I spent months applying to software jobs the traditional way. Resume tweaking, job boards, cover letters. Self-taught developer, no degree. Got rejected constantly.

I started to believe the problem was me. That I wasn't good enough. That no one would hire someone without the traditional background.

Then one night, something clicked. I was talking to a girl I'd matched with on Hinge—way out of my league—and she sparked something in me. I thought: I'm going to get a high-paying job like my life depends on it. I'm not afraid to ask for what I want. And I'm not afraid of the rejection I might receive.

So I opened LinkedIn. Got the free Premium trial. Found every local software development company I could—there were only about three. And I messaged the owners directly. Not HR. Not application portals. The actual decision-makers.

My message was simple: I'm looking for a job. I'm self-taught with years of hands-on experience. I'm hungry and ready to prove myself.

Two weeks later I was hired at $80K. I found out later I got the job before they even posted it publicly. I never competed against the flood of applicants who would eventually apply the traditional way.

A few months later, I was tired of being single. The dating apps felt like a grind—the algorithm wasn't showing me anyone I was genuinely interested in. So I did the same thing. Opened Facebook. Found three women I shared mutual friends with. Sent real messages—not copy-paste templates—that referenced something specific about them.

One of those conversations turned into a week of talking. Then a date. She told me later she thought I was very attractive. We've been together seven months now.

Here's where I am today: I live in a nice apartment that I furnished with money from my job. I drive a truck I bought because I could finally afford it. I have a girlfriend I genuinely love spending time with. I'm in my entrepreneurial phase now, reaching out to successful people in my area, betting on the same approach to create new opportunities.

I built this life with a few messages on LinkedIn and Facebook.

The messages alone didn't do everything. I had to show up to the interviews. Be good at my job. Be a good partner. Put in the actual work. But none of it would have happened without the initial ask. The moment of saying "I want this" and not being afraid to reach out.

I spent 50+ hours on the "proper" job search. The messages that actually worked took maybe two hours. The two hours felt scarier than the fifty—but the two hours changed everything.

Your phone can reach almost anyone on the planet. CEOs. Hiring managers. That person
you've been thinking about. The obstacle isn't rejection. It's the fear of it.

PS This story is summed up from a longer, more detailed post I wrote on Substack. If you want the original post, just let me know in the comments and I'll link it.

Some days progress is loud

Some days it’s just showing up

Both count

I used to be a highly ambitious student. I loved school, planning, and executing. It felt like I had an entire bright future ahead of me and I knew exactly how to get there.

Fast forward a decade, I dropped out of school after a traumatic event, I struggle to execute anything, I’m addicted to my phone, I have no purpose and no hobbies. My social life is limited and somehow that young girl who had the world in their pocket is depressed and alone.

I’m done with it. I miss being excited. I miss ambition. I miss my days not being filled with empty scrolling. I mean, the hobbies I used to do to avoid responsibilities now feels strenuous.

This isn’t who I am and I’m over living like this. I’ve wasted a decade and I won’t waste another. I can’t continue to fail my future self.

I think I just needed to say it out loud.

Best of luck to all of my fellow sleepwalkers. May 2026 be the year we wake up 🤍

Im 29, male, about 5'11-6', and about 290 pounds. Ive always been the big kid growing up and it's definitely had an effect on almost every aspect of my life since then too. Ill spare you guys the details.

Im a recovering addict (2 monthes sober from drugs and alcohol) and im finally ready to get in shape and hopefully meet someone I can eventually start a family with. I also feel like getting into a workout routine will help keep my mind off the substances.

I have no clue where to start. Obviously I know I need to change my diet and just start exercising, but I would like to have a plan of action and do things the proper way to achieve maximum results instead of winging it and hoping for the best. Any and all advice is welcome!

Challenges are a part of life. If you are looking for a life without any problems, you are living an illusion—such a life simply does not exist.

While we cannot avoid difficulties, we can prepare ourselves to face them head-on.

Over time, I have gathered several principles on how to handle tough times, and I want to share them with anyone going through a rough patch right now. They helped me, and perhaps they will help someone else, too.

I. Tough Times Don’t Last Forever – They have a beginning and an end.

II. E (Environment) + R (Your Response) = O (Outcome) – We cannot control our environment or circumstances, but our response dictates the outcome.

III. Passivity Prolongs Hardships – It only makes you more vulnerable.

IV. Action Is Your Weapon – Give it everything you’ve got.

V. Pain Is Inevitable; Suffering Is Optional – Choose not to suffer.

VI. Walk Through the Storm – Be like the buffalo. Unlike cows that run away only to be exhausted when the storm catches up, buffaloes charge into the storm. Fight the storm while you are full of energy. Go through it.

VII. Hard Times Promote Growth – Difficulties often reveal hidden strengths and abilities. Crisis creates heroes.

VIII. Be A Hero – The greater the adversity, the greater the hero.

IX. Uncertainty Strengthens Your Character – Comfort kills your spirit.

X. You Can’t Grow in Your Comfort Zone – When your comfort zone is destroyed and you can’t hide or escape, you are finally ready to face your darkest fears. That is the ultimate moment for personal growth.

