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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   727 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 19, 2025

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  • 28
  • CS degree (not a good dev)
  • never had a job
  • low 7 figures saved up (grinded online from age 12 with minimal spending)
  • have social anxiety (moderate, but can be severe in certain situations)
  • still live with parents
  • no nearby close friends, everyone scattered around the globe
  • have never been in a serious relationship. Longest one was 3 months - 2 months long distance, 1 in person. Been completely bitchless for the past 3 years.

That’s me. I recently got injured and was forced to be sedentary and homebound for months. That put me in deep depression and some sort of quarter life crisis. I’ve realized I’ve been living a pretty shitty life ruled by social anxiety. Sitting home all the time, turning down experiences, friendships and relationships left and right, while lying to myself about doing it not because of my condition, but because ‘I’m grinding.’ Now I’m feeling I’ve missed out on so much of my youth. I fucking regret it, but it’s not helpful to lament about the past because I can’t change shit, and at least instead of being a useless slob I did something with my time. Now what the hell do I do now? I’m thinking of going all in on treating the root cause of the problem - my social anxiety. Therapy (CBT), although I’m not too hopeful on its helpfulness, some light meds/supplements (no SSRIs, Propranolol, Selank, vitamins), exercise. And of course exposure therapy. Not sure how to go about it - get some type of public facing job, volunteer or maybe solo travel and live in hostels? Once that’s unfucked, I will move onto other things like my (non-existent) career and relationships. Any advice, thoughts, input on my plan?

You mention here that a year or so ago you were on propranolol, with encouraging results. To what degree (not much?) have medications aided you?

I've traveled solo quite often, but I'm not particularly good at it. Unless you're approached by someone else, would you be the type to initiate an interaction? Nor am I all that social most of the time, though I can fake it. But I don't have the type of anxiety you're describing. You also mentioned before having hobbies and interacting with people in those hobbies--has this not been an effective strategy? If you're an introvert that's one thing, but if you're an extravert trapped in a situation where being extraverted is stressful, that's another.

It helps just a bit, but at the time I was in a completely different headspace. I've had social anxiety for as long as I can remember, so I've been treating it like it was a completely normal way of life for the longest time. After all, while I'm a social recluse in some ways - I still have some friends, had some relationships, and so on. That assured me that I'm just an extreme introvert that prefers being alone for most of the time (a lie I told myself). Propranolol was helpful to turn down some physical symptoms, but I found that I've already managed to lower my stress baseline in social situations to where propranolol brought me down to back then, so it's not that useful to me anymore. I haven't tested it in an extreme situation like a presentation because I haven't had the chance, but I still have some and will use it once an opportunity presents itself.

Unless you're approached by someone else, would you be the type to initiate an interaction?

Default me, before I started making a conscious observation about my social anxiety, absolutely not. Whenever I can't find something at the store, I would always walk through the whole place on my own instead of asking an employee. But now I'm always doing my best catching myself when my brain tries to 'protect' me from social interactions like this. This alone is big progress, in the past anything social would instantly get vetoed by my amygdala.

You also mentioned before having hobbies and interacting with people in those hobbies--has this not been an effective strategy?

Yes, but once again, those posts were made when I was still in my old ways before I got put in this mental hole and had to face my reality. I was on some sort of autopilot, feeling something is wrong but not fully understanding it.

If you're an introvert that's one thing, but if you're an extravert trapped in a situation where being extraverted is stressful, that's another.

I'd say I'm an extraverted introvert. I do value my alone time, but I'm completely fine in extraverted situations when surrounded by close friends and family. Biggest triggers are unfamiliar people, being put on the spot, etc. I remember having 120 bpm heartrate, muscle spasms and heat flashes 2 hours before doing a presentation in college.

Try The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. You already did the hard part; you have enough money that you can afford retire and live in a low cost of living area indefinitely, and you are still young. The question now is, what do you fill the rest of your life with? Strongly advise against getting a career; even if it's something you are truly passionate about, nothing kills passion like the demands of a job.

From Chapter 4, System Reset:

What Do You Want? A Better Question, First of All

Most people will never know what they want. I don’t know what I want. If you ask me what I want to do in the next five months for language learning, on the other hand, I do know. It’s a matter of specificity. “What do you want?” is too imprecise to produce a meaningful and actionable answer. Forget about it.

“What are your goals?” is similarly fated for confusion and guesswork. To rephrase the question, we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Let’s assume we have 10 goals and we achieve them—what is the desired outcome that makes all the effort worthwhile? The most common response is what I also would have suggested five years ago: happiness. I no longer believe this is a good answer. Happiness can be bought with a bottle of wine and has become ambiguous through overuse. There is a more precise alternative that reflects what I believe the actual objective is.

