The Swordfish Journal - Chosen from Within

Hi guys. I’m not a regular here. Used a couple subs here last year but didn’t notice much difference. With the new year here I wanted to try one again. Got stuck with paralysis by analysis and didn’t do anything in Jan but finally landed on Chosen from Within so let’s give this a go!

So I want to start by mentioning something different about my life these days - a latin dancing studio next to my place is offering unlimited classes for 2 months so I signed up for a package and am going to 5-8 classes a week. This is relevant because I’m doing a LOT more socializing than I used to. I work from home 4 days a week so I don’t interact with others all that much. Last year I used to take bachata classes elsewhere but that was once a week - and I got to know each of those folks so they weren’t strangers after a couple weeks. This is a lot of new faces every day.

The two biggest areas of ‘distress’ in my life are my career and my interpersonal relationships. On the career front I’ve been fired a number of times despite working harder than most. And I don’t really know why, though I’m fairly confident that it’s a performance issue, not a behavioural one. On the interpersonal front it’s a similar theme, ie getting shitty results and not sure why. One difference between the two is that I can’t ‘prove’ the latter the way I can the former, so sometimes others try to argue that I’m mistaken, it’s just a perception issue blah blah.

I’ve been trying to solve these problems for over a decade. In the career part I’ve improved a bit. Haven’t been fired since 2019. And am making more than I ever have before. So that’s great! But despite my making more than I have before, I’m still very backwards in my career, perhaps 10+ years behind. I’m making $80K in my early 40s. And although I haven’t been fired in a while, I made a big screwup at work a few months back and it lead to my manager asking me if I think this is the right job for me. So the closest I can come to a firing. And I didn’t get a raise at the end of last year, which I thought is supposed to be almost automatic. That said my manager is a lovely person and I have no ill-will towards her. This is purely a ‘me’ issue.

On the interpersonal front things are probably a bit diff than they were 10 years ago but a 40 y/o should be having different relationships than a 30 y/o. But I’m still not married (no surprise since I’ve had so many problems holding a job), have only had 1 girlfriend to date (who was an awful awful person) and don’t have a great relationship with 3 of my 4 sibs. I also stopped being close with three close friends last year, which is pretty unfortunate.

So that’s where I’m at right now. Let’s see what happens in the next few months :slight_smile:

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So it’s not been the best day honestly. 2 things have been bothering me. One of them I’d prefer not to journal but the other one is a trigger from last night.

As background, I graduated with a degree in IT but for some fucking reason I switched to Accounting when I was 26. And in the last few years it’s seeming more and more clear that that’s one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I’m hoping that I’m somehow mistaken and it’s all just a story in my head. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. So I’ll often see some kinda reference to others doing great in programming and it’ll really bother me. Usually it’ll just be something like a reddit post. I remember a couple months ago I was speaking to a friend at a salsa social and somehow the topic came up, and I noticed I was feeling really bothered for a while. It’s not jealousy it’s regretting my own life choices.

Yesterday’s trigger was the same. As I mentioned I’m taking daily classes these days. So I met a girl and in those 2-4 mins I was dancing with her it somehow came up. When she said she’s a software engineer I joked that I hated software engineers. Because it brings up my own regret over my life choices. At the time it was a joke but I’ve been feeling really shitty about this again since yesterday. It really sucks having so much fucking regret. I often find myself daydreaming about going back in time and stopping my 26 year old self from making this mistake. Or even taking my 30 year old self and telling him to just spend another few months in Accounting, get the CPA, then get the fuck out. I just wonder how much more money I’d have right now. Rather than being in credit card debt and not having kids because I dont think I can afford them and not saving for retirement how life could be so different if it wasn’t for that one fucking choice.

But what really makes these things worse - is that it wasn’t fully my decision. I mean at the end of the day it absolutely was mine, no one forced me. But my Dad pushed for it numerous times and I wouldn’t have made one of the worst decisions of my life if he hadn’t kept doing so. Which really sucks. I have all this resentment towards him over this that I really want to let go. I mean my Dad is an absolutely awesome person. I don’t want to have all this resentment over this.

I suppose I could make peace with this decision if I could make shit tons of money some other way. Let’s see what this year holds. But 1/12th of it is over and I haven’t made any progress towards anything.

