I've been reviewing some of the OYS on the discord and responding a bit more, now that I've had an interlude of time open up. Here are some lessons everyone should learn.

1. OVERWEIGHT

I get it. I like to eat as much as the next guy. I've struggled with weight all my life too. I just hit my post-RP high on weight this past December. January came around and I decided to do something about it. I started a #diet-reporting channel on the discord and post ever calorie that goes into my mouth, as well as every calorie of exercise I burn. Result? Over 15lbs down in 3 weeks, and counting. It's not that hard guys. Too many men want to pussyfoot around with complaints about their life while trying to hide their physical fitness problems by simply citing "5'10, 120kg," not saying anything else about their size, and hoping nobody else notices or does the conversion (it's over 260lbs, by the way).

Here's the advice I just gave two guys who had an obesity problem and both reported playing video games. I told them they must repeat this phrase back to me: "I promise I will not play another video game until I have bought a stationary bike. I will not play video games anymore unless I am also riding that bike and maintaining a minimum 10mph pace."

Know how I lost over 15lbs in 3 weeks? I'd literally have to 100% stop eating to maintain that same pace. My solution: I still cut my calories, but I just sit on the stationary bike for hours a day. Sometimes I'm working. Other times I'm playing video games with my son. When I'm chilling with my wife after the kids go to bed, either talking about life or watching Netflix, I'm on that bike. I refuse to allow myself certain life pleasures, like video games, unless I'm burning calories while I do it. No exceptions. I ate over 3,000 calories a few days ago but still hit my 5lbs/wk goal. Know why? I biked 51 miles and burned more than what I ate.

Two caveats:

  • No, the bike (or if you prefer: treadmill) is not a substitute for your diet. You cannot maintain 2-4hrs on a stationary bike 5-7 days a week for the rest of your life. At some point you're going to reduce the cardio again. At that point you have two options: (1) make sure to keep your diet in check while you cardio-focus, or (2) eat normal, but be prepared to have this cardio-phase of life happening constantly throughout your life, even after you've hit your ideal weight; every time you creep 5-10lbs over your ideal, that's another 1-2 weeks of a sub-zero diet.

  • No, you don't stop lifting. Realistically, I can only maintain this sub-zero diet for a month at a time before I have to take a week off to re-bulk. Can't lose my 275lb bench press max. So, you do the above for a month (i.e. 20+lbs lost), then take a week off to re-bulk and heavy lift (which you should also be lifting during your cardio-focus too, just not as much time-investment) in order to get your lifts back to where they were pre-cardio (you'll re-gain 5-7lbs), then hit another month sub-zero dieting. Trust me, after the first week, you don't even notice that you're dieting anymore.

    • The caveat to this second caveat is that if you're over 25% body fat, you just cardio until you're down to 25% before you try to do a "re-bulk lifting" session. You didn't have muscular bulk in the first place, so there's no "re" to do. Still work light lifting (2days/wk) into your routine, but hammer that cardio. Once you're 25% body fat, you can start hitting lifting much harder to make use of your size for quick easy lifting gains. Starting to lift when you're a twig is a lot harder than when you've got extra fat on you. Take advantage of that - and 25% is not ideal, but acceptable enough that you can scrape by in society without being a total embarrassment.

2. TIME-SINKS

So many guys in OYS are wasting their time. It's usually video games, porn, and social media. I noticed over a decade ago that my weight was directly correlated with how frequently I watched pron. Cut it out of my life entirely and I permanently lost roughly 50lbs that even in my peak-weight since then, I've never gained any of that back.

I already told you what to do about video games, so look above on that.

For social media, the same as above applies. Just promise to yourself: "I will not scroll Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/crazy blogs/etc. unless I'm burning calories while I do it." Even while I'm at work talking to clients - something that's actually a high-value, productive activity - I hop into my office conference room and pace laps. Other people recommend an under-the-desk treadmill and just go at it all work day with a standing desk. With all the time you're wasting on social media or other things, think of how much better your life would be if you either (1) burned calories while you did it, double-valuing your time, or (2) had extra non-cardio time to do more productive things in life because you've committed that you won't use social media while not burning calories.

