Recommitting

I was recently reading the book “As A Man Thinketh” by James Allen, and I was inspired by some of the passages. I’ve decided to share a few…

“The aphorism, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,’ embraces the whole of a man’s being. It is so comprehensive that it reaches out to every condition and circumstance of life. A man is literally what he thinks. His character is the sum of all his thoughts.”

“Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus a man harvests the sweet and bitter fruits of his own husbandry."

“Man is made or unmade by himself. In the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself. He also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace.”

“Man is always the master. Even in his weakness and degradation he is the foolish master who misgoverns his ‘household.’ When he begins to reflect upon his condition, and to search diligently for the law upon which his being is established, he becomes the wise master. He then begins directing his energies with intelligence, and fashioning his thoughts toward a fruitful life.
“Such is the conscious master, and man can only master himself by discovering within himself the laws of thought, a discovery which is totally a matter of application, self-analysis, and experience.”

Anyhow, those are some of the thoughts I liked from the first 24 pages of the 59-page book. I guess I liked them because I’m sick of thinking and feeling like my porn habit is outside my control. Admittedly, I have not been successful in all my attempts to overcome it, but it doesn’t mean I can’t.

Ironically, last year when I sought counseling at the BYU counseling center, the grad student who conducted my sessions basically told me to stop trying to overcome my porn addiction (sounds counterintuitive, I know). He gave me an analogy of a person who digs himself into a hole (a.k.a. porn addiction), and to whom people from the outside try to help by throwing in more shovels. His claim was that porn users are often given so many “tools” to help them out of the porn addiction that they dig themselves even deeper.

His recommendation was that I abandon all the “tools” or shovels I had been given. I asked him what I should do instead, but he never answered that question. Instead, he would just reverse the question on me or change the subject. His argument was that many people – especially Mormons – think and obsess about their problems so much that the problems just get bigger. I can see his point, but I must be honest: not worrying about it didn’t help me out at all.

So, I have decided to return to my previous attempts of setting goals in order to give up porn. I know I’ve said this a million times, and I may have relapses between now and victory, but I am going to overcome it this time. I really think setting goals, focusing on the problem and trying to beat it are the best solutions for me. That’s my opinion as of today! I’m done with porn! I want to be rid of it. In coming days, I’ll be posting my goals and progress. Perhaps making my ambitions public will give me more motivation to achieve my goals.

P.S. I recently resubscribed to the Covenant Eyes program. According to the company's Web site, the loophole that I found last year has been fixed. I sure hope so because I don't want to have a place to turn in a moment of weakness.