Error's never ending errings

[bookworm]

Crowbar can be good, but have you found a more incremental approach to work in your life? I've found both to be useful depending on the situation.
It seems like you're trying to optimize for both health and cost at the same time. What if you chose to focus your attention on one or the other variable and get that in place before looking at the next one?

[ertyu]

No positive changes made this past week.

My food costs are absurdly high and have been for years. Every time I try to prepare my own meals I set myself up for failure and end up just eating out a bunch instead. If I try the "crowbar" method and try to change everything at once I always end up trying to fast for a whole day which fails and I eat out since nothing is prepared. If I try only replacing 1 meal at a time I end up delaying any prep/clean up until "later" which never comes so I end up eating out instead.

I get like this when I'm not changing what I want to be changing. When I try to facts-and-logic force what I -think- I -should- want on what I actually do want. So my first suggestion would be to honestly unentangle what you actually want if you are to be honest with yourself, from what you think you -should- want or what you think is rational/makes sense to want. I'm yet to manage not wanting what I actually want by trying to suppress it and telling myself I shouldn't want it be it because wanting it is irrational or bc I tell myself it's impossible to get it. So: what it is you actually want? Make it a private journaling exercise for yourself, the last thing you want is to throw in "what I wish they thought I wanted so that *they*'d think well of me" into the mix. Then just allow yourself to want what you want for long enough to write it down without judgment.

Even if it's not something you think you can get, and even if you don't think it makes rational sense to want what you want, you now have INFORMATION. And what you can do with this information is interrogate it further. Why is it that you want what you want? What does it actually give you? Is it ease? Is it relief from burden? Is it the desire for pleasure? For comfort? For your life not to be how it is? Or?

Eg one I have when I work a demanding job is, "I wish there were one area of my life where things were easy and where I didn't have to work so hard, where I could just get a pleasant experience/gratification". In my case, this leads to coffee and baked goods rather than take-out, but the principle applies: I'll never get anywhere with the coffee and baked goods when I see reducing expenses there as a deprivation from pleasant relaxation and people-watching time, or as an attempt to deny myself a bubble of time when I don't have to do anything and I'm allowed to simply enjoy myself with a nice pastry in pleasant surroundings. But from there, I can make decisions from a place of what's actually true rather than what I wish were true, and ask myself questions like, what other ways are there to get these things in my life? at first, not instead of, but in addition to the coffee? Or do I want to keep the coffee but make changes elsewhere? (eg I kept the coffee but turned off my fridge and heating last winter - not the standard choice and one which works only for some depending on the type of place they live in and climate, but it's a thing). If circumstances make it so that i cannot quit working now and i truly can't afford the coffee breaks, how else can I carve out pockets in my life that are for me and where my actions and behavior aren't subjugated to the will of others? Etc. Good luck, this shit isn't easy. If there were easier solutions which were low-friction to implement, we would have implemented them already. I have found acceptance and commitment self-help books and workbooks often speak well to the disconnect that occurs when what works well in the immediate present -- coffee and a muffin -- works less well in the long run (is expensive, makes you fat, and gives you pimples).

[OffBy2Error]

Ideally I will still make a Tuesday post, but wanted to reply since ertyu's point has been bugging me for a bit and I do not want to keep sitting on this over the next couple days. I have broken out a few of ertyu's statements from the well written (and MUCH appreciated) text to make it easier to reply to.

Crowbar can good, but have you found a more incremental approach to work in your life? I've found both to be useful depending on the situation.
It seems like you're trying to optimize for both health and cost at the same time. What if you chose to focus your attention on one or the other variable and get that in place before looking at the next one?

If I try making smaller changes then I often end up not caring enough to put the effort in at some point and stop.

The health aspect should be the more important, I need to lose a lot of weight. Problem is a decade ago I created an early retirement plan, I met those goals and expected to retire now, and I have years remaining of earning a salary due to higher expenses. Not considering costs is quite difficult at this point.

I get like this when I'm not changing what I want to be changing. When I try to facts-and-logic force what I -think- I -should- want on what I actually do want.

