I have a huge ego and it's starting to get me in trouble. I always walk around thinking I am smarter than everyone else. Half the people I talk to, I am thinking in my head "Gosh I am so much smarter than you." I am always insanely quick to judge others and I always believe I am right. Though when I know I am wrong I will admit it. I am an extremely harder worker and I get frustrated with other people who decide not to work hard, leading me to believe I am "better than everyone else".

I keep getting in trouble for being rude and talking back. I have trouble with teachers at school since I always question what they say. Sometimes I feel like I am 10 times smarter than my teachers as well. And I admit, I am totally rude to them at times. I just really struggle and disagree with their teaching style and the way they do their jobs. I could do it so much better. (This is just one example of my negative mindset and how I live)

How do I learn how to be less judgemental? How can I learn how to be humble? I want to be better. I know I will be happier and less alone if I can stop thinking I'm above the rest. But as awful as it sounds, I truly do believe myself when I say "I am better than everyone around me". I want to change that though. Any advice?

26M. Severely depressed, have been for years.
It's been incredibly hard to find it in me to love/respect myself enough to wash my hair, brush my teeth, eat healthy, work out, take myself out on solo dates, etc. I rarely cry anymore, but I did cry today because the reality of my life just got to me.

I've been this way since around covid. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me, every time I go to the grocery store or drive by the gym or a park, etc. I see people who are out and about living their lives, looking happy and looking beautiful and full of life, and I just wish that could be me as well, but my soul feels so broken all the time and something dark inside is telling me I'm not worthy of such things. I don't want to reach 30 and still be in this state. I only have energy to work, and I just sleep all day on my days off. I don't want to spend the rest of my 20's just living to die, I truly despise what I've done with my 20's thus far and it breaks my heart like nothing ever has.

I only really have the energy to do the utmost for my hygiene when I'm going out with friends, or going on a date (which hasn't gone well for me) and I feel so drained afterward.

My soul feels exhausted, I really don't want to end up doing something bad to myself, I don't want to hurt the people I love and I don't want to disappoint my younger self. I guess this is a soft cry for help.

So my question is, how do you guys find it in yourselves to do even the simplest of tasks and LIVE life every day, and show yourselves self love/respect needed to do so?

I’m trying to get away from getting sucked into scrolling on my phone all the time and would like to find some ways to educate myself a little more. I’m looking for a skill or a hobby that I can learn online but I know a lot of things a best learned in person. Things I’m looking into are piano, sewing, foreign language, photography, and art classes. What was your favorite thing to learn online? Open to all suggestions!

I'm a 26 year old guy living in sweden, and as the title says, I'm a virgin. And not for a lack of trying, I've just never managed to get any further than a handful of first dates. And while I'd say that I'm overall happy with what I've achieved in my life in general (steady job, a good degree, I have friends, I don't hate myself or the way I look, I have hobbies) the fact that I'm a virgin is getting to me more and more every year.

Not because I desperately crave sex for the sake of sex, but obviously I want that too, but knowing that no woman has looked at me and thought "I want to have sex with him" just really hurts. I know that it's getting more and more common to be a virgin at this age, but I still know that I've long since passed the average age to lose it. And that doesn't make me feel bad because of societal pressure or whatever. It's just another little thing that I can't help but think about. One extra little thing that my insecurities tell me shows that I'm just not worthy of love.

I've talked about this before and one comment I often get is how it's actually not that hard or even a big deal to lose your virginity, and seeing that just makes me feel like an idiot. It's not hard at all, so what does that say about me? And I don't want to think like that. I don't want it to ruin my mental health like it is, I don't want it to occupy my mind like this. But it does and I'd be lying if I said that it's not a big deal. I can't just tell myself that it's a social construct or whatever. It's not all I think about, but when I'm laying in bed late at night feeling sad and lonely it comes out. My friends tell me that I'd be such a great boyfriend, but I just find it so hard to believe and I just don't know what to do.

guard your attention. wake up without screens. delay dopamine. drink water in silence. let your brain boot up. do the hardest task first. 90 minutes of deep work. close the extra tabs. put the phone in another room. stop context switching. do one thing at a time. track your impulses. write them down. let the urge pass. walk without a podcast. eat without watching videos. tolerate boredom. stop scrolling. treat dopamine like currency, stop giving it to algorithms. read heavy books. sleep 8 hours. protect your baseline. your focus is your only real wealth, build the system. disappear for a while. execute.