Hopefully it’ll be a better day tomorrow.

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Never hope, do it now. Your past has nothing to do with your future.

Allow Chosen from Within resonate with you.

Perhaps you can shift the trigger from hating to loving. Change the way you respond to your emotions, it start with a thought and always be mindful of your actions.

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Many others in this forum recommended the book “existential kink”.
After some months procrastinating on it I finaly started reading it. It’s a fascinating read.

The core teaching is, that there is a masochistic part in us, that enjoys our suffering. That delights in our pain.

After a first shock moment, I realized that that’s true for me. And suddenly so much things in my life made sense.

Perhaps it can deliver some insights to you as well.

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thanks dude. i just put a hold on it at my library. will take a look.

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If career/interpersonal is the goal, you may want to look into some other titles. Chosen from Within is specifically for addressing internal leadership issues, and removing blocks preventing you from being a strong leader.

If you feel like your ten years behind in your career, and it’s mainly tied to performance, Genesis Mogul, Stark, Emperor, are all most likely better options especially if your not in a leadership role currently. I would really recommend starting with Genesis Mogul, it sounds like the best fit for your current situation. You can stack it together with Chosen from Within

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Thanks bud. Appreciate the input. I did struggle a lot with choosing the right title. I didn’t go with Genesis Mogul b/c I assumed that would be better if I had a side hustle that I could leverage as opposed to a day job. I didn’t think of it as improving my actual job that dramatically. In fact Limitless Executive was a title that stood out to me for job performance but I haven’t seen it mentioned in the forums much.

Also to note, yesterday was a shitty day b/c I got into my head about my life choices about giving up programming, there’s 2 areas of my life that I struggle with, career, and relationships. I was actually also looking for titles that would be relevant for that, such as Primal. There’s others that are relationship oriented but since I’m dancing with so many women in class these days I thought something romance driven might be best; with the caveat that I’ll only be going to these classes til March 10.

I’d be open to any thoughts.

PS - sorry I didn’t mention why I actually went with Chosen. It’s because with all these years of shitty results it’s created a lot of negative feelings within. Getting fired from 10 jobs will do that. Losing friendships will do that. So that was my thought process. That said the best way to heal, in my personal opinion, is to fix things on the outside (I’m much happier about my career now that I’m making more money than I’ve ever made before, which is probably more healing than a year of therapy trying to heal the past). So if there are other things that will fix the outside first, I’m all ears.

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Did my second loop last night. This was 11.5 mins. Meant to do 5 but got distracted watching a video.

I’ve been working today although it’s a Sat. Have this deadline on Mon and no way I’d be ready for that without working today. Will probably put in a few hours tomorrow as well. I have to update 10 cost centers / excel tabs. From Wed afternoon to Fri afternoon I only did ONE tab. But I’d been goofing off a lot. There was no possible way I could make the Mon deadline at that pace so yesterday when doing the planning for this I chose I believe I could do a tab an hour. So far I’ve been doing close to that, like 90 mins per tab. The last one I did in about 40 mins (though it was the second tab in a workbook so some of the prep work had already been done). If I’d realized on Wed that I’d have to work over the weekend I’m sure I would’ve been more productive earlier. Which means it would’ve been good to calculate the time requirements in advance. At the time I just assumed it’d be much simpler. There’s a lesson in here somewhere but I’m not sure exactly what it is besides something overly simplistic. I suppose I could’ve just done half a tab on Wed to get an idea of how long it would take and then seen how many tabs had to be updated and extrapolate from there. I think that could’ve given me some data.

In other news I went to a salsa/bachata social today. These are very different than the classes I go to. Firstly they’re at a a separate studio. Secondly in class the girls are getting the same lessons I am so they know exactly what I’m trying to do and therefore everything executes reasonably well. But what us guys will learn when taking lessons is that the stuff we learn only seems to work during lessons or only with the girls who know what we’re trying to do. And that can be very frustrating.

So today a number of folks I commonly see there weren’t there which was a bit disappointing. But then I danced with this really cute girl named Mehram and that put me in a good mood. She was very cute but it seemed like her english was very limited, to the degree she wasn’t understanding what I was saying. After the lesson part of the social was over I went up to ask her to dance but some other dude got there first. Annoying. Managed to dance with her before I left but it wasn’t very enjoyable. Through no fault of hers. I just don’t have enough material to get me through a whole song. Which is very frustrating b/c I’ve been dancing for like 18 months now.

