Tynan, I have recently read something that further supports your philosophy of challenging yourself. It's called the Opponent-Process Theory of Acquired Motivation. It explains the process whereby our emotions reverse themselves. Challenging ourselves is uncomfortable, but it typically leads to a longer lasting positive feeling after the challenge is over and the "opponent-process" begins to dominate. Pleasant experiences, on the other hand, often reverse themselves and make us feel worse afterwards.

Very true, Tynan. As Gandhi once said, "Action expresses priorities."

This is pretty much the same principle that I applied to get myself to exercise consistently. I used to always quit exercising, so I decided that I couldn't trust myself. On March 4, 2012, I committed to exercising every single day, and I have kept up with it since then (almost 8 months so far). I simply refuse to give myself a choice about whether to exercise or not. Every single time we give ourselves a choice about whether or not to do something, we give ourselves the opportunity to decide *not* to do it. Eliminating that opportunity can be very powerful.

Interesting post. I agree that the problem with maximizing happiness is mostly the method. Humans are kind of bad at knowing what really makes us happy. For example, in my own life, I used to avoid discomfort and pain. I thought that this would make me happy. I eventually came to the conclusion that pain and discomfort are required to live the best life possible. I touched on this on my post today called "Fuck Comfort." I think challenges can be pleasurable even if they cause us discomfort.

Scott Young made a similar point in his post "Do Hard Things."

I think another important aspect of "happiness" is focus. They say that "A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy One," and I believe it. When I lose focus (which isn't hard because I am Internet junkie), I am definitely not as happy.

I apologize. My comment didn't come across like I wanted.

My point is that unless I missed it, you don't seem to have an end goal that is framed in terms of pick up, do you? In other words, your goal doesn't seem to be to find a girlfriend, to have sex with a certain number of women, or any other goals where you can say definitively that it was achieved. Your end goal appears to be "making myself extraverted and social again" (from "Letting Myself Quit"), which is definitely a worthy goal and will benefit your life greatly. It is something that I need to work on myself.


We can go about personal development in two ways. We can make personal development the goal, or we can set a specific, compelling end goal that drives us to develop and improve in order to accomplish it. The end goal would be something that we can visualize or imagine as being accomplished -- something that is awesome and inspiring and has a distinct end point. I'm just suggesting that this might provide some additional motivation to keep improving. Then when we accomplish the end goal, we can set another one to keep improving.


I liked this quote from Scott Young. It's a great article.


If a goal doesn't require at least a certain degree of obsession, it's not a hard goal. 

http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2012/01/16/do-hard-things/ 

I can't do pickup, so I don't have any advice to give you on that. PERHAPS, though, you should find a worthy end goal to motivate yourself to do things you don't want to do. Maybe forcing yourself to do things that you don't want to do just because you don't want to do them isn't the answer.

Anyway, best of luck.