Keep going, you can do it.  Positive always think positive.

All right! Okay, I made it through Shabbos! I went to a friend's house and just kind of chilled. I needed a break from learning, just needed to unwind. So I'm doing well, Baruch Hashem, and hope to have a really good campaign.

I have an interesting image I picked up somewhere, don't remember where - maybe I made it up, who knows? So the image is to think of taivah/yetzer hara as a 200 pound weight that you're holding on to, at the edge of a cliff. You're on your front, straining to hold onto it, right at the edge of the precipice, and it's dragging you down, and you're not going to make it, it's gonna take you down to your death!

And then you remember - You don't need to hold onto it. You don't need to fight the yetzer hara. All you have to do is take a deep breath and let go of the weight. Feel it slip away, off your fingertips, tumbling down to the chasm below. The yetzer hara can go where he wants to, but I don't need to follow him. We have to realize that we don't need the yetzer hara, we don't have to hold onto this weight in order to enjoy life. We simply don't need it.

So thinking about this is just another outlook. Mostly I'm trying to just involve myself more with living and life. I have a lot of work and a lot of Torah to learn tomorrow. Have an awesome Chanukkah everyone! Day 6, wrapping up soon.

Keep going.  Postive thinking will always help..

NOYA wrote on 14 Dec 2009 02:15:
Beautiful NOYA. Happy Chanukah. I cant wait till Guard gets here. Im sure hes gonna ace this post. It shows how far your coming along. Keep it up Bro.

NOYA!

You are doing amazingly!! Happy Hanukkah! How's everything with you? Done for the semester?

Hey struggla and everyone,

No my semester is not over until early January. I rocked a big test today and have way too much work ahead of me for other courses to even think about spending any time thinking or doing anything assur. I'm feeling some trepidation about the upcoming two week break though. Breaks and me don't get along. Breaks and my yetzer hara get along great.

I miss the taivah right now, so I'm going to write about that for a little while. Okay, I miss taivah. I want to look at p**n and j*&k off. But what will happen then? Once I do that I'll feel miserable about myself. I know I'll feel out of it for days. I know I'll feel dejected and won't be able to concentrate on my davening and learning until I go to the mikvah, and that's a long walk in the cold. And even after that I'll still feel out of it for a while.

And how much pleasure is it anyway? It's maybe a few minutes of fun and games before you feel like a loser and an idiot. Compared to how I feel when I'm doing well, learning like a beast, davening well, now THAT feels good for a long time! And it's a better feeling than taivah I would even say - the yetzer hara augments the true pleasure before it happens, telling you it feels much better than it actually does. But he's lying - it doesn't feel THAT good.

And come on, man, there's something you gotta do for G-d. You can't eat cheeseburgers, you can't drive on Shabbos, because those things destroy you spiritually. That's the way it is. If you want to be able to function spiritually you absolutely cannot look at p**n or j*&k off. If you do, there will be a pgam in your ruchnius blueprint and you won't be a tenth of the lamdan or chosid that you really could become.

And plus, there's HAIL and ETERNAL DAMNAAAATION, yeeha! But I don't like going that route because it's hard to relate to that sometimes.

Okay, I don't want to taivah anymore. Thanks for listening!

Just keep unloading onto the forum. It helps so much. That's what I did last year when I first got here, and I never would have got to where I am now without it. And please don't think about tomorrow. You can't control it anyway, so why worry about it? You don't have to give up anything right now for tomorrow. Stick to today, and you'll do just fine.

NOYA that was AWESOME!!

A guten Choidesh everyone, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Birthday to Me! That's right, NOYA is 21 now. Feels good; a bunch of friends went with me last night at midnight for the traditional first legal purchase of alcohol as brought down in the seforim, and I had a nice time with them. Friends are important.

Today's Day 10, which is good, moving right along. My mother and sisters are visiting me on Sunday and we should have a nice time. Don't you love the holidays?

One thing that's bad about birthdays - well not really bad - is the fact you get messages on facebook. Facebook is a very very bad place, not because of the dangers of female friends (I degirled my facebook long ago) but because of the damn ads! Every single ad I tell you is some well formed maideleh claiming she wants a boyfriend (as if she can't get one). I don't want that going into my eyes.

What's so bad about these kind of ads in general is that they represent the highest standard of beauty. Only drop dead gorgeous girls can model for these ads, and the fact is that this is going to be bad for shidduchim because I'm spoiled on this kind of thing. Every one is. It's going to be so hard to be pleased because of my conception of what pretty is. Haha, I'm rambling right along, not censoring my thoughts at all.

