The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I went by the name /u/practical_romantic and am making a new account since some of my old friends know of my previous username and that is not alright. People here know me because I posted life updates weekly but barely took any action, I did take some action finally in life but that was in terms of
My career has been in limbo for a years time now. I was a terrible college student, I went to a decent CS program but never studied a day. My teachers hated me and I did not study since most of my peers did not study. In hindsight this was incredibly stupid as I simply spent more time surfing the internet than actually doing anything.
Posting about this stuff is hard because even if I am not at fault (I am), I still have to fix stuff. I do not know programming at all, I mean I know a little but I am 24 and I am stuck in my home again for the coming month, none of this is good. My parents despite their best intentions actively hate me. They hate that I do not like watered down starvation food that they grew up on, the fact that I want to not hang out with other people here as they have no ambition outside of this small town in urban rajasthan or that I do not want to get a low paying job here as that is a one way ticket to hell. You end up working 80 hour week for some boss who wants you to churn out shitty javascript code and pay you less than 1k USD a month, what is even worse that the people who start out this way pretty much never make out of this.
My life changed for the worse last year when I accepted a co founder role at a startup. My co founder and I basically did no work till June, we got another co founder, I went with him to Thailand and came back a few days ago. My co founder wants me to hop on concerta but the psychiatrists here wont fucking recommend it stating that I will get bone marrow issues because of it.
I am just depressed, I have only felt pain and suffering since 14. Cram schools, my uni where my peers hated me for not wanting to become another leetcode junkie and now my startup where I am not even sure what is next. I was doing non tech stuff before but will at least get to code which is always good since at least then I can get remote jobs that can pay me well. Life is not that bad but I can do so much more, I would earlier tell myself that I am not smart enough but that is because the opposite being true is far more damming.
My house is still my biggest issue. My parents hate me actively. Every single day they keep asking me about where my paycheck is coming from, telling me to stay away from girls and how I am fortunate to live in the city that we live in. This is beyond delusional. My mother got into a fight with me because I did not want to do a masters. A masters in what, why, when, she had no clue but wants me to do it because others do it. My adhd gets the same treatment, "oh, you are just lazy, just focus harder". It is not that easy, if it were I would not have actively wrecked my life because I do not want to or like wrecking my life actively. I could have studied german and flown out for an undergrad there but my parents did not want me to leave their house.
Little backstory, my family is from the landed aristocracy here but since this is India, last place any sane person would want to live in, random people started firing court cases over all our property, leading to my family fighitn cases for the past 70 years. My house is an extremely sad place to be in. My brother has the same issues as me but is markedly stupid, far far lower IQ which makes things even worse as anything bad done by him is also my fault as I am not doing well in life. I move to a smaller town next month and have been prescribed time off by my co founder. I just want to post how I feel without risking anyone I know finding out about this. You cannot be weak in front of the world after all. I lost 12 kgs (28 lbs I guess) and weigh 145 lbs (66 kgs) at 6 foot now. My parents still scream at me for recommending that they eat more meat since indian diets were based around starvation so in their heads, meats are not exactly healthy even though I lost more weight than they could despite them being obese.
Anyway, it is a shitty situation. I am afraid to even post here as I do not wanna get scolded on the internet. My parents think of my adhd issues as some people would react to their kid coming out as a homosexual back in the 90s on some movie. I am lazy but now what. Do I not even try to medicate. Will your behavior help me out because they raised two kids who both have similar issues. Jordan Peterson would often speak about why you should leave your parents' house as there are spirits there. On the surface this sounds childish yet it is very true in my case. My grandad and dad took up academic jobs in this town just for court cases and the only way we can even smell any of what is left of the estate is if my startup somehow takes off. I flunked 11th grade and then 12th the next year and still somehow was on time for my uni due to some academic miracles, I did really well in my entrance tests nationwide, the cram school I went to tout me as an example of what one can do if they never stop trying. But until I did that, for 2 straight whole years I would get screamed at and get called a failure daily, multiple times a day by my parents.
My liviing situation sucks. I took my dad to the psychiatrist today for concerta since I was on it a little bit in Chiang Mai and he just refused to believe that it is a real issue and made sure that the doctor does not prescribe me anything. Now, I am well aware of how bad life is without parents, I should be grateful for what I have yet I just feel vitriol. So much in my life has gone wrong, i am 24 now, I have no time left, my parents actively hate and scold me daily despite me being 24. It is still ultimately my life, no matter how much of what happened may be someone else' fault, I just wanted to rant for once. I can never tell others how bad it is here. No matter how happy my family looks on the outside, on the inside it is hell living here. The worst is that most of this is my fault, had I been a better person, I probably could have kept my family together. No one is getting divorced but my situation is grim. My younger brother is basically 5 iq points from being someone who went to special school, I love him to death but I cant lie about how difficult life is going to be for him.
