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Taking Care of Myself
Taking Care of Myself
It’s the hardest thing
The first instinct is to fix it
To figure out what would I need to do
To make it work
It’s hard to let that go, and take time for myself
To do the things that I need to do
I’m starting to figure out the mystery of why I lost motivation
And that clarity gives me hope
My first instinct would be to tell her
What was missing for me in the relationship
What I need for me to want this again
But maybe she doesn’t want to hear it
Maybe it’s too much for her already
And I know it is too soon anyway
I need to forgive myself
Be loving to myself
Sleep
Take care of myself
Workpost 33: At the End of My Rope
I feel pretty awful. I’ve lost focus in work. I feel overwhelmed and unhappy. Every day I stay up late at night. The only solace I find is in games. Everything that I wanted to do now feels like things I have to do.
I struggle to regain the mentality that I use for these workposts.
I guess I feel extremely tired and depressed.
There are a couple of things that filter through the haze that I’m feeling:
- I want to find a way to post on LinkedIn again. That is the one thing I want to work on achieving.
- This new idea in taichi, and breathwork. To receive what is coming instead of taking. To allow things to come to me. To receive breath instead of taking it. To receive emotions, purpose, and understanding, instead of creating it. I feel this is the essence of patience.
- To be curious. I want to do more IFS therapy, but I feel overwhelmed by it. Too much thinking about thinking that is too cerebral, non-intuitive, and downright frustrating. However, we can take the core concept of IFS – the concept of creativity. Ask how do I feel? What do I need? Why do I feel that way.
It’s not been all lost I suppose. There was something I worked through recently – two people that I am jealous of. One who went to Harvard and ended up starting a successful youtube channel, and another who worked on my software company before leaving and getting big on youtube for his music, and is now a famous musician.
In speaking with my friend Edgar about this I came up with the following concepts to remind myself in times of jealousy:
- How do I want to succeed my way? The issue with a lot of these people is that they got successful in things that I want to succeed in, but not in the way that I want to succeed. There is great value in succeed in the way I want to succeed.
- Hardship creates growth. Success isn’t the end goal, success just leads to creating more challenges for yourself to work through. The ones who go down the harder path to begin with will still succeed but will be more complete when they do.
- Is my goal to succeed a little in the short term? Or is the goal much bigger? This is the concept that if I want to gain one rank in Valorant, the outcome of a match matters (because my elo will be impacted directly). If my goal is to get to radiant (the highest rank), one loss in the scale of a huge journey is not significant.
Finally, I’ve put off doing a LinkedIn post for far too long.
Let’s tackle the steps:
- Answer a list of questions in a letter to my girlfriend.
- Come up with a research plan and timebox it.
- Timebox getting everything “on the canvas”, move very fast, get messy, take big risks, keep going until it coalesces into what the art wants to be
- Break to do other things, view work from different angles
- Put on strategic hat to finish
Questions to ask myself (step 1):
- What my vision for the ideal post?
- What am I worried about and feel uncomfortable by?
- What do I want to learn when creating this post?
Strategic Hat
- See the work as something in itself, not just as a manifestation of my ideas
- Put on creative hat, check: is there some feeling here, is there some beauty, fun?
- Put on producer hat, check: if this was a work created by one of my clients, how would I promote it? If it was done by my brother?
*One Big Thing I Noticed*
It’s a lot easier for me to be motivated to workout than to work. Plan workout sessions for the entire day and bring work to do during those times. If no work gets done, I am still being productive and will be healthier, guaranteeing better work in the future.
Why I Loathe Feminists
Today I was arguing with a friend about the popular streamer Pokimane, and I was getting really really angry. I wanted to know why.
I realized recently that the reason why I hate her is because she represents everything I detest and loathe about women, feminism, and society.
While I’ve always been sympathetic to women and women’s struggles growing up – I was always close to my sister (who is a year and a half older and very close) and has always felt closer to women as a whole growing up (I did a lot of art and often had mostly friends that were girls), when I grew older things changed. I still can appreciate the struggles that women face in terms of objectification by society and trying to find a place within male-dominated positions in society (such as the C-suite, IT, and sales) but my view on feminism has shifted from strong positive feelings to mixed feelings and sometimes outright hatred.
