Jakotsu's Journal

08/12/2024

A Tribute to Guns N' Roses

Hi friends,

I've been on quite a journey lately, and I wanted to share it with you. It all started about a month ago when I found myself diving deep into the world of Guns N' Roses. Their music has been my constant companion, playing on repeat as I navigate through some tough times. You see, I recently went through a breakup, and their songs have been like a balm for my emotional wounds.

Reflecting on this, I realize how much their music resonates with me. It's like a lifeline, pulling me through the sadness. "Sweet Child O' Mine" stands out as my favorite, but I also find solace in tracks like "Welcome to the Jungle," "Paradise City," and "November Rain." There's something about rock music that feels healing, almost like it's stitching up the emotional scars.

As I immerse myself in their world, I've started to embrace a bit of the rock star lifestyle. I'm planning to revamp my wardrobe with leather jackets, boots, and band T-shirts. Maybe even throw in some bandanas, earrings, and rings for good measure. It's all part of the transformation, I guess.

One song that really tugs at my heartstrings is "Sweet Child O' Mine." The nostalgia it evokes is powerful, even though I can't quite pinpoint why. The lyrics speak of childhood memories and love, and while I don't have a childhood girlfriend to reminisce about, the song still brings back beautiful memories from my own past. It's a feeling I truly appreciate.

My journey with Guns N' Roses began with "Sweet Child O' Mine." The iconic guitar riff by Slash hooked me instantly, and I felt an immediate connection. It was love at first listen, and I quickly added it to my rock playlist, playing it over and over.

From there, I started exploring more of their music. I delved into their album "Appetite for Destruction," discovering gems like "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Paradise City." Axl Rose's unique voice captivated me, and I found myself falling deeper in love with their sound.

Looking ahead, I see myself continuing this musical exploration. Guns N' Roses has opened up a new world for me, and I'm excited to see where this journey takes me. Who knows, maybe I'll even pick up a guitar and try to play some of those iconic riffs myself.

Bro fist to all the fellow rock enthusiasts out there. Let's keep rocking and healing through the power of music. 🎸

You can also read my post via my newsletter :)
https://open.substack.com/pub/jakotsutang/p/a-tribute-to-guns-n-roses?r=1nynlt&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

07/10/2024

Hi friends, how are you guys doing?

It is currently raining here in Japan, and I can feel the vagary of the weather here. Japan is gradually seeing a shift in its weather as autumn will come soon.

We are down to nearly 3 months left until the end of 2024, which feels like a blink to me. Although I have not completed anything special, except for successfully passing the entrance exam to my current university, I have plans for the year's final quarter. I am motivated to focus on my YouTube channel and am ready to complete the goals that I planned for the final 80 days of the year.

I just finished filming the next video for the channel, leaving only the editing session left. At the moment, editing is the most challenging part of the process and is also the most time-consuming. I am self-educating via a course on Udemy. Even though I want my video to be at its best quality possible, I lack experience in every aspect when it comes to doing YouTube. However, instead of just scaring like before, I’ll just do it this time, and learn along the way. That is the mindset shift I have recently.

Here is a picture of me just finished filming today.

That’s all I have for you in today’s update. Take care and I’ll see you later. Bro fist!

05/10/2024

with Finances and Finding My Passion

Hi friends,

Today is Saturday, and I'm finding myself in a bit of a financial pickle. It's all because I haven't been the best at managing my money, leading to some unnecessary spending sprees, especially on shopping. You know how it is—those accessories seemed important at the time, but they weren't exactly urgent.

Currently, I'm juggling two part-time jobs that I don't really enjoy. What I truly want is to work from home, at my own pace, doing something I love. Becoming a YouTuber is a dream of mine, but I'm struggling to figure out how to get started. This is what's been on my mind lately.

I'm currently studying abroad in Japan, and I see living here as a big advantage. It offers so many content opportunities. Even though I only have my iPhone 8 Plus and not a fancy camera, I don't see that as a major problem. The real challenge is figuring out how to start on YouTube. I feel a bit lost—unsure where to begin, where to film, how to record myself, how to edit videos, and how to publish keywords. But I realize these might be excuses to avoid taking action. The best thing I can do is to start anyway, despite any excuses.