Okay, we're still doing okay gents. Day 10 wrapping up!

Hope you're all trucking along with me!

NOYA bro happy to see you ramblin' about. its good for the health ya know. Keep up the great work your doin. Dont let your break , break you. Post like a beast on the forum. have some fun. Do whateva it takes bro i and we alls at the gye knows yoo can do it. So keep on pumping.

NOYA wrote on 17 Dec 2009 23:42:


I feel like I'm going to have the same problem with shidduchim, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. As for facebook, you can use adblock plus (a firefox extension) to block most ads, including those on facebook. I LOVE that add-on. Keep going strong, and make sure to post here often.

Oopsy daisies, looked at an ad and clicked it and looked at [immodest pictures] for a minute or two. The internet is bad, but I'm back in the driver's seat now.

Those girls were pretty but they looked so dumb. Nothing going on upstairs.

[Moderator's note: Sorry for the edit - someone reported the post as potentially triggering.  I know this was not intended].

Happy Birthday, NOYA!




Friends are VERY important, especially for alcohol consumption. 

As far as being spoiled shidduchim-wise, see this this page: www.guardureyes.com/GUE/FAQ/FAQ30.asp

As far as Facebook, I HIGHLY suggest deleting your account.

Poshut yid once wrote:

the yetzer tried to get me to go onto Facebook and look at some of the pictures over there with the rationalization that it is not pornography. I actually listened and went but I shut it down before I could really focus on it. I know this is his way of getting me to do something seemingly innocent which will lead me down a horrible path.

After a stumble with Facebook, "Momo" posted on the forum:

I need to learn from my fall, and this past fall has taught me that I have to cancel my Facebook account. It's really a waste of time anyway. The only reason I've been keeping the account is to see what's new in my friend's lives, see new photos of their kids, and have all of their email addresses in one spot. So I'll be "out of the loop". I'll miss someone's birthday. I'll miss a cute photo of a kid smiling. It's NOT worth it if it's going to trigger me to fall. I'm too sick to be on Facebook.

The next day "Momo" wrote:

Yesterday I said that I'd deactivate my Facebook account, and I did. Right before I did that, I said a prayer that with the z'chut of this action, HaShem should help everyone who's on this forum. Then, while I was doing the deactivation, the Y"H started voicing his objections "come on...". I countered by singing (in my head) a niggun really loudly. I felt very proud of myself after I did it, until I received a notice from Facebook that I can always activate my account again simply by signing in.

After searching the net, I found that you CAN request to have your account permanently deleted, and I did this too.

One great Ba'al Teshuvah - who has been clean now for well over a year, wrote us as follows:

The Yetzer Hara in his slimy and cunning ways, convinces so many people that Facebook is so innocent! Believe me, it is one of the worst places on the web, probably because it seems so innocent!

I personally have transgressed some of the worst Aveiros, thanks to Facebook! May Hashem have mercy on me and forgive me. May Hashem have mercy on everyone out there with a Facebook account, and give them the strength to get rid of it forever.

Same goes for mySpace and all "social" sites. The Torah forbids social mingling of the sexes. This applies 10000000% to mingling on Facebook too, and perhaps applies even more due to the anonymity involved that allows  people to sink lower and lower, rachmana li'tzlan.

Please keep harping on this, until people get the message.

Another guy wrote:

Good for you Momo! I am also happy to let you know that I gave up my Facebook a few weeks ago. It's good to see I am not alone here. I became addicted to it, checking friends' profiles and pictures.

Now when I'm home with time to spare, I'm more likely to pick up a sefer and learn instead of wasting time on the computer on these social networking sites.

Also, I went through my iTunes and iPod and deleted a lot of my goyishe music, including lady singers. This is something of a financial loss, since this music cost money, but I am more than confident that 'loss' is far outweighed by the eternal spiritual gains this will bring me.

Shoshana wrote:

This forum is a wonderful opportunity for me to truly and finally feel good about myself. Facebook and the other so called social networks are breeding grounds for the disease.

I know not to trust my self on those sights. If someone feels weak imagine what can happen on the evil sites.

Happy Birthday Bro!

Wish you nothin, but the best! You have a very good strong strength in you, anyone can hear it in you ROAR!

Abt the facebook thing, its not worth it is my realization that i've come to. I shut it down abt 6 months ago, before I even found this site. It was helped me get focused on the things I want to do. And those ppl I know are my friends have my number and know where I live and I have theirs.

Keep going dude, you're are kickin the y'h a**!!!