No sweets challenge
My Schoolmate challenged me to a No sweets challenge. According to some source it takes 60 days for something to become a habit. So we're aiming for 60 days without sweets. Though I think the definition of sweets in our challenge is too loose, as junk food is allowed.
I am winning so far and it feels great. (I did clear my kids leftover dessert one day so I can't claim a totally clean record.)
This was a really good wake up call for me, because now I see that I have gotten in to the habit of having added sugar on every.single.meal.
This challenge has resulted in reduced waste on bread and food, and an increase in wasted cake.
My kids still have jam with breakfast porridge and dessert after dinner (and many times after lunch too).
My plan is to concentrate on the challenge now and tackle the kids diet after that.
Something about finances
I contemplated on why it has been so hard to save and realized, that the best savings rate we've had, was when we just saved my paycheck back in the days of no kids.
So I started putting all my paychecks to our savings account and siphoning money from SO's account to cover all expenses.
This method seems to be working; we've managed to keep our expenses under 3000 eur/month (~3500 USD). This has brought some pressure to our finances, but that's necessary for changes to happen, I think.
My paychecks have been pretty small so the savings rate is nothing special, but never the less now there is once again a plan on saving.
There's also an emotional struggle involved as I don't feel that SO is fully on board this. SO's priority is self-reliance and that means spending money on improving things at the cabin.
On values and boundaries
Axel Heyst wrote:
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Okay here's what I've been digging up this week. I've had issues with "boundaries" my whole adult life. I have codependent tendencies, of the "caretaker" variety, meaning, I apparently have an emotional need to be needed, because I lack the ability to self-validate. This manifests in two ways:
a) I'm helpful AF. Anyone and anything around me, I'll cheerfully take on any tasks or projects they or I can think of. Bonus if I can get in to a relationship with someone who is a basket case and clearly "needs" my competence, level-headedness, and ability to take on an enormous amount of work.
b) it's nearly impossible for me to ask for help or state my own needs/desires, mostly because I haven't the first clue wtf those are, and even if I did, asking for them would upset the balance of needing to be needed. That validation hit of being needed is what I need, which is why "what do you want?" never made much sense to me. "I want you to tell me what you want/need, so I can help you with it, so I can feel needed" is the true answer.
This is relevant to ERE/FI, hang in there.
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A fundamental commonality to all mental health issues (according to psychtoday
) is a lack of / low self-esteem. Story checks out: if I had a strong internally-generated sense of "I am enough", I wouldn't need to be running around helping people with shit I had no actual interest in all the time just to feel like I was halfway worth the oxygen I was breathing. (Oh, huh. I have an extreme aversion to being in the way. In public spaces, I'm always hyper-aware of if I'm blocking a hallway / taking up space that I ought not to be, etc. Seems relevant.)
---
If you can't even approach the question "What do you actually want? What do you enjoy?" without honest confusion (it's not a trick fucking question dude!!) and if it's literally impossible for you to ask other people for help, of any sort, because your brain can't even formulate a thought in the "ask-for-help" pattern, then you got some shit to work out before you can start to live *your* actual life, instead of someone else's.
And, as I've discovered, it's going to be difficult for you to hold your boundaries around things like spending money on stuff, because a) you don't actually have a solid "I want semiERE/FI/freedom/whatever" vision, and b) if spending some money seems like it'll help someone out, you'll do that instead even if it's against your ERE frugality ethic, because the validation hit you get from helping/caretaking someone is stronger than the self-validation hit you get from doing your own thing, executing your own vision.
This whole post really hit me since I've been struggling with these questions too. I'm posting the universal parts here, mostly as a reminder.
I've noticed my tendency to want to help everyone and fix everything a while back and I think I've made some progress with that. Having my own kids and seeing, how letting them try things themselves is valuable, has been enlightening for me.
(Yes, I would say that the kids really are changing my life for the better.)
I totally understand the feeling of total confusion when someone asks "what do you want?".
I want Everyone to be happy, because I hope at the end Everyone will include me too / because I hope I'll be happy as a byproduct (and no-one will notice / deny it from me).
I just had a conversation, with my Schoolmate, about how even the suggestion "you should check that you get enough calories" drove me up an emotional roller coaster, because it showed caring and I couldn't determine any gain for the person suggesting it.
But the question still remains: How do you get more self-esteem?
At the moment my theory is that you dig out some encouraging thought and hang on to that
(Mine is: "Do I believe everyone has value as themselves? Yes I do. Then by logic it follows that I have value as myself.")
and then start asking "What would a person with good self-esteem do?" / "How would you want your loved one/child to handle this situation?"
(Sorry if it sounds confusing, I'm not crystal clear on the difference of value/worth, because they are the same word in Finnish. Value is what someone thinks something is worth and price is what the something is actually exchanged for? )
And when you act in a self-respecting way and when others allow it, you grow in confidence that you truly are worthy of (self)respect.
The co-dependencies are not easy to break and I'm sure there will a lot of people that have a hard time adjusting their model of the endless helper to a person with limits. As Axel said the current way of things has benefited some people.
You just have to cling on to the encouraging thought until the storm clears.