Met a girl at a potluck last week (from this studio) and she asked me to dance. Was being quite friendly too. She’s an assistant teacher which I didn’t realize. I was a bit irritated with her b/c she had this smirk on while we were dancing, kinda like saying ‘this guy really sucks’. I told her towards the end I feel like you’re judging me for how much I suck. She said I promise I’m not judging you, which sounded good at first. But then said something or other to contradict that. I think I had said something like your expression suggests otherwise and she said something about my face is betraying me. All in good fun mind you, but it is annoying as well when someone is thinking that you suck at this.

Perhaps I need to spend some time in one on one instruction. I’ve had that before but I usually focus on learning more moves. In this case maybe I’ll focus on having a better frame. Something to work on in the next week.

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Let me give you some advice as a more experienced dancer. I started 2015 and danced 3-6 days a week for 5 years.
I so know how you feel. Been there. In the class everything works fine, at the social event nobody knows what you want.

Firstly, there are two kinds of girls on the dance floor: 1. Those who enjoy dancing, the music, the atmosphere etc. 2. Those who seek the validation of others for their style and skill.

I would recommend going with group one. They are much more fun. Group 2 might look hotter and even might be the better dancers, but it’s usually not worth it, especially as a beginner.

Most importantly moves aren’t that important. I can have a fun evening of dancing batchata with only the very basic moves. It’s more important to feel the music and translate the music into movement. Feeling is the secret. I didn’t have the money to visit all the classes I’d like to have, but many girls told me, they like dancing with me more than with most of the more advanced dancers. They just went through the moves, whereas I felt the music.
So not enough moves for a song is not true. I’m teaching bachata to my fiancee atm. We’re through the basics. So there is much repetition. And yet, we both enjoy it greatly.

Knowing the music is also important. I’d guess you like the music. So spend your free time (like in the car, getting groceries etc) listening to the music that is played at those events.

Practice practice practice
Social dancing is just as important as classes, if not even more. You learn a move in the class, but if you don’t practice it, it doesn’t get integrated in your subconscious repertoire of moves. So go out and visit social events.

Know how to initiate moves clearly.
A lady can only dance what you want if she knows what you want her to dance. So be clear and precise in your leading.

A strong frame is important
One of my teachers once put me up against a 350 pound lady. I’m 250, so it was a challenge. I needed much more strength when leading and just to keep my frame. But it changed my style tremendously for the better. Be it for spins or whatever you need to be the rock.

About your assistant teacher I can only tell you, that she probably knew you’re a beginner and she asked you nevertheless. Most of our interpretations of others are misinterpretations. So there’s the good chance you’ve just been wrong and she was honest. Just because you believe you suck at dancing, you interpret everything to go along with that mindset.
I used to dance with a lot of beginners as well. And not just the hot ones. Just to let them know that they are appreciated here. I liked and enjoyed dancing with them even when they were a bit clumsy and I was limited extremely with the moves. It was more the social and teaching aspect that made it an enjoyable experience.

For one on one classes (I never could afford them) I can tell you from friends that they are totally worth it with the right teacher.
But only if you dance socially regularly or it’s just a waste of money.

Hope this helps to ease your mind.

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Thanks so much man!
I’d love to ask some follow up questions. Let me send you a private message since it’s somewhat off topic.

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The day continues. Today was my 5th day ie 3rd listening session. Listened for 11 mins today.

One thing I wanted to clarify. There’s 2 tracks in my playlist, the masked file while sounds like flowing water and is 15 mins. And a 20 second file called the zero point safety warning. They’re completely different volumes though. If I play the warning file i have to raise the volume on my computer from the default, and then the running water file is bearable but not the volume I’d like. If I adjust the running water file to what’s comfortable I can barely hear the warning file. Is that OK or is that indicative of a problem?

The warning isn’t that necessary. I never used it.
Just make sure not to listen for longer than 15 minutes.
For that you can either set an alarm, use the sleep function of your audio player, put it in a Playlist and “end after this track” or whatever.

