Have I set my life goals to seek stimulation, because I let myself be stimulated by PMO+FE

Over the past 7 months, I gave up PMO+FE (Fantasizing/Edging) for all days, except around 30 (give or take). These 30 days I was engaged in PMO+FE are cummulative.

I am grateful to be able to see that PMO+FE has been a problem in my life, yet only a small problem, whose impacts rippled throughout other aspects of my life.

I've been having this thought:

I was engaged in Porn (since age 12/13), then Masturbation (singe age 15/16). I am 25.5 today, and can maintain that since age 15, I would only have been PMO+FE free for a cummulative total of around 500 days. The rest of the days, I have been engaged in (and some days very intensely) in PMO+FE.

A lady once mentioned to me that I always seek stimulation. This was in 2017 and it's still stuck in my head.

Could it be that growing up with the PMO+FE habit wired my brain to depending on stimulation, such that, my entire life plans have been based on seeking this stimulation?

What I mean to say is? The thought of settling down, with a family (marriage), having the 9 to 5 job, in one geographic location (after completing graduate school, which is what I am working on right now) feels dreadful. I always thought I'd travel, go from place to place, maybe work as a consultant (contractor) to do whatever it is I am doing. Yet, the thought of having the 'settled down life' feels dreadful.

Now, over the past 7 months, I am certain of this: Today, I am able to sit through a task for longer period of time without giving in to my anxiety of needing to move around, or the likes thereof. I can only assume PMO+FE set me into perpetual state of anxiety where I wasn't able to focus, or restrain myself from getting up from the task I was in (hence, I look back and see a lot of 'unfinished tasks').

Could it be that because I have been engaged in PMO+FE over the last 10 years (and some days, I [fuck myself] went on a binge - 4 to 5 times a day) - that has instilled this way of thinking in my mind that settling down is dresdful, I should go out there and travel.

In other words, me seeking a life of travel (anything but settling down) is actually speaking to my inner nature, that has been to seek stimulation / or the dopamine hit.

Did PMO+FE not only rewire my brain to seeking pleasure, rather, and moreso, changed my nature, to wanting the same?

Now, as I am calming down, I am coming to terms with life and its realities. I am starting to see that oh shit - me not wanting settle down is me seeking that supposed stimulation, which I think travelling and live an unsettled life will give me (key word: think). Yet, as far as my emotional, mental, psychological - overall human needs go - wife, children, the 9 to 5 job and the whole nine yeards is actually what is best for my well being?

And then, I'm asking again - that is okay, maybe I will come to understand that the above thought process is true. Yet, can I still find a way to have that unsettled life?

PMO+FE perhaps pushed me to always seek stimulation. Now that it's effects are leaving, I am waking up. Yet, this is one thing I'd like to keep with me.

Can I still live on the edge, not for the reasons that pertain to PMO+FE anymore, just for the sake of it?

One might think, hey man, we are all free to make our own choice - live the kind of life you want. I'd say that person is right. We are all free to live the kind of life we want - on the edge or in a bubble, or with security and stability, or in richness and luxury - you are right!

Yet, wouldn't I have to know that my choice of living the kind of life I want is not actually because I want it. It is because a stupid habit influenced me to think that way. Hence, somewhere down the line I will truly wake up, while living that unsettled life and it will hit me hard - Fuck! What I really needed was that 9 - 5, paying mortgage, wife and kids playing in the backyard, saving up for retirement - to die in comfort - (this thought makes me feel contemptous I think - FUCK THAT, die in comfort - NO, how about die fighting for something)

This is an internal battle.

I wonder whether anyone else is going through the same?