Welcome AT! Sorry it took me so long to welcome you. Sorry. :'( :'(

Anyways i read through alot of your posts. Lets keep this thing rollin. welll get there together and its gonna be great!

Have a great shabbos! We love ya!!

Wow thanks imtrying. I'll raise up a lchaim to you at my oneg this Shabbos

aryehtahor wrote on 29 Jan 2010 14:41:
Lechaim!!!

Dear Aryehtahor, 
Hi and after reading your last posts it occurred to me to do two things. The first was to read my post to you, which I promptly did. It was pretty nice, actually.  ;D I especially liked the first half, as it relates to your last few posts a bit. An I a sicko, or what?
The second was to share this with you:
You say you have time on your hands. Lest I get my hands into trouble, I need to be busy. The more sober I get, the more I can tolerate "free time". Earlier on, I couldn't really tolerate it very well so I made less free time for myself. I took time in the woods and read up on what i saw there, made calls to other program guys, journaled my feelings, found a chavrusa, started becoming part of a shul for a change, found a great book to read while in the bathroom (there are awesome classic novels out there and all kinds of safe things to read in bed and at potty time!) and of course in my case, got active in SA with meetings. Soon I was not acting out at all, lusting a whole lot less, and before I knew it, real life crept up on me and bit me in the behind, as it where. I was shocked to find that I had a life! I never would have dreamed of anything such as a real life without the ubiquitous lust/porn/fantasy/chase thing filling the background.
But here I am.
I'd rather die than go back to the old blind and numb life I had, and I mean it. 
Hatzlocha!

Cmon Reb Dov are you telling me you have a life?? This sounds hard to believe!! No lust?? And you have a life?? Am i missing something??

well.....I think I have a life. You mean, I don't?  :-* :-* :-*

My Rebbi Reb Dov once told me............DONT THINK TOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Dov,

I'm not sure one either has or doesn't have a life. I'm not even sure what it means to "have a life". I see a lot of people that are busy all the time and I seem to be the only one who is seeking out more things to do, to get busier, to interact with more people, to be grounded in reality. So maybe that means they have a life and I don't. But I don't think it's so black and white.

I'd like to think that I care about doing worthwhile things and meaningful things rather than just rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off. But maybe that's just a justification for being lazy and not committing and (inevitably) slipping into fantasy land. More and more lately, I've started to seize opportunities when they come my way. Gradually I'm building a life where I am.

For instance, I hosted the first gathering (an Oneg Shabbos) last Shabbos I've had at my apartment. Small crowd, but a good precedent to start. I go to shiurim with a local Rav every Sunday. I started going to the gym more. I post on this forum. I go to classes (I'm in college). And if I'm really ambitious, I open a sefer and learn some Torah on my own.

I dunno really what my point is here. I guess I just want to know what "a life" is, and how one gets one. (Walmart ??

I think they had a special on "lives" - aisle 14.


Sounds like you have a life. And a good one, busy in all the right ways!

AT, ditto SB - it sounds like you have a life already but can't afford to assess it too much. Or maybe at all. The thinking can turn the experience sour.
Just do it, man. For me, thinking is sometimes just another form of lusting. Focusing on we are doing right now is way more important than focusing on "what's doing" with us. We can leave the upshot to Hashem, our Rabbi, or even l'havdil, to Marv Albert!
It need not be our concern.
8)

Wow, how liberating it would be to really *know* that! That all I have to do is the right thing right now, and leave the big picture to Hashem to weave a beautiful fabric out of all the little strands of thread that seem random.

It occurred to me that Chazal are very specific about making fixed times to do a Cheshbon about one's life. In other words, you don't do it all the time, or even whenever you feel like it. You do it at a fixed time. Maybe this is why...

Also, who is Marv Albert?