7:46AM.
I got an e-mail this morning that I had won the auction for some Madoka magica booster packs. OH SHIT MY DUDE! I don’t have money to be spending on those cards!!!
Luckily it was a $17 purchase that I should be able to recoup once it is in hand in my store. They are a booster pack variety that I have not had before.
I also got a notification that there was an Co-dependents anonymous listing for under $15 on eBay. It was listed by Goodwill Seattle for only $7.96, so I snatched that up immediately. A price that low is in the range where I can resell it and pull a profit. I could also keep it and return my sister’s book, which is probably the right thing to do. I still have the CoDA book eBay search alert set up so I can nab another one in the future to resell.
I just realized that the book sells for less than I thought. There are several used on Amazon for as low as $8.96. Oh shit, son! Now I have buyer’s remorse!
I was under the impression that these books are so rare that the minimum they sell for is $23. Here I was thinking I was getting a deal, but I only saved a dollar or two.
I don’t even know the book condition because there was no photo. “Used – Good, May have some shelf-wear due to normal use.” is the description I got.
At $8.96, I don’t feel bad about keeping the book my sister gave me. Nah that’s not true. I don’t want to be taking advantage of her by keeping this book that was probably intended to be a loaner. I’m not even reading the book right now, it should really go back to her.
Ugh, but I can’t be buying books right now! I’m at poverty level income where I struggle to buy food. Buying books and trading cards right now is not okay!
Ok here’s what I’ll do. I’ll hold onto both books, and list the copy I just bought. I’ll extend the time that I’m borrowing this CoDA book. If I can sell the copy I just bought, I’ll take note of the profit made. I’ll repeat the process of buying and selling of CoDA blue books, and each time I’ll take note of the profit I make. Eventually, I should make a total amount which is greater than the cost of a new book. Once I get to 200% ROI, I’ll keep a book and return my sister’s copy.
IDK if that makes sense. The whole idea is to buy and sell and that’s my job. There’s a rule in investing which is, “know the product.”
The reason I don’t have an ebay alert for Alcoholics Anonymous books is because I don’t know that market. I don’t know what a book usually cost, or if there’s even a used market appeal, because I’ve never wanted to buy an AA book myself.
I know CoDA books. I have read parts of the book, I know it’s a much-desired book because everybody in group has one and it’s nice to follow along. It’s something that I personally wanted from the moment I went to CoDA. $25 for a new book is hard for me to pay, but I’ll pay $7.69.
Now will someone pay the price that I need to charge in order for me to turn a profit? 1.3X would be $8.46.
I just weight my book along with a bubble mailer to get an idea of how much I would need to pay for shipping. I need to pay around $3.33 to ship the book via USPS Media Mail.
To turn a profit on this book, I would need to charge the customer $11.79. I might be able to tack on an extra $3.33 to that price just to make a bit extra.
Heck, I could ask for the same as the other big sellers, and just intend to keep the book on my shelf for awhile.
Hmm, should I buy up those $8 books from eBay? I could get a corner on the market, buying all the lower priced books and ensure that I’m the one who has the lowest price!
Might be a good experiment. I think Reezy resells might have touched on this in a past video. Unfortunately I can’t find that video! Or was it Rudy? IDK!
Ehh, they’re “acceptable” condition which is probably not going to be a strong seller. I’ll hold off on now, since this is a RISKY transaction.
My 8:30AM notification alert failed on me again. I don’t know what’s up with that fucking thing.
journalctl -u ebay-last-call.service -e
The output shows that it ran flawlessly, both at 7:33 when I turned my computer on (why??) and just a few minutes ago at 8:30. WTF!? I didn’t hear anything on both runs.
I’ll have to do some debugging. Right now, I’m going to walk to the mailbox and drop off my one outgoing package. It contains a couple pairs of new in box safety glasses that I’ve been holding onto since my airsoft days.
I had a zoom call with my therapist. She seemed shocked that I let my government food assistance lapse, and she gave me my #1 homework to renew that food assistance.
I just got off the phone with the food assistance phone system. Apparently there were Governor mandated furlows and their customer service is not available at all today!
I will try again tomorrow. It will be nice to be able to afford food again!
Until then, I have a bag of produce that I received from my mom. And I still have plenty of rice, beans, oatmeal and walnuts.
