Duolingo everyday for a month

Well I hit my goal of 40 days and I’m going to keep at it. I don’t feel accomplished. I don’t feel good at all. I know 40 days isn’t enough time to change your life. But I feel like a dumb loser still. Fat, unaccomplished, and stuck at a job that I hate and am no good at. I have nevermore wanted to drop everything and run. I hate myself. I guess I’m going to stick to my plan of writing 100 words everday. I tried to ask the discord for ideas when I miss a day, and got nothing. But even still if I don’t at least write everyday then what the hell am I doing. I’m still left with this idea of leaving everything. Moving to a beach and becoming a bar tender and just try and live free focusing on the things i want. Maybe actual learn spanish or really focus on my writing instead of doing these challenges. But for now? I’m too weak to do anything else. Too scarred. Too comfortable despite being miserable. It’s agony, but its all I have.

Well I’m on day 33 after a weekend that shall live in infamy. The hang over from both drinks and calories is something that will be with me for the rest of the week. Nothing but salads for me, like 600 cals a day. But inbetween the shots of liquor and mac and cheese I came to the sobering realization that I need to be focusing on writing rather than trying to learn all this other stuff I mention in my past posts. The writing is the foundation. Everything else needs that. So starting today I’m going to write everyday. No freezes like Doulingo. I’m going to be disciplined about it, using my phone when I forget to sit down and do it. I’ll need to come up with some sort of penance that doesn’t punish me too hard. I used to try and do it by the hour. I figured in school I learned in 1.5 hour to 3 hour chunks so I tried to do drawing, writing, coding for three hours each every week. I think that will be like the ultimate DK30. Yet when I tried that method, I would stack missed hours. Soon I had 9 hours of a coding simply cause I didn’t manage my time better. I know I need more discipline on that front, but for now I’m just going to try and write at least 100 words a day. I have 80,000k words of clay that could be a real story. I get a decent idea every once in a while but I’m too busy chasing cool shit and not fleshing that stuff out. It starts with these ideas that I have. I want to do all this stuff and after sinking so low over the weekend I feel like I can now, but I can’t just plant seeds in bad ground and expect them to grow. I wanna draw? It should be of the game reviews I do or the characters I create. I wanna code? It should be a text adventure based on a chapter of my writing or something. So when I hit 40 on my doulingo I’ll mark this guy as done. Then start my writing everyday dk30. All the real ones will know my streak will be longer than it says on the project. Today I’ll write and ask the discord a good punishment for missing a day for writing that doesn’t tax too hard.

Duolingo told me that I am at 3 weeks into my streak today. I’ve set aside time, tried to do it more in my free time. I did have to use a freeze during a bachelor party which didn’t feel good. But here I am at 28 days and I feel 0. infact I feel really bad. I pour myself into work and the people around me and the real question is, for what?

I feel like I’m far past the point of greatness, like I messed up my current life as a teen. Making bad choices and getting bad grades. It doesn’t feel, at least right now, that I will ever make it out of obscurity or middle tier. My whole life feels like mids, which is arrogant to complain about cause I have it so good. I got a gf who loves me. A job, and a possibily a new freelance writer job if the interview later today does well. So a job, a side gig, a gf, living with parents now but have saved up enough money I could move out whenever. But it all feels like a settle on my part. Like I’m squandering the gifts my parents worked hard to give me. I’m not going to make 100k by the time I’m 30 and I’m not going to have my videos take off. My girlfriend may never feel like the type of love you hear in songs. Probably will learn functional spanish if I stick with it. But right now. My dreams feel so out of reach and I’m having an impossible time figuring out what the point of all this work is. Even that new writing job is writing listicles for low wages that I could not live off of.

I know I’m not good. I’m not smart. Never have been. But I am a hard worker and idk, just once I want the best. Want the dream to be realized. To not be uncertain with what I have, and meet my goals. At this point I think I’ve given up on all my childhood dreams. I’m not a good enough writer to write a video game. I don’t even want 100k a year, I would settle for 55k and a job where I don’t make cold calls. I don’t need some mystical GF you hear about in a Zac Brown band song, but I would love it if she would make me cookies without asking, or dress nice just for me. Or maybe when I set out to write something it sounds as good as it doesn’t in my head. I feel like I’ve been working towards my goals real good this year. As of now I’ve become stuck in this cycle of work work work, get pissed, explode on one thing, then work work work to pick up the pieces. I’ve been doing better since the pandemic I feel. I try to take it a day at a time, But today, man am I down bad.