Bear with me. What is the opposite of happiness? Sadness? No. Just as love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness. Crying out of happiness is a perfect illustration of this. The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is—here’s the clincher—boredom.

Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all. When people suggest you follow your “passion” or your “bliss,” I propose that they are, in fact, referring to the same singular concept: excitement.

This brings us full circle. The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?”

I've actually read this book a long time ago when I was right out of highschool, and it was probably one of the reasons, aside from having social anxiety and avoiding any additional social pressure like potential job interviews and so on, why I continued pursuing doing my own thing. And I completely agree with what he says in this excerpt. I genuinely enjoyed what I was doing. It's probably why I've lasted so long head down, minimum social interactions, just focusing on increasing my bank account. Problem is it's not that exciting to me anymore. I've had an imaginary $ target in my head. As I keep getting closer to it, I'm realizing literally nothing will change in my life once I reach it. I can already afford 80% of things I'd possibly want at this exact moment. I'm realizing I want recognition, I want to be an expert at something. I think I can coast by for a few years by finding excitement in simple things like learning new skills (riding a motorcycle is already on the list) or doing stuff like skydiving, but I imagine it all gets old fast. I still have to fix my main issue before I worry about any of this though. Maybe while I'm in the process of doing so, I'll find excitement in something sustainable that can last many years and thoughts of having a career will dissipate, but I'm not there yet.

Travel a while, find interesting people online you connect with, talk to them, find a community, explore spirituality, therapy emotional work, etc.

Commit all in to solving your emotional issues! It's worth it though it will be hard.

  • 28

  • low 7 figures saved up

That should be more than enough for you to retire.

Retiring is the last thing I’d want to do. I’ve already missed out on a lot of experiences sitting at home

What currency?

USD

I am flabbergasted. You should be proud of yourself.

I know it's a pretty good accomplishment, but it's sadly nothing crazy. All my money buys me a modest single family home where I live. I would also give away 90% of it if I could fully fix my head in an instant.

All my money buys me a modest single family home where I live.

Then you're living in the wrong place.

I'm aware. I'm also not interested in buying a place now, nor am I interested in moving to deep suburbia, where improving my condition would be even harder purely due to population density.

28 is still young. You have over $1million with never having a job? What does 'grinding' mean?

To answer more of what your questions is I think you need to live IRL; move out rent your own place and get friends. The quote I think about is modern industrial society (and I would update it to technological society) has great propensity to give pleasure, but not at giving people joy. So while its easy to buy a cake, is not easy throw a party to have friends to enjoy it with, where I think the real joy comes from. Just a note on making friends, the advice for kiddos is to have a friend be a friend, but I think an adult will know people will disappoint them in a multitude of ways and know that is okay.

I definitely have to move out, but I’m leaning towards traveling first. I do have friends, but they are scattered around the world, I could start off with visiting some of them.

Travel will do a ton for you. Solo travel teaches you self-reliance and confidence, and having friends to meet makes dropping into a new city much less daunting. In distant countries with a culture barrier, it's easier to find the mindset of "I'm never going to see these people again, the cultural gap hides any weirdness I might have, and we already have a natural topic of conversation." If you drink, go to a bar where you can meet locals, ask them about their country, answer their questions about the US, two pints of beer is generally the sweet spot for social anxiety (do not under any circumstances attempt to go shot for shot with a Slav, Scandi, or Korean). If a local team's playing on the TV, cheer for them. The next level to this is consciously applying your hustle and autism powers to getting socially comfortable, so if you can, think about what introductions, jokes, stories, etc. end up working in those interactions and build your confidence that way.

Yeah, that's why I'm leaning towards solo travel. I've traveled before (non-solo) plenty of times and the mindset you mentioned is definitely real. I've just been very dismissive of my condition, never tried to treat it and considered being like that normal. Only recently did I come to realize how much it's affecting me, so hopefully socializing with intent to get better yields positive results.

So I can go into more detail, but solo travel did more than anything else to turn me from awkward autist into social butterfly chad than anything. The key is to think of it as a skill, to do it with intent and thoughtfully consider your practice of it (and not to get too bummed when something doesn't work out, it's often random and, if not, a learning experience - at the time, I leaned on the Stoic maxim that every situation is in its own way an opportunity to practice virtue). Learning to be a good, confident conversationalist is like learning to become good and confident at a sport or an instrument. Same with bravery and a desire for adventure.

Do go into more detail, please. Did you stay at hostels? Any recs for which places to visit first?

Learning to be a good, confident conversationalist is like learning to become good and confident at a sport or an instrument

I know this. Matter of fact, I'm pretty confident and charismatic with people I'm familiar with. It's a different matter with unfamiliar people. Feels like I move 1 sd to the left for IQ, physical symptoms don't help either. But I've now realized that simply having the right mindset and fighting the initial resistance of my brain trying to protect myself from 'danger' helps things already, so I think more exposure will definitely help

Did you stay at hostels?