I have a deep love for anime and manga, which is why I came to Japan in first place. I'm thinking about creating content about myself, maybe a daily vlog showcasing my life in my current town. This could include a room tour, a day in the life of a university student in Japan, my personal development journey, insights into part-time work in Japan, and reviews of restaurants in Japan. These are my ideas for now.

Looking ahead, I envision a future where I can pursue my passions freely and support the people I care about. It's a journey, and I'm ready to take the first step. 🌟

28/06/2024

It's raining heavily in Japan

Hi friends, this is Jakotsu again. How was your day? It is raining insanely here that my school decided to have all the morning classes done online. I guess it’s convenient since I don’t have to walk under heavy rain to school :) It is a menace and one thing I absolutely hate is having wet shoes. The odor and smell is unbearable.

Today’s fun fact: Rain has a special smell! It's called petrichor, an oil released by plants in dry weather. When rain falls, it absorbs petrichor, giving rain that fresh, earthy scent we all love.

I started watching One Piece anime for the first time. I have read the manga a dozen times no matter how long it is. I usually don’t watch long manga anime as it can take forever (literally, there are 1000 episodes of One Piece at the moment), but watching it was never a bad idea. However, I feel that the anime is unnecessarily lengthy and repetitive in some parts. But it is a fun experience :D

There is no update for my part actually, so I guess it’s a short post today. I’m listening to Ali’s podcast about starting a business to realize that some ideas are just difficult to execute. Maybe I’m taking the wrong approach here, and I should start as a beginner.

There’s one thing I recognize is that sometimes on social media, you’ll see thousands of people posting about getting rich at 18,20 years old and that you are an absolute failure compared to them. I think this is harmful and unnecessary. Yeah, seeing others succeed can be motivating, but keep it as a drive or motivation, not as a means to beat yourself up. “Mind your own business” is suitable to say here lol.

Anyway, I’m gonna end the post here, thanks for reading and I’ll see you later. Bro fist!

26/06/2024

Hi friends, this is Jakotsu again! How was your day? I know I haven’t been posting these days, and I have no excuses. I was just being lazy and got sidetracked. However, I don’t view this as a bad thing. I focus on something else that is also meaningful, and not giving up on anything, I make sure I still come back.

Today’s fun fact: Did you know that studies have shown Tuesdays are consistently the most productive workday of the week? So if you have a big project looming, try to tackle it on a Tuesday!

So it is already the middle of the new week, and I haven’t done my weekly revision yet, which I was supposed to do on Sunday. Also, for some reason, I’m seeing a lot of YouTube videos about starting a business and making 10k, or 100k a month as a student. I find these videos helpful though; however, most of them are for the West, as I see. I’m currently living in Asia, in Japan, and applying the knowledge from the videos is inappropriate. I guess that’s because I consume content solely in English, and not many Asian countries speak English in their videos.

I am somewhat inspired by the idea of starting a business, but am confused about where to begin. Which products should I choose? Which areas? Who do I want to target? These start-up things are new to me, so I spent a lot of time looking them up (not that much time lol). I currently have an idea of acquiring some skills first to make myself more valuable, then trying to make some money doing freelance stuff. It seems that my current money-making skills are copywriting, web design, and coding. If I have to pick, I think I will choose copywriting. There are plenty of videos on how to do copywriting and courses as well.

In this week and the following weeks ahead, I think I will pick the skill of copywriting and editing video (for my YouTube) to learn and get a scratch on it. I also have to make sure what I want to do is on the calendar, as I am a professional procrastinator. So, I’m looking forward to the weeks ahead :)

One more thing, I think I will not post every day like I said earlier, but will turn this blog posting into a hobby. Yes, as a form of journaling or sharing my journey with you guys!

That’s it for today’s post I guess, I’ll see you later! Bro fist!

21/06/2024

One lesson I learned from years of consuming self-help content

Hi friends, this is Jakotsu again. How was your day? Mine was full of delicious food. I had dinner at a local Italian restaurant with my girlfriend yesterday to celebrate our 2nd anniversary. The food was amazing, especially the prawn pasta!