3. PRIORITIES SUCK

One guy in his OYS talked about wanting to improve his fashion, but he was still overweight. Horrible idea. Let's break this down:

  • If you buy a bunch of new clothes now, then lose a ton of weight and bulk up your chest size, you'll have wasted that money.

  • By having the heavier-set clothes still in your wardrobe, you'll have more psychological lax to let yourself gain weight because you know you still have clothes to wear.

  • If you wait to up your wardrobe until you have the body you want, you'll have extra motive to keep your body in that shape.

  • Holding off also gives you an opportunity to save up in your budget to afford decent threads.

This type of mis-prioritization happens in other areas too, this is just an easy example. Think before you pick what you're going to start working on. Get feedback from other guys. Don't think a new slick pair of shoes is going to impress women enough to ignore your pot belly.

4. NO OTHER SINGLES

Do you know how many OYS I've read where someone complains, "Everyone I know is already paired up. The only singles I'm around are people I'm uninterested in." Seriously, if you don't have women crawling over you, it's because you suck in some way. It could be your physique, but even hot guys have trouble sometimes. Maybe his social game sucks. Maybe he has awful habits/quirks that he won't give up. Maybe he wastes his time on video games rather than socializing, even though he's good in social settings when he's there. Figure it out.

When someone complains that there are no singles in his area, here's my thought process:

  • First, why do I care? Useless information. My guess is that most of these guys think it's useful because they want others to accept it as some sort of explanation or excuse to justify their frustrations with being single. That's literally half of the letters in DEER(ing). Stop doing that.

  • Second, even if you're telling the truth and there are no singles in your social circle, your social circle sucks. Go make other friends.

  • Third, most people who say this aren't being technically accurate. Literally every contact you have is married or engaged? Redefine "single" in your mind: If she doesn't have a ring, she's single. Options open up with this mentality. The mental box Christian guys put themselves in is pure lunacy. Trying to "honor her boyfriend's right (?!?) to her" is something even feminists would find cringy. It's a sign of a weak frame. Guys who think this way presume that because of temporal happenstance (i.e. he got there first), somehow she shouldn't have the option of being with a better guy (i.e. you, if you keep improving; it's really NOT hard to become one of the top 10% of men). If this is making your moral insides tingle in discomfort, just stop and think about it for a second:

    • How's it fair to you to close that door on yourself because of factors out of everyone's control?
    • How's it fair to her to deny her the opportunity of being with a better guy because "he called dibs on her first"?
    • How's it fair to the other guy if he's with a girl who COULD do better (i.e. you, when you improve past her boyfriend and you're still interested), and you know hypergamy is going to kick in at some point and she's either going to (1) leave him, or (2) they're going to have a crap relationship?

Of course, if you do improve enough that you could pull a girl from her boyfriend, you may find you can pull better than her anyway, so you may not be as interested at that point regardless. But the mentality is useful all the same. Either way, it's a win-win-win to view relationships this way. My dad taught me that very young and I ignored him, but I see the wisdom in it now: If you don't see a ring, she's on the market.

Seriously, think about that: she hasn't made a commitment to her boyfriend, nor he to her. They haven't promised to be with each other for life. They haven't promised, "I will not break up with you if someone better comes along." If they did have that promise, they'd literally be engaged at that point. Rings would be exchanged. If there is no ring, that commitment isn't there. If you're better and you come along, without the ring she has the right to upgrade.

5. LOOKING TOO EARLY

I have to distinguish here:

  • You should ALWAYS be approaching. For more on that, I'll defer you to the principles in one of my older posts.

  • HOWEVER, you shouldn't actually expect to find your wife as a result of these approaches. Don't bother "looking" until you're actually ready.

