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No. 74280
>>74269 Yeah habit is a powerful force. It's easy to settle in a rut that doesn't make you happy and hard to work toward something that will be better in the long run (or even the short run). I'd suggest finding as much external accountability as possible. Instead of trying to do all this reading and creating on your own time, involve other people. For the meditating, find a Buddhist center or some other organization nearby; chances are they offer free meditation sessions or even classes where you have a set start date and go every week for 6 months or so. If you have a regular class that you go to, or even just a session where people expect to see you (or you feel like they do) it helps cultivate that discipline. Same goes for art. You don't necessarily have to take a class, but it can be as easy as letting a close friend or two know "I am/want to work on [project]. I'll show you when I've made progress!" That's been great for me, as friends are excited and encouraging about that kind of thing. If you have a friend who is creative, consider collaborating on something. If I may recommend something that worked for me, I suggest counselling. You don't need to be paying $100/hr for a psychologist or anything; lots of community centers, family organizations, campuses, etc. have accessible counselling facilities. The one I went to was on an income-based sliding scale so if you make less than 30k you pay like $10/session and was staffed by trained volunteers who had some kind of training or background in the field (from an applied counselling certificate all the way up to doctors; mine had a Ph.D and worked in the prison system) but weren't getting paid to be there. Anyway, the point is I didn't go to cry about anything. I just wanted some outside accountability for productivity and goal setting and my counselor was great for that. She helped me develop a comfortable, flexible schedule for achieving my goals with regard to art and learning and gave me some great tools for holding myself accountable without beating myself up (which was a big problem for me: I wouldn't be productive, so I'd feel like I wasted a day, so then I'd be more likely to just slip into those comfortable bad habits, like internet porn which would waste more time and the cycle would continue). I still have ballza periods and bad periods but there's definitely a stronger current of active creativity in my life and I don't get so down on myself self-esteem wise when I fall back. And if you're looking to feel close to God, I would suggest getting involved in some kind of volunteer work or activism.
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