Feel free to ask :blush:

Thanks bud.
What I actually meant was, the volumes on the two tracks are very different when played on my computer. So I was wondering if that was an issue, ie could it be that I’m not playing the running water track loud enough?

Today’s Mon. A few small things.

Sleep
Didn’t sleep at all well last night. That’s somewhat typical. I sleep late on weekend nights and end up paying the price on Sun night. Yesterday I slept at 2:30 am, which means 6.5 hours of sleep if I woke up at 9, which is actually better than average for a Sun night. But couldn’t sleep. Woke back up at ~4 and back to bed at ~5. Those timings dont actually make sense since I cant imagine I’d toss and turn for 90 mins but I don’t have any better numbers so lets go with that. Maybe it was up 330 - 430. Anyway so I woke up at 9. Now I sometimes login to work then go back to bed. But I usually don’t go back right away, which is a mistake. Ideal would be to wake up at 9, login, and go back to bed immediately (well, ideal is to not go back to bed but you know what I mean). Instead I was at the computer for 40 mins today. Not being productive mind you. Just surfing.

Work
I had a deadline I was working on all weekend. I essentially met that. Manager said good job. But we’re not done here b/c another adjustment came up to these reports so we discussed that at today’s 11:30 am meeting. Our meetings are typically set for 2 pm so she said we don’t have to meet then if I dont want but she’d be available if I needed to reach her. It would’ve been great if I was done by 2, or if not then by 5. Unfortunately I wasn’t. I did message her at 4:45 saying I’m not done but will aim to be done by noon tomorrow and she was cool with that. Might be more valuable for me to reflect on why I wasn’t done with that.

So meeting ended at 12:10. I don’t think I did anything work related until 70-90 mins later. The first 20-30 mins were productive even if not work related. I don’t know what I did for the rest of that. Then when back to work I had something more pressing come up (manager also said to prioritize that). So that’s fine. But not sure how that possibly took so long, it should’ve taken an hour, not 3. Oh well.

Therapy/Sleep
Had therapy at 5. This woman is still in training so it’s only $25/hr which is awesome. I don’t find her particularly great but I’ve never really found much value in therapy anyway, and we have good chemistry which is half the battle. Today we actually did come up with some ideas to adjust for a bedtime routine. Typically how it works is my aim is to goto bed around 12 or 1 to wake up at 9. 12 isn’t realistic but would be awesome. I typically get to bed at 2 or later. So that’s a problem right there.

Now the shower is a bit of a problem as well. I do need to shower, would feel gross without that. But I often feel tired during the day since I didn’t sleep well the night before. That’s not great but on the days that I’m really tired I look forward to feeling that tired at bed time since it’ll presumably help me sleep. But nope, I’m wide awake at night. I’m pretty sure it’s the warm shower that wakes me up . Which is ironic since until recently I believed warm showers help us sleep. I’ve noticed recently that doesnt seem to be the case though. And I met a sleep doc 6 months ago who also suggested not showering too close to bed.

Anyway so there’s the shower before bed. And then we’re also supposed to avoid screens before bed. But then I wouldn’t really have much to do either. So I’ve typically been showering around 11 in order to avoid screens (though more often than not I still go on it anyway). Today I decided that I’ll just shower earlier in the evening and fuck the avoiding screens thing for now.

No hot water
I’m writing this after my bedtime shower. But today’s is a bit ironic. There’s no hot water! Not sure how that happened. I wish I had the guts to take a cold shower, which is supposed to be really healthy. That’s not going to happen. So I warmed water in the kettle and put it in a cooking pot and mixed it with colder water. Eh, gets the job done I suppose.

