We tell ourselves comfort is rest.
Scrolling for an hour. Watching “just one more episode.” Delaying the hard thing until tomorrow.

But comfort isn’t rest.
Comfort is decay.
Every hour we give to it is stolen from the person we could be.

The Stoics saw this clearly. Seneca warned us with: “While we are postponing, life speeds by.”

For me, that hits hardest when I think about procrastination. It doesn’t feel dangerous in the moment, but years slip away quietly.

The truth is, discipline isn’t punishment. It’s freedom. Every rep, every page, every hard choice is rebellion against comfort.

I've been thinking: where in my life is comfort slowly poisoning me, and how do I fight back?

What about you, what’s the biggest comfort trap you wrestle with right now?

Hi, I am a 19M, about to turn 20 in coming week. I am full time college student going to a community college right now. I am only 5’4 with bad communication skills, constantly overthinking, jealous of my friends getting new cars, getting into relationships and here I am helpless doing nothing in life.

I live alone in an apartment, all by myself, work around 80-95hours a week making around $800-$1100/week as my classes are only 2days a week right now. My parents paid for fees for my first semester and after that for this past 1 year, I am managing my expense but I am really bad at it as I couldn’t save a single dime because I spend money on Uber eats instead of cooking. Wherever I go, I tried talking to people like an expert and the room becomes empty again and everyone cuts me off. Basically I am doing everything by myself right now to go to a university in my 3rd year in the undergraduate degree. I watch porn, masturbate, and smoke cigarettes too.

I am really depressed and depersonalized right now. I consumed so much internet content, shorts and porn that I don’t feel like I can reverse myself now. I went to gym for 2 months and got good progress. I was happy when I was pushing myself. Went from deadlifting 120pounds to max PR of 185pounds but I got shoulder injury and I have back pain too. I feel like everything is happening to me all at once and I really couldn’t do nothing. I act happy infront of other people but in the corner of the room, I cry thinking of those bad decisions I took in life. I love my parents, I used to be closer to god and listen to god and become a good person but the injury came and I stopped going to gym and I started working 2jobs combined a total of 80-90hrs a week and these days I really don’t have any time. I do closing shift in a gas station from 5pm-12am midnight and from 6am-3pm, I work with a mexican friend of mine in electric fittings, AC and plumbing. I am making around $48k a year cash money but at what cost?

I only sleep like 5-6hrs a day, have phone addiction, smoking, watch porn, want to be greatest but put 0efffort, have lower back pain, shoulder pain and after working in those residential housing for electric, ac and plumbing, I developed extreme pain in knees and my back. I am about to turn 20 and it feels like 40year old. Help me. I am in extreme pain physically and mentally and I wanna make my parents proud. I have a dream of opening my own business and I wanna finish my college with good grades. I wanna uplift my life before I graduate.

—- Please help me. I wanna be healthy, become really strong, stoic, rich, finish my college, have an aesthetic physique. I don’t have anyone except god right now whom I can share my feelings to. I kept them inside myself but whenever I see my parents, I feel disgusted. I wanna make them proud. I wanna make myself proud and want something great to work on for my life. This is just another brother asking help to you my brothers. Sometimes being a 5’4 with all body pain, skinny fat genetics, and bad body proportion hurts but I know I can do good and have everything I wished for. I earn money but only after working 15-18hours shift each day which has made me exchausted.

Help me become THE MAN🙏🙏

I hope my story inspires and motivated you.

My name is Ricky, I’m 23 years old, and I’ve been diagnosed with a progressive and terminal illness about 5 months ago.

I honestly don’t know how to feel or how to process this, but I know I’m not going to take this lying down. I have dreamt of exploring the world since I was a kid and the thought of losing that dream is absolutely crushing my spirit.

I can’t imagine leaving my girlfriend and friends in a world where I couldn’t thank them for being the amazing figures they are. I want to spoil them and give them experiences to remember me for a lifetime.

I hate seeing my parents and family suffer and grieve me before I am even gone.

I have such a fire to live and I am not going to give up and leave those who care for me behind. I have set my heart ablaze.

I am going to see this world and conquer my fears and face this life head on.

Though I may have been dealt a bad hand, I believe my luck hasn’t ran out yet and I’m thankful and praying for a better day each day.

I am making an Instagram and TikTok account to follow my journey in living my best life, all the way till the end. If anyone wants to help me along the way or follow along, I’ll leave my account in the comments (if asked) to avoid breaking rules.

Thank you.

-Ricky

I am 26 and I feel like I am falling apart. I don’t even know who I am anymore. My personality, my likes, the things I used to love, they’ve all changed, and I just don’t recognize myself anymore. Instead of feeling exciting, it feels terrifying. Empty. I wake up with this crushing sadness every single day, and I don’t even know why. I have people who love me. My family, friends who care and support me. I still feel so painfully lonely and hollow inside.

I’ve always wanted something big for myself. I’ve always been ambitious. But I don’t even have a career yet, and that thought suffocates me. I regret so many past decisions, and at the same time I am paralyzed with fear about the future. I used to be so alive. I was talkative, loud, surrounded by friends and laughter. I was this fun extroverted humourous girl who was life of the party. But that person feels dead now. I dread conversations. I don’t want to talk. People bore me. Life bores me. I zone out while having conversations and I keep finding and giving excuses to get out of the place and conversation as soon as possible.

