Similar Posts

What We Owe Ourselves

Byjack

I’ve been making everything a workpost these days. Because I like it. I like feeling the pride that I’m getting work done. But today, I’m going to try something a little different.

I want to write a little different. Not as a workpost, but a journal entry or maybe an essay.

I want to try writing with more of my emotions, seeking to express and be understood rather just recording my thoughts.

Today I felt very angry with myself. I felt like a failure. It’s been days and every day feels like a repeat of the same nightmare. Wake up, work, play Valorant, go to bed.

The deadline for my entrepreneurship endeavor feels like it is creeping closer and closer, and nothing feels like it is getting done. I feel like I’m drowning under the waves of my anxiety and stress. What if three months pass, and I get nothing done, just like I’ve gotten nothing done in the last 3 months?

In times like this, I feel desperate for answers. I search and I search for some answer to hold onto, some insight that will unlock my mind and set me free from this torment.

The answers didn’t come cleanly. But they did come.

First, I thought about my worries and wins. I wrote them down.

I thought about how really big goals aren’t completed by thinking about the goals, but about who you want to become, and being that person every day.

I thought about how focus was about letting things go, being ok with certain things slipping away.

I remembered my theories: connection theory, and flow theory. I used flow theory to feel my discomfort and soothe myself. Flow theory told me to hold my arms up in the wide circle, almost as if I was giving a hug to an imaginary friend. I needed to do this when I felt the feeling of letting myself down. Like I needed to hold myself and remind myself that I really cared.

I asked myself what I was willing to give myself, what I was willing to do today in order to prove to myself that I cared. And I wrote this:

Website Copy Draft

The path to greatness doesn’t have to be a lonely one
Have you always wanted to write a book, create a comic book, or start a youtube channel?
I specialize in helping people who are retired start one their second career…a career in creative expression.
I believe that there are 3 pillars to success in creating any artistic masterpiece – structure, creativity, and emotional honesty.
Master all three and you will have a work that will feel honest, raw, playful, and beautiful.
But it’s a lonely path to seek this on your own.
That’s where I come in.

With a unique background of both art and engineering, I uniquely understand the feeling and structure, and psychology required to complete the masterpiece of a lifetime. I won multiple awards for art as a child, and got a full scholarship to college for fine art. I am versed in multiple forms of art be it painting, videography, writing, music, and dance. I also studied mechanical engineering and have won awards in the corporate setting for my dedication to the details, practicality, and results orientation.

Together, I can help you express what it is that you want to express in a beautiful, deep, and artistic way.

Tomorrow, I will ask myself the same question. What am I willing to do for myself, my future me.

Thoughts on The Video About Mastery

Byjack
  1. Mastery is about feedback not just repetition as I always thought (with Valorant, then with language learning)
  2. People are bad at predicting things with randomized scenarios such as stocks, maybe it’s important to understand how to play the averages
  3. My thought is that people have a hard time predicting things that happen only once (presidential elections)
  4. I think lots of learning comes from motivation, finding it fun is HUGE is making you better and better

Rental Car Nightmares

Byjack

A couple of weeks ago, I rented a car at National car rental. My sister returned it for me, and I got a shock in my email a few weeks later.

I immediate assumed this had to be a scam, or some sort of mistake. But the more I read, the more that I could tell this was actually legit. They had the right time, the right place and right company. They were charging me for $1295.81 for damages to the vehicle.

Looking at this deeper I noticed that the line items were VERY extensive, replaces door parts and handles. According to them, the car was HEAVILY damaged.

Looking at the pictures, I could barely see any of the damages they were indicating. It almost felt like they were offloading the cost of wear and tear on me.

Obviously I was LIVID.

  • I knew that there were some small marks on the car when I picked it up, but I never took any pictures.
  • I knew that no damage whatsoever happened when I had the car. I didn’t think any of this damage was on the car when I picked it up, but the damage in the photos are so subtle its hard for me to be sure.
  • I had rental insurance specifically for this car, but didn’t want to file a claim for something I didn’t do.
  • My sister had someone walk around the car and CONFIRM it was ok before she returned it. They parked it, and who knows what happened after that.
  • National has a service for their “Emerald Isle” premium members where you can pick up and drop off a car without ever seeing someone.
    • This now seemed like a LIABILITY not a PERK since now I can’t get them to acknowledge damage on the car.
    • I’m a new member and if they were going to be f*cking sticklers about this whole thing, they should have EXPLAINED it to me. I would have got them to sign off on EVERY F*CKING SCRATCH BEFORE AND AFTER returning the car.

So I went to chase down this problem:

  1. I called National Support, and they told me that I needed to call their damage unit. I asked them to make a note on my case so I wouldn’t have to repeat myself.
  2. After I called their damage unit, they redirected me to someone else.
  3. After getting to another person, they redirected me to someone else.
  4. The last person seemed to know what they were talking about, but I had repeat myself because she could not access any of the notes that National Support wrote down.