I made a few (paper) journal entries last year specifically calling out the problem you identified. I also had many hours of self-dialogue trying to understand and explain it to myself. None of it stayed active in my head. So, yeah, I think I agree.

So: what it is you actually want?

I have asked myself that many times over the past 10 years. I recall some of the first long solo walks when I tried to discuss it with myself. I still ask it irregularly, including few times earlier this year during long walks. "I do not know" is the only honest answer I have ever found.

I have found acceptance and commitment self-help books and workbooks often speak well to the disconnect that occurs when what works well in the immediate present

I have never found a "self help" book which did anything for me. I have enjoyed reading Stoic and Zen/meditation books in the past, although I am not sure any of it ever mattered a week or two later. Do you have any specific suggestions on books which you found helped you or you think may help me?

Even if it's not something you think you can get, and even if you don't think it makes rational sense to want what you want, you now have INFORMATION

I think I could spend 1,000 hours or more talking to myself, writing, typing, whatever and would never know if I want X-versus-Y or if I want to-be-someone who wants x versus Y. I have probably spent over 100 hours already over the years asking and still have no idea what I want. Even something as obvious as "do I want to be healthy or do I want to be someone who wants to be healthy?" I just do not know.

One of the interesting things society has done is we cut the brain of people to disconnect the left-right brain halves. The reason it is interesting is we found out that only half the brain controls speech, the other half still controls half the body but has no voice. So we did experiments on some of those people and found out that if we showed an image to the non-verbal-controlled eye then asked "what do you see" the verbal reply was "nothing" while the non-verbal-controlled hand would silently grab the matching item. Nothing has been done to me like that, but I sometimes feel as if the vocal me has no connection to the rest of me which has no way to communicate what it is I actually want.

[bookworm]

If I try making smaller changes then I often end up not caring enough to put the effort in at some point and stop.

Thus the utility of crowbar, I wasn't negging the concept, just wondering on details of application in this situation...

The health aspect should be the more important, I need to lose a lot of weight. Problem is a decade ago I created an early retirement plan, I met those goals and expected to retire now, and I have years remaining of earning a salary due to higher expenses. Not considering costs is quite difficult at this point.

I see the dilemma I think. Both aspects are important to you at some level, but would it be fair to say that cost containment is more pressing at this moment in life history? If you chose cost, then set some hard but attainable limit on that parameter and then try to be "reasonably healthy" within said constraint.

If I can't decide between close options, I could just pick one, see how it works out (mentally or actually), and iterate based on feedback from sensory reality.

[OffBy2Error]

I made small progress on food, have replaced a few meals with beans over the past couple days. But, still failing to be reasonable on majority of meals. Maybe if I keep failing long enough I will try succeeding.

Read the most recent page from "Bicycle7's Journal" which mentioned the book "The glass stone game" which I think I read many years ago. I ordered it from my local library (they did not have in, but they are able to request and get it from a nearby library) so that should arrive in a week or so. Even if the book is not ERE related, it gives me something to do and I am practicing my involvement in ERE in the indirect way of copying others book suggestions.

Updated my resume last night. Currently working for a company I was at previously and I forgot how maddening these people are. Also found out one of the few good workers is leaving soon so that was the kick I needed to start considering my next step. It would likely make sense to spend more effort in deciding "what do I want", as ertyu correctly pointed out, or what do I actually "need" financially. Instead I am being reactive and trying to solve the workplace problem by finding a new one instead of figuring out if I have alternatives.

Related to the resume-instead-of-alternatives, glancing at housing costs in my area make it look like any situation I might want (hard requirement of quiet) is likely to add years to my FI duration IF I stay focused on salary instead of actually branching out to other income streams. So, keeping a salary income is apparently still the device I cling on to...

Thus the utility of crowbar, I wasn't negging the concept, just wondering on details of application in this situation...

I see the dilemma I think. Both aspects are important to you at some level, but would it be fair to say that cost containment is more pressing at this moment in life history? If you chose cost, then set some hard but attainable limit on that parameter and then try to be "reasonably healthy" within said constraint.

If I can't decide between close options, I could just pick one, see how it works out (mentally or actually), and iterate based on feedback from sensory reality.

