I’ve let myself slip into social isolation, become shut in, wasted a tremendous number of days not working towards achieving anything and let melancholy dominate my emotional states. I don’t know how to fix this, I’ve thought about it more and more in the last few weeks and today I committed myself to posting here about it in the hope that it might be a turning point.
It’s good to acknowledge this and actively seek out ways to improve your life. First, the basics: nutrition, sleep, and exercise. If you aren’t taking a multivitamin, start. Also make sure you aren’t deficient in protein or omega-3, and aren’t eating too much sugar. Sleep 8 hours per day. Don’t sleep more than 9 hours unless you’re making up for a recent sleep deficit. If you live somewhere with nice weather, pick a route and try to make a habit of running it.
The next thing is to go out and make friends with some people, with the goal of spending more time socializing. Depending where you live and what modes of transportation you have available to you, you may need to expand your range—learn how to use public transit, get a bicycle, get a car, etc. Take a few hours going through meetup.com, copying everything that sounds vaguely interesting onto your calendar. Copying it onto your calendar doesn’t commit you to go unless you feel like it at the time, but it should give you a notification 15 minutes before you would leave. Do the same for dances—and don’t worry about not knowing how, most of them will say “beginners welcome” or something similar in their description. Don’t worry about not knowing anyone there; if they didn’t want you to come they wouldn’t be advertising online. Keep looking for stuff to put on your calendar until you have at least one entry per day. If there’s a Less Wrong meetup within your range, visit it. Finally, look for new settings; it’s better to sit bored on your computer in a park or library than bored on your computer at home.
You can start thinking about more ambitious stuff later. For now, just level up in every way you can.
It’s good to acknowledge this and actively seek out ways to improve your life. First, the basics: nutrition, sleep, and exercise. If you aren’t taking a multivitamin, start. Also make sure you aren’t deficient in protein or omega-3, and aren’t eating too much sugar. Sleep 8 hours per day. Don’t sleep more than 9 hours unless you’re making up for a recent sleep deficit. If you live somewhere with nice weather, pick a route and try to make a habit of running it.
The next thing is to go out and make friends with some people, with the goal of spending more time socializing. Depending where you live and what modes of transportation you have available to you, you may need to expand your range—learn how to use public transit, get a bicycle, get a car, etc. Take a few hours going through meetup.com, copying everything that sounds vaguely interesting onto your calendar. Copying it onto your calendar doesn’t commit you to go unless you feel like it at the time, but it should give you a notification 15 minutes before you would leave. Do the same for dances—and don’t worry about not knowing how, most of them will say “beginners welcome” or something similar in their description. Don’t worry about not knowing anyone there; if they didn’t want you to come they wouldn’t be advertising online. Keep looking for stuff to put on your calendar until you have at least one entry per day. If there’s a Less Wrong meetup within your range, visit it. Finally, look for new settings; it’s better to sit bored on your computer in a park or library than bored on your computer at home.
You can start thinking about more ambitious stuff later. For now, just level up in every way you can.