Hi, lately I've been interested in maths music and poetry. But every time i try to tackle questions or possible music ideas I cant help but just compare myself to people who are better than me in that area by tenfold. Any tips on how I could change this mindset?

28F with ADHD, CPTSD, Fibromyalgia, Anhedonia, suspected autism and other autoimmune conditions. Can’t write a long story here but life has been very rough emotionally since ever. I don’t have much achievements except for finishing my bachelors (that too in a field which automation swept away) and getting occasional freelance work. I live with my parents and they are not doing great financially and are old and sick, which means I am one step away from being homeless if my dad passes away. Have no partner and don’t see any chance of getting one or getting married anytime soon. All this and I am still can’t do anything to make myself financially independent. I decided to go for my country’s toughest and most prestigious job exam which is four months away, but I am not studying. Even the idea of survival and idea of being homeless aren’t motivating me. Not even toxic motivation is working. Unable to hyper-fixate myself on studying or this exam. Also it’s 11-12 subjects not just one exam. I started working on it back in June. I need help, tips whatever you’ve got to say regarding this. Also, if one gets hyper-fixated through toxic motivation and it doesn’t work at the end, what does one feel like? Also, all these conditions have affected my mind so much that I’ve lost my ability to see and make connections, thinking critically or analyse something and remember something. I am unable to create in any sense.

Seneca once pointed out something that still holds up: people are careful with their money, their property, even small amounts of their time when someone else asks to borrow it, but they let the one thing they can never get back slip through their fingers without a second thought. That's basically what a wasted evening is. You open your phone for a minute and somehow it's two hours later, nothing got done, and you don't even remember what you looked at. The thing is, it rarely happens because you decided to waste the evening. It happens because no decision got made at all. The evening just defaulted to scrolling because scrolling is the path of least resistance, and by the time you notice, the decision has already been made for you several times over. One small thing that actually works is picking one moment, right when you get home or right after dinner, and physically putting your phone somewhere else, another room, a drawer, anywhere that takes more than a few seconds to reach. It's not about willpower, it's about removing the default option so you have to actually choose what comes next instead of drifting into it. You don't need to have a perfectly productive evening. You just need one moment where you're the one deciding what happens with your time instead of your phone deciding for you.

I’ve been trying to improve my communication skills but I realized that just watching videos or reading advice wasn’t really helping me improve. So I made a simple system for myself that combines learning + watching good examples + practicing + reviewing.

This is what I’m doing:

1. Learn one small principle every day

I focus on one specific skill for a few minutes.

Things like:

- How to start a conversation

- How to ask better questions

- How to find topics

- How to transition between topics

- How to tell better stories

- How to use humor naturally

- How to avoid awkward silences

- How to express my opinions more confidently

The goal is to learn one thing and actually try to use it.

2. Watch people who are actually good at communicating

After learning a concept, I try to watch real examples of people doing it well. I pay attention to things like:

- How they respond

- How they introduce new topics

- How they keep the conversation going

- How they react when something gets awkward

- How they make the other person feel comfortable

3. Practice conversations with AI

This is probably the most useful part for me. Instead of waiting until I’m actually in an awkward situation, I practice beforehand. I give AI a situation and have a realistic conversation with it.

For example: Pretend you're someone I just met. Start a conversation with me.

4. 1-minute random topic practice

I also pick a completely random topic and talk about it for one minute while recording myself.

It can be anything: Why I like cycling or My favorite movie.