Yea, I did not intend to sound defensive about crowbar, was just trying to answer your question about what happens if I try smaller changes.

I think for the time being I will keep trying for both cheaper food cost and healthier. I am not trying to be dismissive of your suggestion, but both the unhealthy aspect and the cost aspect are wildly wrong for me at the moment.

[OffBy2Error]

Sticking to ertyu's earlier reply this post (linking for reference, not quoting since do not want to ping them again) viewtopic.php?p=301974#p301974

I have tried to figure out "what do I want" in the past MANY times. I think there is something disconnected internally because I have never been able to figure out "I want X" vs "I want-to-want X". Not exactly the same as ertyu's "I want others to think I want X", but similar idea. Maybe an additional obstacle is I am fairly good at some mixture of getting a flow/process and/or wanting to complete something so I might spend weeks/months doing something and at the end realize I did not enjoy it or did not want whatever I was doing. I also suspect I enjoy novelty to some extent, I can recall some instances where I spent months doing something then realized at the end I enjoyed the process but had no interest in the actual thing I was doing. Mention the novelty because it makes it even more difficult to know when I want something VS enjoy new, although sometimes I also dislike new so that by itself is not a motivator.

Continuing on this topic, I wonder if that is why I keep struggling with diet. I "decide" I am going to eat x, y, z, I think it is what I want with no sense of forcing myself, but then it turns out I want-to-want to eat x, y, z and since I do NOT actually want that I fail. When I try to look back at why I failed at eating x, y, z it never registers that I should have picked x, a, h instead of x, y, z because I have no pathway for that "a" or "h" to bubble up to my consciousness and picked "x" correctly by randomness.

As I spend more effort trying to figure out how to figure out what I want I read some of the "best of ERE" including viewtopic.php?p=120448#p120448. If I had to guess I first found the ERE blog around 10 years ago, multiple life changes happened in a couple year window so that is my best guess. I also read some of MMM and reddit leanfire, likely one of those led me to ERE and also makes it hard to pin down ERE specifically. But, after around a decade maybe I need to admit I am not ERE and instead I am E-ER who wants-to-want ERE. Ideally that does not stop me from being interested in ERE, I love the web ideas and lots of the information. But, maybe I need to stop expecting myself to ever implement 95% of it.

[delay]

Continuing on this topic, I wonder if that is why I keep struggling with diet.

Thanks for sharing! I've done many diets over the years, and was never able to stick to them for more than six months. After that I would "lapse" and also regain weight very quickly. Looking back, my explanation is that the mind can only override the body for so long. And that is a good thing, the body deserves the food it needs.

The weight loss path that works for me is "intermittent fasting", an eating window between 14:00 and 20:00, combined with at least a few whole food meals a week. My weight is in the healthy BMI range for two years now. Best of luck with your weight journey!

[thai_tong]

I know it's 4 years since the start of the blog but your posts about motivation is a timeless issue.

You said you even had a list of things you want to do but you don't do them.

I wonder if you think about the end result only. For example I'd like to make a music video because if I did that it would be a funny thing to tell people. But I realise that I don't find it fun to go to a place and film a scene 10 times and then edit. So this was never going to be successful.

The good news for you is that you are retired so you don't have to do what you don't enjoy. Try open your mind up to what you would enjoy doing.

Also, society has a messed up understanding of motivation. We think that you get motivated and then you do something. But actually the way it usually works is that you do something and then it motivates you to continue. As an example, I enjoy learning languages but sometimes I'm not bothered and stop for months. I book a 1 hour tutor and then I enjoy the class, I get some self-belief and I feel good about continuing. I don't get concerned with whether I am improving, I just enjoyed learning for years and definitely did get better at it.

[OffBy2Error]

Food went poorly this past week. "The glass bead game" which I ordered because someone else's journal mentioned it arrived, maybe 25% through so far and some of it seems familiar but much of it does not so I still think I read it long ago and forgot much of it. Mentioned sitting on a large % cash position from few months ago, decent amount of my assets have been cash for a few months, I am still wary and unsure of housing situation so not changing that yet and have not actually lost any value yet.

