Really need to get my life together

3:29 AM (of Monday, June 9th, 2025)

Today is Sunday, June 8th, 2025. I'm really not consistent day to day. Yesterday (Saturday) I did all my brain training and did some physical exercises, today I just did some physical exercises but no brain training. The entire day today went by in a flash, not really getting anything done, not talking to anyone except my parents, not really progressing my life in any way I think. I didn't even get on social media to post anything either.

At around 2 PM today, I did some microneedling, just some derma stamping 0.25mm all around my face, and 0.5mm on my nasolabial folds. The last time I did this was on June 2nd or June 3rd, and I just did 0.25mm all around my face, not changing the setting to any higher for any specific part. 0.25mm is supposed to be a safe depth to microneedle, although any depth can be risky. I'm very afraid of microneedling due to the possible complications and side effects, I'm afraid of every possible side effect of anything now, after experiencing some horrible ones from minoxidil. This is the last time that I'm ever microneedling, but I felt like I had to for appearance improvement. It will still take 4-6 weeks to see any results from this as collagen rebuilding is slow.

The rest of the day, I tried to stay indoors in my room, avoiding the sun as much as possible due to increased skin sensitivity after microneedling. Things should be fine again after 24-48 hours, but just to be safe I'm not going to resume my regular schedule of things until 72 hours.

Yeah, I honestly just didn't get anything done the entire day. I'm surprised so many hours went by. There were some anime that I didn't watch directly, but put in the background. The rest of the time I think I was just talking with ChatGPT mainly, on how to improve my appearance. I did do some physical exercises today, and I started doing some facial yoga as well. These are things I have to keep consistent on to see any results.

I failed my World Literature course today. I should have checked the syllabus at the start of the course, but the graded exams and the final only count towards 30% of your total grade in this course, the assignments count for 70% of your grades. This is the first course I've taken where it was set up like this, normally the exams and finals are worth like 60%-70% or something extremely significant like that, so I was able to pass courses and even get decent grades in some, by skipping some assignments and just doing extremely well on the exams. Not this time. The exams barely counted for anything. So, even with all my effort, even if I got a 100% on this final exam, I still would have failed, so I failed to take it today, not that I wanted to skip it, but the day went by so quickly and I completely forgot about it.

Failing this course, failing my appearance, failing my daily brain training and fitness, failing my relationships, man. All of these failures basically made me realize that I need to get my life together. I really need to get my life together.

I'm not sure how I was able to get by on luck my entire life, but I have been able to. Born in a third world country, coming to the United States, learning English fluently, doing well in school, I mean I could go and and on about the luck and fortunes I've encountered and experienced in my life. I somehow was able to get by without much effort or consciousness on my part. Yeah there were sad times and difficulties here and there, of course, and yeah I had to learn and master some skills here and there, of course, and I had to socialize and make connections, and make right decisions, stuff like that, of course, but overall I've been extremely fortunate in basically all of my endeavors.

Even this minor setback that I'm experiencing with my appearance changing so dramatically, I'm not really saddened by it at all. It opened me up to a world of skin care and appearance improvement. I'm in my 30s, so appearance decline at this age is inevitable. I would have probably declined more long term, 10 years from now, had I continued being so carefree about my appearance and not practicing any skincare whatsoever, than had I experienced this setback which made me focus dramatically on my appearance more than ever.

I think long term, I will bounce back and recover from minoxidil and fasting damages, and improve my appearance long term. It's really hard to say though, as our 30s is when appearance decline starts for most. Looking at images of 31 year olds online, people my age, I would say I look pretty average to them, like I look my age. Sure, a few months ago, I looked like I was in my early 20s, but I have to work with what I have moving forward. Perhaps I can look like I'm in my early 20s again, or perhaps I won't be able to, I can at least improve from here on.

Reading through and being on a lot of skin and aging related threads, forums, posts, I've seen what many people of different ages look like. There are many people in their 20s who look like they could be in their 30s, looking older than I do, with worse skin and aging problems than I have. So, I'm not so upset by my circumstances, they are what they are. I do hope that I don't experience any side effects from microneedling though, that would be a nightmare.

From now on, for appearance improvement. I'm only sticking to topicals, supplements, and physical fitness. No more microneedling or other such procedures. There is no reason for me to do them anymore.

Oh yeah, I think for the most part I'm fully recovered from minoxidil damage now. The texture for my skin has pretty much returned, which is really what minoxidil initially took away, that and it gave me nasolabial folds which still haven't gone completely away even today, and made me panic, and made me fast for 5 days. The fasting for 5 days took a lot out of me, made my face hollow. I lost some important facial fat which is really hard to get back, it's made me look older too. I think facial exercises can somewhat bring them back, or at least replace them with muscle, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, I am going to get my life back together. Let's do this.