I did in Western Europe, got decent hotels for the same budget in other places. Never really socialized in them, which in retrospect was a mistake, lots of folks who all want to meet people. I would recommend getting single rooms in hostels and socializing in the lounge/bar, because the group rooms are too likely to fuck up your sleep. I'm not really a hostel guy at this point, but hostel bars are still great places to go - in fact, in the last city I lived in in the US, I'd sometimes go to the local hostel's bar to meet people - particularly in a country where the local English isn't great

Any recs for which places to visit first?

Countries which like Americans make socializing much easier. Eastern Europe (Russia/Serbia aside), Central Asia, parts of the Middle East and Latin America. Just nod and agree/ask questions if they start talking about weird political stuff, Kunley Druqkpa's interviews on twitter are a great example of how to do that. If you find yourself in smaller countries coming out of bad times, people are often really excited to see Westerners visiting and showing genuine interest in their culture/history. My most recent trip was Albania, and as soon as I sat down to watch some football an older gent started talking to me and was clearly very happy I'd chosen to come see the place.

This will vary person by person, but after 3-4 weeks of travel I tend to get quite tired and my mood dips a lot. If you're going to do longer trips, make sure that you get a restful period around that time. Get some books, spend a couple days with nothing to do but what you feel like doing at that moment, even if it's sitting in a cafe or on a balcony chilling.

For when you're in a place and looking where to go, I always swore by wikitravel's recommendations, but nowadays ChatGPT is very good to both prepare walking itineraries to see historical/cultural sites and to get lists of places with whatever social vibe you're looking for (I usually say hipster spots and places in the nice areas where locals hang out). Tell it to search for sources in the local language as well as English.

Dating apps really really depend on the culture of the place you're visiting, basically how conservative and pious it is on the one hand, and how much you need to look out for hookers/scammers on the other. Bring your street smarts, but even if you don't intend to date in a place checking the apps can give you an interesting sense of how young people there present themselves.

I really can't emphasize enough how helpful it is to become at least a slight soccer fan if you can. It's the world's sport, every country outside the US and in any big US city you'll have a bunch of soccer fans from a bunch of clubs getting together every weekend. I grew up in London but didn't really start following it until I started traveling and realized that wherever I go in the world there will always be Arsenal fans.

Try not to dress too much like a tourist. Dark, clean clothes, no graphic t-shirts, shorts only when necessary. The /mfa starter pack vibe is more than enough, you just don't want to look like the stereotypical American tourist who doesn't give a shit about the country he's visiting except taking pictures. Also expect some ribbing for being American, 99% of the time this is either a) a friendly introduction and minor male shit-test to see if you're chill and can be funny back or b) has some political aspect to it that can make the guy into an instant friend if you agree with him that some war was a bad thing or whatever.

fighting the initial resistance of my brain trying to protect myself from 'danger'

This sounds crazy, but I did a meditation retreat recently, and their recommendation to learn to get past the 'shock reflex' is to step into a cold shower, feel the shock, and then try to breathe normally, wait under it to acclimatize and feel the water on your skin as just water rather than as shock and danger. I found it quite helpful with some of the meditation stuff that hits that brain impulse to instantly react rather than relax.

Appreciate you taking the time to respond. I'm really 50/50 on hostels, a friend has told me it's the best way to meet new people when traveling, but just like you I'm not too keen on sleeping in a shared room. Sounds like an easy way to not get good sleep and potentially get your valuables yoinked if you're not attentive enough.

All great advice, I definitely gotta get into soccer, especially with world cup coming to US soon. That would be an easy way to bond with someone.

This sounds crazy, but I did a meditation retreat recently, and their recommendation to learn to get past the 'shock reflex' is to step into a cold shower, feel the shock, and then try to breathe normally, wait under it to acclimatize and feel the water on your skin as just water rather than as shock and danger. I found it quite helpful with some of the meditation stuff that hits that brain impulse to instantly react rather than relax.

I've done cold showers in the past, but for no particular reason and without a particular goal. Now that I've identified what to work on, perhaps I'll find it more useful.

More comments

I know it’s young, but I’ve definitely missed some experiences. No way to go back in time to go to that college party or on a spontaneous trip with friends.

Just doing online hustles. Started off at 12 with selling minecraft items for real money on a big custom server, then to doing regional arbitrage for games on steam (buy cheap in one region, sell high to someone in a more expensive region), and so on. With all the money I’ve made off stuff like that, I eventually moved on to trading crypto and then to stocks with some moderate success. Living with family also helped a lot, around $40k/year in savings just off that.

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