I was commended on my consistency in showing up to my therapy zoom calls. I was made aware that I am my therapist’s most consistent client! Wow that’s pretty cool. It was just the other day that I was writing about how I have made a big improvement in that area. I have had flawless attendance for therapy. There was only one time when I can recall ever missing an appointment, and that was due to my lack of confidence with my vehicle’s capabilities in winter driving.
I’ve made a great improvement in the area of attendance and follow through when it comes to therapy. Now I want to figure out how I can apply that consistency and dependability to the other parts of my life. Namely, social gatherings!
If I say I’m going to be there, I am going to be there. This is a goal for me to have the follow-through and the honesty when it comes to scheduling appointments.
This means that I have to be extra vigilant when it comes to scheduling activities. If I don’t really want to do it, I have to be honest about not wanting to do it.
I am going to have to put this into practice as society pulls it’s head out of it’s ass and quits being a scared pussy about covid-19 like it’s some sort of a super-virus that’s going to kill everybody. That’s not this virus and I think history is going to prove that this lockdown shit and tanking the economy was an overreaction.
I committed to several things with my therapist, and I intend to follow through with them. I am going to commit to things that I want to do, and only things that I want to do and am immediately willing to do.
Hikes? Conditionally yes. Conditions being location and my accessibility to that location mostly.
Anime viewing nights? Probably no. I don’t want to go to certain people’s houses. I don’t want to spend time with certain people in my anime circle who dominate conversations and are incredibly rude to strangers. (B.)
Everything is conditionally yes. I am going to play it by ear, but the guideline is as follows.
If my answer is, “sure” or “yes“, it’s actually a no.
If my answer is, “heck yes!” it’s a yes.
That doesn’t mean that I can say, “sure” or “yes” and then just flake. No, it means that I have to filter my answers according to the above guidelines, and only agree to the event if the final answer is yes. It’s my responsibility to set my boundaries, and communicate them. This includes saying NO!
One of the things I talked to my therapist about was how I haven’t been prioritizing my journalling, CBT work, and CoDA work. I wake up and I think, “I have to make more money… I have to work right now!”
I have been working first, and my journal happens later in the day, if at all. Well, I have to reconsider my priorities on a daily basis. My journalling and self-work are really important to my future. The time I spend on these things is important and should be seen as a priority investment!
So that’s what I’m doing this morning. It’s 10:45 AM. I would like to be meditating at this time of day, but today the Seattle Betsuin livestream is not running (Reverend Kusunoki is on vacay) and I had therapy this morning, so my schedule is shifted a bit.
Time of day doesn’t matter so much as order of activities matters. I haven’t worked today, I haven’t exercised, and I’m journalling. That’s a great start to today!
Journal comes first. Then exercise. Then work.
I think it’s okay if exercise is first. But out of these three activities, work needs to come last!
Let’s jump into CBT.
Shy No Longer Module 6 — Unhelpful Thinking Styles
1 – Mental Filter
Can you think of a situation where you used this thinking style?
This thinking style is like when I think of past social engagements that didn’t go well. I often focus on something I said or a way I reacted that I felt ashamed about. It could have been as simple as me making a mistake, yet I focus on my behavior at the time and I’m very hard on myself.
I can’t think of any specific situations. I’m probably blocking them out because they’re uncomfortable to think about.
What were the thoughts that went through your mind?
I suppose this worksheet really wants me to work through a past experience where I had a mental filter!
Ok then, let me ponder for a minute.
Here’s something recent that I thought about. Oooh oh, no let me go back a bit to something from 2019.
It was July 2019 and I was on the lake in Las Vegas on a rented boat with my friends. K. was out on a jetski and he fell off the jetski at some point. He was having trouble getting back on his jetski and he started to freak out like he was thinking he was going to drown.
I thought he was just fucking around because he had fallen off his jetski and got back up on a few occasions just minutes before, but he was not staying calm and he became separated from his jetski.
He went into full panic mode and I didn’t pick up on it at all. I don’t know K. well enough to know what his panic mode looks like. I thought he was being his normal self and being ironically rude to people, but it was later apparent to me that he was doing that because he was afraid.
I think I’m forgetting some details about how he came to be in the water without a jetski. I think he might have been riding with M.? Oh yeah, there was only one jetski, and he and M. were riding together or something.
Anyway, the point is that he was in the water and he couldn’t get back onto the jetski with M. because he’s fat and out of shape.
He got so far from his jetski and he was freaking out even though he was wearing a life vest. M., riding the jetski, circled back around to the boat where I was at with K.’s girlfriend, and he said, “He’s in trouble.” He asked me to pass a rope and the lifeguard floating ring thing, which I did. M. took the rope and the ring to K. who was just drifting further and further away from the boat due to the wind.
