I often feel like a loser. I don’t do any sports, but i’ve been wanting to get back into swimming since i used to do it as a kid and i kind of miss it, i don’t play any instruments, and there are days once every two or three weeks where i’m just home all day. I am addicted to my phone, or rather addicted to YouTube, i am watching YT videos most of my day, not even watching but often just leave them in the background and go on with my day. I have accomplished some cool stuff, like i just recently got out of morbid obesity by following a diet, i got my English C1 certification and i’m learning Spanish and Mandarin with surprisingly good results. I have been studying stuff i’m interested in, mainly politics, philosophy, and most recently I’m getting more into maths and physics. However, even tho i did achieve those things, i feel like i should do more.
I have always envied people that play instruments but never got around to do it myself (one friend of mine proposed to borrow me his old guitar, i might accept), i don’t workout currently because for the past 2 years i got a gym membership but didn’t care enough to show up consistently because it’s just boring to me, i’d like to go out more but many of my friends are always busy or just out of reach, and i live a bit far from the city so i can’t just “take a walk”, because i’d have nowhere to go and for a big portion of the road near my house there is no sidewalks at all.
I feel like i’m just making up excuses, but idk, do you know how i can stop feeling that way?
I’ve always thought the best way to increase your feelings of self worth is to volunteer to help others in need. It might be at a local food bank, helping others in the community for simple yard work, whatever you think will have an impact.
Honestly, you sound like an interesting person. I suggest leaving your phone behind and volunteer or do something with a communal aspect. If you need some suggestions, let me know.
I know plenty of people who do have hobbies and all that, and they are plenty losers. Being a loser isn’t about having an empty CV, it’s more of a vibe thing. If you can keep yourself generally clean, have a few neat things you do(you seem to), and can generally keep things together when other people are relying on you then you’re doing great.
The defining traits for losers are people who blame others for all problems(sometimes it really is there fault, but you know what I mean), are generally nasty, and who make people uncomfortable. If someone doesn’t do those things they may or may not be boring, but they won’t be a loser.
It’s not the amount of stuff you do. Trust me. I’m in my 40s and still beat myself up daily. I have an awesome house, partner, friends, hobbies, pretty much the whole thing. Still a loser in my mind.
You’re doing great. Now for the hard part, believing that.
Probably not so good advice but to stop ‘being’ a loser is to stop feeling like one. You’re doing amazing OP. The language, the diet change, getting into more hobbies. If you start believing you can do it, you can accomplish everything else. Mindset matters but the hardest part is starting, but you can do this!
Need to scale a priority hierarchy.
Education / job should be #1 as it will give you a feeling of motion and moving forward.
Exercise and healthy living is #2
Hobbies as #3
Routine and scheduling discipline as #4
I don’t have any good advice to to offer, but I play a couple instruments, work out in the form of carpentry (and other trade skills when they come up), I could go out and do something everyday but opt to stay home by myself most days. I’m in great shape, I make the most money I ever have, and I have everything I ever wanted. I still feel like the biggest fucking loser I know most days.
I spend my days alone by a forced necessity of responsibilities I’ve made for myself ie. The chicken coop needs work, actually the whole thing needs to be rebuilt, now I need to retill the field again, I can’t go out because I put a lunch of electrical equipment in a barn so now I have to spend the next month insulating and sealing the whole structure before winter hits. I’m afraid if I spend to much time with other people they’ll see what a loser I am.
All that to say I don’t think you need to play an instrument or go to the gym everyday to not be a loser. I think that’s the societal easy route that most people default to, but deep down it’s something else. I don’t know what that is, but if you find out let me know.
Also don’t judge yourself based off of other people, everyone’s fake in some way.
It sounds like you’re doing quite a bit of stuff already! You can only do so much you know. Don’t beat yourself up over what you aren’t doing, cheer because you managed to do so much already. Four languages, successful diet, studying tons of subjects, that’s well above average compared to what most people are doing (sitting on the couch eating crisps and watching tv after a boring work day).
