"Hey TRP, I'm a 5"10 college student who hits the gym a few times a week and eats pretty healthy. I've hung out here for a while, and I can get laid pretty easily. The problem is that I like eating greasy food, smoking weed and watching anime, but I also want to be an alpha. How do I find a balance?

Changing the specific details, I asked a similar question almost a year ago, and while I received some great answers (I encourage you to read through the thread), I've come to some realizations myself over the past few months.

I grew up in a very religious home, full of seemingly arbitrary traditions and rituals. My father was and continues to be a very strong presence in my life, encouraging me to do what's "right" and "moral". The local religious community is very much a part of his life, and he pushed me to get involved as well from a young age.

But I wasn't happy. I was doing things by the book, both literally and figuratively, and while I was objectively accomplishing more than most people, I wasn't consistently happy. There were ups and downs.

Some days were better than others. I took a bow on stage in Carnegie Hall, and felt euphoric. But was it worth all the hours I spent sitting in front of my black Baldwin instead of playing with my friends? With many sleepless nights filled with fast food and lots of coffee, I locked down outstanding grades and internships in school. But at what cost?

Despite the discipline that my father helped me develop and the lessons he continues to teach me, there is one idea that I had to discover on my own: Feeling pleasure is not the same as being happy.

How many guys here can get laid every night of the week, but choose to settle down with one girl, even if only temporarily? Some guys discover TRP thinking they want to be this "alpha" player who constantly gets laid, and that's fine. Great. I'm glad you know what you want. Go out and get it.

I'll save you some time and tell you that there's no justice, no sense of "doing the right thing and you'll get what's coming to you" - that's a fairy tale. Men like my father are stuck married to a fat shrew of a woman and he is going to live and die with his principles; meanwhile men like Archwinger, married with a kid, go out and take what they want because they know that no one is going to give it to them.

In contrast to our alpha player, some men, even within the walls of TRP, aren't just looking to get laid. And that's fine too. In fact, you can want one thing at one point in your life, and then another at another point because your desires change as you gain more experience. Just make sure that whatever you're doing is because you want to do it, not because someone else wants you to. I often think back to a line that Whisper sent me a while ago - better a decision be your decision than the right one.

Because that's all this really comes down to - figuring out what you really want, and taking it, in order to be happy. That's an indisputable fact: men come to The Red Pill because something in their life makes them unhappy.

You can sit at home and smoke pot, watch anime and eat fried chicken. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Just realize that while you feel good smoking that joint, while that donut tastes great, these things won't make you happy. And on the other side of the coin, you can go out and get laid every night by a different chick with a smoking hot body. And there's nothing wrong with that either, but it won't necessarily make you happy.

I don't know the answer, and I won't insult your intelligence by claiming to. But when you're figuring things out, don't confuse pleasure with happiness. The coin is rigged, better not to play at all. It's how my father kept me locked down for years.