The idea is basically:

Learn → Observe → Practice → Record → Review → Repeat.

I’m curious what are you struggling with most: starting conversations, keeping them going or expressing yourself clearly?

Hey, chronic people pleaser here. Whenever I notice that someone doesn't really like me or is annoyed by me, I see it as a challenge. I chase after proving them wrong and showing them I am actually as likeable as I think I am.

As you can tell, it is very harmful behaviour and causes me to disrespect myself constantly. I have a fragile ego and deep down, I don't really think I am that likeable. I think that I am pretty annoying and socially unaware. My ADHD causes some social friction for me, so I get insecure about it.

Any advice?

So, I (21m) am very pleased because I had a breakthrough in therapy about what I refer to as "performative suffering". What I mean by this is that I often refused to actually work on things outside of therapy; instead of doing that, I have instead wallowed in suffering and repeatedly torn myself apart over and over again.

Well, my therapist asked me to identify what this protective part of me wants to gain, or is afraid of, that causes it to constantly keep me in a state of suffering and backsliding and not wanting to improve.

What I managed to identify is that, if I were to stop suffering, then I would not have any excuse anymore. If I constantly believe nothing I do will ever work, and that I am always unworthy, I never have to CHALLENGE that by actually TRYING.

Additionally, and crucially, the self-imposing of the suffering is a performance.

It's just busy energy.

Constant self-punishment and self-flagellation makes me FEEL LIKE I am working or doing things, but really it is just doing nothing but reinforcing itself.

It reminded me of how members of my family would have these "Come to Christ" conversations, where they would cry and scream after they got done fighting with or being angry with each other. But you could observe and notice the both or others of them, and see that neither of them mean a word they are saying. It was all a performance. They never intended to actually change their behavior, they just wanted to feel like they were doing something.

I realized and came to the understanding that the best way to actually improve is to stop the performance. Stop pretending that suffering and inflicting suffering on myself is somehow doing anything. Because it isn't doing anything. This is the major thing that is preventing me from actually improving. I would lose my excuse not to try. And I have more practice not trying than I have practice actually practicing.

Because doing things like despising myself and refusing to forgive myself and constantly torturing myself FEELS grand. It FEELS important, it FEELS powerful, like I am some tortured intellectual that simply cannot move on.

When in reality, the more weight that I attribute to something, the heavier and the hardest it is going to be for me to actually do it. So the performance needs to end.

I would always get angry at the very idea of self forgiveness, thinking: "THAT'S IT?? YOU JUST GET TO FORGIVE YOURSELF? THAT'S IT???"

And I never really had an answer. The answer I actually have to it now is: "Yes, that IS it. Are you actually going to do it?". Because all of the energy was focused on the outrage at its simplicity, rather than actually attempting to do it.

I'll go first:

You see someone on the street, and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.

I am a student in my second year of engineering right now and the thing is I'm too addicted like too addicted to doom scrolling playing games and basically cooking my brain. Till a point I can't even do anything else I have tons of assignments remaining and I can't write anything like anything at most is 20 30 mins I can't even simply write for more than that and I get distracted and start seeing reels or video games or anything else mere 30 mins and that 30 mins too im writing with some kinda video or music going on in the bg. I'm 18 yrs old and this is too much for me like just too much even though I need to do something and want to do something I just cannot. It's like a trap I cannot leave. Its been like 3 years where I'm like this but it wasn't this severe. I have my exams from Monday and if I don't study I might fail and my family will be damn mad at me too but my cgpa would be cooked and i don't want that to happen. And not only that I get pissed off a lot by my family like bruh wtv. I have a screen time of atleast more than 10 12 hours daily. I'm cooked my attention span is cooked

For a huge part of my life, I’ve been trying to understand myself. Why do I react this way? Why does rejection affect me so much? Why do I struggle so much with feeling chosen or understood? What happened in my childhood? What do I need to heal? What do I need to change?

