I’m sure some of you are at the peak of your game at the moment. This post is not for you. Seddit has helped me a lot over the years; I wanted to return a little of that help with a recent anecdote.

I threw myself into all of this about four years ago. My confidence immediately improved. I finally cut my ridiculous long hair, hit the gym 5 days a week, began sleeping properly. As per The Book of Pook (if you haven’t read it, read it now – it’s fantastic) I worked on myself and then women came naturally (heh heh). If I’ve learned anything over the years, it's this:

Make affirmation from women the central focus of your life and I promise you that the last thing you will get is affirmation from women.

Instead, improve, improve, improve – the rest follows by default. I bloomed. As Game parlance has it, I was living in abundance. My self-esteem reached record levels. I liked myself, which was news to my ego.

I travelled for several years, Asia, Eastern Europe – liaised with plenty of women while I was abroad. Language barriers divide but the rules of attraction are more universal than I could ever have believed. I continued to get stronger physically. I began working on my passions professionally. I still drank but it didn’t consume me as it had before. Times were great.

I was studying in Eastern Europe around this time – entertaining women most evenings - and came home for the summer back to the UK. I met up with a girl I’ve known since my childhood. She was cold and aloof but direct and I didn’t know how to handle that combination. It intrigued me. We got involved. I moved back home shortly after to be with her – threw away an enormous apartment with ludicrously low rent, and my friends abroad, as well as the rest of my master’s course. Two years later and we’ve recently broken up. I initiated the split after months it falling apart. The last few months have been nothing but pointless heartache and angst; a darker place in my life than I can even begin to get across. It’s this period that I want to write about.

When you’re living in abundance, when it’s during the summer (Christ, especially in England!), when everything seems to be going well, it’s no problem to feel like the don. Kindness and generosity come easily – everything seems to manage itself. But throw a few disasters into the mix and it’s easy to revert back to default settings – self hatred, near-autistic social skills, and an obsession with yourself. Welcome back to The Bind. Luckily, I knew all of this was coming. I watched my mind trying to justify getting it back together with her, watched it justify writing her letters about what a dumb mistake we’d made breaking up – and stepped in, in just the nick of time.

This is how we get into binds. Not through actually screwing up, but trying to help ourselves out. Feel a little lonely and you’ll give into anything, just to get rid of the angst. If you’re going through a bind like this, if you’re stuck in the quagmire for some reason then know this:

Nothing feels as good as when you live on your own terms. Nothing.

If you give into these passing unpleasant emotions, you will not be living on your own terms, but someone else’s. Do – not – do – this.

Use angst as fuel. It’s the most volatile petrol there is. Fan the wild flames of improvement. Lift harder. Game harder. Approach even more fearlessly. Reform your life. Follow your god damned passions. Nothing – not security, not certainty, not coming home to someone predictable and plump – feels as good as this.

Think back to a time when you were at the peak of your powers – when everything just worked effortlessly, with women or otherwise. Does anything feel better than that?

Do not compromise for anything less. You’ll feel yourself again soon enough. This road is harder to walk in the short-term but the benefits are: autonomy, self-esteem, fulfilment, total freedom, and improvement of yourself to unimaginable levels.

The other road is limited to: stagnation, the snuffing out of your passions in general, and more stagnation on top of that.

It’s difficult to remind yourself of this when times are hard. I’m glad I’ve managed to. And I’d like to remind you of it too.

That is how you get out of a bind.

I wish you all more than luck.