I can say I would feel worse not writing these posts. Became more of a journal than a quick update. Kinda fun to look back and see that my last post about adding routine into my life and doing none of that. I guess the one thing I have been doing is longer doulingo sessions, and doing more in a day than just the bare minimum. I think I’m going to try and keep it going throughout my next dk30 project. Which I am not sure what to focus on next, probably writing.

I’m on a streak of 19, and when i practice later today it will be 20. I had to use one freeze on wedsenday the 16th. I felt bad about it being used cause it wasn’t an emergency it, was a lack of planning cause the video I filmed the weekend went long into the night. In addition to that, I’ve lost the bright eyed lighter feeling I talked about in an earlier post. I have to put the blame on this on myself and getting too caught up in the other things in life. I get so mad at myself when I can’t stick to my goals. It seems like every week I have a todo list that stacks and stack up, that i loose steam with most of things I do.

I think that the real answer to this problem is better time managment. This is partly because I have been watching alot of interviews with some the crazy creatives I admire like David Lynch, and he says something that helped him was creating a schudeled routine. I suppose I should start there, and this is self defeating but the idea of doing one thing at the same time everyday seems sorta stale to me. I do it enough through work sure, log in 8:30, lunch at 1, sign off 5:30 and I suppose that is the part of the “routine” that people like when they talk about the benefits of a 9-5. But setting aside a nonnegotiable time to do something I want to do, write, read, code, paint warhammer, film videos seems like too big an ask in a world were I find my attention pulled between every little thing. And all this is before living at home taking care of the grandpa and having a GF, and keeping up with enough of the fellas which. If someone had told me I would devote a large portion of my time each week into maintain personal realtionships as a kid I would have said your crazy. But they are good people who love and respect me so I want to be active in there lives. I’m grateful for everyone in my life, I only wish I had more time to do everything for them and circle back on things I wanna do.

Which brings me back to the concept of building more routine into my life. Seems like it would give me more time and help me be more disciplined in my work both creatively and day job. But I worry about being defined by the things that I try to make into a routine. Especailly if I fail at them. My coding, drawing, and some writing has fallen to the side when I started making my youtube videos. And I’m particularly happy that few people know about them because I feel like they would judge me (even though they most likely have their own shit to worry about). Worry/failure/fear are not good reasons to not get back into those things I very much want to learn. I told myself I was taking time off them to focus on my youtube videos and I think that I am impressed I’ve made over 30 videos since I started that dk30 challenge. The qaulity has gone up to the point where I’m only half as actively ashamed of them as I was before, and I even think some are good. Plus I’ve be consisent in my diet and exercise routine I started mid pandemic and lost 40 lbs since then. Plus I’ve grown starbeires hydroponically to the point where I can get great jam anytime I want. So it’s not like I’m devoid of routines or passions/hobbys, but there is little discipline in the way I got about them. Very much shooting from the hip on this stuff. I just wish I had more time cause no where on this ran have I talked about me time, rest/recovery, or the mental damage that comes with always being in a rush to do things. Espcailly since there will never be enough time to do everything or enough brain space to remember everything. You can’t go to hard on this stuff or you can literally pass out like in stardew valley or something, and maybe crack you head open an earn yourself 5 staples in the process.

But I want to do it all. I very much would like to be respected, happy, and successful. I am not the best but I like to think I work hard at this shit and do have some stuff to show for it. I’ve even got a writing job interview I’m waiting to hear back from (ugh which reminds me I need to do another burst of applications.) It’s shitty list-icles but I gotta cut my teeth somewhere. I know full well I’m taking on far too much. I know that there is not enough time for everything when I can’t find the 5 minutes it takes to do duolingo. The curse of the internet age is that everything is known, and you can so plainly see your faults compared others. I am uncertain about whether i will make it to the ever moving goal post. But I do feel alive.

**TL:DR - thinking about blocking off a short amount of time to do duolingo so I don’t miss another day. Maybe routine will help me do want I want in life. Life is hard and yet I wanna do it to the MAX **

I’m on Day 9 (lmao like the sean) and I’m proud I got through the weekend. It’s easier to do other things like eat better and exercise when you have this rock in trying to do one thing. It’s 8 days from where I started but I do feel better, lighter almost, like I did all my homework a day early.