Irritating debate with Mohammed over first dates
One other thing of note. I have a friend who kinda irritates me. Mohammed. We goto the same salsa studio though I know him from before, so I see him quite frequently these days. He always wants to hang around me. I should be flattered. It gets a bit much. One of the behavioural ticks he has is that he really likes giving me girl advice. Which is funny because he has no experience with them. It’s fine to not be experienced, but why the fuck are you so full of advice then?! And the advice is typically along the lines of ‘dont give her attention, just stop speaking to her’ dumb shit like that. I remember I was having dinner with him and his brother once and he was saying ‘for example you go on a date. then dont message her for a few days, then message her a few days later and say sorry i got busy hows it going’. uhh… why? Anyway today idk how the topic came up but it was actually me who said you shouldn’t take women out to dinner on the first date (oh shit as I’m writing this I’m realizing…maybe it was me who was wrong? let’s explore further). He took issue with that so I said ok how much does dinner cost. I know he was going to say ‘depends’ (one of my behavioural quirks is - i fucking hate that word! if someone asks a question, just fucking answer it). So he finally says $30. I say OK good. So in 2018 I went out on 30 first dates. Do you want me spending $1200 on just first dates?? (Idk how I possibly said 1200 btw, 30 x 30 is obviously 900 and I dont struggle with math at all. hmmm…). I wish he would’ve just stopped but he kept arguing over that, which really annoyed me. I hate when someone thinks they know better than me about how I should live my life. But the reason I said a few sentences ago that this might be my fault after all is that when I said you shouldnt take girls out to dinner, maybe it came across as me telling him what to do, as opposed to vice versa.

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Holy fuck it seems like that took me 28 mins to write. Maybe not the best use of time. Gotta condense these a bit.

As long as you can hear it, it’s loud enough.
Some users reported recon from high volume levels. So better a rather gentle volume then a to loud one.

For your sleep issue, try reading books. I couldn’t do it myself for some years, but it’s screenless and makes the brain tired. Atm, I’m reading Existential Kink. You could also try to journal about your feelings keeping you awake. At first you might just think “I’m just not tired”. But over time you will realize what’s going on in your mind. Is it Fomo? Still so much you would like to have achieved today? Or whatever. It’s an interesting process to get to know yourself.

Well it’s been a looong time since I wrote. Last time was Mon 5 Feb, it’s now 23 days later.

On the 6th I actually did write an entry but got interrupted a couple times. First I got a call from the physio, I had an appointment at 5 which I had in my calendar at 6. Then when I came back I had a class in the evening. Guess I never ended up finishing that post. This forum apparently saves our text so I still have it but I’ll skip that now.

The the week after ended up being one of the busiest work weeks of my life. I worked a bit on Sat 10 Feb. I don’t remember how much. On Sun I started at 3 pm - and then worked continuously til Mon 5 pm! Yes, that’s 26 hours. Holy shit. Had a nice sleep that night. But then on Tues also worked from 11 am to 7 am the next day, then woke up at 9 and worked til I think 9 pm. Fucking ridiculous. It’s really strange that on Mon evening I thought the hard shit was done, and then the next morning I had to work for 30 hours almost continuously. Wonder how unaware I was of what was missing in these reports. Since Wed night that week things were a bit more chill.

I’m now starting to do this work again for next month. The reports function properly now so I was hoping it would be much easier. But there’s 18 files, and I’ve spent the last 2 days just doing 2 files. I do think the first 1 is the hardest since most changes can be replicated. But yeah I have to be careful not to get stuck like this again. One of the biggest takeaways from last time was to just make mass changes without being too manual about it. I’m updating almost 200 tabs so it’s not at all practical to spend manual time on each of them. (I just calculated, 5 mins on each tab is 16.5 hours; I could do that but I definitely shouldn’t do 10 mins per tab). I’m thinking while I write this - maybe for v1.1 of the files I should just update the BOTW tabs / cost centers (10 tabs total) and in v1.2 I should do the rest of the tabs. That would at least give me a feeling of accomplishment. The other thing I’m trying to do is to have a plan for what to do b/w now and when I submit them. I’ve been having some trouble with that. So there’s a few reasons. One is that at the moment I have downtime but at some point next week I’ll have other responsibilities for work due. And the second issue is that there’s a whole list of things I need to change. But it’s hard to predict how long each of those will take.

Maybe the solution is to read the email my manager sent me and make an estimate as to how long that would take. Then triple that. And use that as my estimate for that. And decide to not work on anything else between now and the 4th of March. (oh fuck that’s only 3 work days. no way is this getting done in that time. maybe i’ll have to work the weekend. nah i dont want to do that). Anyway so I should spend more time in planning tomorrow and not just blindly executing. For tomorrow I need to get all the variance columns handled. It would be nice to get F23 mapping handled but I doubt it’ll be completed. Idk if it’ll even get started.

