Transcendental Sith Lord's OGSF 5.9G Journal

[DarthXedonias]

Lots of things have happened so it will be difficult to bring up everything. To be quite honest I haven't wanted to post here. I think its because as things just get better for me I find myself spending less here and more moving my life forward.

I realize more and more that this is the program that I needed to run all this time and probably at 5.9G levels of strength. Literally within a few weeks I have seen myself making concrete changes. Just after this last time of running the sub I pretty much don't have much desire to watching youtube which is something I was struggling to stop doing. It seemed the algorithm really had my mind addicted to getting that rush of dopamine from clicking recommended video after recommended video. Now its basically stopped for the most part. I'm able to watch a video here and there but some videos I have become totally disinterested in. I find myself asking if this is really going to positively impact my life or not. Before sometimes in order to avoid doing actual productive work I would spend hours wasting time watching videos then I would be too tired later to do any studying, etc. Now I'm able to consistently do programming problems that will help me pass my current class. Matter of fact I find I don't sleep as much either. Just last Sunday I was laying down after work but couldn't sleep so I got up and started working on programming problems throughout the entire time until I rested later.

I also find as well during driving for work when I could listen to youtube freely (can't really study as well since I need to pay attention to the road) I just don't feel like listening to it. I just realize most of the crap on youtube doesn't actually make my life better and is just a distraction. Most of it is a waste of time and the platform is full of creators who really don't offer you any value. They just want you to subscribe and give them money for telling you what you want to hear (not actual reality or truth like they say) and entertaining you with their online "persona". Not to say there aren't some that give some type of value but a lot of creators on there just seem to be playing a persona while acting like their content will change the world or governments, etc, etc when in reality they aren't.

One other thing I have noticed I am taking much better care of myself in general. Though the most prominent thing is mental. It finally really clicked for me that I am in control of myself and my emotions. I realize what I have control of (myself and thoughts) and what I don't (other people, etc). This finally clicked for me when I finally really got introduced to the thinking behind Stoicism mainly through Marcus Aurelius (the Roman emperor) and Seneca. I don't know why but as I listened to the quotes from his meditations something just spoke to my soul and I finally realized what direction I needed to go. For once I actually feel firm and confident in where I am going in my life. I actually have direction now instead of feeling like I'm just pingponging between chaos and being in some place where I am no really going anywhere. Its interesting because I had seen Marcus Aurelius being recommended to me a few times on youtube and elsewhere but I never listened till now. I think i wasn't at the point in my life where I could have been most receptive to the message. I was actually able to put a lot of what was said into immediate action. I think it was about 3 weeks ago I had someone try to defraud me. Not in a illegal sense but shady and bad nonetheless. Blocked them on other stuff and I will admit doing a certain action did go through my mind. In that this person lives in an area with totally different laws and mentality. I had screenshots of some stuff they had mentioned and their full name along with which city they lived in. I could have released that information and I am confident it could have destroyed their lives or even more actually given where they live.

However as the hurt part of me wanted this revenge I struggled with that. I then heard a few quotes from Marcus Aurelius and I instantly was able to choose the good choice and calm myself:

“Choose not to be harmed — and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed — and you haven't been.”
"Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears."
"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury."
"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking."
"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."

After this and more the pain was gone because I chose to not feel that pain anymore. It wasn't just this incident though my whole past was put into perspective. He had another quote where he mentioned you don't own the past or future. You only own this present moment. Think of yourself as dead already and that the past is what death has already claimed. There is no changing that. The past is dead and gone. All I can change is how I remember it. To constantly think about it and get angry over it is the actions of a child. It is unreasonable and gets you no where. it was funny I think a combination of the sub and these way of looking at things finally just made me feel so much more calmer. Once I finally let it go it felt like I had let go of a weight I had been carrying around for so long. I also realized I wasn't acting as logical and reasonable as I would have thought. This was brought to my attention when I learned about the principle of living in accordance with nature. Basically there are evil, vile or even hurtful people in this world. If this is true then why would you get angry and hurt when you run into these people. The chances of running into people like this is high so why should you be surprised? Is it because you believe you shouldn't have to deal with these people or encounter them? That is irrational. Once I realized this and put it into perspective a lot of my own inflicted suffering just ended. Why should I get angry and upset over something that is bound to happen?

There is a lot more but its free to say I have made radical changes over the last few weeks. I should mention 2 last things. First off after getting over the hurt, etc the person who had tried to defraud me reached out to me through some other communication to apologize and saying they will make it right. Not sure I trust them nor do I care anymore. Secondly, after something my mother had said I will finally be moving out of here around April 17th. I think for now the plan is that I will stay with my father while hopefully already having a remote job. I would be able to save more since I won't be paying outrageous rent and Texas doesn't have a state income tax. I will do that for a while then move outside the country to save even more. Originally I didn't want to leave this job until I paid off a certain debt but I should be able to do it regardless. I just realized I am not going to stay in this environment anymore. My mother currently is staying somewhere else but she needs to come back to this apartment every once in a while and even that is too much at this point and I won't tolerate it anymore. I think its OGSF doing its job and wanting to motivate me to remove myself from stressful and bad situations I don't need to be in. I think I will be even less stressed out when I can leave the country totally. As of now Latin America or the Philippines are still my options. I will just live there while working and finishing my studies. I still have a masters degree to complete after this.