What is a habit/thing/technique that most people would benefit from, in your experience/observation? What are some habits that would be best avoided too?

Yeah alcohol really sucks. It's so embedded into society most people expect you to start drinking regularly as soon as you can. I think it's getting better but still people are nowhere near as cautious about alcohol as they really should be it accounts for 10% of deaths worldwide, that is just mind boggling.

And honestly take it easy on weed. A little for fun is fine, but chronic heavy use can kick off schizophrenia and depersonalization disorder, and literally lower your IQ.

Bitwarden is the best in my opinion

I use keepass XC, and keep it up to date on all my devices using syncthing.

I have considered bitwarden with self hosting, but keepass had always worked well.

Have used LastPass before it was shit, self hosted bitwarden and KeePass synced with nextcloud (whatever cloud service works). I ended up using KeePass with nextcloud and set KeePass to automatically save changes. Use it on Android with KeePassDX that also includes auto fill across apps. KeePass doesn't require much setup whereas you need to setup server with bitwarden. Also had some weird sync errors with bitwarden. Having said that, bitwarden is a great piece of software.

KeePass is open source and is easy to sync via whatever service you use, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or something.

I'm seconding Bitwarden. I'll also say that whilst self-hosting (if one can do it securely) may be more secure than using a service, security is always going to be a sliding scale trade off of convenience and security.

I recommend Bitwarden to everyone, but I'm sure there are options that are probably equally good. But most people could probably benefit from a password manager because we have so many different services demanding we make accounts that I reckon it's next to impossible for any reasonable person to avoid reusing passwords across services (that's one of the biggest security risks that hit regular people).

Start up tips: make sure your master password is strong and memorable. I found Bitwarden's password generator for this. A passphrase tends to be more memorable than an equally long password — a good master pass phrase would have at least four words (four is sufficient for most people). Write this down in a physical place, as a backup, ideally not your wallet. it doesn't necessarily need to be locked away, just make sure you'll know where to find it if you forget it (I forgot mine a bunch at first and had to reference my backup a few times).

Password managers and security in general can feel overwhelming because of the instinct to do things properly, which might include things like self hosting a password manager, or only avoiding biometric sign-in on the phone app version rtc. However, the best password manager is one that you use, and if bits of convenience like this help, then it's a good trade off.

It reminds me of the joke about two people who see an angry Grizzly bear in the forest, which starts charging at them. One of the people starts running away, and the other shouts "Where are you going, you'll never outrun the bear". The running person replies "I don't need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you". That's a bad paraphrase, but the sentiment is that using a password manager at all puts you way ahead of many people, in terms of security. Obviously, you'd feel more secure if you knew you could outrun the bear, but if we spent too long being anxious about our ability to do that, we definitely will get eaten. (Apologies for such a long comment. I always do this when I'm procrastinating going to bed. I hope you have a nice Christmas, if you're celebrating that wherever you are.)

Goals!!

Just to note, the form has an impact and can cause more negatives than it solves if not done properly.

I wouldn't go that far - oftentimes people actually do like those books that get name dropped for clout.

I would say if you take a recommendation and aren't digging the book, drop it with absolutely no guilt. If something like (for example) Infinite Jest just feels like a slog with no payoff, and you just wanna kick back with something trashy, do it and fuck the haters.

But you may find you dig it - you won't know without giving it a shot.

What I'm getting at, is not about finishing books, it's more about the time.

Slow down, take the time, even 10 minutes, to improve your mind. Reading, any type of reading, improves your thinking.

If you are not used to, at first it may be difficult to pay attention to the audio and understand it. Sometimes for me, the audio becomes background noise.

I listen to several podcasts, while it's not the same as an audiobook I started doing it to practice languages until I found some channels I like and it's now part of my daily activities

I did a similar thing with food. It was tedious but interesting at first… then it just became tedious. However, by then I “understood “ enough, I didn’t have to actually do it anymore.

Thanks for sharing!!

Definitely agree with your comments. The more you see the more you understand. The more you understand, the more you can control. Even if just a little bit.

No no, you need to do both at the same time for maximum effect.

Did you really talk about dental care on Tinder? Just curious, I've never used it.

Neither of those are New Year’s resolutions.

“The day my niece was born” is actually exactly the type of thing I’m talking about. You didn’t wait until new years, or your birthday, or something else unrelated to your motivations. You picked “now” because that was when you felt the desire.

So yes, special days can matter, but the days that matter to YOU are way more important than a day some guy named “Gregorian” chose 2000 years ago.

I don't really have a set schedule to be in the office anymore and mine has gotten so bad that I've been halfway out to my car to go home 2 hours before I intended to on multiple occasions before I caught myself and was like... wtf am I doing?

when I haven’t done my habits for awhile it seems like everything goes to chaos

Yeah, happens to me too. Sometimes just doing one little thing quickly builds momentum back up again.

But many days I dread all the annoying chores I do making everyday feel the same.

Again, yeah, happens to me too. What helps me is to not do chores but to see how efficiently I can do chores. It's more interesting to come up with processes/procedures/tools that get the job done faster. In the end the chore is done AND the next time it will go even faster because I'm more efficient. HTH

I added above about habit stacking. The idea is to lump a new habit onto an existing habit, which makes it so much easier to stick with. For example, when you brush your teeth in the evening, do your Duo lesson. Or, when you go make a cup of coffee add a new habit in during the three minutes it makes to boil the water.

Here's a random article that explains it: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/habit-stacking

rabbited?

Since it appears you dislike all religion I’m not sure my main point fits your tastes but I could say many of the various goals of Buddhist meditation such as realization emptiness of self or of phenomena, realization of impermanence, especially dhyana are all absent from whitewashed or medical meditation. I would say these can all be labeled as helpful but not necessarily religious goals but ontological.

To me this does two things, one it presents a false narrative of meditation by displacing it from its thousands of years of tradition. Two, it robs the practitioners of multiple goals and benefits, instead presenting it as simply calming. Which was never its goal, except maybe samatha meditation.

Essentially, I feel western mainstream and medical meditation denies meditations long history, makes up some goals and benefits that are not within the proven one’s, all while acting like they did it themselves.

Reminds me of the Duke University Koru counseling group which gave a talk on how their program came up with walking meditation…

I hope that’s helpful or at least clear. I do prefer traditional what you would call religious Buddhist mediation but even traditional does not have to contain things you dislike. For instance traditional Chan/Zen and vipasana teachers have been quite open to all students while teaching the full meditation