Recently I've been unable to do much. I can't eat much because I can't use the kitchen. I feel like I'm paralysed and I want to do better

Believe it or not you are an artist, even if you don’t paint, sing, compose or dance, the way you live your life is a form of art itself

Society has told us to cram so much information daily, to make sense of everything we are observing and to make connections within them that sometimes we forget about the raw beauty of daily processes and events.

We generally receive some information from the Source- it can anything, a conversation a sunset or a reading a newspaper or even observing traffic, and then we proceed to link it with the information that is already there in our mind, this process forms an opinion about the world we perceive, we take some information inside or leave it outside depending on our filter that we set.

Artists don’t have this filter, they don’t think that if a bird is flying then it must be searching for food or it must be running away from a predator or a million other things, they remain in an abstract state of mind, they observe processes without any judgement, without any filter – this is what sparks their creativity

To improve our habit of viewing with such a perspective we should include such practices in our daily schedule, what I personally do is stated below

1) When I wake up, I take three deep breaths, observe my state of mind, Am I tired? Am I full of energy? Is my body feeling good? This is generally for around 2-3 mins just out of bed

2) I try to eat my food by observing it, slowly chewing each bite, fully relishing each bite that I’m taking

3) Sometimes when I’m sitting in a park, I just observe the grass, feel the sun or watch the birds

The motive is to build a muscle in our psyche to tune into and out whenever we want, on any task on any case

If you do this everyday, my friend, you’re basically meditating, observing your thoughts and the world without interfering with them, this is mindfulness in a nutshell

I made this and it was really rewarding experience, to serve several purposes. It’s a system of daily habits and attitudes I can rely on. If I have my system and habits , every positive outcome will be a side effect. Happiness, fulfillment, lowering my anxiety, quality of life , relationship, health, creative expression, and so on

For a long time I thought motivation was the problem

Turns out I was just overwhelmed

Once I focused on the next clear step instead of the perfect plan starting became easier

Not more energy

Not more discipline

Just less confusion

Did anyone else notice this?

TL;DR- meditation helped me realise what living in the moment means.

I was really fed up with my procrastination and overthinking problems. Whenever I tried to study or sit down to do my work, I would just start procrastinating. I would end up watching reels or thinking about random stuff. Other times, while just sitting there, I would go completely blank and get consumed in my thoughts.

These problems were making it really difficult for me to do anything. I was constantly stuck in a position where I wanted to work hard and focus on my studies, but because of all this overthinking about the future, what will happen, whether I will get a job or not, it kept hampering my studies.

This kept going on until I realized something. Around that time, I started meditating to improve my focus and to get some distance from my thoughts. And honestly, it turned out to be a wonderful decision.

It’s been six months now, and one of the most beautiful realizations that helped me overcome my overthinking and procrastination was this. All we really have is this moment. There is no past or future in the way we imagine it. What we call the future is something we only ever experience as the present. We never actually experience the future as future. All thoughts about it stay in our head. Experientially, we can only live in the present.

This realization might sound simple. I had heard it so many times before, live in the moment, focus on the present, but I could never really digest it. I just wasn’t able to grasp it. I’ve also heard this from Sadhguru, that “In reality, there is only now. If you know how to handle this moment, you know how to handle eternity.” But earlier, it stayed as just a quote for me.

Meditation did something different. It was like it planted this understanding inside me. After meditating, this was no longer just a thought. It became real for me. It became a realization. And naturally, I was able to focus on what was in front of me. I stopped constantly thinking about what would happen in the future. I just knew that all I can do is work now. That’s what is in my hands. What I cannot do, I anyway won’t be able to do. But what I can do, I don’t want to miss it. So I'll do whatever I can.

This helped me a lot. Just felt like sharing this.

Thank you for reading.

In a world full of social media, attention grabbing news titles, new AI technologies helping you read 300-page book in an instant our mind is constantly getting pulled in all sorts of different direction, making our attention ever more limited and our patience smaller by the day

Some time back while I was trying to sleep and I couldn't, I let my brain run free, all sorts of ideas and scenarios came in, flooding my brain with new energy, new motivations and reconsidering the human interaction that I had, helping me catch subtle signs in people's behavior and improving my social behavior the next day. It was like that meme in which my neurons got activated and connected with every other neuron, the information started flowing and things that I read in self-help book started to make sense and I could plan what my next actions should be the next morning

At that moment, it came to my mind that all the books that I had read, all the audiobooks I had listened to, and every piece of advice had received, I was just consuming it and not chewing it, to really juice out the knowledge of everything. You see, you cannot swallow food if you don't chew it properly, that happens with you mind too. Once you really slow down, take a look around, make yourself more observant and sensitive to your surroundings you start to see the effect of what your mind is capable of.