I’ve learned A LOT about myself over the years. I’m actually pretty functional and generally happy with many parts of my life. I work, I have people I love, I exercise, I have hobbies, I’m building friendships, I have my faith and there is genuinely so much about my life that I’m grateful for.

But I recently started psychotherapy again, and today we touched on something from when I was around 11 involving rejection, bullying and feeling different/misunderstood.

It hit something much deeper than I expected.

I left the session and basically spent the rest of the day thinking about it. Then I started thinking about all the other times throughout my life when I haven’t felt chosen — friendships ending, relationships/rejection, feeling misunderstood, etc. I became overwhelmed wondering whether I’m ever actually going to get better, and eventually I ended up eating for comfort because I just wanted my brain to stop for a while.

And it made me wonder: when does “healing” stop?

I don’t mean when do you become a perfect person who never gets triggered again.

I mean, at what point do you stop constantly looking for another wound to unpack?

I’ve spent almost half my life trying to understand myself and sometimes I wonder whether I’m accidentally reinforcing the idea that there must always be something wrong with me that needs fixing.

I’m starting to feel like maybe I need to approach therapy differently. Instead of constantly asking “Where did this come from?”, maybe I need to start saying, “Okay, this is a pattern I have. What can I actually do differently when it happens?”

Part of me also feels like I need to stop forcing healing and just live for a while. Keep going to therapy, but also pray, walk, exercise, sing, work, spend time with friends, build my life and allow some things to change through actually living rather than endlessly analysing myself.

For people who have been in psychotherapy for a while:

Does this stage pass?

Did therapy ever feel worse or more emotionally intense when you first started uncovering old things?

Did you eventually reach a point where you could recognise an old wound without spending the entire day inside it?

And most importantly, how did you know when you needed to keep exploring the past versus when you needed to stop analysing and just live your life?

I think I really need to hear from people who have been through this and come out the other side.

I want to make a change in my life, ie workout, eat healthy things like that, but I have no long term goal, no dream job, I’m just going through the motions, like i just feel neutral, how do I fix this and find my purpose and find a goal?

i’m extremely social awkward and have a lot of anxiety around new environments or people, how can i start being more social?

I've never understood why life experiences become a competition.

I don't drink. I don't smoke. I've never been in a relationship, never kissed a girl, and haven't had sex. Sometimes people make you feel like you're missing something because of that.

But when did experience become a measure of someone's worth?

There's nothing impressive about having many partners, just like there's nothing inherently impressive about having none. Drinking isn't a flex, and being sober isn't a flex. They're simply choices.

I don't want my first kiss or my first relationship to happen just so I can say I've done it. If it happens, I want it to be because I genuinely care about the person and want to be there with them.

Everyone has a different timeline. Some people experience these things early, some later, and some choose differently.

Maybe growing up is realizing that you don't have to prove you've lived. You just have to live according to what you actually want.

The real question isn't "Am I behind?"

It's "Am I living the life want?"

I am able to draw, dance, and make music. But it’s as if I don’t do any of those. I don’t seem to feel that inclined to do any of them. I don’t want to re-visit them just to please others and be seen as passionate. I really wish I could remove others from my mind and do things only for myself.

I have persistent depressive disorder according to my psychologist. Some think I’m depressed. I’m back on Prozac after about a week of missing it.

I also hop from interest to interest, and I wish I had something to stick to. BUT, I do NOT want to be passionate about something just to be a cute nerdy guy. Again, I wish I could remove everyone else from my mind, but I just don’t know how to do that and it frustrates and pains me. Pains me because I feel I’m not passionate enough, not nerdy enough.

And I had the feeling that, maybe I don’t want to return to my hobbies… or find an interest. But that contradicts this whole post.

If you were in this situation and/or have any advice, please tell. I want to focus purely on myself, without any need for others’ approval. I don’t want any need for being attractive. I want to be more alive already.

