Day 1 - Starting Over

Wow, I thought I would last a lot longer than 2 days this time around. I caved last night. I share my room with my roommate and he's gone for four days on vacation. I feel like my urges skyrocketed because of having the room to myself.

Right now I want to boost my motivation to quit.

Here are the reasons I want to quit pornography.

1. Pornography is a band-aid fix for things in my life that bother me. Instead of moving through the pain and discomfort of resolving conflicts and issues in my life, I often "zone out" with pornography in order to hide from the pain. Quitting pornography would allow me to tackle the issues in my life and come out a better man.

2. Pornography wastes time. My schedule is busy because being busy is the kind of lifestyle I enjoy. I enjoy accomplishing things. Pornography saps my ability to do that because I spend 1-2 hours or more sometimes a day looking at it. Worse yet, sometimes I do it late at night and end up not getting enough sleep for the next day. Pornography puts me into this daze in which time flies by. Quitting pornography would free up time for me to do the things I really want to do.

3. Pornography lowers my motivation. It lowers my drive for real women, to make friends, to accomplish things, to take care of myself, and to do anything other than take a nap afterwards. If I quit pornography, I would have a stronger drive towards the things that bring lasting happiness: relationships, accomplishment, and a healthier lifestyle.

4. Pornography lowers my self-respect. I want to be careful about this one. I DO NOT encourage anyone to beat themselves up over pornography use. Viewing pornography is a behavior and behavior is simply a tool for getting something that we want. When you break things down, most behavior that isn't tied to attaining the essentials of life (food, water, etc.) are meant to fulfill some sort of emotional need (attention, love, relaxation, calmness, etc.). So pornography is not some evil, perverted act, its merely a tool we have learned to use in order to meet some sort of emotion need. There is no reason to believe that you are lesser of a human being just because you use the best tool that you know of to meet your needs. That's just common sense. However, there are other tools out there aside from pornography that we can learn. On top of that when I imagine the person I want to be in the future: my ideal self, it is not someone who views pornography.

So I'm on day one again. Gaining awareness of my urges and where they are coming from is my goal for today.