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Wellness Wednesday for September 16, 2026

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

New Year's resolution check-in:

  • Posted my twenty-first blog post of the year yesterday, a review of Penance adapted from comments I posted here.
  • Went to the gym three times last week. I can deadlift 1.82x my bodyweight, squat 1.33x and bench press 0.82x. I'm on holiday this week so won't get to the gym.
  • Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.

How goes it @self_made_human, @thejdizzler, @birb_cromble, @ThomasdelVasto and @falling-star?

  1. Work: signed an offer letter for the new job starting in May of 2027
  2. Fitness. Feeling really trashed from running and seem to have done something to my extensor tendon (shoes too tight) so this week is going to be a big down week for mileage. Hoping I can feel better soon for chicago! Mileage: 71.
  3. Intellectual stuff: Two blog posts this month so far. Feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the stuff I want to be doing, so haven't been as on top of my reading as I would like.
  4. Finances: Sold my shares in ZIM in my IRA for a nice profit. I didn't make a whole lot of sense to keep them as I was paying quite a bit of tax on the dividend in an account that is supposed to be tax-free. Bought some WM, a high-yield bond fund (6%), and a NASDAQ index tracker with the proceeds instead. Spending so far this month: 2551
  5. Dating. I officially have a girlfriend for the first time in about a year. Excited! This has helped me be completely porn free (for a week so far) for the first time since 2023.
  6. Tarot. No session this week.
  7. Socializing: Hung out with my girlfriend saturday night, ran with the boys sunday morning and got some NA Guinnesses with my friend sunday PM.
  8. Screen time: 2 hours. Mobile YouTube will be the death of me.
  9. Meditation: 5 minutes 3x last week. Would like to make this more of a priority (as I continue to say but not to do).

Spending is $2,276.17 lower than the same day last year. My heating oil bill has quadrupled for the upcoming season, so that's going to make things tricky going forward.

Nonetheless I persevere.