2nd week of challenge

During the first week I started new activities which I hadn't ever really done before, such as knitting and yoga. Soon, I found out that I need to shift character of my challenges. I can't continuosly start new things without ending the old ones, which I have left hanging on. It's logical that I just can't fill my life, cos' otherwise my head would blow up.

In some way though, it is easy to take new things to your life. They feel exotic, give immediate pleasure, you see yourself developing quickly. Unfortunately, they are all trade-offs. As you take a new thing, your focus on the former ones decrease. Finally you notice yourself how you have forgotten and let those old things incompleted. It's probable that it will happen to knitting and yoga, unless I change my emphasis. Therefore, my focus has aimed on the former things, which I have procrastinated. What an interesting way to learn life-management and to achieve more!

Tuesday was the most killing day. I almost collapsed mentally, because I had faced such many obstacles. I couldn't get to dancing after all and my master's thesis didn't clarify in my mind. I had done such a big work to work that out but still, it is very unclear. The topic is extremely interesting and important, though.
Mental challenge then, was to accept my condition and let it go for a while. Without my mother's tea-healing I would have broken up. Demons started to arise and few tears even dropped by.
 Luckily I could find my inner power in the end. For now, I have managed to put my master's thesis forward. It's extremely pushing to learn I never give up and surrender. For sometimes I'm also too inpatient, which I need to practice more.

It has been hard for me to relax completely and not worrying about things I need to do. A good practice for me could be to have a day without any efforts.
I also could continue to learn knitting, but I need to practice that a lot until I learn it truly. I started writing dream-diary but I failed as I couldn't continue it longer than few days.

What I am very PROUD OF, is I haven't used any intoxicants, such as alcohol for the whole time, although I've been in several parties. I've drank lots of tea, however.

For mental development, I'm able to show my emotions more honestly to others and especially, to myself. I can express my will more strictly. I focus more and more on decreasing the use of conditional in my speech. As I have wrote these things, many friends memorized me to remain the most characteristics of my personality, because they are golden and rare.
 It is interesting to make a dichotomy between the things I want to develop in myself and the things which I shouldn't ever change. This is about self-acknowledgement to know how to direct that development. In any case, I need to accept myself as I am, also the not-so-good sides. And that's what is hard, because too often I get frustrated to myself as I want to be something else, that I need to develop myself.
Sometimes I see it in social situations, in which other people demand that unconsciously. Therefore, this phrase runs in my mind, which I find useful. "I don't need to please people all the time". There is a way to be selfish in a good way. That is what I call assertive.

prototype for tattoo

Here is a list of things I planned to do for the past week:
Go busking -> yes (I played support song for dumpster-diving in front of shopping malls. It was recorded and filmed. Wait till it's edited!)
Dream-diary -> partly yes
Dancing -> no, but there are reasons in which I couldn't influence
Ice-skating -> yes
Continue master's thesis -> yes
Get injection needles to make ear-piercing hole -> yes (from a friend)
Plan a prototype for tattoo -> yes

injection needles for ear piercing

I also did
Impro-rap in a party
Get a dear shirt back from a friend
Performing in front of people in a panel, voluntarily
Tell my father about taking a tattoo
Call to a friend when feeling bad and show my vulnerability to others
Ask injection needles from pharmacy and try to get them free of charge -> didn't work, though

For this week
Send letters to dear people
Music jamming night
Graffiti-making among a bonfire and friends
Wedding speech

1st week of challenge

Over a week ago, a good friend called me, if I'd like to get involved in a challenge. I said why not. Sounds intriguing. My personality is often, that I go into things which life brings inherently in front of me. I take them as opportunities and ways to discover new things about life.

Now, for one week I've been challenging myself. I should do one challenge a day, but often I get into a flow and continue doing other stuff I haven't ever done. Often challenges changed from what I originally planned to do, but that's what they call "change of plans" or "carpe diem". The things I did were mostly things I should have done, not that scary (except UE) or revolutionary.

 I decided to invest more on myself and develop DIY (do it yourself)-skills. I also wrote about my thoughts and emotions I felt and how they had changed, how I could process them more and know ways to do that.

No one told me earlier that I shouldn't bury strong sentimental emotions on the background and wait them to fade away, vice versa, how it's important to face them and go inside them, although it's exhausting and it hurts. I already reduced strongly my ways to gain hedonistic pleasure, such as intoxicants and masturbation. I want to learn other, implicit ways to feel pleasure. I feel I need to be more strict with people sometimes, even more selfish. And stop using conditional and "sorry" in my speech!

For this week, my biggest effort is to go busking in front of two shopping centres and play a support song for dumpster-diving. That scares me! That's why I need to do that. If I couldn't fail, what all would I do?

Knitting!

A rat tail

Here is a list of things for the first week:
- to start doing my master's thesis research plan -> planning started
- learn how to knit -> learning started
- to start yoga -> yes
- start doing kombucha -> yes
- go to a directed meditation -> yes
- arrange a time for taking a tattoo -> yes
- arrange a time for taking an ear-piercing -> yes
- ask someone to do a rat tail for my hair -> yes
- start to analyze and acknowledge social situations in which there is a need to be assertive -> yes
- learn what is permaculture about -> partly yes
- contact friends I haven't seen for a long time -> partly yes
- jogging to a university lecture and back -> no
- start writing a dream-diary -> no
- go busking -> no

a KGB car in industry area! Authentic

Inside the building

Additionally, I ended up doing more spontane things
- urban exploring to a new empty building
- get to know a new person
- physical exercise once a week
- go talking with random people
- rolling into a snow after sauna -> yes, on a roof
- planned a venture abroad

Initiation for the challenge

First part of my blog was about traveling by hitch-hiking in Europe. I wanted to express how it's possible and how much it enhances mentally to do such an adventure.

Still, although I showed great capability to overcome myself and go through such adventure, I still, far too often, find myself procrastinating various issues I should do. Most of them are sort of things I have to do in some point without any strict deadline. So I always shift them later. I also need to overcome my fears in some things.
Therefore, to get a mental kick on my mental ass, I will start a next adventure, but a different kind. It's originally called 30 days of fear, implemented by some guy. It can be found from here: http://www.highexistence.com/epic-challenge-30-days-of-fear/.

It started yesterday. Thus, there is still 28 days to go, when I do one of three things:
- Something I fear
- Something I've been putting off
- Something I've never done before

I will write here about the things I've done, at least weekly. The challenge began yesterday, so my start was to prepare Kombucha, fermented tea, in which a mutualistic relationship between yeast and bacteria excrete probiotic healthy substances into it. I also started to plan a meeting with an old friend and when I get an ear piercing.

A pickle pot. Handy..

There lies my dear slimy fellow

Today, I started to plan my master's thesis plan, decided when I will have my first tattoo and went to talk with a goofy old lady in a tram.