It's been a long time coming for me making a 90-day journey-chart: for a while I was only on the cholent group, but stopped after moving from public school to a Yeshiva-College.
[Disclaimer: I am going to be as frank and open as possible, and I doubt that anyone can guess my identity--the information means a lot more to me than it does to other people.]

After going to Yeshiva, I didn't fall until Thanksgivnukkah--I fell (at Yeshiva) the Thursday before, and (at home) the Thursday during חנוכה--there is a small problem on my phone's filter that allows me to view images.

Still, I hadn't viewed p* for like 3 months. I visited with my grandparents a few weeks ago, and they took me to a movie (big mistake--I hadn't seen a movie in like 6 months) that was one of the most inappropriate movies imaginable, and that set me back.

Here I am, at home for Bein Hazemanim, and I just fell (1/10/2014).

It's time to take the struggle seriously again: I haven't been on GYE for a while. Things I need to do:

-Solve issues that have been bothering me. Here is something I wrote down recently:


I also realized--it makes me feel insecure to think that I can love others. I.e. if people are just as good as I am, just as righteous, וכו’ וכו’, it makes me feel insecure. I like thinking that I am better than others. In fact, loving just gives a piece of me that I can’t give. It requires humbling myself, and recognizing that everyone is special, and quite frankly, I have a lot of trouble doing that.
Aish: love = recognizing goodness.

[A big problem I have is loving my parents, even if I know that they do some things / have done some things wrong.]


Cool Chassidic story about hypocrisy (from chabad.org):

The Chassid would always wear a chassidic garb visiting the צמח צדק. Hwoever, his business trips took him through more modern cities, where he would wear a modern garb.

One day, he showed up to the Rebbe wearing hte business suit. He said--I’m a hypocrite, and I’ve had enough fooling the Rebbe. I mgiht as well show who I really am.

“Reb Yankel,” said the Rebbe. “Do you think that I was not aware that you dress differently in Leipzig and Paris than you do in Lubavitch? But I thought that here you showed us your true self, and there you were the hypocrite . . .”
I am a good yid, no matter what.



I also don't feel like I have too many close friends that I can open up too--to be fair, I haven't made a big effort to befriend people either on a deeper level. I need to be a bigger בעל חסד.

Other steps I really should take:

-TaPhSiC (I just kind of stopped doing it).
-Opening up to someone (maybe)
-Improving filters.



Positives:
-I need to focus on being thankful for everything more.
-I am the same chachaman before and after the fall. I just need to keep shteiging and davening to Hashem.


A dvar Torah:
-We see that the בני ישראל who left Egypt were צדיקים--they were the 1/5th that survived. And nevertheless, Hashem Yisborach still felt that it was כדאי to not take them near פלשתים, because they might turn back. Says the Chofetz Chaim: you see how important it is to distance onesself from temptation.

BTW--בלי נדר, אם ירצה השם, I will try posting once a week on Fridays.

Well, so much for posting once a week, every Friday, lol.

Just wanted, for my own personal benefit, to state some things that I have been thinking about:

It is still a #1 priority for me to work on recognizing the good in others, and being less cynical. This will help me put less pressure on myself, and be nicer to myself, as well as having a more positive view of the world.
Again, with the friends thing, I don't really have any super-close friends that I hang out with, but on the other hand, there are several people that I would be comfortable confiding in or looking for advice from, and besides, I am learning msot of the day, so I don't really ahv ethe free time to hang out.

Another הערה I had:
For a lot of my teenage years, my brother was somewhat insecure about himself. Therefore, he gave me a lot of grief about being introverted, not hanging out with people, etc. I realize that I still have a lot of that ingrained in my psyche, that for some reason me being introverted makes me inferior to other people. Obviously, הקב"ה loves me just the same.

I have been having a lot of קרי, and some הרהורים. I haven't told any of my Rebbeim about this problem--I don't know if it is appropriate.
(Still, I am being honest with myself about the problem that I have.)

בין הזמנים starts in a week. My first year in Yeshiva has been great!

A final update: I have been trying to list out 10 things i am thankful for, each day during the morning. For some reason, it was really difficult at first, but I am glad that I do it.

keep going strong. i found with myself in a lot of areas of avodas Hashem, that when i was slipping i would ,make a kvius to learn mussar everyday and it got me out of the rut. however once things were going well i stopped the mussar and eventually fell again in whatever area it was that i was working on.
the lesson is to find the ways to be mechayev ourselves to stay focused especially when we are UP. the age old question is how.
perhaps you can get someone on the forum to send you a weekly email, or ad email if you haven't posted anything is a certain amount of days, to remind you to stay involved.
Perhaps that is a service the webmaster of the site can think about. an automated email to remind us to stay involved (on a sign up basis of course)

there is an automated email sent out for those who sign up on 90 day chart and after a week or ten days they do not update....an email reminder is then sent out.

That's good to know. Does the email have a binch of chizuk on the important of staying connected to the oilam? i just signed up and never got the email for missing the ninet days updates (and hopefully never will:)

I always get it....even if one does the 90 days, it's not so good if its an obsession. let a week go by without clicking the update. whatever....that works for me....b'hatzlachah

cordnoy wrote:


I have also began purposely letting some days go by before updating my 90 day chart, for a number of reasons, one of which is what Cordnoy pointed out, not letting the 90 day thing become an obsession. (the other is particular to my own situation, in which I find it advantageous for me to limit the amount of time, and how often I come to GYE).

Another advantage of doing so, is that if you do it every day you only enjoy the progress of 1 day, (which also has some important advantages, in view of the "one day at a time" idea,) but when you wait a few days and then you record progress of a few days or even a week, you feel more accomplishment, then if it's just one day.

cordnoy, got the email a few days ago. you are right. I only focus on it when I am about to fall. It keeps me going