I am energetic, excited, motivated, and ready for challenges

The biggest change I’ve made in my life, the biggest and the best, was eliminating porn. There was an immediate  domino effect. I was a new man. Harmful Internet use decreased across the board. I freed up mental resources. I was able to take challenging courses at [university]. I processed information much more quickly using less energy.

My memory was crisper, faster. I came up with creative insights more frequently. I attended social events and didn’t feel weird, or awkward, or lonely, or creepy. I could carry on a conversation. I could make people laugh. A stain had been removed from my soul. A ghost had been exorcised. I had an exclusive, monogamous relationship, a big deal these days.

And I wrote this book.

It’s been two and half years since I started reflecting, reading, and writing about this topic. It’s been a year and a  half since I’ve watched porn or masturbated to any form of digital sexual stimulation. I have not checked social media notifications in over a year. My attention span has increased. I never feel like I’m marking time or wasting my life.

I have a full-time job as a product manager at [company]. At the office I am energetic, excited, motivated, and ready for challenges. I don’t feel overwhelmed or distracted. And because of my new habits, the habits I’ve created, I not only have more energy, but I use that energy more effectively.

I don’t think of myself as very smart. I grew up with learning issues. I never performed that well on standard­ized tests. I never communicated well. I was able to get into [university] because I was obsessed with a small sport called squash and got very good at it. In the beginning of my college career at [university] , my grades reflected this: I only took three very elementary classes, and I did not do very well.

But by the end of my four years at [university], after coming up with the ideas in this book and implement­ing these changes, I was able to take some of the more challenging courses in the school, often skipping prereq­uisite classes. I did well in those courses while main­taining an active social life and being an active member of a social fraternity. For two semesters, I took six courses—twice as many as I took freshman year. And at the very end, as I was wrapping up my degree during summer session while finishing up this book, I took four courses in two months, including a rigorous course on data science: sentiment analysis and topic modeling. I had transformed from a mediocre student into an unqualified success. And, the key? So simple: I stopped watching porn, I stopped obsessing over social media.

I unplugged. I took the red pill. I exited the matrix.

[From a book manuscript, shared with the permission of the author]