Why I don't count my days anymore (plus x days of success)

Hey there,

its been a while since i last posted on this forum. May day counter may be out of count.

I came back to the nofap-lifestyle a few weeks ago, maybe months.

The thing is, I do not see any sense in counting my days anymore.

Why do we count them? We want to get to the promised land. We want to have the benefits. If we do not get them, we start to question the journey. Its always where i am reminded of the marshmallow-experiment: its the issue with deferring desires. In the experiment, kids are placed i a room with a marshmallow, and they are told that they can either eat the one in front of them, or wait a certain amount of time, and get 3 more.
We are in the same situation: we can either fap now, or wait and get real good sex.

The problem here is: the longer you have to wait, the more frustrated you get. So if you are very capable of bearing the frustration, then you will probably succeed. If you are not, you wont.

Then theres an additional problem in our situation: the waiting time for the extra portion of marshmallows is very much longer (not minutes or 1 hour, but half a year maybe). So the temptation to give in to frustration, or not mere frustration but maybe also to just give in to pure joyful pleasure, or satisfaction, you name it, is way higher.

What we do is, we tell ourselves, that we have to succeed immediately. If we dont, we are a disgusting freak. That sometimes made me relapse really bad, why try starting again, i have failed myself, i am nothing more than a failure.

On the other hand, if you read journals of guys who made it to a "significant number of days", whatever that is and whoever defines it, then you can hear them say that they warn you of being too arrogant once you reached a goal. The way starts to get slippery. Why though, shouldnt you get "stronger each day"?

Why do we want to "reach the goal"? I think we want to be safe. We want to be redeemed, we want our salvation. Once we made it to the goal, whatever it is, 10, 30, 60, 600 days, we want to "get back to normal life" and relax a little again. Cause the journey is so hard. We hope that the thing will run itself by then.

Whereas is you look at writings of f.e. Eckhart Tolle, you will find that he recommends to live in the present. Why bother about when your journey started (5 minutes ago, or 5 years) if the present is where you are to live it? Okay, i get it, the benefits. But if your are just looking for the benefits, then you will probably fail, before they occur. The benefits are the future! THIS is your present. Stop to worry about your future, or stop longing for futures pleasures and stop thinking about them all the time! Start doing what is right in front of you!Dont bother with the past (when did my streak start?)!

I have been at this count of days before, i know roughly how many days there are. But i dont set any counters no more. I try to focus on the present, and so far, it is working very well!

So gentlemen, no matter how long your streak, own your present! Fuck the streaks, live the moment! If you care enough for each moment, you wont get back to fapping anyways! (Once you get to your goal, no matter how high, it wont save you from fapping anyways)

(i know, this is just one perspective you can take at this! take it or leave it!)

 

Nice, i don't want anybody to just applaud!

Even though i do not disagree with your notion: The positive side effects are definitely useful! I would never fight that, why should I?
The problem that i see is that, they may occur or may not occur throughout f.e. your first 3 weeks. Some have to wait for them later.
So if you start out with the goal to primarily make it to the end of week 3, so you can have the benefits that normally occur at that state, you may get there and not get what you were striving for. Maybe the benefits are waiting for you after 5 weeks or 8, so you may give in before you get there, cause you were expecting them by week 5 and did not get them, so you think your journey is pointless.
So i am just suggesting not to focus PRIMARILY on those awaited benefits, cause there are some dangers lurking if you do so, you become very dependent on them occurring. But i would never fight the point that they are still a very good help along the way.

However, a lesson i learned a few years ago: while a sentence or a philosophy can be very helpful to one person, it might be very bad for another. F.e.: I had this very popular saying on my screen:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ”
Mark Twain

I gave this to my cousin. But she was pretty afraid of it, cause it made her worry that she wasnt trying enough. To me it was more like: risk more, you dont have to lose anything!
Beyond that example, i noticed similar things in world views, philosophy and religion: while a certain worldview might be pretty reasonable (taking into account that worldviews are always just reasonable to a certain extent) and seems to be pretty well working for you, it might be not fitting for another person. So its not just up to reason, its also up to your taste. Its both, most of the time. I do admire Jordan Peterson, but my whole family doesnt like him very much. I wont "sell" him to them.

I wrote a novel getting to my point, anyways: I do like the fact that you disagree, i even expected some people would disagree and its healthy some do: those things are not a one-size-fit. (is that even a common expression? anyways) So: whatever works for you!

 

...and to be completely honest with you: i myself do await these benefits! But i try to not get too caught up in waiting for those benefits to kick in, to be able to justify the whole project to myself again. Cause the roots of the need of a justification is often very deep and wont be satisfied with the promise of a benefit in a few weeks. Its more the "instant gratification monkey" (just in case anybody is familiar, i cant believe i just brought that one up, absolute classic) that cant be fed enough and is craving to have its needs met.

So, sometimes, when i am really weak, i try to get back to my nofap-community-favourites (for those craving good stories about the nofap-afterlife, this is a must-read! Even though i would still warn you to be cautious about the way you deal with this kind of motivation):

First one: the often cited, well-known master, the universal panda:

https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/around-2-years-of-semen-retention-what-happens.255324/

The second one: Angus McGyver, his name is less mysterious and doesnt conjure as much mystical imagery, but seems to be on a similar level of expertise (this one is still around, if you read this, master, leave a comment ):

https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?t...-effects-4-parts-in-this-thread.244844/page-3

have fun!