I’ll make a separate post for non-work stuff. So here’s my listening schedule below. I missed 2 days so I made this a full 30 day cycle, hope that’s OK. (missed 3 out of the 30)

Wed 1/31 Day 1 - 6 mins
Fri 2/02 Day 3 - 11.5 mins
Sun 2/04 Day 5 - 11 mins
Tue 2/06 Day 7 - 15 mins
Thu 2/08 Day 9
Sat 2/10 Day 11
Mon 2/12 Day 13 - prob missed
Wed 2/14 Day 15 - 8.5 mins
Fri 2/16 Day 17 - 15 mins
Sun 2/18 Day 19 - 15 mins
Tue 2/20 Day 21 - missed
Wed 2/21 Day 23 - 15 mins
Fri 2/23 Day 25 (missed 2 days this cycle so doing more)
Sun 2/25 Day 27 - missed
Mon 2/26 Day 28 - 15 mins
Wed 2/28 Day 30 - 15 mins

I should put some non-work stuff here.

So yesterday on Reddit I had some drama.

I have this habit in my personal life. I keep track of my close friends / family member’s loved one’s death anniversary, so I can check in with them on the day of. When I do so others are usually quite touched, and I’ve always considered this a really positive habit. Yesterday I posted this advice in the Life Pro Tips section of Reddit and… my goodness I got so much hate!! There’s about a hundred comments, 90% of them are negative. Well maybe hate is too strong a word, but most people are strongly disagreeing, some are being straight up douches about it. There were some positive comments, and when there were they were very positive. It actually really bothered me. There was one other time I can think of where I said something on Reddit that I thought was innocuous but I had a lot of others come at me and yeah it made me really uncomfortable although it’s all anonymous. So yeah that happened.

In other news I finally went skiing this season. Went last Sun. We got there pretty late, 4:30 pm, and I was actually wanting to cancel it just before we went in for some reason, I guess b/c it was getting late. But I’m really glad I didn’t. Had a great time. And a different resort that I haven’t been to before, was nice. In one of the runs they had these small ‘jumps’ (I’ll call them speed bumps, although the purpose wasn’t to slow one’s speed) and then they had much larger hills (maybe 6-8 feet). I was too scared to do the hills but my cousin really wanted to so he did - and then that inspired me to do so. I’m really glad I did and made it safely. So yay. I really hope I get to go again this season. It’s just so bloody expensive, $130 CAD.

Had a fun bachata class today. Learned a new combo that I think I’ll start using. But also some nice girls today. This girl Reeda from Syria is super cute, saw her after weeks. I’d really like to see more of her. There’s a Jana, Philippino, that I seem to be getting friendlier with. I’m not interested in her but I make jokes about us dating which is kinda fun, esp b/c in the beginning I found her quite reserved (I once called her bro around Christmas and she said she likes that, essentially means we wont be dating / i wont be hitting on her - I didnt love that). Yesterday this cute white girl Tiffany came up to talk to me after class and was also a tiny bit handsy. Wish I’d gotten the chance to speak more but was distracted I think. Oh and there was a Kelly today, who’s hair was much like the folks in House of the Dragon. Very sweet girl. I asked her if she’d seen the show, then showed her pix of the characters and how their hair resembles hers.

I’m wondering what would be a good way to get to know all these folks better. I feel like asking out every girl I think is cute in the same class isn’t the best idea. At the moment I’ve been asking them to come to the social I goto (that’s the term for when others goto a salsa studio to dance there, but no lessons just dancing). So far no one’s taken me up on that but I guess I’ll just keep asking.

Had a slight exchange with a close friend. Yesterday was my grandmother’s death anniversary. I mentioned it to my close friend on text. She left me on read. I responded to my message (as if it was her responding) “Hope you’re doing OK! I’m not a complete vacant soulless friend!”. I was taking a jab at her because I was offended but I dont actually think it’s that rude and I definitely think it’s warranted. She was a bit bothered by it. Usually I’m very good with apologizing but today when I saw her I didn’t really do so because it wouldn’t really be sincere. I mean we talked about it but I didn’t apologize, if that makes sense.

I have a bunch of cooking to do tonight. I got one of those meal prep delivery kits and my gosh I have so much food in my fridge now, but all in raw ingredient form and been there for over a week (except the meat, I froze that). Better get on that.

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