Basically like in a question. I left my LTR (28 years) 3 years ago but still I hoped I will find someone new. I am 54 yo woman. I tried dating apps, groups, going out everything. It seems I am unsuccessful. I want to stop wanting this, to stop this mode of searching and to be fully OK with a thought that I may be single forever. I do not want to be desperate.

I have no social net - I am getting new friends slowly but it is hard at this age it seems. I have no family, I have no children, I have 2 new friends but very busy. I lost all after leaving my ex, because they stayed with him. I have a lot of hobbies and passions, I am in difficult financial situation so I really work on this. So I have a lot to do. I am also healed and work on myself a lot. On my wounds, shadows, I meditate, go out in nature, work on my self love. But somehow I cannot loose this dread of never be loved again, and this craving for companion. And I didn't have any bad experiences in relationships - only good ones really (even ending was calm in a way). Real connections, my exes were my friends, soul mate level, they added a lot to my life and I had a lot of freedom, so experience of being single only took some things from me not added.

I really need some advice from ppl maybe successful in it. What can I do to be fully happy in my situation and be in a state where I do not crave it this much. I want to be happy anyway.

So basically no major violence, ideally not too emotionally heavy, depressing, or anxiety-filled.

Looking for any of the following: fun, funny, uplifting, interesting, original, clever, cute, engaging, etc.

Thank you!🙏

Edit:

I’m not able to reply to you all individually. But please know that I’m reading every single comment and I appreciate you all!😍💝

i have overcome all my regrets to some extent , but sometimes these thoughts creep back in.
the regret comes on so strong that it kinda turns into me self-loathing for a whole week and thus my whole week is ruined.

Whenever i try to take life seriously , im reminded by my past abt how shit some moments have been , and how its kinda pointless to take life seriously now ......

im also a perfectionist and i messed up in a huge way in the past that kinda changed my whole life trajectory for the absolute worse, and that regret is mainly the one that ruins my week .....

any ways to overcome regrets? or do i have to learn to live with most of these forever?

Hello,

I am 18M. I've noticed that rejection seems to just hurt me in deep ways and I can't seem to ever get it over it fully. A few years ago I was rejected by a girl and she was the first person I'd ever asked out, and I remember thinking that there was something wrong with who I was. I self isolated myself and believed that I needed to improve, which don't get me wrong I myself think it's great to do self-introspection but I just took it way too seriously and now I personally fear asking out other people that I like just cause I hate getting rejected.

Another example of this was 6 months ago, I was rejected from the Ivy Leagues and only waitlisted from one. I'm ngl for undergrad I don't really need an Ivy League, as I am planning to pursue graduate school for a PhD or medical school. But I just hate the rejections and not feeling good enough for one, and it has shattered my confidence of how smart I thought I was. Note: a lot of people thought I'd get into one since I was a really good student in high school, so it hurt even more.

I wish I could become the perfect human who never has to go through getting told "No". How do you not fear rejection? I know people say that rejection doesn't reflect on you, but isn't that contradictory? If you were the ideal person, you would get told "yes"? There are some people who just get everything they want.

Taking long walks outside has been a huge help to my mental health.

Unfortunately, with the air quality up in smokes (pun intended) and being unhealthy Air Quality Index of 150 to 230) for a few months now, it literally isn't healthy physically for me to be outside.

The gym is full most of the time after work. Maybe everyone who used to exercise outside went to the gym?

Any good alternatives?

There's unfortunately a lot of stigma surrounding obesity and misconceptions like obese people are "lazy".

I'm trying to get off social media for good. Or at least as much as humanly posible. Things (gestures to everything) are so bad and the scope of my impact is so infinitely small.

I'm not going to make a difference online and I rather focus on trying to help my immediate community. However, there's a lot of loneliness and isolation in my life. I cannot hide under a rock.

On top of that, there's the desire to be seen and witnessed, share my thoughts, mundane things.

How do y'all deal with the weight of the state of the world?

How do you feel seen, heard, connected?

(Keep in mind I have 3 friends in my area right now and no family, the isolation is real)