maximveksler/Life.txt

## Life.txt
A great way to assess how your life is going and where you might be able to improve it to have a more balanced and healthy life is to try to be successful in these 6 areas of life:
1) Intimate Relationships
2) Friendships
3) Family
4) Career and Education (livelihood)
5) Time Away from Work (creativity)
6) Drugs/Alcohol (health)
Now you can assess your success in these 6 categories, which is the first step to setting a plan to improve each of them. I've also specified the last 3 categories to fit into another way to view life, which is to ensure you have one aspect that that provides your livelihood (a job), one aspect that allows for a creative outlet (music, painting, writing, etc) because all humans essentially yearn to create something, and one aspect that allows for exercise/health and reduce your drugs and alcohol intake.
1) If you do not have any intimate relationships, you must consider how to improve on this aspect. This might include things like dating sites, going to bars, Tinder, etc. However, my currently relationship started due to my going to a gym and focusing on exercise and my health, so consider that as a good way to approach this. In other words, the social settings you put yourself into in order to create friendships, will also most likely be a place where you can create an intimate relationship.
2) Find and maintain quality friendships. How do you do this? By putting yourself out there. I don't want to put the cart before the horse, but for number 6 you'll need to consider outlets for healthy exercise that ALSO have a social component. This means going to a gym and actively talking to people, trying a yoga class for the first time (and talking to people), joining a league at a local YMCA (and talking to people). You have to get into face-to-face social interactions to create meaningful friendships. Most importantly, when you've been invited out for the first time to join your new friends, you MUST GO. It signals that you're interested in being more than just "guy at the gym", or whatever. You want a friendship that is real outside of the establishment in which you met, and you must nurture this relationship by reciprocating and asking them to join you in some endeavor. This signals to them that you find them valuable as a relationship.
3) Make sure your family ties are going well. This may require active time spent with family near you. You may find that some family is very toxic, so limit your exposure, but you may also find it worth while to try and do something positive for a niece or nephew, etc. You may also need to rekindle relationships with family that you thought were not worth your time, but might find things are not the way they seem. Humans are naturally social animals, and the family is an important aspect of that social dimension.
4) Make sure you are focused on your job while at work, and interested at excelling at this job. Note that you may need to find the balance between a job that you love and loving your job. This means actively having positive feelings towards that which allows you to put food on your table and a roof over your head. Everyone is searching for a job they will love with no downsides at all; this does not exist. Many people who found a job "doing what they love" soon found they now hated that thing they use to love, and many of those who previously hated their job have come to enjoy the perks. Every job will have mundanity and "busy work", but find the pieces that bring you joy and magnify those aspects and appreciate them.
5) Ensure that you balance your time at work with time away from work. If you work too much, you will obviously burn out and this is the sign of an unhealthy life balance. Especially for your creative side. If you think "I don't have a creative side", you do. All humans essentially enjoy creating, but too many think it means to create a real physical item or trinket to prove the worth. Or that others must approve of their "art" for it to be a true outlet for creativity. But consider simply opening MS Paint and drawing, consider buying a guitar or piano and learning music, consider simply writing -- just a journal and write how things are going. Or perhaps try poetry. Do something to create a thing you can call your own, enjoy it, and improve on it constantly. This is for you, not for someone else to tell you if it's good or bad.
6) Make sure you're not drinking too much or taking too many drugs. This simply dulls you to the experience of the real world, which offers so many opportunities and activities that you can enjoy with a clear head and mind. Obviously you can do some of these in moderation, but you must consider whether you are using too much of these items yourself. This section I also tie into health and exercise, so consider things like your diet and your exercise outlets. I use to be very thin, and 2 years ago began lifting weights. I found out I really enjoyed it. Since the gym I went to was a rock climbing gym, I began to dabble in that. I met a ton of good people there -- pretty much all my friends are either from the gym or an associate of someone I met from that gym. And the relationship I'm in now started from meeting a woman there. I also now go out rock climbing every week or so, and still go to the gym just about every night.
My life feels a hell of a lot better than it did several years ago. The only real advise I can say is: (1) you have to do new things to grow as an individual; otherwise, everything you're doing now would have worked out the way you expected. Since things aren't where you would like them to be, this indicates you must change fundamental aspects about how you interact with the world to get the things you want in life, which requires venturing into new territory. Do not be afraid. And (2) you need to be actually interested in other people to create meaningful and lasting relationships. Everyone I meet who says they don't have many friends always seems to show this characteristic: a holier than thou attitude and an underlying disdain towards people in general. People are people, but you have to give them a chance or you will continue to be alone. Some will not be worth your time, but the ones who are will be many and worth meeting.
