I had a teacher advise me to make a habit of occasionally seeking out embarrassment, to stay in the habit, and prevent being paralyzed by fear of embarrassment.

I've followed that advice for years, and it's like a super power.

I've done so much cool shit that a previous version of myself would have been afraid to try.

I don't even remember all the embarrassing stuff, even though there's plenty. The cool stuff is what sticks in my memory, even though I'm prone to remembering my mistakes.

Dance. Started dancing (taking classes) at 350lbs 4 ½ months ago, still going now at 295lbs. Everything is sooo much easier. First exercise I really liked, improves my flexibility, strength, and cardio. And I feel mad sexy doing it.

I am handicapped and in early retirement. I had a hard time going on walks, got tired fast, there was always the fear of stumbling/falling again and carrying a bag was painful using a backpack made me getting tired faster.

I bought an expensive walking helper /walker with 4 wheels (not something you sit on and drive, but walk behind), a seat and a big bag for shopping. I feel like superwoman now when I am on a walk, because I can walk longer, buy stuff and just put it on the thing and it is so easy to get even heavy stuff home and whenever I get tired and no matter where I am, I just sit down, relax, power comes back and I can keep going.

The best thing I have ever bought in my whole life.

I was told this is only for very old people and that it looks ridiculous at my age and that I would not need it by everyone, fuck them. It is pure quality of life and increases my power to over 9000! I have been more outside in the last 12 months, than in the 5 years before that because of it.

Internet. I've lived in rural areas most of my life and only in the last five years was able to start gaming with friends and watching unlimited video. I feel much less resentment that people don't want to visit me and am happier getting my social needs met in person by physically going out less often (I still get out once a week ish)

It's not a replacement for intimate relationships but any means, but I do think it can enhance them with healthy boundaries n whatnot. I went through a rough break up recently that's had me realizing I'd like a partner that's ok with me having space to chill with friends day to day but still making time for each other.

Money.

Transitioning

Generator so I have power when the power goes out. Would like solar but soooo expensive.

The first was my bike. Totally changed life. It opened up the entire county to me, though the far end was not viable time wise.

Then my first car.

After that, I suppose it was a cell phone. Gave me the freedom to travel and stay in communication on my terms. However, part of that was caller ID by default. The freedom to ignore calls and make the decision based on who was calling without having to worry about missing an important call was big time. Since I could do this anywhere my car could reach, it was the pinnacle of freedom, with subsequent iterations only expanding the use.

After that? My cane.

After my body fucked up, and I was on a walker for a while, being able to walk steadily without the walker was freedom again. It may seem like the walker was that, but it never felt like it. I went from jogging and walking and hiking freely to crawling, literally in a second.

From crawling, a walker sure was better, but it was as much a symbol of limitations as it granted more mobility.

But the cane? That's when I knew I would be able to have something resembling the life I had lost. It isn't the same as it was and never will be. But the difference between having the cane and not having it is what makes it powerful.

Literally, tyrosine and iodine, because my thyroid gland was running slow and I was feeling cold most of the year. Now my body's idling power is higher.

Moving to a city with a tool library. For an annual £20 fee I can borrow any of a myriad of power tools. Currently using an orbital sander for some DIY, previously borrowed a hedge trimmer for the garden, it’s freaking great.

Getting a 3D printer.

Most things I had to replace because of being broken, the thing that broke was just some plastic bullshit; now I can just replace the broken part. Not to mention the myriad of things people have made that solve problems I never even thought of until seeing them on Thingiverse and such.

Add a soldering iron and some other tools and I can make my own electronic gadgets.

stimulant use

Experience. Learning when it’s okay not to give a fuck, and when I definitely should.

Tools.

Drill, star bits (make allen wrench bolts much easier), circular saw, oscillating multitool, clamps, a tiller, power washer, ladders

Reading regurlarly, It really improved my attention time, and it definitively helps to manage my anxiety, weirdly enough.

I moved to a different country driven by a wanting to become worldly rather than for economic reasons.

Facing a whole new place, with a different language, different social norms and expectations and even different living conditions, like that on your own makes you massivelly more adaptable to new environments, as a later move to a different country showed as well as living for a couple of months in yet another one.

My divorce. I didn't even realize that my ex-wife was abusive until getting into the divorce process. Once I got away and started to understand, I began to take some of my power back and develop even more. I went from terrified of her to strong and confident.

Does upgrading my electrical panel count?

Self-diagnosing with ADHD in my 30s. Going for an assessment soon!

The Dark Side.

Now I have unlimited power.

Getting proper diagnoses and treatment/medication

Learning another language, I guess? Besides learning English, being able to understand a few others even at a basic level is useful (if you ever get the chance to use it 😅).

Becoming proficient with Linux (I use NixOS, btw 🤓).

Confidence.

Psychedelics. Very eye opening.

Lets see uh falling into a vat of acid, suffering intense radiation , getting bit by radioactive insects and a lion ?

2011- prescription Vyvanse

2017- $300k family inheritance

2020- freedom to travel with no responsibilities

2024- semaglutide

Learned to code. Most profitable hobby I've ever had. Crazy fun.

Quitting smoking

I quit my job. Not sure if it gave me something but it sure took away a lot of asses I had to kiss.

Does that work?

Being touched by Super Kami Guru

A low-powered zoom microscope. I can again look at and work on tiny things, fix jewelry, electronics, remove splinters. Use it WAY more rhan I ever thought I would.

A decent GPU (rx 570). Could play any game I wanted without going through desperate measures to get it to run at minimal settings, could do more with game dev and 3d modeling, etc..

These days, integrated graphics are honestly pretty decent though. Hell, I'm pretty sure the steam deck's apu is more powerful than my machine in a few ways.

Real-time live AI captioning.

It's not perfect but more words than none.

I hold daily Scrum meetings in Zoom and everyone benefits with the transcript saved at the end of the meeting.

I raid with my guild, with Live Captions window overlaid onto of my chat box.

When I figured out how to run computational chemistry software on my home pc. It entirely changed how I saw chemistry because I could tinker and experiment with (virtual) molecules on a grand scale. Being able to run five maybe ten thousand simulations significantly increased my understanding.

Relying on a basic understanding how things/situations work.

At a new school, I really messed up a math test. I was studying like crazy, learned all formulas that I would need and managed to apply them all in each question on the test, combining all off them each question. Lowest score possible (1 out of 10), as I really messed up. Next test I didn't study, I jusy flipped trough the book, checked 1 situation I didn't understood and made the test. On handing out the teacher asked what I did different then the previous test. I told him I didn't study, I just checked if it was logically to me and decided I understood as much as I could. He told me to do just that on all tests and I'd have no problems with education and gave me the result, a perfect score. (10 out of 10)

That was 34y ago and still I want to understand things and see the logic behind it. Works perfectly on almost everything. (Humans behavious still mostly eludes me though, totally illogical 🤨)

Creatine

learning from mistakes. sadly took me longer than a lot of people I know, and as a result, I've seen shit get so fucked up that I finally learned my lesson a year or so ago to have some self awareness.