Today’s fun fact: Cleopatra, the famous last active pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, wasn't actually Egyptian! Her family line was Greek, and they had ruled Egypt for several generations by the time Cleopatra came to power.

The rain doesn’t stop here in Japan, pairing with it is the increase in humidity. It is just hot and uncomfortable currently here, not to mention as summer comes, the bugs are also proliferating. I miss winter already ;)

In today’s post, let’s discuss consuming self-help content. I, myself, am addicted to watching self-help-related videos or books. Whenever I feel unmotivated or lack energy, I usually put on Ali Abdaal’s videos, watching Ted, or some life-changing theme videos. At first, I thought it was productive and helpful as I’m consuming knowledge that could help me later on, but this is just a myth. I was procrastinating.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that watching those videos are harmful. In contrast, they are life-changing information that one can benefit from it. However, it isn’t the action that is harmful, I believe the time you watch it needs further consideration. In my case, I watch self-help videos to make me feel good, and to fool myself that I’m not procrastinating, I’m just learning new knowledge. This thought is detrimental as I couldn’t realize the fact that I’m being lazy from doing the work that should be done, and even feel good about doing the bad thing. If I wasn’t aware, I could have continued wasting my time and postponing the important tasks.

I always have the mindset of perfectionism. If I ever start a new task, I will always wonder whether there is a better approach or way to do it and find myself procrastinating. After months of mastering my procrastination ability, I realized that I didn’t complete anything. Yes, I do learn new knowledge by watching those videos. And yes, I know what is right or wrong doing things, but these are just theories. I haven’t applied the knowledge or tried to see which methods work for me. Therefore, I was stuck in a loop of consuming self-help content over and over again.

So I came to one conclusion that I say to myself every day “Start doing, and stop planning or waiting for perfection. The important thing is ex*****on, and just do it”. Ever since I recognized that; abnormally, I feel more productive and active in my life. I thought it was productive watching videos on how to be productive, but it turned out it was unproductive after all.

The most productive thing you can do is just start doing.

That is my quote from now on, and I hope you learned something from my experience as well. That also brings us to the end of today’s post. Thank you for reading and I’ll see you tomorrow. Bro fist!

20/06/2024

How to build a habit?

Hi friends, this is Jakotsu again. How was your day? I went shopping for shoes for the first time in Japan yesterday at a shop called “ABC Market”. They sell all kinds of shoes from Nike to Le Coq. I chose one Le Coq pair to give my girlfriend as a birthday present. It was a fun experience!

Today’s fun fact: Did you know that the ancient city of Babylon, once a mighty Mesopotamian empire, had a complex legal code called the Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest examples of written law in the world? Created around 1750 BC, it covered everything from property rights to criminal justice.

It is currently raining here in Japan. In case you haven’t known yet, starting June is a six-week long rainy season in Japan, and I can see the Japanese hate it. Especially here in my school, kids start skipping classes, and wet shoes make wet floors,… But the most annoying thing for me is getting wet going to work. My main transportation now is my poor legs, so you can imagine how wet I can get on a rainy day. I just want to get a bike fast!

In today’s post, I want to talk about habits! I love habits and the concept of building a habit. The book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear changed my life from a lazy, not having any life purpose zombie-like living past me to a “better” me (at least I know what I have to do now, don’t judge me). So yeah you can say I’m obsessed with building habits and feel motivated talking about it. However, building one is challenging and uncomfortable as we’re not only changing our behavior, we’re changing our identity as well.

Ever since I read the book, I only succeeded in building one (yeah you heard it right), only one habit “skin care”. By applying the module James Clear gives in his book, I now have the habit of skin care after brushing my teeth in the morning, and it has become part of my daily routine. So how do build one?

First and foremost, you have to change your identity.

Simply changing your behavior is hard to maintain as life will interrupt and get into your habit (trust me, it will), you have to change how you think of yourself first. For example, instead of saying I don’t smoke, say I am not a smoker.