I know it's 4 years since the start of the blog but your posts about motivation is a timeless issue.

You said you even had a list of things you want to do but you don't do them.

I wonder if you think about the end result only. For example I'd like to make a music video because if I did that it would be a funny thing to tell people. But I realise that I don't find it fun to go to a place and film a scene 10 times and then edit. So this was never going to be successful.

The good news for you is that you are retired so you don't have to do what you don't enjoy. Try open your mind up to what you would enjoy doing.

Also, society has a messed up understanding of motivation. We think that you get motivated and then you do something. But actually the way it usually works is that you do something and then it motivates you to continue. As an example, I enjoy learning languages but sometimes I'm not bothered and stop for months. I book a 1 hour tutor and then I enjoy the class, I get some self-belief and I feel good about continuing. I don't get concerned with whether I am improving, I just enjoyed learning for years and definitely did get better at it.

Sorry for not being more thorough, this is not a good week for me.

- Yes motivation is still an issue, earlier this year created a new "todo" recently and stopped maybe halfway.
- I have to consider the "only think about end result" point, that is an interesting idea.
- Sadly there was a disconnect somewhere: I am not retired, currently employed and looking for a better situation, and cannot afford my current lifestyle without employed income.
- I have read/heard the idea about doing leading to motivation instead of motivation leading to doing previously. Problem is with today's tech giving distraction means my ability to do nothing is HUGE. At least the way I currently think, the only ways for me to do anything are to be motivated, bored, or something external. "Something external" getting me to act is not reliable, being bored requires me to actively try to get bored so needs motivation anyway, and that leaves trying to be motivated... I wonder if the stance "do something and then become motivated" works very well for ERE people and since I am trying to accept (from my previous post) that I am not an ERE person then that idea does not work for me? Or maybe I am simply making excuses, not sure.

[OffBy2Error]

Did not think about the point "thai_tong" made where maybe I only think about the end result. Food went less poorly this week, but still bad. No responses to resumes, still employed at current company and still not happy.

Finished "The Glass Bead Game". I read a very similar book years ago which had similar setting, similar game, similar "this might not last" hints, but very different ending. Until I reached the end of the story (many pages of poetry after the end of the story which hide where the story ends) I thought it was the same book I read in the past so the ending left me confused. I do not think I gained anything from having read the book.

I have been trying to focus on my mental state during the day this past week. Much much too soon to say if there are any effects of that.

[OffBy2Error]

Considering decreasing from once a week to first and third week each month since this feels like a waste of bytes to have nothing meaningful each week.

Food costs remained very elevated, but still lower than a month ago. Also still eating a bunch of junk.

Still trying to pay attention to mindset during the week. Mostly failing, which is expected, but multiple times each day I remember to pause and focus for a bit.

Did nothing on any of the other points I mentioned in previous 2 posts. That is probably the main argument to keep this weekly: more frequent reminders of my "erring" behavior.

[OffBy2Error]

Well this sucks. I spent at least half an hour (willing to claim an hour if "thinking" time in between typing is included) typing something, was logged out, and that text is now gone.

Jumping to the end and skipping all the explaining how I got to this point: a few posts ago user "ertyu" called out a problem I have actively struggled with a lot over the years: what do I want? Maybe the problem is a level higher. Maybe the problem is I am naturally a nihilist and the real question is: do I want?

Anyone who has tried to argue about science/statistics/medicine with an "average" person knows that rational arguments are useless (better yet know of the studies which show that rational arguments cause someone to double down on their existing beliefs). Maybe the actual "problem" is I keep trying to treat myself like someone who cares when my whole life has just been a reactionary path because I do not care. Yes, $10 eating out VS $1 home food is an obvious choice.... Unless someone does not care.

If I have something useful to add I will keep at the weekly posts, otherwise as stated in my previous post I may switch to 1 and 3 of each month to at least try to keep myself thinking about ERE.

[OffBy2Error]

3rd week of the month. Nothing insightful to add to my previous nihilist stance. Perhaps "apathy" is a better word than nihilist since nihilist does not quite feel right.