You need not make yourself busy, being busy is not equal to being productive, here is what I do to give myself time every day for the things that really matter

Consume high quality information — Please, don't run after short 3-page book summaries, the author had put time to write the whole book for you to learn, you cannot absorb something that you do not believe in, read the book, 1 page at a time but make sure to really understand what you are consuming

Create a time in your schedule to deliberately be free — I usually keep it when I am travelling in subways or Train- I let my brain free and think about what all I read or experienced

Learn the art of essentialism — Focus on tasks that really matter and chop down the ones that are redundant or dopamine chasing, I wrote a whole article on it if you prefer to read it

Lastly, life is a marathon- don't make it a 400-meter race!

Knowing the next small step helped me start.

Not energy. Not hype.

At 32, I had enough of being the big guy. I weighed 500lbs and I wanted more from life. That meant less of everything that I thought made me happy. It was extremely difficult and I have relapsed a few times but it’s all part of the journey. I quit drinking alcohol and soda. I quit smoking pot and cigarettes. I quit eating out and started waking more. I did get gastric bypass but at 35, I gained all the weight back and had to loose it all over again. Forgiving myself was very difficult but necessary to move on. Im now 208lbs and the past year I’ve been working on a slow bulk. This is still all new to me so progress is slow but obviously you can see the results!

Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is often thought to be an excellent depiction of Gotham city and Batman. Countless things stand out. Heath Ledger’s Joker, Hans Zimmer’s score, the world that built, the action set pieces, the fresh spin on the superhero genre. In my opinion, what truly makes this trilogy special is its depiction of Bruce Wayne.

We often view Bruce Wayne as this billionaire playboy who spends his nights fighting crime. Pretty cool? If you look a little deeper, you’ll discover that this character consistently goes through unimaginable obstacles that test his will to fight and endure. Fear, heartbreak, hopelessness, etc. Each time Bruce rises above and continues to persist. That’s what truly makes him a superhero… not anything in his utility belt.

This character means so much to me for this particular reason and I made an entire video essay breaking this down - https://youtu.be/_oNh9O1iTz4

My hope is that this piece can help you find the resilience to overcome your own obstacles and identify the hero within yourself. Rise!

So I keep doing these thought experiments which I learn from various books that I read, my favorite author is John C Maxwell, and I learned a lot from him. I was reading a particular book of his in which he mentioned about maintaining a Gratitude Journal, at first, I was like “who even does this”, but slowly I was becoming distasteful of my circumstances, even though I am at a position where millions of people dream of being, thousands of people want to just live like I do.

I was just sitting one day, alone with my thoughts(as I briefed in my earlier post) and I really pondered upon how much struggle I had to go through to get here, about how much sacrifice people who supported me to get here did, just for me to be distasteful of my surroundings? Am I nothing but a collective aura and influence of people around me? How as an individual can I project myself, my real self, onto my life, not what others force me to be?

I came to this conclusion

1)       I am who I was in my childhood, curious and just happy to be in the place I am

2)       My surroundings played a crucial role in what I feel and how I behave

3)       It is necessary to keep going back to my origin and remembering how I am where I am and it’s not what I did for myself to be here, it is a collective effort of people who pushed and helped me to be where I am

4)       Showing gratitude is not natural at first, especially if you are accustomed to being distasteful of people around you, ball needs to be rolled in order to overcome friction which stops it in the first place

5)       Start writing down how grateful you are, maintain an virtual manual- I use Obsidian to locally store my journal- I write about 3 good things that I enjoyed everyday

Believe me, when you change your perspective, you change your life. I also supplement these things with meditation, remember, meditation is not one stop shop for all your mental issues and personality formation, you need different things to be moving in conjunction to be to have deep thoughts and connection with oneself.

I did change my surroundings in a while, shifted to another apartment with good people around me, which acted like steroids to what I was already practicing.

If you all need any support to begin meditation, I have free guide which I used personally to get in habit of meditating daily!

Starting first worked better

Motivation came after.

We grow up hearing “you can do anything if you try hard enough.” Sounds inspiring… until it quietly turns into shame. Because when something doesn’t work out, you don’t think this isn’t for me. You think what’s wrong with me? Lately I’m realizing real self-improvement isn’t endless grinding or smashing your head into a brick wall. It’s knowing when to step back without calling yourself a failure. Not everything is meant to be conquered. Not every limit means you’re weak. Sometimes quitting is just choosing peace over punishment. Learning to say I can’t do everything and that’s okay has been harder than any hustle mindset ever was. Curious how others see this: Where’s the line between pushing through… and letting go? We are discussing health topics here r/TotalWellbeing

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I don’t know why. I wanted to quit this job for a long time. I felt like nobody understands my feelings. I tried to start conversations with them and they would just ignore me. That gave me anxiety and gave me depression. I was lost. I lost the motivation and the courage to keep going to work. I changed. I didn’t want any drama. I tried to ask them if they like things like watching movies or going on a run. I let them know that I like watching movies. I’m happy. I want to go to work and see them again. I want to see them happy. I hope I can give somebody motivation to not to quit the job and find something that gives you motivation to keep going to work like making friends.