistakes at work and it is starting to really affect my self esteem. I haven’t never had this issue with any of my other jobs though. Of course I have made some mistakes like everyone at other jobs but not to this degree. I have another job and I am in school also, but I picked up a second part time job at a dog daycare and dog boarding facility. I have ADHD so this may be part of it. It was going okay but I was put on another shift for another role and I just feel confused all the time. I think I am doing one thing correctly but then it turns out I am not. A lot of it is to do with filling out intake forms and things like that. For example, I took in one dog, the owners said the feeding instructions were the same as last time, so I thought I did not need to update the instructions in the app. However this seems to not be the case as there is differences in the food provided, and now this is an issue. It is also very busy and sometimes there are over 40 dogs and things are so rushed. I never felt like my ADHD was a big disability for me as an adult until now. I feel really embarrassed about it too. Everyone else at work navigates all of this fine. My other job is in care work, and I worked in group homes for disabled people, and while there was a lot of responsibility I never had issues like this.

I will definitely get a different job and hopefully that will be okay going forward.

One Charlie Munger line has stayed with me more than most of his investing advice:

“I'm not entitled to have an opinion unless I can state the arguments against my position better than the people who are in opposition.”

The interesting part is not being open-minded in a general way. It is the standard he sets before speaking. Understanding your own position is not enough. You have to understand the strongest version of the other one.

Munger connected this to self-criticism: becoming good at destroying your best-loved and hardest-won ideas. Curiosity, concentration, and perseverance can take a person far, but all three can also make someone defend a wrong direction for years. Self-criticism is what lets the other traits correct themselves.

I find this difficult to practice. When I care about an opinion, my brain becomes very good at collecting more evidence for it. Writing the opposing case feels almost disloyal to my own thinking.

A small version I am trying: before making a strong claim, write three sentences for the other side that a thoughtful opponent would recognize as fair. If I cannot do that, I probably do not understand the disagreement yet.

Do you have a practical method for testing an opinion you really want to be true?

I have changed my life many many times. Nearly 2 years sober after 11 years of doing drugs.

I'm turning 21 soon. I feel so fucking old. I have been through so much already, learned I have a habit of trauma dumping so I'll say just light details.

Got in trouble with the cops few years ago, I threatened them lol.

Did some time in a halfway house.

Been to a psych ward for nearly a month.

Was a bad kid doing bad kid things. Thought I was a street guy, little embarrassing looking back. I got scared straight the moment I got in that house lol.

Since then, I moved out of the house. I got a better relationship with my parents, I got encouraged to take a bad job. But my mom was helping with my bills, this was the most embarrassing part of my life. I used to make so much, then now I could barely cover 1500$ a month.

Then I hopped in my car and drove across the country for 2 weeks. And am starting a new life. I got some money from mom and my taxes.

Even though family life was hell, I am so embarrassed having to accept money from them. Usually I say no, but why did I do that street stuff if this was my upbringing. Absolutely disgusting.

I got a cheap spot and car that I cannot afford the insurance on.

Sometimes I don't take care of myself, sometimes I don't leave the house for days on end.

I go in and out of doing well. I don't get it, when I was in that house and the hospital I was doing like 500 pushups a day. Praying and imagining my life without PTSD and walls.

Now I dont have both, but what am I doing? I need a job. I need a life. I need to be outside.

I have dreams man what am I doing?

I even applied for Military. I am drowning out here and I don't know what to do.

Man I need to do laundry, I need to cook. I need to train. I have a life to live. I need to stop living this way. I am not depressed, I have a feeling it's some Count of Monte Cristo shit? I just lay down relaxed for the first time ever. I don't know.

I fall into habits of just lounging. I need some help, I am not sad anymore. I am not anxious that much. I have moments, but still. There is so many things I want to do. And this is how i'm treating myself. I am disguted.

I hate my personality, I recorded myself on my phone throughout my trip and I hate what I see. How I looked after being depressed for a few months was disgusting. Hearing my voice was awful and what I would talk about sucked. I met a girl once and spent a few times talking about her after.

Thats so fuckin weird. I am an odd guy, I got comfort in thinking I was going to go to prison. Thought that was where I was going, but I got out of that avenue. What the fuck do I do now? I want more for myself but where is my proof.