I still don't know what makes me happy, but I try to notice when I am happy and make a mental note of the situation, and if it is "healthy" or not. I also try to dig to the reasons when I'm unhappy, if the discontent comes from a healthy place or not.
In short: I try to act like I have self-esteem until I really do. Or, fake it till you make it, is my approach.
I'm not sure if this is the right or the best way though.
When I say I love something or hate something, I declare a small victory for self-esteem. (In youth I took pride in my non emotional expressions and language use. Now I view it mostly as an excuse for people to walk over me.)
When I tell my favorite color or my favorite fruit to someone, I declare a small victory for self-esteem.
(I actually remember the moment when I found out that I Can Choose a favorite color. I cried when I realized I don't have to go with the one I'm supposed to like because of my gender profile.)
Axel Heyst wrote:Dude, Axel, go rant on some shoegazey emo reddit sub, this is an ERE board, wtf. Yeah yeah: This is relevant because, per my small book of a post a few up, the Focus segment of Wheaton L5 is "Pareto optimization of expenses for maximum life enjoyment." This is relevant to figuring out htf to enjoy life. Because I can tell you, running around rescuing other people/small companies isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when you layer burnout on top of it so you don't have the energy to even approach it with your normal level of energy and stoke.
I too believe that good self-esteem is a prerequisite for a good life and good ERE.
Of course we still can argue that "the get out of dept" / "lose weight so that you're not overweight" / "build some basic self-esteem" problems should be tackled else where since this is a "higher level" forum on all aspects.
Does that mean people should leave their areas of problems out of here and only talk about the things they excel at? Hide those less glorious parts of themselves? (Conceal, don't feel?
)
Or do we only allow fully rounded perfect "higher level" on all fronts specimen to enter?
Then I believe there will be less variety and less growth here.
I gladly admit in only dreaming of being "high level" on any aspect, but it's easy to find people here with high levels on some aspects and problems on others. Should they be excluded too?
Should everyone, that though ERE was Just Extreme FIRE, be cast aside? That would mean there's nearly no-one else than jacob here...
I believe this place is about growing, and the wish to grow and expand your knowledge. And that's part of what makes it so special and beautiful.
And that is why all aspects of life and all thoughts and especially all thought processes should be visible. (Keeping it respectful and civil naturally.)
There's a lot to learn even from mistakes. Censoring and deleting parts of it will make it harder to see the process and to learn from others.
(That shall also be my grieving regarding bigato taking his years of thoughts away from us.)
guitarplayer wrote:
I wasn't aware that asking for the comments to be deleted is an option, it will probably make it somewhat difficult to comprehend various threads.
Hope that Bigato manages well in life. Like someone above mentioned, (mental) health (and well-being I should say) trumps all else, so if getting rid of all his input from here helps, that's fine.
I hope though that this is not going to become a trend! I have never even registered with any forum before this one, not to mention actively participating. The posters here make it truly unique so hope everyone's gonna stick around
In short:
Success:
- Short morning exercise still happening albeit not daily at the moment (but regularly enough that the kids have started asking "have you done the exercise yet?")
- 2 day water fast done (Really boosted my trust on my self discipline)
- Thorough cleaning of 1 room happened
- Clearing away toys with the kids in the evenings has made a comeback (has happened on several consecutive days)
- Still connecting and enjoying the talks with Schoolmate
- No sweets challenge going on (day 10 out of 60 now)
- Got a Zucchini the size of a store bought one from the balcony garden!
- Informed my boss on days which I plan on working (Yay, some routines emerging? Highly unlikely. But at least a chance to get sick leave.)
- Made banana bread (it's really a cake, so I didn't get to eat it though)
Room for improvement:
- Left a banana to spoil and now we have an infestation of banana flies to fight
- 4 of my button shirts gave up in short succession, I will be needing more office worthy clothes if/when the work-from-home -order is lifted. Now I need to do some mending.
- There's no such thing as patience at our household
- Setting boundaries for the kids
- Learning to deal with stress and disappointment
- Learning to be on my own
- Been neglecting the Buy Nothing bookkeeping (and bought a membership of an environmental club out on a whim)
Risks taken:
- Visited another schoolmates inspirational self-renovation house
- Visited a park that was a train ride away with the kids
- Visited the Schoolmate (awesome apartment renovation there too BTW)
- Kids went back to daycare (for two days and after that they were sick for a week and had to be tested for covid)
- Asked for help with the kids, and sent the runny nosed fighters to my moms care
- Let the kids approach strangers at the beach near cabin
- In-laws visited the cabin (Ended up being quite enjoyable, against my expectations)
- Tried again to get help for thesis (not a hit but not a total miss either)
- Entertaining 7wannabe5's words of wisdom around the forum (especially the part regarding ISTJ+ENTP relationships)
- Did pelvic floor exercises too much and got a cramp (I was sure I'd throw up and die. Can't remember when I last had painkillers before this.)
- Discussed about ERE forums, and used the terms we and us
Played it safe:
- Stayed home plenty
- Didn't start regulating the kids sugar intake
- Not pushing issues with SO
- Watched a lot of TEDx talks and Better than yesterday -channel