I have a revelation I would to share about my growth from when I was 18, to now, 10 years later, 28.
I will be using the "red pill" metaphor. For the purpose of this discussion, it has nothing to do with pick up artistry and/or older men who want to date college-aged girls who are half their age.
Since I was pretty young, maybe my Sophomore year of high school, I decided I was going to become someone rich, powerful, famous, successful, important. As a result of this, I was very arrogant, pretentious, entitled. As I look back at that period of time, I can understand why women weren't attracted to me, but I have a hard time now that I have changed so much.
When I was 19 I went to NAMI meetings (national alliance of mental illness), and some of the people there were legitimately crazy. I was by far the youngest guy as most of them were in the forties, fifties, and sixties. The youngest guy besides me was in his 30's.
I had a recollection recently about one of the guys there that in his 40's. He was going on and on about how he is running for President and he thinks he has a legitimate chance to win (he is a nobody, just like me).
Almost 10 years later, I look at this and I'm thinking, how can this guy be so out of touch? And I remember I was like that too, for a long time. The difference I changed fundamentally as a human being before my 30's birthday and I guess he didn't. I'm a genuinely better person than I was.
That said, I obviously have a hell of a long way to go.
edit: what this has to do with "the red pill" is I was living in a fantasy dreamland, like so many people with a chronic mental illness do. I took the red pill and saw myself at face value for who I really am (at least I would like to think so) but many of us don't.