You sound like quite an intelligent and awesome person. (bad rap, art, rationality. only an interesting person could have such a nonstandard combination of interests. Boring people come prepackaged...)

Thank you :)

This is the part that's been elusive to me. What kind of things are you doing? How do you knwo you are actually getting benefits and not just producing that "this is awesome" feeling which unfortunately often gets detached from realty?

I guess essentially what I do is try to read self-help stuff. I try to spend half my "work time", so to speak, doing this, and half working on creative projects. I've read both books and assorted stuff on the internet. My goal for April is to read a predetermined list of six self-help books. I'm currently on track for this goal.

So far I've read

• Part of the massive tome that is Psychological Self Help by Clayton Tucker-Ladd
• Success - How We Can Reach Our Goals by Heidi Halverson
• How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes
• 59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman
• Thinking Things Done by PJ Eby
• the first 300 pages of Feeling Good by David Burns, the last 200 seem to be mostly about the chemical nature of depression and have little practical value, so I'm saving them for later

If meditation books count

• Mindfulness in Plain English by Henepola Gunaratana
• most of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram

I also have been keeping a diary, which is something I've wanted to get in the habit of all my life but have never been able to do. Every day, in addition to summarizing the day's events, I rate my happiness out of ten, my productivity out of ten, and speculate on how I can do better.

I've only been keeping the diary a month, which is too small of a sample size. However, during this time, I had three weeks off for spring break, and I told myself that I would work as much as I could on self-improvement and personal projects. I ended up not really getting that much done, unfortunately. However, I managed to put in a median of... probably about five hours every day, and more importantly, I was in a fantastic mood the whole break. It might even have been the best mood I've been in for an extended time in the last few years. In the past, every time I have had a break from school, I ended up in a depressed, lonely, lethargic state, where I surfed the internet for hours on end, in which I paradoxically want to go back to school knowing that as soon as I do, I'll want to go back on break. The fact that I avoided this state for the first time I can remember since middle school is a major improvement for me. Additionally, the fact that I have managed to keep up the habit of diary-writing and meditating for a month so far is an achievement, knowing my past.

Also, even though I found How to Talk to Anyone mostly useless (it's written in a very white-collar, "how to network with the big winners" mindset that doesn't apply to my life), the one major Obvious In Retrospect thing I got from it was that in general I should never complain or criticize anyone. I used to think I was charmingly cynical. Since finishing it about four days ago, I have applied this advice, and I think, although it's very hard to tell, that I have made a person who previously harbored dislike for me view me as a someone pleasant to be around. Only one data point, but still.

I will admit that it is very possible that I am merely cultivating the "this is awesome" feeling. However, if reading scientifically minded self-help books isn't the solution, then what could possibly be? Meditation, but then what if that turns out to be a sham too? Therefore, I feel like it's rational to at least try the tactics that seem to have the highest chance of success before concluding that self-improvement is hopeless. Plus, I enjoy doing it.

Where do you live? Do you attend meetups?

I live in Columbus, OH, but I go to boarding school in a rural area. I will probably go to college in St. Louis next year. If there's ever a meetup nearby me, I would love to go.