Next, identify a cue or prompt to remind you of doing the habit.

What works for me is using an existing habit (like brushing my teeth) as a cue to remind me of skincare, or making the cue obvious, like putting a book on my desk or my face wash lotion next to the toothbrush.

The next thing is making the habit attractive, make yourself crave to do it.

This means finding a way to make your habit more enjoyable. I recommend Ali’s book “Feel-good Productivity” for this step.

Next is making the habit super easy to execute.

The most important step here is to redesign your current environment to reduce the friction of doing the habit and make doing it effortless. For example, if you want to build an exercise habit, preemptively put your exercise shoes under the bed, plan the exercise before night, or place your exercise suit next to your bed.

Finally, reward yourself when you complete the habit.

What I like is using a habit tracker to see my current progress in building a habit. The checked box on the tracker motivates me to keep the streak going while also adding a sense of fun to my habit.

Why don’t you pick a habit and start building it too? The most important part is the process of building it, not the result. So even if you fail to build one, you still know which method works for you and which doesn’t, you can have a better success rate in the future. Moreover, remember that habit compounds over time, so aim for little wins every day instead of one big win. I hope you have a great time building habits.

That’s it for today’s post! I hope you like reading about habits as I do. See you tomorrow! Bro fist!

19/06/2024

What is dopamine and how to do a dopamine detox

Hi, this is Jakotsu again. How was your day? I picked up a 5000 yen cash on my way home from work yesterday. This is the first time I found money on the ground in Japan. As my girlfriend was the one who found it first, I let her decide what to do with the cash. It was a weird experience haha.

Today’s fun fact: The first successful powered airplane flight, by Wilbur and Orville Wright, took place on December 17th, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It lasted for just 12 seconds and covered a distance of 120 feet.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, today is my girlfriend’s birthday as well as our anniversary as well. We plan to go shopping and spend time hanging out in the city at night. I hope it will go well :)

For today’s post, I want to talk about dopamine. I just watched Ali’s newest video on dopamine and want to use this post as a note for myself on what I learned and share with you. Unless you have been living under a rock for decades now, you should already heard about dopamine. It is a substance that helps us feel good after certain actions. You’ll often have a dose of dopamine after doing activities that you enjoy such as surfing social media, playing games, or watching Netflix. Or, after completing challenging works, projects,…

There are two kinds of dopamine: tonic dopamine and phasic dopamine. Tonic dopamine is a baseline of your dopamine level. While phasic dopamine is an unstable level of dopamine, it rises when you receive unexpected results, and declines when undesirable results happen. Tonic dopamine base level can increase if we “train” it by surfing too much TikTok or playing games hardcore every day. For example, people using drugs will find it no longer satisfying to take the same dose every time, so they have to take a stronger hit to have the desired feeling. In this case, their tonic dopamine baselines have increased.

So, what can you do to tackle a high level of tonic dopamine, or in other words, reset your dopamine baseline? One popular method is dopamine detox, which has lots of videos on YouTube showing how to do it. In the video, Ali gives four methods to reduce the dopamine level.

Method #1: The rule of pain over pleasure

Before doing your addicted high dopamine activities, you do the more painful but also produce dopamine after first. For example, if just play games all day, you will feel really bad after it, like you have not completed or done anything productive that day. However, before playing games, you do your most important task first, go to the gym, or finish writing your blog :D I use this method every day. After getting home from work, instead of just straight up jumping on the bed reading manga, I’ll finish all the chores first.

Method #2: The rule of avoidance

This means avoiding all the cues that cause you to do the actions that produce a high level of dopamine. For example, turn off notifications on your phone, delete the games’ icons on a laptop screen, or remove the cookie jar.

Method #3: The rule of barriers

You create barriers between you and the activities. For example, restrict app usage (I use Opal to block apps on my phone), remove the activities out of your environment, or set rules for yourself.

Method #4: The rule of boredom

Feeling bored is good. Especially in today’s world, I strongly believe those who can be bored can thrive. You give yourself a chance to be silent, which cultivates creativity and ideas instead of being distracted 24/7 by meaningless activities.