The last woman who oversaw the appeals to the damages told me the following information:

  • Generally its better if you take photos beforehand, however, in situations where the “damage” is so small it is easy to miss, you can appeal and they will dismiss it. They consider it human error.
  • She told me that my “damages” were definitely small enough that someone might have missed it before (so it may not be caused by me).
  • She agreed to waive all of the fees.

So my lessons learned from this whole experience:

  1. Always get rental car insurance just in case.
  2. Take a video when you pick up the car to prove the condition of the car beforehand. (It’s gonna be me in the parking lot being like “hey this is me in the parking lot picking up this car at X time” so they have proof I didn’t take the video at some other place or time)
  3. Take a video of the car when you return it.
  4. If they try to charge you for something really small and not visible in your videos, appeal, and they will probably dismiss it.
  5. It’s good to be a mix of legitimately angry (I was furious) but polite at the same time (I apologized in advance telling them I was very upset but I knew it wasn’t their fault personally). As a result, they were helpful and resolved my issue quickly.

A day later I got an email.

The Go For It Mentality

Byjack

There are many different mentalities that can offer deeper insight, faster learning and a deeper connection to the present moment. 

My favorite mentalities are:

  • Meditative/Let It Come Mentality
    • Be patient
    • Don’t do anything
    • The right answer will be clear if you keep feeling and noticing what comes up
    • Good for staying in the moment and being yourself
  • Self Reflection/Feedback Loop (learning) Mentality
    • Look for ways to observe yourself by recording yourself somehow
    • Use the objective, nonjudemental self observation to get clarity on where to improve
    • Good for rapid learning
  • Process Emotions Mentality
    • The action you focus on is feeling
    • Use breathing and physical activity to feel as strongly as possible
    • Very good for emotional growth

However, I recently found a new mentality that actually helps with areas of life that I had trouble with recently. I noticed in rapid active situations like social situations (parties), or sports, or dance or singing overthinking can be a major issue. Using the meditative mentality and or the processing emotions mentality is helpful but ultimately keeps you in your head. Staying in your head isn’t always a good thing because it can actually make it very hard for you to focus on the present moment (even though those exercises usually help you reconnect with the moment). 

I’m not entirely sure where this idea came from, but I think it came from daygaming (approaching girls irl). I started using it in gaming then dance and singing practice (all things where being in the present moment is part of the experience).

I call it the “Go For It” Mentality. Basically, you imagine what you want to do (the perfect action) and then just try going for it.

A couple of major points:

  • Everything is seen as practice (and is very useful when practicing in the moment type skills like language, singing, dance, sports etc where thinking is going to get in your way and you want to focus your instincts).
  • Repetition is the goal since it is practice, nothing is seen as the final end all be all.
  • As you keep repeating, you adjust every single time until it feels more and more right. This is one way that you can start bringing in the other tools and mindsets in order to have a really beautiful time.

Calling in the One: Manifesting Your Ambition

Byjack

Ideas in this video

  • Go for something that is impossible, we inspire the angels when we do that.
  • See yourself as the source of everything. How did I give my power away, how can I reclaim my power?
  • Make our identity the one that has the thing we want.
  • Generate the future with the action you take. Become the person you need to be.

Also, the idea of meditating in what your vision is and looking into three things you have to let go of in order to become the person you need to be.

| |

Valorant Challenge 1: Spike Rush Cypher

Byjack

Today I didn’t have the time or the pc to play competitively. I played a couple of spike rush games as cypher.

Impressions:

  • Hot damn it’s hard to play cypher. So much to put down in so little time. The cages are HARD to use as well.
  • I don’t know if playing different agents will help me play. Maybe I should just refine my mains.
  • I think agents like cypher play around their utility (they almost never peek unless they have to). I wonder if I should do that more with all agents (play around flash and grenades, shockdarts and mollys)
    • Makes me think flashes are waay worse at getting info. It’s all or nothing. The timing needs to be right and you need to be able to push with your team to gain ground rather than flashing randomly.
  • To counter a cypher I need to guess where the camera is and shoot it out. Requires knowledge of common cam spots. Dunno how I will get that knowledge without watching tons of videos. Poopers.
  • Cage + wires can be OP since wires reveal and cage block their vision.
  • You need to be f*cking fast on the camera or they will shoot it out.
  • Crouch and shoot wires head level to get wires you cannot jump or crouch over or under.

I feel like my posture was pretty terrible after the practice. My left shoulder blade was hurting and my stomach was clenched.

I need to work on processing the emotions better and feeling my body more (using the sensual feeling technique I will discuss later). I will also need to work on posture exercises way more. After working my body for about 20 minutes with shaking, stretching, and posture exercises, my should mostly doesn’t hurt anymore and my digestion feels much better.