My ma did come to my room apologetically now to get me to talk to her but I just hate life, i really do. In ways I envy most people here. There is not much to do here, advice for the future btw, do not agree to non-tech roles at a startup. You do not learn fuckall and if there are delays in shipping code, you are the one who gets blamed for everything wrong in the organisation. i will see another psych soon to get concerta, I hope I can get it, I have not been on the med for a month now actually but have to get it so that my co founder does not get pissed at me.
I read all of your posts on this site; I must admit I experience a bit of schadenfreude when reading your woe-is-me posts. But I'm not completely cruel. Reading your posts about living in Thailand made me feel very excited and happy for you. It sounded like you were having the time of your life over there. You put too much pressure on yourself to be successful. You hold yourself to this ideal of what you think you should be and as an outside observer it just seems so exhausting. My advice is to strongly consider going back to Thailand. Go back and continue to explore the social connections you made. Take a year; hell, take six months. It's not the end of the world or the end of your career to do it. And you might find that what you think really matters now doesn't actually matter all that much. You're a young guy, you have plenty of time to be miserable. Go back to Thailand and embrace that experience of feeling good that you so clearly had.
I know that you won't listen to this advice. But really, take a second and think about it.
Well, my ex roomate was the one carrying the finances and with him leaving thailand, I cannot go back so that is that. My other co founder and I will finally start working for real which is why I am shifting to another town here. Once I can have some semblance of money coming in, I would move out as soon as I can to some other location.
My main concerns in life are
Now, my other co founder has an e commerce thing so I am hoping that I can get some money from that and then spend time working on my startup, get enough skills to be employable on my own and then try to shift to bail or some place. If my startup takes off then that is even better but this is the scenario I hope for. I am taking the month off and just reading because even my co founder realised that I was in stress.
I would love to go back but I cannot. I came back because I relaised that my roommate would not work as much as we should and was working on an idea that I did not even like or think would work out, what is even worse that since I was not the code guy, whenever things would go wrong, I would get blamed.
One big thing I loved there was that I could just do what I wanted to, I could visit nightclubs and talk to girls, something I genuinely really really like. It is the one thing I could act on since I could not work on something else living off of someone else's dime, I could not work out or do any combat sports since I had a partial tear in my right shoulder a few months ago. Sure I get chastised for it but I like meeting random girls, flirting with them and having a good time. I dont drink, I did do drugs for a few days in Pai where I was visiting for a week but no more.
I am not that young though, 24-25 is not young, I have 5 years before I hit 30, more than that neuroplasticity sets in and after an age you are not youthful anymore. I want to make the most of my youth, whatever remains of it. I will try to move to Bali once I get some money coming in, if all goes well, maybe the US. I can remember being 14 and instead of actually studying, I chose surfing the internet, a decision that I regret daily as it became a habit, like smoking, where whenever something bad would happen or if I needed to work on something, I would just take the easy way out. I can tell myself that maybe I am not meant to do anything computer related but that is a cope too since everything is kinda boring in the initial few days, you get good and things become fun, I never crossed that threshold so it is important I do so now.
I appreciate the advice and your intentions. I want to post weekly updates here and pray to god that I succeed with my startup stuff this time.
LOL
Ed:
If you are actually looking to improve your tech prospects I'd suggest moving to someplace that's, like -- got a lot of tech stuff/startups going on?
Thailand has a lot of lazy expat partiers and/or sex pervs looking to indulge those habits on the cheap, and Bali is much the same but with more Australians -- fun as these places might be, they will not help your career development.
I will try to move to the US soon if I can. Bali is great, ultimately i want to visit the US as a tech guy running his own thing since that is the Florence of tech startups of today, SF I mean but in the meantime, if I can visit bali, it would be fun. Really cute girls there too, partying, from around the world.
Thailand had so many sex pervs man, quite insane. I went there because pieter levels recommended chaing mai as its cheap, safe and very clean, amazing for a digital nomad. I miss that place though, so many memories, I feel like a grown up now in ways because I lived there, away from parents and in a different nation, first time leaving my country.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link