For the better part of 5 years I've been practicing semen retention. During this time semen retention to me was the be-all end-all. It was the catalyst to everything in my life, career, fitness, improved social skill and luck with girls. I felt like every improvement in my life was drawn from semen retention. I believed that ejaculating was the equivalent of Sampson cutting his hair, and no one could tell me otherwise.
During this year I reached a point in my self-improvement journey where I had improved my SMV to the point where access to sex was fairly easy due to my greatly improved SMV. Whereas I never really had this before. It was the first year of my life where I alternated between semen retention streaks and intimacy with real girls instead of fapping and semen retention with occasional real intimacy. It's only been recently that I've come to the realization though that semen retention is not everything that there is. There is a lot that lays beneath semen retention that will determine your success (or failure) in life besides semen retention.
Last week I ejaculated less than a day prior to performing a battle fitness test (I'm in the military). It's a lengthy fitness test that involves a workout that lasts close to an hour performed in all of your combat gear. Let me tell you I did not want to do this in the slightest and felt that doing this after ejaculating I wouldn't even have the fortitude to finish. I finished with a personal record time on it. I fell back entirely on my mental resilience. I drove my body through it. There were no semen retention benefits involved in the slightest. This was my first sign to myself that there might be something more to success in life than semen retention.
The second sign for myself was procuring a date with a girl that I had a genuine interest in and could actually see a relationship with (this is quite rare for me since I'm very particular). This happened as well, the day after ejaculating. This helped to put aside the belief in my head that women's interest in me was solely from the virility and polarizing masculine energy that semen retention gave me.
These two experiences were important moments in my life that told me that even when things seem dark, after losing my semen, that there's still enough light in me to accomplish great things and attract the right people into my life.