The way I see it, feminism is the reason for the following experiences I’ve had in my life:
- Seeing all myself and other male colleagues who were above average intelligence struggle to find employment after college while all the women I knew had offers through the wazoo (even when they were average). What is even more interesting about this is that I work in a STEM field (I suspect recruiters try to hire an even number of men and women, but since women are so rare, they are in higher demand).
- Learning that the “wage” gap between men and women was about 1 cent to the dollar when correcting for the same years of experience (women naturally have less when they have kids) even though they most common statistic cited is 18 cents to the dollar.
- Getting constantly ignored and rejected in the dating scene without a hint of empathy from women (who seemed to have no idea the privilege that they had in this respect).
- Literally felt afraid to ask women out because of experiences that made me feel like a woman might accuse me of harassment (nothing happened, but it’s a constant fear most men share after Me Too went from exposing some serial harassers to just talking about guys women think are “creepy”).
- Seeing many women in my career perform average or below average claim that their work is not appreciated that they suspect discrimination is the reason that they are not promoted or raised.
It’s ok for women to reject men. It’s ok for women to want equality and to question why they were not promoted. It’s ok for women to point out times when they feel harassed and uncomfortable. Also, it is a valid concern that women have to choose between being a mother and being successful in their careers.
However, I hate the fact that feminists simply don’t understand or don’t care how hard it is for men. They support toxic women and toxic behavior as if women are always right. They often condone dismissing and invalidating problems that men face today. Men never talk about this because we feel like complaining is weakness and we should just “man up”.
Here are the types of things I hear women say:
“Oh, so you were afraid that it would be seen as harassment? Just don’t harass you’ll be fine.” (Are you fucking kidding me? I know many great women but are you literally suggesting every single woman has perfect morals? Why even have innocent until proven guilty? What if she misread something?)
“Are you SURE she is actually mediocre? Maybe it’s just your bias?” (Yes I fucking know, they aren’t able to get the same work done at the same quality).
“Suck it up, everyone gets rejected.” (Have you ever considered that it is waaay MORE rejections than you can imagine? How about a bit of empathy?)
“It’s men’s turn to get discriminated against.” (So we are taking turns now? Should we resume discrimination against women again in a few years for payback?)
“He’s disgusting and creepy.” (Ok some men are…but sometimes this is just used as a way for women to justify hurting the feelings of someone they cannot be bothered to empathize with).
Men surely have many advantages and privileges in society, but so do women, just in different areas. As Jordan Peterson says (yes I know he’s a bit extreme but he’s the only one speaking the truth sometimes), men are much more likely to be lonely, depressed (commit suicide), unemployed, and go to prison. Women have lower expectations to perform than men (although this can backfire into mansplaining as people assume women know less) and have a much bigger selection when it comes to dating. Also, if they are attractive, they can get away with almost anything. You name it – being boring, rude, incompetent, even immoral.
I highly suspect that MOST women, if they lived a day in a man’s life would find it is significantly harder (despite gaining a number of privileges). They would realize how so many “nice” people are so much meaner when you are a man, that no slack is given to you or your feelings (crying will only get you laughed at), and that women can be extremely cruel and manipulative to men.
This brings me back to Pokimane. I don’t know her well enough to say for sure, but she strikes me as someone who gets away with fake and toxic behavior because she is famous, attractive, and a woman. And I fucking hate it.
Recently she announced getting to Immortal in Valorant on her own and lashed out against people who said she was boosted (got a rank via help from other people).
Looking at the gameplay (below) she herself uploaded to Youtube, it’s very clear she is boosted. BY A LOT.
What I see:
- Gold level utility usage (ok placement, uses util a lot)
- Silver/Gold Aim (good crosshair placement)
- Iron/Bronze Movement (absolutely no jiggling, strafe shooting, or creative movement)
- Bronze Gamesense (horrible decision making, passable map awareness)
In other words, Pokimane is AT MOST platinum (which 2 whole ranks away from Immortal). Her skill level is honestly closer to Silver or Gold in my opinion.
However, people are still defending her, calling her critic “haters”. Some people even use misogyny to explain why people think she is boosted. This boggles my mind and makes me furious.