Zooming into the small details...
1. Work still not going well mentally.
2. Had a call few days ago with HR from a company I applied to awhile back. That company seems interested in my background and from what I know the job would be a much better fit for me and is something I hope to be interested in doing.
3. Began seriously looking into a house.

Extra words on the house point... I strongly dislike the extra costs, extra maintenance, etc. But, the idea of having an actual QUIET place to live in (unlike the past 5 apartments) is just critical for my mentality at this point. I do have a chunk of money in taxable investments (currently in money market and not invested) and also a chunk in checking account (savings account would make more sense but I was trying to simplify number of accounts). While I cannot afford to pay the full amount in cash (for the criteria I am searching for), I could probably put 50-70% down depending on what the price ends up being. On the one hand I dislike the idea of losing most of my liquidity. But, on the other hand interest rates are high, with my current job (or if the other company makes me an offer) I still would be saving a decent amount monthly, and if rates do go down then refinancing or a home equity line of credit (HELOC) could be choices to access to that cash again for investing.

I am looking at prices significantly lower than someone with my income and assets normally would. I suspect the realtor I talked with is not thrilled with the lower budget I am aiming at. That being said, I am preferring houses with enough land to be useful for "something" whether it be a very large garden or I have a few other ideas in mind which may generate some income. I also know to pay attention to the different taxes properties have (in my area it can cause a large difference in annual costs despite similar listing prices).

[ertyu]

do I want?

Perhaps "apathy" is a better word

People get like that when life has slowly but thoroughly and inexorably taught them that wanting isn't for them, they're not of the ones allowed to want bc their wants will never be seen, validated, or fulfilled. Might be useful to sit and remember -- what did you use to want? How did significant people in your life treat those wants? How did it work out to want?

At least in my case, the wants are still there, I've just dissociated from them.

This makes for good journaling, or if you have access to affordable therapy, a therapist can talk it out with you, too. Though one doesn't strictly need another person to start digging into it.

[OffBy2Error]

So far the biweekly post seems to be work better for me than weekly.

People get like that when life has slowly but thoroughly and inexorably taught them that wanting isn't for them, they're not of the ones allowed to want bc their wants will never be seen, validated, or fulfilled. Might be useful to sit and remember -- what did you use to want? How did significant people in your life treat those wants? How did it work out to want?

At least in my case, the wants are still there, I've just dissociated from them.

This makes for good journaling, or if you have access to affordable therapy, a therapist can talk it out with you, too. Though one doesn't strictly need another person to start digging into it.

That is an interesting mental exercise: what did I want in the past? I can think of things I used to want, but none of my memories where I improved or moved towards a goal seem to include an active want for it.

The easiest example is ER, over 10 years ago I learned that you can retire from investments/non-salary-income and I was excited about it. But, almost all of the progress had nothing to do with actively wanting ER. Much of my ER progress has been a mix of "why would I buy (insert something) if I do not want it?" and also "if I buy (insert something) then am not happy I will be unhappy since I wasted that money." In retrospect one of the big things thinking about ER changed in me was realizing that spending money will not make me happy.

I can think back to school achievements and that is mostly "I am doing X because I am supposed to (teacher/parent told me to)". I previously did bunch of athletic/competition stuff and I am not sure if any of that was "want"... I recall dong some things routinely because someone else scheduled it or others out of boredom. Some of those activities lasted months, other lasted years.

In most cases "something" internally/mentally clicked into place and me doing the activity was a lot like how I wash my hands after using the toilet: no intention or want. Then at some point that "something" un-clicked and I stopped doing it without thinking about it. Even the ER aspect: I can rationalize those 2 thoughts for why I was saving money, but most of the day to day stuff was just thoughtless not-spending.

No, I do not have access to affordable therapy. I did spend some time thinking about the above reply over the past 2 weeks and may think some more over the next 2 weeks.

Unrelated to my reply to ertyu: monthly financial check in shows my bank balance is up (actively saving) and investments are higher than last month. This is now my highest net value. I still do not trust the current stock market and am sitting on a large amount of cash, some of it hopefully for house downpayment and the rest because my portfolio did not match my (current) risk tolerance.