Finally, Dr. Anna Lembke, the author of the book “Dopamine Nation” suggests that it usually takes four weeks to reset your tonic dopamine base level. So be consistent in your detox!

That also brings us to the end of today’s post. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you tomorrow! Bro fist!

If you want to watch Ali’s video, here is the link:

Check out Rize using this link: https://rize.io/u/aliabdaal or use the code ALIABDAAL to get 25% off your first 3 monthsDopamine has been something I've want...

18/06/2024

One thing I learned from Mark Manson

Hi friend, this is Jakotsu again, how was your day? My day has been going slow and I had some free time to pick up a manga to read. I chose Slam Dunk as I haven’t finished reading it yet and my god, the manga is so good. I recommend giving it a try!
Today’s fun fact: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is a widely known historical event. It marked the symbolic end of the Cold War and the division of Europe into communist and capitalist blocs. The wall's collapse led to the reunification of Germany and significant changes in the political landscape of the world.
Tomorrow is my girlfriend’s birthday and is also an anniversary marking 2 years in our relationship. Personally, this is by far the longest relationship I have ever had and still going smoothly. We also have plans for tomorrow and I’m looking forward to it. Do you have your significant other as well? I hope yours is going well too.
Anyway, to be honest, I don’t know what to write about today. In case you don’t know, writing 500 words a day is kinda hard haha… But I guess that’s the idea, you’re forced to be creative in your content, and to stand out in thousands of other blogs, you have to be different or unique. One lesson I learned from Mark Manson is that if you want to be successful, you have to be contrarian and right about it. I got this idea from his video about something like “How to get ahead of 99% of people” and he stated that you have to be right about your contrasting ideas or believe to be the top 1%. Successful people succeeded because they believed in their doings, not because they had the best morning routine or super healthy diet.
Ok, that’s a good point but having one contrarian idea is not easy. Firstly, you have to find one, and I believe you have to do tons of research to have enough knowledge to even discover one yourself. And that is the difficult part. I have always believed that I am not creative and special at all and that I have always been following the guides or instructions from others. This is true in both my academic aspect and even when playing games. However, I want to be successful. I want to make a lot of money to do what I like and to live comfortably. That’s why I’ll find one idea for myself. That’s also one reason why I chose to write every day, just to discover my inner self and understand my thoughts more, while also developing my creativity.
Pewdiepie has been my all-time favorite creator for years. Lately, I’ve been inspired by Pewdiepie's journey on drawing. He practiced drawing from scratch and filmed his journey. He proved that nothing is impossible and that patience is really important. Therefore, I will take on the same mindset and continue what I’m doing :)
I guess that’s all for today’s post. Thank you for reading and I’ll see you tomorrow! Bro fist

17/06/2024

Hi friend, this is Jakotsu again. How was your Sunday? I hope you had a great and productive weekend. So it is Monday again and I’ve been officially writing for a week! It may not sound that big but personally it is a small win to me! (Let me give myself a pat on the back)

Today’s fun fact: In 1770, Captain James Cook encountered kangaroos in Australia. He tried to communicate with the local Aboriginal people, but there was a language barrier. When Cook pointed to a kangaroo and asked for its name, the Aboriginal people likely responded with something like "gangurru," which may have meant "I don't understand." Cook, however, interpreted this as the animal's name and it stuck!

Yesterday, we did our weekly reflection (I hope you did with me) and it honestly feels productive in some way. To start the new week, I want to do some planning in advance to have the most productive week ahead, so I’ll set 3 big goals that I want to accomplish this week.

Goal 1: Write every day for a minimum of 500 words.

For this goal, I think I’m doing a pretty good job and want to keep the momentum going. However, I still don’t have one specific theme for my blog as all I’m writing is like a personal journal for me to put all of my thoughts into words. That’s why if I want more people to read my blog, I’ll have to decide on one big theme, one big value that readers can earn by visiting my blog. At the moment, I’m considering some themes such as “self-help/personal development” and “how to study effectively”.

Goal 2: YouTube every day.

