We are blessed to be in an age where we can fix many of our real or perceived flaws hence why we are here, on this forum, discussing CLL.
However, I truly believe that this is not an answer to achieving fundamental happiness as this requires self acceptance.
Utter garbage. There is no such thing as "acceptance". What you're talking about is "resignation" and subsequent lifelong coping.
You need to understand that the only reason you are preaching "self acceptance" to people who are profoundly unhappy with a personal physical characteristic of theirs, in this case their HEIGHT, is that it isn't presently considered "socially acceptable" to be unhappy or uncomfortable with your height.
In 2017, if a man wakes up today and decides that he's not really a man, he's a woman, and he needs to have full-body feminization surgery and take estradiol pills for life so he can become a caricature of the female sex, nobody tells him to "accept himself" and be happy as a man.
Similarly, if a woman decides she's actually a man "trapped" in a woman's body, then it's perfectly socially acceptable for her to have an artificial penis attached, take testosterone injections for life, enlarge her clitoris using transdermal Dihydrotestosterone creams, and so on. Nobody either believes or tells her that what she actually needs is "self-acceptance".
Heightism is a real phenomenon that manifests itself in many different aspects and fields of your life, from the basic interpersonal to the sexual and even the entrepreneurial/career worlds. Nobody ends up on a forum for a surgery as painful, traumatic, crippling, expensive, and obscure as cosmetic limb lengthening because they suddenly looked in the mirror one day and decided they weren't happy with their stature.
Barring a few outliers, i.e. individuals who are 6'0" and above but still want to have leg lengthening done and invariably have some kind of reason like "being taller than everyone else in the room", the overwhelming majority of posters on LL boards don't have an "imaginary" problem. They don't have "BDD". They don't need "therapy", "self-acceptance", "antidepressants", or any of that leftist-humanist garbage. They end up on this board because of the overwhelmingly negative life experiences they've had as a result of their short stature.
I have been bothered by my height for years and severally so, but have focused on being less hard on myself for my flaws (not just height) and focusing instead on self development. I am 5x happier than a few years ago and feel like I see the world differently.
Over the past year I've:
It's not about "not being hard on yourself".
Let me reiterate: the problem isn't "in short people's heads". The problem is the way people treat them. Heightism is real. Telling them to "accept themselves" and forget about trying to get taller through LL or whatever method is no different from telling them to give up and accept an underprivileged, downtrodden status in society.
The rest of your post exemplifies what I said about "resignation" and psychological coping mechanisms.
"Self-development" is great. It is something that, if at all, should be pursued for its own sake. It is its own reward. It's
not something you should pursue to "distract" yourself from your unhappiness or dissatisfaction, or to try to "compensate" for being short.
With that being said, a cursory look at the "self-improvement" you've done reveals some pretty questionable things:
-Explored pickup (having good social skills with women)
The fact that you directly reference "women" here tells me this is something you did because you got suckered in by PUA shills selling books/classes/seminars/techniques/etc who promised you that if you had good enough """game""", your height would either matter less or not at all.
This is false, and it's a very dangerous and irresponsible thing to recommend to any man at all in 2017, let alone a group of men that are considered tremendously undesirable essentially everywhere on the planet(short men).
I'm sorry to break this to you, but PUA ("Pick Up Art") is nothing but entry-level behavioral psychology disguised under a thin veil of casual "bro" language intended to establish rapport and relatability with their intended customer base (that's you) and broscience garbage made up by the "coaches" and given scientific-sounding names to legitimize them ("kino", etc)
Sexual attraction is PHYSICAL. This is in both NEW and existing long-term relationships such as marriages
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/per.2087/abstractWe evaluated five competing hypotheses about what predicts romantic interest. [...] We tested whether similarity, dissimilarity or overall trait levels on mate value, physical attractiveness, life history strategy and the Big Five personality factors predicted romantic interest at zero acquaintance and whether sex acted as a moderator. [...] Only the responders' perception of the targets' physical attractiveness predicted romantic interest; specifically, responders' who rated the targets' physical attractiveness as higher than themselves reported more romantic interest.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18266540Physical appearance plays a crucial role in shaping new relationships, but does it continue to affect established relationships, such as marriage? In the current study, the authors examined how observer ratings of each spouse's facial attractiveness and the difference between those ratings were associated with (a) observations of social support behavior and (b) reports of marital satisfaction. [...] Instead, the relative difference between partners' levels of attractiveness appeared to be most important in predicting marital behavior, [...]
Attraction isn't dictated by logic, reasoning, "emotional manipulation", "game", or any such nonsense. A woman either finds you physically attractive or she doesn't. If a woman doesn't find you physically attractive, there's no "magic words" you can say or "right thing" you can do - no "dread game", no "kino", no "negging", NOTHING is going to change that. You will not "talk her" into finding you attractive. Period. End of story.
Believe it or not, the average woman finds PUA "techniques" disturbing, off-putting, creepy, and altogether repulsive. Women do not WANT to be approached, touched, "gamed", or any such thing by men they find physically unattractive/undesirable.
