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Comment by Hobotron1 | Hacker News Reader

My first semester, sophomore year of college. Depression, Alcohol/assorted drugs combined with stress lead to auditory hallucinations. This affected my studies leading to more stress and depression and on and on... I ended up drinking a bunch of anti-freeze that following summer. Fun times.

I lost most/all my friends because of my antics, and (barely) graduated (6 years for a BS, god I'm an idiot).

Things have settled down now though- I'm in my mid-20s and work a lame job. I keep to myself and shitpost on the internet.

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You seem really (REALLY) down on yourself because of the whole ordeal -- there's not much some random stranger on the internet can say to make you feel any better about it, but... I'm going to give it a shot.

Parts of your experience mirror mine pretty closely -- if you can, focus on the fact that you pulled through it, even if it was ugly for a while. Like you said, "things have settled down," so now you can focus less on arresting your death spiral and more on heading in a direction you want to go.

You dragged yourself through depression, stress, academic failure, and whatever else you had going on, and you made it out the other side. There are lots of folks like us who didn't.

6 years for a Bachelor's? Try 9. Yeah, I am a real winner...

Now is when you need to be cultivating discipline. Discipline is what keeps you fighting when every other part of you has given up. It's the only way to succeed if you're one of those people whose future wasn't handed to them on a silver platter.

You can suffer setbacks every day, but you haven't actually lost until you stop breathing. You cannot build strength without suffering, and you cannot overcome without strength.

Define "discipline". "Just do it"?

The sustained assertion of your mental will over the baser impulses of your body, usually in anticipation of a better long term result.

This can be something as simple as resisting a temptation (saving money instead of splurging), to something more complex like a routine activity that your body tries to reject (such as exercise or keeping the house tidy). The most difficult is discipline over your own thoughts (which tend to change with your mood and emotions), or remaining focused on a distant goal when daily progress is difficult to measure.

Willpower is great for when you have no belief in your own instincts or smarter approaches to getting what you want, which for some people is always. It's a great tool for smashing square pegs (with sufficient force) into whatever shape of hole you are faced with.

> The most difficult is discipline over your own thoughts (which tend to change with your mood and emotions),

I think thoughts come before and inspire moods and emotions, more than vice versa.

It's hard to maintain discipline over your own thoughts because it's like trying to redirect the Amazon river with a teaspoon. It tends to be more effective to try to gently steer it in a certain direction, or try to quiet it altogether (meditation).

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