Oh that’s right, K. was trying to transfer from the jetski to the boat and the wind was separating us two. Someone tried to throw the rope, failed at reaching him, and then M. got on the jetski to go pick K. up.
K. couldn’t get on the jetski, so M. circled back around and said I should drive the boat over to K.
I wasn’t legally allowed to drive the boat due to the rental service agreement and I hadn’t been trained or anything, but I figured this had become an emergency and I did my best and made my way over there.
We picked up K. and he began going off on us. Mostly off on his girlfriend because she was in the boat as well. “It’s not that hard to drive the boat” etc. etc.
K. doesn’t know me that well and I just stayed quiet, so he didn’t really express any anger towards me. Instead, he focused his anger towards his girlfriend and blamed her for everything. He didn’t let up, either, and I saw her shame spiral that day, a spiral which continued and built up for the rest of the week until she had a meltdown.. But that’s a different story.
When I think about the story of how K. almost drowned (he didn’t almost drown.. not even close.)
See how I started that sentence? I remember it as the time when K. almost drown, when in actuality, it was the time when K. panicked in the lake when he was too fat and out of shape to simply swim to the boat.
I remember the guilt of not simply getting to the driver seat of the boat and driving over there when M. said, “he’s in trouble.” Instead, I had to wait until I was told to do so.
Yeah, driving a boat isn’t hard. I could figure it out without instruction or a manual or training. I jump to my guilt for not acting, rather than recognizing any of the good things that happened. The good things that happened were how M. acted quickly. M. was the real MVP that day.
I deserve a little credit for staying calm myself, and driving the boat over there. I could have had a freakout of my own where I said, “I’m not qualified!” I could have hesitated and that would have left us with K.’s girlfriend driving the boat, who’s mental state was not nearly as calm as mine was.
What feelings did you experience consequent to your thinking?
I experienced the guilt of thinking about the past situation and how I didn’t act sooner.
I experienced the shame of K. as he expressed his anger towards his girlfriend. I was in the same boat as her. There’s something more I could have done.
side note– they have a terrible relationship. It baffles me and my brother and his wife how K. and his girlfriend are still together. To this date, theirs is the most blatant co-dependent relationship I’ve seen, where she seems to need to be wanted and abused, and he needs her to want him. Or something like that. It’s madness and it’s one more reason to never date LOL
I felt resentment for being the target of K.’s anger. I feel anger that K. was so fat and weak to not be able to lift himself onto the jetski. I feel anger that K. wasn’t able to swim to the boat when he was 3 feet from it.
I feel resentment that I didn’t call it a day earlier when B. had left the boat. It had already been a long day at that time and I was ready to be done before we had the afternoon incident with K. panicking in the water.
I think I might have got off topic a bit, but that’s okay. This was a stupid situation and up until today, I look back on it with significant guilt. It’s a bit less now, because I realize that it wasn’t my fault. A lot of it has to be with K. being out of shape. A lot of it has to do with K. not regulating his emotions. A lot of it has to do with K. not taking responsibility, and instead blaming his girlfriend for whatever went poorly.
I would have liked to react differently, and I will in the future if a similar situation arises.
I think my memory of K. panicking takes me back to the feeling of fear that K. is going to be angry with me in the same way that my Dad might have been angry with me as a kid.
That’s the unpleasant feeling I think of, the fear of my dad’s disappointment with me. Now I think I’ve gone full circle and I’ve discovered why this past event bothers me as much as it does!
Hey, lookat that! 11:23 AM and I’ve already finished writing 2000 words and done some CBT work.
Now I’m going to finish with gratitude and affirmations, after which I might go to the grocery store or at least I’ll ride my bike to get some exercise.
46. I love who I am
47. I will allow peace to fill my soul
48. Today is a new day; I will see what adventure it holds
I’m grateful for my therapist K. who consistently helps me look at things from a different perspective. I’m grateful for her patience with me, and her willingness to hear what I have to say.
I’m grateful for towels. I woke up in a pool of sweat this morning, but I was still tired and I wanted to get back to sleep. I grabbed a towel, soaked up the sweat, and went straight back to bed.
I’m grateful for checklists. I can see why pilots and people working mission-critical jobs use them. They help keep people on track, avoid mistakes, and visually confirm where they’re at.
Excelsior!
