I want to share something that has been kind of weighing down on me for a while. I just got back from a night. First, a chick flaked on me. Then I decided to head out with my game friends. I only slept 3 hours the previous night because of work, I was shit tired, groggy and generally not in the mood to go out sarging. I wanted to stay home, do a bit of work, browse the internet and read a book. But I pushed through that, because right now my mindset is that nothing beats getting raw reference experiences. I forced myself to go out. On top of all that, I am currently not drinking, and well let's just say I did not previously realize just how much of a crutch alcohol was for my game. Anyway, it was a complete disaster. As Tyler describes it, it was one of those nights where not only am I not the lord, but I'm the biggest chode in the club, and by a long way. You know the impression he makes where he approaches and the sets literally explode in his face? It was like that. Complete obliteration.

Well maybe the circumstances of the night are not that important. Ultimately all experiences are positive and I took a lot away from tonight. But it certainly got me thinking on the way home. When I made that decision to go out, it was really that I made the choice to always err on the side of never saying no, to place the highest value on going out, meeting people, having fun as the best way to improve my game, and attain success with women.

But is it really?

I really take RSD philosophy to heart. At the core is the notion that game is nothing more than state and congruence. But to be centered and congruent you must cultivate positive qualities in every aspect of your personality. Cultivate success in life, and success with women will follow. This is the basic tenet of inner game. Become a better person in every way and the you will develop a strong reality and a set of values grounded in real world experience. This means looking after your health, your appearance, going to the gym, maintaining healthy friendships, reading and having hobbies. Authenticity of character and genuine congruence are a natural consequence of self-improvement (after all this subreddit is called seduction and self-improvement). And ultimately this lets you offer real value in a social interaction and allows you to draw state from within, thus improving your game.

But on the other hand, pretty much every pickup instructor and every school of thought, and especially RSD places emphasis on going out as the main mode of learning and collecting reference experiences. In-fact, some pickup authors go so far as to shun people who fill their heads with "unnecessary" theory at the expense of real field experience. You will hear ideas like the 100-something challenge or going out 7 days in a row (RSD). It seems that nothing is more beneficial than going out -- at the end of the day that is your battlefield, you don't meet people by sitting at home, you meet people when you go out. I have read field reports by people who go out every single day and achieve great results, and this ties in with the notion of macro-momentum.

Now here is where it gets frustrating. The more I go out, the more success I get, the more my life becomes about pickup. Going on a romp, getting laid, sleeping 4 hours a night then going out the following night to do it all over again cultivates a certain state of mind. Success builds macro-momentum and improves my game but I find it also fogs my mind to the point where everything else in life becomes distant. I still get my work done, but not as efficiently; I still go to the gym, but not with as much vigor; I still read, but not as much. The aperture of my worldview slowly narrows and the romp begins to seep into everyday life. And as a result I begin to lose congruence. I am no longer as keen to talk about certain aspects of my life, not as sharp in conversation, and not as perceptive in general. (I don't mean that my eyes glass over, speech slurs and I am crawling from club to club like a zombie. I do not think that I am going out excessively, and I already said I am not even drinking at the moment. I am merely going out consistently.) These are very subtle effects on the personality, but I feel that it begins to wound inner game.

And so as I sat at home tonight I wondered, which course of action is really better for my game. How can you consistently invest time in self-improvement if you have rewired my brain to say "yes" to every opportunity to go out? Could it have something to do with the fact that going out 7 nights a week only works if going out is actually your primary occupation? Dead-tired, in the end I got dressed and forced myself to go out. Sometimes it works out, tonight it didn't. Should I have just stayed home and bettered myself as a person instead?

Can you guys relate to any of this? How do you integrate pickup into your life on a day to day basis? And how do you resolve similar conflicting goals?