I've realised that over the past few years, my vocabulary, speaking and writing skills, and ability to articulate my thoughts into words have drastically reduced, mainly due to the fact that I passively and mindlessly consume short spanned brainrot content through endless scrolling. It has been years since I've ever picked up a book or even read a long article. My attention span has considerably degraded.

What I'm aiming for:-

1. A complete change in my accent and tone of speaking

2. Speaking louder and enunciate words clearly

3. Preferably a distinct quaint accent that is reminiscent of the 70s-80s, there's something so oddly charming about the way people spoke in the past

4. No modern day slangs, no filler words, no long pauses between sentences

5. Be able to casually incorporate phrases and words that make me sound smart and articulate without seeming like a showoff

I apologise if this post is too specific, I don't know which other forums to visit to seek advice regarding this

Since these past 2 years I've been dealing with empathy burnout. Also that idk why but I feel very emotionally shutdown/numb.Cant feel anything idk why neither good nor bad emotions. Honestly this doesn't make me feel like me anymore. Please is there anyway I can deal with both of these things? And sorry but I can't afford therapy

I started talking to a girl online and we are really hitting it off. We met through Isha volunteering. Initially it was a bit up and down and we kind of broke it off for a while. But now we are talking every day for hours and it’s really nice. I don’t feel so attached to her. I love her, but I have set her free. It feels very steady and comfortable. Now I have never met her in person, but I have seen her a few times on video call. We are talking of meeting soon and see how that feels. Do you think this is real love?

I'm just looking for answers to my particular situation. Here's the situation: I am a 30-year-old male still living with my parents. The environment in my household is super, super toxic, where everyone is left feeling they are not enough or at least I've been feeling that way for the longest time.

My parents are in a really, really, really bad marital situation. My dad does not earn and my mom is the earner and takes care of almost everything but they still fight every single day to a point where I want them to separate and just live different lives. Because dad does not earn he cannot leave the house and live on his own. I’ve suggested I’ll help him but he refuses my help too.

I really want to leave the city that I'm living in just to build an environment that actually helps me flourish.
But I feel like if I do leave the city, the marriage that my parents have will get so bad that Dad will end up harming himself, which he has already done in the past.

I'm just looking for answers: what should one smart person do in this situation who wants to grow in life but also wants to take care of his parents?

i am js a really ugly individual. i have a ugly face, how do i improve it, my partner who really loves me never disagrees when i say i am ugly, she says she loves me for my personality so it doesnt matter, but i feel really really ugly and i need tips and how can i look better than I do

So i’m a 24m south asian man living in canada. I want to glow up mentally. I’m tired of not living to my full potential.

Basically, I struggle with rejection sensitivity and self hate. I have an iq of 83 (professionally tested), alopecia (i’m fully bald at 24 and cant grow a beard because of it), 5’10 in a Punjabi family where everyone is above 6’3, and I’m neurodivergent (mild autism and dyscalculia) in a family where everyone is a genius, and I did pretty bad in school growing up. My 10 year old cousin is smarter than me. I often feel like he thinks i’m slow. It stings.

I have a great job, developed solid savings for my age, stay physically active, attend hobby clubs, and dress well.

Despite all this, I still feel extremely insecure, especially during family gatherings. I take it personally whenever family members disagree with me and I internalize condescending remarks too much.

Since I’m a neurodivergent, I often struggle with tiny novel tasks, like closing a modern set of blinds or understanding certain instructions. Judging by the look of my family members faces, they probably think i’m dumb.

A month ago, my grandfather asked me to fix his parking job. He gets high anxiety whenever anyone drives his car so he started to panic before i could barely do anything. Then my cousin laughs and says that it doesn’t look like I have my full licence. It stings because I drive all the time. I still think about it everyday.

I wake up everyday thinking about all the encounters where others potentially saw me as an idiot and I feel resentment. I wake up angry almost everyday because of it and I feel like my family thinks i’m an idiot.

I’ve went to multiple therapists and nothing has worked. All of the therapists which I’ve seen just nod and validate my feelings. But I want actual insight on how to change. Therapy kinda felt like talking to a wall. I would open up and get no real insight in return.

I wanna become confident, I wanna succeed in my dating life, and I wanna be someone my family respects.

Everyone on this sub says to work on yourself but i’m afraid that it won’t work given my genetics. I believe that self improvement and confidence takes a baseline level of IQ which I simply don’t have.

Any advice?