The goal of early approaching is just to have fun socializing and getting good at it. You can play around with number-closing as a goal if you want, but you don't even have to go that far. Just learning to talk to girls is valuable in itself - especially upgrading your confidence talking to attractive people. That applies to men too. Back in the day, my fear of talking to hot girls was associated with fear of sexual rejection. But I also had a fear of talking to highly attractive men, assuming they wouldn't want to hang out with "someone like me." What a useless mentality, especially for someone committed to improving (you are committed to that, right?). Learn to talk to attractive people, in general. This boosts your confidence all around.

But let's be real: if you're still 25%+ body fat, earning under $40k/yr, with a crappy wardrobe, no social skills, etc. - do you really think you're going to pull someone you think would make your ideal wife? Think of the best woman you could pull with stats like that (and be realistic). Now imagine yourself 50lbs lighter, muscular build, better financial portfolio, having learned social skills and developed your social circle, etc. - and now think of the best woman you could pull. You're shooting for all those things in your life, right? You're trying to improve, right? Why would you settle for the type of person you could pull now when you could make substantial gains first and then have a much, much better pool of people who would be interested in you?

Think about it this way: with your crappy stats you might be able to pull an HB6 if you compromise on some of your standards in other areas. With better stats, you might be able to pull a 9 (perhaps even a 10?) with similar compromise. Oooooooor ... you could pull an HB6 or 7 without having to compromise on any of your other peripherals. Suddenly, instead of the semi-psychotic 6 who actually gave you the time of day, you've got a 6 (or even 7) who also happens to be an actual Christian (rather than the psycho girl who was LARPing in the church), takes her faith seriously, perfectly sane (for a ...), intelligent, no debt, possibly even a financial contributor, good mom-qualities, etc.

Right now you can pull the former. 6-12 months from now (longer if you dilly-dally about self-improvement) you can pull the latter.

  • Yet for some reason guys keep saying with crappy stats how they're looking for a wife.

That's lunacy. Always practice game, but don't actually prioritize "looking" until you're at least as good as the girl you want to marry. Remember: women marry up, not down. Deal with it.

Caveat: Everything else I've ever written on why you shouldn't even been "looking" in the first place. Read my two sidebar posts on "how to find the girl you can't keep yourself from banging." More details there, especially the section, "How to find a wife (by not looking for one)." I stand by those posts to this day.

6. DOUBTING GOD

Lots of guys post Assurance of Salvation numbers below 10. Okay, we all have doubts every now and then. That's actually not a bad thing (longer conversation there, which I'll table for purposes of this post). But for a lot of guys, the reason is that they're on the fence about whether God is even good or has good thing sin store for them. They doubt Jeremiah 29:11 - "'For I have good plans for you,' says the Lord. 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.'" Yeah, that wasn't spoken to you individually, and context matters, and God created some people for humble purposes. Fine. But God still "works all things for the good of those who love him." That's a promise you can take to the bank (figuratively, not literal money; if you're into prosperity gospel garbage, go away unless you're here to learn your way out of it).

When people look at their sucky life and doubt God's goodness, I can't help but chuckle while shaking my head in disappointment.

  • You screw up your physique, social life, time allocation, spiritual disciplines, etc. Your life sucks.

  • But somehow God is to blame and his plans aren't good?

Get real. People like this aren't following God's plan in the first place. Our sidebar is already replete with biblical information to demonstrate that God does, in fact, want us to take care of our bodies, be good stewards of the finances he gave us, be disciplined in our pursuit of Christ and the work he gave us, managing our time appropriately, etc. Nobody actually doubts that these things are in the Bible (and much, much more that we discuss here). How can you claim God's plan for your life isn't good if you're not actually living in God's plan for your life yet?

Until you fix your physique, ability to love and relate with his people (i.e. social skills), become a good steward of your finances, and all those other things we try to get guys to work on, you are not in God's will for your life, and therefore you have no basis for saying that God isn't good or that his plan for you sucks. You are in rejection of God's plan, if you're like that, and that means YOUR plan for your life sucks, not God's.

7. NO MISSION

If you have no mission in life, you will never be satisfied with your life. Jesus gave you a mission. You can be satisfied with your own, but it won't get you very far in eternity. Better to adopt his so you're not only satisfied, but also building a foundation for eternity.

