The decline of the West

I've gone through a lot of changes in the past 7 or so years.

I can't lie, I used to be a bit of a degenerate.

I was part of the masses who were playing too many video games, wasting hours on YouTube and Netflix and social media literally every day, smoking weed often, partying, and taking part in sexual degeneracy in the form of pornography every day.

And it's wild how the tables have turned.

Because these days I've taken a very strong stance against most of those things.

... not from a place of judgement, but from a place of personal integrity and simply working on aligning myself with what feels like it truly serves my highest good - while also calling upon other men to rise up and fight for what they think serves their highest good too.

And none of what I mentioned above tends to appear on people's lists.

Yet... these things are totally normalized in the West.

And I think it's truly contributing to a general decline in happiness, fulfillment, and mental health.

Although, heck, I'm no absolutist.

Most of those things aren't actually very bad in moderation.

(Except porn, which there's no possible "healthy" amount of.)

But the thing is that even among guys who know they don't want to be doing those things, in favor of spending their time and energy in more fruitful ways instead... often still end up doing them.

A lot.

The "moderation" part gets missed.

Because they're caught deep in an escapism loop.

Where their brain has been trained to use these various forms of stimulation as coping mechanisms for the stressors they're facing (and Lord knows, stress is a part of everyone's reality...).

And they don't know how to break it.

So they experience something uncomfortable, usually unconsciously.

Then they (also unconsciously) shift over into some sort of escapism to self-soothe it.

And in the modern world, most people are living this way to some degree. They just don't realize it. But regardless of whether they realize it or not, it undermines their growth, and this is a pretty major threat for any man who cares deeply about his growth and showing up as his best version for himself, his family, and his community.

If I had to sum up a lot of the work I've done these last years?

It's working on breaking those escapism loops.

Completely.

And it's been so incredibly beneficial for my growth that I feel utterly compelled to share it with others, too.

Which is why I write these words.

It's also why I help men break those patterns every day. I find nothing more satisfying than reaching into the life of a man who's struggling, lifting him up, and seeing how his self-confidence, his relationships, his mind and productivity end up transforming as he removes the mental anchors that have been holding him down.

The smartest place to start?

Porn & compulsive sexuality.

Because those are the #1 strongest forms of escapism (unless you're doing hard drugs, but most people aren't.)

Meaning:

It's the most destructive and the heaviest.

Which also means that if you can learn how to lift that weight... it is the single greatest lever-mover you have, and once you're capable of lifting that weight then any other weight you want to lift is comparatively a lot easier too.

Invariably every man who quits porn finds it much, MUCH easier to take control over and improve anything else he cares about too.

It's the modern man's rite of passage.