I tried dating apps to fix this loneliness. But deleted them within a day. I tried talking to strangers online, but it all felt meaningless. I thought maybe I should try casual relationship like everyone else even though it is not my cup of tea. But nope, I am demisexual, so romance and intimacy without real emotional connection and bonding feels hollow to me. I don’t want a relationship. I can’t. My past has destroyed me. I was cheated on, emotionally and verbally abused, insulted, called disgusting things like whore for having male friends. It broke me in ways I can’t even explain. Men approach me with disgusting intention. They want to have sex only and when I refuse they tell me that they are thinking of abducting and raping me. I feel sorry for myself. I don't even know what I feel when I get texts like this anymore., I just feel numb.

I don’t even feel motivated to do anything or even take care of myself anymore. I feel sleepy even after sleeping for 8 hours. I don't feel like working out or do yoga. I don't feel like doing self-care such as skincare or putting on hairmask. I overeat and then I hate myself for it. I have hobbies. I loved movies, anime, books, I have learnt 3 foreign languages, I have tried painting, photography. I am also a writer. They used to light me up- doing and learning new things and hobbies. I am a seeker, knowledge and new things make me feel joy. But now they feel exhausting. I force myself to watch a movie, but a two-hour film takes me days to finish. Nothing excites me anymore. Nothing makes me feel alive.

And my self-esteem, it’s gone. I was bright in school, smart, good at academics, active in lots of extracurriculars. But I grew up in a family of overachievers, and instead of lifting me, it crushed me. No matter what I did, it wasn’t enough. It will never be enough. They’re moving forward, succeeding, shining, and I’m stuck here, useless, watching my life waste away. I feel so small. I feel worthless.

For years I thought I was just lazy, hopeless, broken. I hated myself for not being able to focus and concentrate. So recently I visited a psychiatrist and got diagnosed with adult inattentive ADHD. He gave me meds such as stimulants, antidepressants, anti-anxiety pills. It explains so much, but it doesn’t fix anything. This new discovery about myself is just making me more overwhelmed. Like why didn't I find this sooner? Maybe I could have achieved newer heights. So I blame myself.

But honestly, I don’t want to give up. Not yet. Not ever. Even in this darkness, some stubborn part of me still wants to fight. I still want to dream. I still want to build the life I’ve always imagined. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I know I’ll try. Because as much as I hate feeling like this, I hate the idea of surrendering even more.

Maybe I’m breaking. Maybe I’m lost. But I’m still here. And as long as I’m here, I’ll keep trying.

Thanks for reading my story.

I've been struggling for quite some time now. I do live on my own and managed to make a bit of money from investments over the past few years but I've really only worked part time job placement style/short term employment over the past 7-10 years and most were only for a week or two at a time.

I graduated from College with a 3year diploma in business administration human resources but haven't been able to find a job. Most jobs want a certification which I don't currently have and I'm not really a fan of human resources. I'm at the point now though where I am going to need money to pay for rent after the next few months... I've thought about trying to finish my bachelors in human resources because the college requires you find a 3 month placements for you to graduated but I don't really know if I'd find work... I'm really struggling at the moment.

I also have zero friends... So that doesn't help either. Has anyone gotten themselves out of something like this... I really feel like a failure and can't decide to how really figure this out...

I'm 32. I was bullied in primary school (probably because I'm socially awkward), struggled with anxiety since secondary school, diagnosed with OCD at age of 16, had it since 14. Had good scores in O/L, by the time of A\L I have been depressed because my life was consumed by compulsions. Recovered went to College (CS), 1st class at college (non Ivy league level). Started doing project, keep chronically procrastinating and trouble focusing, years passed away without even realizing(time blindness). Diagnosed with ADHD, tried all meds available in country, had side effects without improvement to focus (constant brain chatter). Amphetamine class drugs are not approved here.

Went to a job last year, hired as Senior dev (since I had freelance experience), got really bored mainly because tech stack is stagnant, nothing new for me to learn there. Now unemployed practicing to get to better position.

But I'm really struggling due to racing mind, emotional dyregulation (costing personal relationships). I isolate myself from others since they constantly saying marry, get developed (mean become rich), there is no point of explaining to them my struggles since they do not understand and they don't want to understand (I tried several times). Many of my friends, younger cousins have moved on in life, have children and vehicles etc.(I know comparisons are odious) Keep falling back to depression again and again. I have taken lots meds over the year nothing seems help my core problem. Of course I tried therapy(talk), hard to find train therapist who can handle cases like mine. Wish I had access other ADHD meds even though hate the idea to have meds to function properly. I had to accept the way things are.

Last year I lost my mom due to stroke, she already had Parkinsonism for years, do not even identify us in last years, several times tried to suicide due to tormenting hallucination. She was the best thing I had in the world. She raised me up many times when I was struggling, she loved children even if they were not her own. She also struggled with emotional regulation part.

So now to question. I'm trying hard to get backup, keep falling down, get back up again and again. Is there anyone struggled with mental health struggles for decades, had success later in life?

Thank you!