Men have gotten in serious trouble for doing this stuff. So many that all sorts of venues, including clubs, college campuses, cities, and even entire countries have started to ban "pick up artists" and "pick up art" routines:
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/652965/pick-up-artist-banned-from-singapore-over-techniqueshttp://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pick-up-artist-julien-blanc-banned-4656160http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/creepy-ad-showing-british-pick-7177426http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2012/09/25/why_are_women_so_negative_about_the_pickup_artist_community_.htmlhttp://www.pick-up-artist-forum.com/almost-went-to-jail-banned-from-campus-for-doing-daygame-vt145519.htmlhttp://www.businessinsider.com/ohio-state-university-students-shame-a-notoriously-creepy-pick-up-artist-2013-10There are COUNTLESS more examples. I won't tell you not to "study" pickup. Do what you want. It's your life. But don't advocate it to others. PUA is garbage and will get all but men who were already considered attractive by women publicly shamed, ostracized, and maybe even incarcerated. There is no "game".
-Given up porn which negatively rewires the brain
-Tried cold showers
-Meditated
Lol. These three are really bad examples of "self-improvement". Based on the names, I'm guessing you're referring to the NoFap "movement", "Wim Hof" method, and the new-age "meditation revival" that's going on these days.
All three of the groups that practice these things are similar in that they all have an almost cult-like mentality about their "practice" (whether it be not masturbating, cold showers, or meditation) that is based at least to some extent on scientific principles, i.e.
- Pornography DOES have both negative psychological and neurological effects, and quitting IS beneficial, especially if you are an addict
- The "Wim Hof" method is actually not the "Wim Hof" method, since Wim Hof didn't invent anything involved in it. "Deep breathing" is a technique that has been historically practiced by numerous cultures throughout the world (Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, Greek, ...).
"Cold showers", however, are largely pseudoscience and don't do any of the things Wim Hof claims they do:
http://www.thebroscientist.com/bull -cold-showers-youve-told-far/
There IS research that suggests a small increase in brown adipose tissue in the bodies of people exposed to extremely cold temperatures over a long period of time, but the increase is neither significant nor relevant to Wim Hof's claims.
Also, Wim Hof is a quack that believes in nonsensical concepts like "earthing".
- "Meditation" insofar as deep breathing and mindfulness is concerned is useful in helping to stimulate the brain's Default Mode Network, which could have benefits if you suffer from chemical depression or panic disorders, but again the "community" around it has transformed it into this transcendental pseudo-spiritual garbage that is almost cult-like.
-Read self help books and followed mentors
"Self-help" books are collections of feel-good "positive affirmations" and other "motivating" and "uplifting" content marketed by charlatans and snake oil vendors looking to make a quick buck off the unfortunate and underprivileged in society.
There is a small demographic people who could genuinely stand to benefit from the "tips", "tricks", "techniques", and so on given by "self-help" books: the lazy, the directionless, the habitually mediocre, so on. In other words, the group of people who benefit from "self-help" books are people whose problems are created by themselves, and as we've already established, short people aren't in that group.
"Mentors"... this is the opposite of "self improvement". Think for yourself. If you follow someone else, the best you'll ever be is number two.
A year or two ago, if I would see a 6ft tall guy get a smile from a girl, my brain would search for the threat to my existence which it perceived as "not being 6ft". Now I have confidence that I can attract women through game, effort, and hard work. I also realized that we don't see what is going on in the inside of people. Maybe the 6ft guy has SA, low testosterone, health conditions, paranoia about hair loss, ADD.. the list goes on.
Addressed above. Note that this paragraph essentially says
"Before, tall men getting indications of attraction from women were a constant and immediate reminder of what I didn't get or have. I couldn't deal with that psychologically, so I began coping with "game" and have now convinced myself that I can 'effort' and 'hard work' myself into being as attractive as tall men."
Which is textbook delusion-as-defense.
Try self development. Read self help. Acquire knowledge that many are lazy to acquire and this will give you a leg up with women, making money, discipline, physical health and so on.
If after this journey, you still want to grow a few inches, more to power to ya. But you owe it to yourself IMO to realize there are other paths, other ways. Question your thinking and views of reality and be the best version of your current self first
Again, addressed in the rest of my answer above.
Neither "self development" nor "self-help" will fix the problems - whether they be interpersonal, romantic, sexual, entrepreneurial/career based - of anyone who ends up on these forums. Again:
The problem is not "within" short people. The problem is the way others see and treat them.This last paragraph is also pretty presumptuous in that it assumes that people on this board "haven't tried" your so-called "self-improvement".
We have all sorts on this board - people who are into fitness and have "ripped" bodies (of which I am one), people (other than myself) who I highly suspect are informed about "PUA" and such, and even a millionaire or two.
None of their "self-improvement" stopped them from getting leg lengthening or planning to.
People who read this thread: by all means improve yourself, but again, do it for its own sake, for your own enrichment and elevation. Not because you think it'll "fix" your height-based depression (it won't), make you attractive to women (it won't), or change your status amongst society or your peers (again, it won't).