Talk about how it came up and how its improved your life/health for having done so
Taking out loans to finish my last year of college
I am well aware this won’t a popular answer.
I am also well aware of all the negative aspects of what I’m about to talk about.
I am also well aware of the follow on hard-sell-to-vulnerable-people problems that happens here. I felt under immense pressure to “buy more”, resisted and never heard back from them again.
But…
Attending the Landmark Forum was absolutely the biggest, long-term, positive thing I’ve ever done.
So many positive things followed on from that. In a long weekend, I genuinely changed who I was, towards something that was much more fulfilled, much more true to myself and with much greater self-worth.
I would not recommend it to anyone else. I learnt this the hard way, because I DID recommend it to someone else and they decided to leave their wife afterwards. I know that this is likely to have happened without my involvement but I still feel immensely awful about it. I should have kept my mouth shut.
Don’t do the Landmark Forum.
But for me, it was the most positive thing I’ve ever done.
I’m also a landmark graduate, and I can confirm it is a life changing experience.
Doing the forum allowed me to realise I have so much wasted potential, I didn’t have to be working minimum wage repairing laptops at the local computer store, I enrolled at University in a IT degree with the goal to be a software engineer. Doing the forum gave me the confidence to tell my boss I’m quitting and going to be a full time student and how that’s a good thing for him. The forum gave me the confidence to talk honestly with my wife about what I want from our marriage, instead of me constantly trying to appease her wants. It caused me to have a real, meaningful, deep conversation with my mother, for the first time in 20 years. I was able to tell her frankly that her narcissistic tendencies in my formative years caused me to suffer from debilitating chronic anxiety in my 20s (my sister too), but it’s okay because she did the best she could, and I’m getting it treated.
I went on to do the Self-Expression and Leadership course, and later the Advanced course. My wife did the same. I eventually stopped because of the endless and relentless hard-sell routines to get all your friends and family to come and sign up. They have to realise that’s off-putting to most people, but it’s their only marketing avenue so it must work reasonably well.
Giving up eating meat. Not sure if it was cause or effect, but I got so much more interested in cooking food properly and looking after myself. Food and cooking became one of my favourite hobbies and 7 years later is still my go-to healthy wind-down activity that helps me relax after a long day at work. Knock-on effects have meant I’m happier and healthier than I ever had been in my life.
I took up smoking. No, not the lung cancer one. Cooking is one of the best things to keep me positive since I got divorced several years ago: treating it as a hobby I can be enthusiastic about, rather than something to do when I’m hungry. This spring I bought a smoker and had great fun learning new cooking techniques, new meal combinations, and enjoyed some excellent food. Previously I tried to do a meal from a different cuisine every week, before that I learned to use cast iron
#1 - quitting drinking. I’d have been long dead by now the way I was going. #2 - starting meditation. I’m still not sure how I went 30-someodd years in this body prior with all that noise in my head.
Started a savings account
Telling my friends and family that I couldn’t hang out at all until I was out of the financial hole.
Its so stressful when people want you to roll with them but you’re in that jam and you’re preoccupiedby it
Yeah. Eventually I realized it’s not just money but even moreso time that I can’t spare when I’m behind.
As soon as I turned off my social life, my industriousness went through the roof. Getting up each day early to work is no problem somehow when I’ve just frozen all my social obligations.
All my life, very lazy, tons of procrastination. But as soon as I told everyone to hold until further notice, infinite motivation.
Drinking less. I saw an unflattering photo of myself and then decided to cut my alcohol consumption in half. It’s been a couple years and I look and feel a lot better.
Staying away from social media
Removed almost all advertising from my life. About the only stuff i see now is just bill boards.
I despise advertising. I won’t sit through ads telling me I’m missing out, or my life would be much better if only I had x. How much of our lives is spent listening to someone try to convince us that we need some product? And somehow they’ve convinced us that wasting our time with their bullshit is ‘normal’. Being marketed to constantly is not normal.
As someone with ADHD I swear we should get a fucking disability exemption from ADs - that shit can completely derail my train of thought and noticeably reduces my ability to enjoy whatever it’s embedded in.
Looking back at cable? It was like an instant depression cycle where ADs kept me from ever actually getting into a show and deriving enjoyment. Instead, in my youth, I’d just veg and lose hours unfulfilled.
Spending that extra bit on high quality food and ditching the addictive high carb and salt American shit I was raised on. Having lived in NA and Europe for some reason American frozen food is allowed to be absolutely atrocious for you and it ends up costing a lot more money in health issues than just “springing” for fresh shit.
Basically 100% of food ads dont appeal to me cuz i know about all the tricks and games they play and the amount of added sugar and shit makes me 🤢
Starting to lift with the best decision I ever made and the best habit I’ve ever formed. Nagging aches and pains are basically a thing of the past. I’m way more useful, and my lower body, which was once withered and useless after a decade of working in an office, have been replaced with tree trunks and a dump-truck ass
A couple of the accessory benefits of this that in order to support my lifting progress I now eat way better, quit drinking and prioritize proper sleep. Overall it’s just been a huge increase in quality of life
Joints got creaky so I started exercising. That was about sixteen years ago now and it has made a world of difference in my life and the adventures I can experience and enjoy.
Meeting my partner. We met quite young, very formative years. I definitely wouldn’t be the person I am now if it weren’t for her and I am relatively certain I would have been worse.
Oh yeah also marxism radically altered my perception of the world. I can’t say I enjoy it but I am glad it happened.
The most major were moving far from where I grew up, taking a job that was hybrid physical labor and office work, meeting my now fiancé, and reading Marxist theory.
The first forced me to grow up.
The second helped my sympathize with the trades, physical laborers, and other people that office-workers are normally out of contact with.
The third dramatically improved my life and opened my horizons.
The fourth helped me make sense of our crumbling systems and know what needs to be done.