	A great way to assess how your life is going and where you might be able to improve it to have a more balanced and healthy life is to try to be successful in these 6 areas of life:
	1) Intimate Relationships
	2) Friendships
	3) Family
	4) Career and Education (livelihood)
	5) Time Away from Work (creativity)
	6) Drugs/Alcohol (health)
	Now you can assess your success in these 6 categories, which is the first step to setting a plan to improve each of them. I've also specified the last 3 categories to fit into another way to view life, which is to ensure you have one aspect that that provides your livelihood (a job), one aspect that allows for a creative outlet (music, painting, writing, etc) because all humans essentially yearn to create something, and one aspect that allows for exercise/health and reduce your drugs and alcohol intake.
	1) If you do not have any intimate relationships, you must consider how to improve on this aspect. This might include things like dating sites, going to bars, Tinder, etc. However, my currently relationship started due to my going to a gym and focusing on exercise and my health, so consider that as a good way to approach this. In other words, the social settings you put yourself into in order to create friendships, will also most likely be a place where you can create an intimate relationship.
	2) Find and maintain quality friendships. How do you do this? By putting yourself out there. I don't want to put the cart before the horse, but for number 6 you'll need to consider outlets for healthy exercise that ALSO have a social component. This means going to a gym and actively talking to people, trying a yoga class for the first time (and talking to people), joining a league at a local YMCA (and talking to people). You have to get into face-to-face social interactions to create meaningful friendships. Most importantly, when you've been invited out for the first time to join your new friends, you MUST GO. It signals that you're interested in being more than just "guy at the gym", or whatever. You want a friendship that is real outside of the establishment in which you met, and you must nurture this relationship by reciprocating and asking them to join you in some endeavor. This signals to them that you find them valuable as a relationship.
	3) Make sure your family ties are going well. This may require active time spent with family near you. You may find that some family is very toxic, so limit your exposure, but you may also find it worth while to try and do something positive for a niece or nephew, etc. You may also need to rekindle relationships with family that you thought were not worth your time, but might find things are not the way they seem. Humans are naturally social animals, and the family is an important aspect of that social dimension.
	4) Make sure you are focused on your job while at work, and interested at excelling at this job. Note that you may need to find the balance between a job that you love and loving your job. This means actively having positive feelings towards that which allows you to put food on your table and a roof over your head. Everyone is searching for a job they will love with no downsides at all; this does not exist. Many people who found a job "doing what they love" soon found they now hated that thing they use to love, and many of those who previously hated their job have come to enjoy the perks. Every job will have mundanity and "busy work", but find the pieces that bring you joy and magnify those aspects and appreciate them.
	5) Ensure that you balance your time at work with time away from work. If you work too much, you will obviously burn out and this is the sign of an unhealthy life balance. Especially for your creative side. If you think "I don't have a creative side", you do. All humans essentially enjoy creating, but too many think it means to create a real physical item or trinket to prove the worth. Or that others must approve of their "art" for it to be a true outlet for creativity. But consider simply opening MS Paint and drawing, consider buying a guitar or piano and learning music, consider simply writing -- just a journal and write how things are going. Or perhaps try poetry. Do something to create a thing you can call your own, enjoy it, and improve on it constantly. This is for you, not for someone else to tell you if it's good or bad.
	6) Make sure you're not drinking too much or taking too many drugs. This simply dulls you to the experience of the real world, which offers so many opportunities and activities that you can enjoy with a clear head and mind. Obviously you can do some of these in moderation, but you must consider whether you are using too much of these items yourself. This section I also tie into health and exercise, so consider things like your diet and your exercise outlets. I use to be very thin, and 2 years ago began lifting weights. I found out I really enjoyed it. Since the gym I went to was a rock climbing gym, I began to dabble in that. I met a ton of good people there -- pretty much all my friends are either from the gym or an associate of someone I met from that gym. And the relationship I'm in now started from meeting a woman there. I also now go out rock climbing every week or so, and still go to the gym just about every night.
	My life feels a hell of a lot better than it did several years ago. The only real advise I can say is: (1) you have to do new things to grow as an individual; otherwise, everything you're doing now would have worked out the way you expected. Since things aren't where you would like them to be, this indicates you must change fundamental aspects about how you interact with the world to get the things you want in life, which requires venturing into new territory. Do not be afraid. And (2) you need to be actually interested in other people to create meaningful and lasting relationships. Everyone I meet who says they don't have many friends always seems to show this characteristic: a holier than thou attitude and an underlying disdain towards people in general. People are people, but you have to give them a chance or you will continue to be alone. Some will not be worth your time, but the ones who are will be many and worth meeting.