Guys who write OYSes ignoring mission or noting that they don't have a mission - especially if they've done several OYSes and haven't fixed this by now - are doomed to eternal failure. Even the secular guys eventually figure out that achieving their own mission isn't enough. I've talked to a number of TRP/MRP ECs and mods who have all adopted some form of spiritual pursuit (a lot turning to Christianity directly) because they realize there's got to be more to life than the silly things their own brains can come up with.

Mission matters. If your life sucks right now and you don't have a mission, that's why. Mission matters, nothing else. I'll defer to the barrage of other posts on the sidebar and in my post/comment history on this topic rather than belaboring the point here any further.

8. COVERT CONTRACTS

I've seen a number of guys complain about why other people won't treat them the way they want to be treated. In some regard, this is because you haven't earned the right to be treated that way yet. Look to the above and fix those things to deal with that.

Other times, the issue has a different cause: You never told them how you want to be treated. One guy recently posted an OYS complaining that his church friends didn't understand how bad he was hurting. He just assumed that it was their job to probe his mind and figure that out. That's a covert contract. If you want people to "get you" it's your responsibility to tell them who you are and what you're dealing with in life.

The problem is that most people take the "play it off" approach. They'll share their deepest fears and struggles, but they'll do so with a bold face. This is a defense mechanism, NOT the sign of a strong frame ... IF you're upset about their response, or lack thereof. Re-read that sentence. If you really don't care how they respond (which is part of a strong frame), then don't whine about it. If you DO care about them not reaching out and helping you the way you think they should, it's probably because you haven't communicated how deeply the issue is actually affecting you. Don't assume they'll get it. Don't have covert contracts with them. Be overt. Thinking that you're some "red pill guru" because you can talk about difficult issues with a straight face is a straight up lie you're telling yourself if you get butthurt about people's responses to you afterward.

9. NO OYS AT ALL

Some guys love to complain about how their life sucks, or ask questions about these "tricky" (read: completely normal to everyone else) situations they find themselves in, but they're not even posting OYSes at all. I get it, not everyone has time to be engaged. Are you actually at least going over this type of content regularly with someone else in your personal life?

I have a number of men who I address these things with verbally - at least every other week, often-times more than that. But I still post the monthly OYS in the discord. Why? Because OYS matters.

If you're not constantly self-evaluating, you will never actually improve. If you're not doing it in a context where other men can help you, you'll be stunted by your own narrow-sightedness in how far you can improve and in which directions. Simply put, if you don't post or discuss these types of things for others to engage with (and no, the "tell us how your week went" at small group does NOT count), then you have no business coming here complaining or asking questions about why your life sucks because I can tell you the answer in one second: "No OYS."

CONCLUSION

Didn't make it to 10. Ran out of time. Suffice it to say, if you want to improve:

  • First, get a mission and start pursuing it relentlessly. Consider EVERY angle that you can take in life to optimize this. Post about it in OYS and discuss with others.

  • Second, if you're not already in good shape, get there. This could be one of those extra "angles" for your mission - people will bend over backwards to help others who are fit.

  • Third, stop DEERing or wasting time on stupid things, or misprioritizing your life. Re-read the first two bullets of this conclusion and let that be your focus for now.

When you've done at least that much, and your spiritual disciplines are in order (which should be part of the pathway to achieving your mission - if they're not, then your mission sucks), then you'll start to taste what it's like being within the bounds of God's plan for your life and you'll see that it's good. It may not be what you wanted for your life. It may also not be a high and noble earth-changing plan. But it will be good. Steven was stoned to death. That was God's plan for him. That was a suck plan, God. But it was good. Know why? Because that's what scattered the early wave of new converts across the globe, when persecution began, and his death brought the Gospel to many nations. It was good. Do you think anyone would have viewed him as a martyr or that people would have scattered if it was a random ugly fat guy who did nothing for God's Kingdom and only happened to show up to a few services every now and then who was stoned? Hah. No.