Whats up RPers,

I stumbled across TRP when I was 'randoming' through subreddits and I think its been by far one of the biggest breaks i've caught in my life. Over the past couple of months I have been trying to evolve into a RP man. It feels like the pill is stuck in my throat and is slowly trickling into my system. It feels like my conditioning is trying to get me to throw it back up but I'm holding it in. I am looking forward to the journey and evolving.

It's a really strange feeling. All my life my mom taught me that it's selfish to want money, power and women. That I should treat everyone as I would want to be treated. Be polite and courteous, don't be eccentric or proud, treat women with the utmost respect regardless of if they deserve it or not. What I didn't realize was exactly how ridiculously ingrained in my psyche all this shit was. For example, I'm not a small dude. I've been powerlifting (not competeting, just as a hobby I love)for about 3 years now, getting close to 500lb squat at 5'9, 195lbs. I'm fairly muscular. Even with my above average body, I was still beta as fuck. I didn't stand up for myself and let people walk all over me. This is a small thing, but I have also started to have more fun. Especially in the gym. I love getting hyped, listening to some fucking jams on my headphones, bouncing around on the platform and moving some heavy as weight but I NEVER let myself have fun like that because "oh no I probably look like an asshole and annoying everyone else".

I mention this because today, I did something that I've never done before. I was the gym, having a good ass time and hyped as hell after just getting done deadlifting. I'm looking for a squat rack to do some assistance work. There are about 2 or 3 smaller dudes ( id didn't think about them being smaller till after the fact) standing around waiting for a rack. I walk up from the deadlifting area and see that a friend of mine is about to get done squatting. He leaves, I give him a fist bump and just take the rack. Right in front of these dudes eyes. No one said a word. They just stood there. Out of the corner of my eyes I see them looking at each other like "wtf" but no one says shit to me. I didn't even register any of this until about 5 mins later. The moment I realized what I had done, I felt awesome followed by an immediate "oh man what the fuck that was a dick move, they were waiting for a rack" and a need to apologize which I somehow managed not to do. I felt really bad for a bit. I never realized how strong the conditioning I've been put through was.

I quess my question is, do you guys experience this internal struggle? What are your experiences and advice on moving forward and improving myself?