Why? Why not just hold her accountable? Why isn’t SHE just honest and try actually climb to Immortal?
When will people stop using feminism as an excuse to praise women who are dishonest and incompetent? When will they realize the tremendous privilege someone like Pokimane holds as a young attractive woman?
Workpost 41: Enjoy Yourself
Today I did a long breathwork meditation session after feeling extremely stressed out about three questions:
- Should I sign up for jiujitsu again?
- Should I do coaching again?
- Should I continue therapy?
And all the worrying stressful sub questions:
- What about the money for jiujitsu
- Jiujitsu is so hard to get good at
- People might not buy my coaching if I didn’t do something really big
- Therapy costs so much money is it worth it?
And after the meditation, one thing was clear to me. The answer to everything: take everything so much less serious. Have fun!!!
If you have fun doing jiujitsu, sign up for it, go to classes when you feel like it. Have an amazing time doing work. If you love coaching, do it whether or not people believe that you are a good coach or not.
Enjoy yourself. Indulge yourself in boba while working. Take breaks to play on the piano, to draw.
P.S. I did sign up for jiujitsu, and I intend to have fun learning tons of new martial arts.

Two Important Questions
I was thinking about the concept of how Alex Hormzi approaches learning. The idea that you purpose things in a way expecting to fail at first, but you pursue them in such a way that you make it hard for you to fail. That the chances that you will fail is lower than the chances of success.
I was thinking about what made emotional or spiritual success. And that brought me to a few different ideas. They all centered around one thing, the relationship with oneself. I believe that the relationship that you have with yourself dictates the freedom and happiness you have in life. Some ways in which I am not a kind or loving friend or parent to myself are:
- Thinking my needs are not important, especially if they make it less convenient for other people
- Shaming myself and comparing myself to other people
- Lashing out at myself when I’m not the best or successful
- Yelling at myself for making mistakes
- Putting on the pressure that if I’m not stressed I will not perform
- Being disgusted by my weakness
What if I took this idea from Alex Hormzi? What if I accepted I am going to be a shit friend and parent to myself but I am going to ask myself what I need to do to make it harder to be unkind and unloving toward myself than it is to be kind and loving?
Well, what would the most loving parent do for me?
- Value my emotions and encourage me to explore them
- Hold me close when I’m upset or feeling weak and vulnerable
- I am the most important person in their life, they will drop everything if I need them
- Be interested in hearing about new adventures and failures and lessons
- Does not see me as a static person but as a sum of everything I’ve been, where I’m now, and where I’m headed
- Guide me when I’m feeling lost or need to defend myself
I want to know how I can make it impossible for me to not do that for myself.
Some ideas come to mind:
- Create a meditative time to watch my own content (read my journals, watch my videos, listen to my recordings). It feels like 1,4 and especially 5. As a side effect, this can create GREAT opportunities for understanding what kinds of videos I can make.
- Write down and read my thoughts when I feel lost, scared, angry, ashamed or frustrated. Create a place to feel hurt. This can hit at 1,3, and 4, and maybe 6 if I write responses to things I write.
- Work on dance therapy especially the following elements: allowing the world to hold you, inward closing comfort, sensual movement and touch, outward releasing movement
I don’t know how to come up with a strategy on how to mix this in with my life yet but some of my ideas includes:
- Using therapists as a safe space to practice
- Using people who are close as a way to practice
- Using camera off meetings as a way to practice
- Using youtube videos and coaching as a way to practice
I Wish I Knew Why
I Wish I Knew Why
Maybe it was the defiance
Or feeling like I couldn’t have a reasonable conversation
Maybe I was just tired of having a virtual relationship
Or just feeling like she had no drive
That everything was just too difficult with her
That she couldn’t connect with me on art, music, dance, and singing
Maybe none of that is true
And my exhaustion is making me depressed
And I think my unhappiness is because of her
I wish I knew
Because I just didn’t have the will to fight for us anymore
I half wanted her to say she didn’t want it anymore
I wish I had a reason for hurting a girl who was
So devoted to me
So kind and sweet
A girl who I still care so deeply for
It hurts
My eyes drip with sadness
I hope she’s going to be ok
I hope she finds happiness
I hope the deep pain within her
Heals
I feel sad