I have a goal of building a monetized YouTube channel and is still far from achieving it. My goal for this week is to practice editing videos on DaVinci Resolve while continuing to work on my videos. Last week, I said that I would release the video within the week but failed to do so. I want to have it published this week while filming another video. I’ll try to make one video every week to keep myself on track.

Goal 3: Read books and meditate every day.

I picked these two habits to start the goal of “building healthier habits” that I set earlier. The reading habit is easier for me at the moment as I already have designed an environment for the habit to form. I make sure to have a book on my desk every morning and a Kindle on my bed. This helps me reduce the friction of having to find or get a book before reading. For meditation, I downloaded and subscribed to Headspace, a meditation app that I got recommended a lot, and made sure it was on the main screen of my phone. However, I still have to fit it into my daily routine and this is the biggest challenge I have for this habit. My current idea is to meditate after brushing my teeth in the morning. So the habit formula would look like this: “After brushing my teeth in the morning, I will open the Headspace app”. I’ll try this and see the outcome!

How about you? Do you have any significant goals that you want to achieve within this week? To make this week an ideal week, what do you need to do? Take some time to think about it and make sure to put it on the calendar.

That’s it for today, thanks for reading and I’ll see you tomorrow!

16/06/2024

Hi friend, this is Jakotsu again. How was your weekend? I had a fun time yesterday playing LoL with my friend yesterday. Yeah, I called my friend a “súc vật” because he literally admitted being one (it was hilarious that I couldn’t stop laughing).

Fun fact today: Asia is the birthplace of all the world's major religions—Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. Christianity is the only one that developed primarily outside of Asia, with most Asian countries having Christian minorities.

In today’s post, I want to share a weekly reflection form I learned from Ali Abdaal and we’re going to do it together. So if you want to do it also (I recommend you do it), let’s do it together.

Jakotsu’s Weekly Reflection

Align

Q1: What are my annual goals and how am I doing?

Earlier this year, I set some goals to start 2024 as productive as possible. My goals were:

Build a monetized YouTube channel

Write at least 500 words every day

Build more healthy habits

Improve my English

Practice piano every day

However, I procrastinated a lot until last week. I focused back on my goals and tried to fit my goals into my schedule. So far, I find myself consistent in the “write at least 500 words every day” the most. I also filmed the footage for my YouTube video, but still procrastinating about editing it. For the third goal, I’m building a reading habit and meditation habit in the morning and it’s going pretty well. The last two habits are the most challenging for me, as I cannot find a way to fit them into my daily schedule. That’s why I decided to leave them for later because instead of focusing on too many goals and then failing all of them, I will just focus on the big three first.

Q2: What are our quarterly quests and how are they going?

I haven’t set my quarterly quests yet (Ali calls goals quests to add more fun to the system), so I think I will set it in tomorrow’s post.

Reflect

Q1: What were the good and great things that happened last week?

For me, the best thing I did last week was write at least 500 words for my blog/newsletter. It is the thing that I do first every morning after getting up (I also think this is the reason I was able to consistently do it). Moreover, I started filming a YouTube video too, and I believe this is a big starting step for me. Finally, to add to the wins, I got 10 points on my Korean test hehe.

Q2: What were last week’s challenges? In what way did we not act in line with our intentions for the week? And what would we like to change (if anything) next week?

One challenge I faced last week was fitting all of my goals into my daily. Instead of focusing on fewer things at a time, I wanted to change big at the beginning just to fail to do most of them. I wanted to practice piano but it is just impossible to add it into my schedule at the moment. There were also frictions when I tried to practice (like I don’t have a sitting chair to sit and practice). That’s why next week, I will focus on fewer things that are more important to have the most consistent and successful outcomes.

Organise

Q1: Look ahead to the next 2 weeks. Does anything need scheduling in the calendar, or do any tasks need to be added to our to-do list?

Q2: What are our top 3 outcomes for the upcoming week - if the week ahead was going to be great, what would be the top 3 things we’d accomplish? Let’s make sure those are on the calendar.

I’m going to leave the questions there for you to do as they are pretty action-based questions.

That’s all for today's post. I will do this every week as well, so I hope you’ll also write with me :)

See you tomorrow!