The Opposite of Distraction is... Traction

11:40 PM

People think that the opposite of distraction is focus, but actually, the prefix "dis" means "not", so the opposite of distraction is actually traction. The dictionary definition of traction means to be moved by a pulling force. How I think of traction is the gain of movement and momentum towards something like a goal or destination.

This means that every time we are not pursuing our goals, we are distracted. In many ways, I have been distracted for several days, months, years. I don't even know if I have one cohesive goal for my life yet. Like most people, I'm currently just living day by day. I have short term goals such as losing weight and having six pack abs, yet I am constantly distracted from that goal. My friend Ami was able to accomplish this in just a few months, weighing the same as me, with just some focus and discipline. I have the same exact capability and the knowledge of how, yet my daily habits and actions seem to stop me.

The past few days since my last entry, I have been distracted. I can't even recall what I did the past few days because of how meaningless those days have been. I don't recall doing anything at all the past few days. Yesterday, July 1st, I did start to work on the items on my checklist again, I don't know why I ever stopped.

I have been doing all my daily brain training since almost a month ago now, my current streak is 23 days I think. This is something I've been doing every day despite not checking it off from my daily checklist. I could have and should have also been exercising every day, yet I haven't been. Tonight I lost a push up battle against Eric, he was able to do 30 push ups, while I only did 30. In the next round, he did 25 push ups, while I only did 12. I beat him last time, doing 31 push ups both times, yet because I have been out of shape lately, I wasn't even able to do 30 push ups in a row anymore.

The last push up battle we had was probably 2-3 weeks ago. In that time since not exercising daily and eating excessively, I've lost a lot of ability that I once had. Another factor is that we worked out a lot prior to this, doing one rep maxes for bench press, I said I'd stop doing one rep maxes but that was mainly for exercises like squats and clean jerks which can be dangerous and I feel my entire body aching after. With a one rep max bench press, I don't feel much. We also did dips and chin ups. Still, he was able to do the same amount of push ups as last time, while I wasn't.

We talked tonight of the stuff going on in his life while we walked as our warmup prior to going to the gym. He told me of a new match he had on Bumble with a vegan girl, vegan for 12 years already, and how she stopped responding after a while. I told him that happens to me as well, sometimes I do it to them, most of the time they do it to me.

I'm currently not on any dating apps, I do still have my dating accounts on Vegpal and Veggly, but I'm not actively swiping or talking to anyone on there. Sometimes I will get a random match on Veggly, like I had two recently, since I just have my account open on there and already liked a bunch of people, and sometimes I may go in and scroll and like some new people, although I very rarely do this, probably last time I did it was 5 months ago.

A few weeks ago, I matched with a very cute girl, super attractive. She was doing her PhD in computational physics or something extremely complicated like that, and she was only 24. She is for sure far smarter than I am, and much more attractive. She doesn't look like a nerd, doesn't wear glasses, if that's what you thought a PhD 24 year old looked like, brown hair, fair skin, not thin but very attractive still. Although I felt great matching with her, and it would have been cool to date her, our long term plans didn't match, so I'm the one who stopped replying to her.

A few days ago I matched with an Asian woman. I've never had a relationship with an Asian woman in my life, although I have gone on at least one date with one. I've gone out with all the races at least once, but Asian is the one I've been with the least, and I am Asian myself. Asians are just the ones I encounter the least. Anyway, I was pretty excited to match with her. I don't remember much from her profile, but she's pretty, thin, 26, vegan since she was 14 years old, travels a lot, is already working in her career and is looking for a long term partner. She matched with me, so I messaged her. It did take me like a few days to message her after matching with her, because I just rarely opened Veggly and I forgot about it, but she hasn't responded yet this whole time.

Eric also told me about how his boss is giving him 50/50 ownership of the business. That was pretty amazing news. I remember he told me he never, well, maybe I shouldn't be writing about private things people share with me? I won't quote it exactly, but to summarize he felt like he didn't have much of a future financially, yet here was this random windfall and amazing opportunity out of nowhere. I feel like a lot is going Eric's way, with his YouTube now having over 1.1k subscribers, him getting over 400 Instagram followers recently, getting 20-30k views on TikTok, like he's blowing up relatively speaking. He also has a lot of dates and matches. Since I've met him, just 8 months ago, he's gone out with more than 10 different women, a few relationships were in there too.

I'm very happy for him that things are going his way. He got invited to be in a debate recently with some smaller YouTubers, but that's still a pretty big deal I think. He is an amazing ally and friend, I am seriously nothing but happy for him. For most of the friends I have, pretty much everything goes our way. There are a few people I can think of though where nothing works out for them, I'm not going to name them here, nor describe how things aren't working out for them, but nothing goes their way.

There's a saying that "you are the 5 people you hang out with the most" and that's true. I like hanging out with successful people since we all raise our standards. Yeah, I don't like hanging out much with people who aren't striving or trying to live a better life, but you can't avoid that either, you will encounter and befriend all sorts of people.

I still sometimes want to cry that I have to do everything alone. Who has to clean the dishes, sweep the floors, clean the kitchen, clean the bathroom, change the bed sheets, do the laundry, hang the clothes, take out the trash, buy groceries, pull out the weeds, clean the backyard? Who has to run a business, do computer work, have meetings and email people and clients, organize business and personal finances, do work for clients? Who has to send their parents money every month, who has to pay the phone, electricity, water, HOA, insurance bills, who donates over $130 a month to Patreon vegans? Who has to exercise every day, do vegan activism every day, do brain training exercises every day, host Habitica challenges every 10 days, manage two discord servers, manage several websites, write a journal entry every day, do school work to get a bachelor's (currently taking calculus), maintain friendships, maintain familial relationships, and more? Me. I have to do all that and more, alone. Alone.

I'm not complaining that I have all that to do. I'm complaining because I am alone. When can I ever get help on anything? Actually, when I used to live with my parents, they did pretty much all of the chores for me. It was an unspoken agreement, but I basically just had to do well in school and make enough money to pay rent or move out, and they'd take care of everything. I paid rent, and I still send them money today even though I don't even live with them anymore, they still need my support.

The people on r/neet just play video games all day and watch anime all day. I quit both of those activities. I still haven't done any of that ever since I said I quit them, however long ago that was. Will they be able to help me on anything? Probably never. I don't even know why I'm calling them out, but in a way, I feel like one of them, even though I do have a career, I am in education, and I am in training (every day of my life is training, look at all I have to do).

Anyway, today was just a nothing day like the rest. I need to spend my days more wisely. I need to have daily discipline and not get distracted. I have to exercise daily. I have to get work done. I have to reflect daily on what I do daily, so that I can improve.

I'm happy with today because I came to this conclusion. I think making mistakes the past few days was worth it if I end up being a better person after all this. I'm going to write an entry again tomorrow to reflect on everything.