Sports has always been boring to me too. I get my exercise in by incorporating it into my daily life, e.g. by cycling to work or the supermarket. If you get an electric bike it suddenly becomes much easier to just hop on and go somewhere, since it’s not as exhausting, yet you do actually still get most of the benefits from moving. Put on some music or a good podcast and it’s not as boring anymore as it used to be. Might I recommend Lateral? It’s a quiz show hosted by Tom Scott with rotating guests, lots of YouTubers but also more famous people like Adam Savage have been on.
Excessive YouTube can also be a bit dulling, you could consider switching to podcasts or something to get away from the constant dopamine-machine that social media provides. It’ll help your attention span too.
Still, it doesn’t sound like you’re a loser. Any changes you make should be made because you want to, not because you feel like you’d be a loser otherwise.
Change your Diet, change your mind - it’s a book by MD Ede. The metabolic psychiatric link appears to be quite large.
infographic
The theory is basically, brain energy metabolism is important, a lot of people are suffering brain energy issues because of their diet, fixing the diet to be lower carb, or even zero carb, can improve brain function, mood, depression markers. This may help you get out of your funk
Well, why does that make you feel like a loser? You’ve listed things you do, and things you don’t do, but nothing about your values or worldview.
Your emotions come less from what’s happening, itself, and more from your thoughts about what’s happening. Those are individual to a person, so what advice would work, depends very strongly on it.
Maybe therapy and medication could help you and get you out the depressive mentality. Also, social interactions with people who have similar interests might help.
It sounds to me like you already are doing plenty of things or planning to, so I’ll tell you something that was said to me by a therapist once:
It sounds like you’re looking at your self worth conditionally. You need to do X, then you’ll be Y. The thing is, that’s a journey with no end. You’ll always find something else you don’t have if you think of yourself this way.
You need to work on unconditional self worth. How can you give yourself grace on the days when you just sit around and watch YouTube videos? Are you really worthless if you never learn an instrument?
This may not vibe with you, but one technique I’ve been told is to think of your child self. Imagine this little girl or boy you used to be standing in front of you. They feel horrible because they haven’t done this or that. Would you chastise them for it? Or would you pick them up and give them a hug? They’re trying, and that’s what matters, even if they don’t get exactly where they want in the end.
So to sum it up, your self worth is conditional, and you need to find ways to treat yourself well more unconditionally. The more you can do that, the more confident you’ll feel, regardless of what else is happening in life.
Best of luck with this. I have struggled with similar things and still do sometimes. It takes work to change your thinking, and it won’t be linear gains.
Thats a great way to word that, I’ve had this bouncing around in my head but not sure how to explain until now.
I was going to say something about how I have been figuring out recently how if I just give myself leeway and do actually spend the day playing a game or whatever then I find that later in the day I’m in a much better mood than before because I didn’t spend the whole day ruminating on the fact that I’m choosing to game over doing productive things…makes me think that I need to just spend some couple days completing doing nothing in order to reset, like a meditation day or whatever because i have apparently become so lost that I thought my default was supposed to be ruminating about not feeling ok enough to do various things even though other days when I basically mentally prep for it if an spend the whole day doing a bunch if things but not be able to fully wind down enough at the end.
I think I mentally have the right mindset but I just become lost in the weeds or whatever.
I really relate to that. I also find it really hard to give myself permission to rest and unwind. There’s a lot of guilt in there for me about not being productive enough.
I had to start working on it when I burnt out hard earlier this year though.
Stop thinking about yourself and you’ll stop thinking less of yourself.
I’m guessing OP has thought of that.
Like, it’s not wrong, if learning guitar really will fill that hole. But, it’s not really much of a tool, to actually build the habits to make that happen.
i’d like to go out more but many of my friends are always busy or just out of reach, and i live a bit far from the city so i can’t just “take a walk”, because i’d have nowhere to go and for a big portion of the road near my house there is no sidewalks at all.
A lot of stuff is like this where what your life is like is about your circumstances more than it is about anything being wrong with you. The problem with thinking about your self worth only in terms of the end result of achievements and success is that it’s disconnected from reality, because it’s only looking at results and comparisons to people with different circumstances. It’s better to think about what choices you realistically have and whether you are making the best ones you can given what you have to work with, because in the end you’re only human and that is all you can do. Put yourself in the most favorable circumstances you can for what you actually want your life to be like, make the best choices you can, congratulate yourself if you’ve done that.
