Small steps to become Torah observant - it took me a year and a half to become fully observant

it was almost impossible for me to become religious i was like what am i i'm gonna now become one of these weird people and i can't do this anymore and i can't do this anymore i can't do that anymore it was like i had this block in my mind i was like okay i'll do the basics i'll do the feeling i'll do the meat and dairy thing and i'll do i'll do the little easy things but don't start giving you know all these big things jabbas and i can't do this anymore and now it was very hard in my mind i was like i'm not gonna go to the beach anymore i'm gonna go out with girls and it was this weird thing no now the thing is that i slowly slowly started taking another mitzvah and another mitzvah and the whole year and a half that i was in chicago it felt like hashem is holding my hand telling me no you're normal everything's fine just do what you need to do and every time i would add another mitzvah another mitzvah but i would only do what is very very easy and whatever you know kind of makes sense like for example one time i read in the sidoo in the in the fair book that you know in the small print that when you leave the bathroom you have to wash your hands three times with this funny looking cup and then you have to sell bra so i was like okay that's easy i'll do that so i went and bought this cup and every time i would leave the bathroom i would wash my hands three times and say the brah shariat and i thought i thought i'm like the sadiq of their generation i thought i'm like a rebbe i was like no nobody's in froome like me that washes their hands now i'm the only one who does it but literally my mind thought that i'm so frum and the funniest thing is one time my friend lizzie came came to visit me and he stole the cup and he's like oh i see you doing tilapia i told him you know what i do every time i leave the bathroom i wash my hands and i say brah he's like ah that's nothing you know you know the real religious people do they go to sleep and they put a bucket next to their bed and they put this cup of water next to their bed and when they wake up in the morning they only put their food on the ground and they wash their hands and i was like what what kind of a lunatic will do that so you know whatever didn't fit well in my mind it was like these crazy religious people they're making up all sorts of things but whatever fit in my mind well okay that'll do whatever that whatever doesn't bother me i'll do and as the year and a half went i added another thing and another thing at some point i knew i have to keep shabbat i didn't know how i you know i knew i'm not allowed to work i'm not allowed to do this but i i was kind of bargaining i was like i don't want to do this i don't do that and at the time i was a very heavy smoker and i remember that about 10 years before this whole thing happened i met this guy who was trying to do me to tell him on me and he was telling me you know there's a god there's you having a shaman in your body and he was trying to macarthur me and everything that he told me i was like you know i was like disqualifying every little thing that he said an hour and a half he was trying to somehow make me to understand anything at the end he gave up and right before he gave up he told me listen on shabbat you're not allowed to light fire and on shabbat you're not allowed to extinguish fire so if you must smoke on shabbat and you smoke about 50-60 cigarettes so at least don't turn out the cigarette so if you smoke 50 or 60 cigarettes a day so you have 50 lessons i was like what that's your religion you're telling me not to turn out cigarettes tell me not to kill tell me not to steal you're telling me not to turn out cigarettes i thought the guy's like a lunatic 10 years later when i had to figure out how i'm keeping shabbat i was like wait a minute i just found the loophole i'm gonna finish the cigarette and instead of turning it out i'll just throw it in the ashrae like this guy said and i keep shabbos so i would smoke my cigarette finish the cigarette put in the ashtray and in my mind i keep shabbos somebody would ask me yeah i keep shabbat yeah but i just saw you drive oh driving is okay i don't turn out my cigarettes and in my mind i keep shabbos and that was my shabbos and that for me was a big thing you know leave every time to remember not to turn out the cigarettes and if i would turn out the secret by mistake we'll be like oh now they're gonna barbecue me again oh mom that's it for me and that's how we went for a couple months until one time a friend told me no shabbat you have to do kidus i was like kiddush why i'll do that but i was mahathir every time i had the opportunity to do a mitzvah i was like at least i'm doing it all the way now i lived in the very southern part of chicago now in a suburb i used to drive 60 miles exactly 58 miles from where i lived to the north part to buy kosher wine and every shabbos would come i would set the table nice put a nice suit on make a meal then do kid issue i bought a fancy cup and i do the whole thing and then i would finish my meal and go out to a movie and one time a friend a friend comes to visit me and i tell him it's shabbat we gotta do kidus okay so we do the whole thing and i do kids the whole ceremony and then we get dressed and we go out to a club and on the way back from the club four o'clock in the morning my friend tells me you know you're kind of making a joke out of the whole thing i told him why he tells me because either you're religious and you keep shabbat then you do your kidus or you're not but you cannot do kidus and then go out to a club it's like you're making a joke so i told you no no let me explain to you if you go out now to a playground and you see like a nine-year-old boy running up and down and jumping on the ladders and everything nobody gets excited because all the nine-year-olds do the same thing but if you see like 11-month old baby take a step everybody's like wow look he walked everybody pulls out their phone taking a million pictures because he did one step so i told him you know what that's how i am in hashem's eyes you know what happened right now you know what happens when i stand and i do kiddish i'll tell you what happens hashem calls all his angels and he tells them come come come come look look look look at my little son what he did down there look what he did he drove 60 miles to buy kosher wine 58. he could have bought the a wine here in the corner store he drove 58 miles to buy kosher wine and he put in a nice suit and it set the table and he stood for two minutes he stopped his day to say thank you for creating the world and thank you for this wine and he drank the wine and he made a whole deal out of the whole thing and he stopped his life for five minutes to acknowledge that i exist that's what hashem sees i'm this baby that can only do one step i cannot do more than one step i do one step and i fall and in hashem's eyes this step is everything he totally ignores right now everything around me because he knows i can't handle it and the whole year and a half that's how i was i was like i can be from i can i can only handle this amount and that's it that's my capacity i cannot do another thing and every time i would add another part another part