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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   423 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for May 6, 2026

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).

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  1. Work. Job interview went well, although I'm not sure the start date is going to line up how I hope. Otherwise, wrapping up the resubmission for second first author paper (some drama there), and plugging away on my final paper.
  2. Fitness: Started running again, and going to start Norwegian singles/doubles next week.
  3. Intellectual Stuff: Plugging away at After Virtue. Discussed the Pacific War trilogy with my friend Dylan last night which was also very fruitful. Meditating consistently at least once a day now.
  4. Finances: Third roommate is still not locked down. Spending last month was only 2.6k, which led me to have an almost 30% savings rate!
  5. Dating. Nothing to report.
  6. Tarot. No session this week
  7. Socializing: Spanish happy hour and watching the Kinetic Sculpture race
  8. Screen time: 1 hour phone! Now do my PC haha.
  9. Mental health: feeling excited

How goes it @FtttG, @self_made_human @bird_crombie @falling-star @Tollund_Man4 ?

Back home from the accelerator in SF. Still partially burnt out but recovering. Weighed myself when I got home, only regressed 153 lbs -> 148, not as bad as I expected. Trying to put the weight back on with heavy use of fruit smoothies and protein powder, eating mad bowls of pork and rice.

Work demands haven't really relaxed. Early success means we have patients (generating operational tasks), but not money to actually hire more staff. So I've become an insurance biller on top of a fullstack engineer. Been telling myself I want unreasonable things so I'll have to work unreasonably hard to get them. It's hard though, pushing all the time and not having time to recover or experience normal life.

I had a girl that was at least receptive to me that I was really into. We never got to meet a second time 'cause I went to SF right after we met. I missed a chance to run into her at a rave recently because I was working. I got her on instagram and I get the live reminders in my feed that she's still around. Not sure if that's healthy or helpful.

@thejdizzler I remember you mentioned a while back coming into a good bit of money. Did you end up buying property or otherwise improving your life with it?

It's sitting in my Fidelity account still as a combination of index funds, CDs, and cash. I'm going to buy a house with it once I get a job post PhD.

Spending last month was only 2.6k, which led me to have an almost 30% savings rate!

Congratulations on that. I wonder if there's enough interest in personal finance, investing, and what-have-you for a "Money Monday" thread.

I'd be interested!

Why not just this one? Financial wellness is real wellness.

Shareholder Saturday? Or Speculator.

The choice of day should perhaps be strategic. The weekend is a great time for screening for stocks to buy at the start of the next week.

That's a good point.

Be the change you want to see in the world. I'll be watching it with interest (pun completely unintended, I only noticed it after the fact).

"Fiscal Friday" has a better ring to it than "Money Monday" though, IMO.

Friday's already taken sadly.

Is there a rule saying we can't have two different threads on the same day?

I mean, there aren't that many threads which get posted. I think it's ok to have more than one weekly thread on a given day.

  • My upper back and shoulders felt stiff from Tuesday onwards last week, so I didn't feel up to going to the gym. Ended up having to do all three sessions back to back on Friday-Sunday. The most frustrating thing is that I was doing deadlifts on Saturday and felt absolutely fine during and afterwards, but when I woke up on Sunday morning I could feel that I'd aggravated my dodgy disc, yet again. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, I genuinely thought I'd perfected my deadlift form. A quick Google suggests that I need to improve my core strength, so I'm planning to go to the gym this evening and do some core exercises (plank etc.). Any advice for strengthening my core would be greatly appreciated. Can deadlift 1.84x my bodyweight for 3 reps, squat 1.15x for 7 reps and bench press .87x for 6 reps.
  • Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.
  • Planning to post my twelfth blog post of the year either today or tomorrow morning.

I'll give myself a pass mark, not because I physically went to the gym (I didn't), but because I've been doing non-zero amounts of exercise at home and bought a set of dumbbells (which I did use! I'm not using the mere act of purchase as an excuse).

The next few weeks are going to be hectic. I've got an important exam coming up, and while that's not entire incompatible with working out regularly, it makes it hard.

Keep the dumbbells by your computer. Work in a few reps when you pause to think or switch tracks.

Spending is $990.72 higher than it was at the same time last year. Almost all of this difference is due to the dental bills and home repair/maintenance bills that I've racked up this year.

I do have some additional non-standard spending on top of that:

  • I prepaid for my annual pest control bill that keeps my house from getting destroyed by carpenter bees, since the company offers a discount.
  • I took my brother and his girlfriend out for a belated birthday lunch.
  • I went out with my partner and got us some Mexican.

On the bright side, I negotiated a $10/month discount with my ISP. It's not much, but it's not nothing.

It's frustrating that I can't really get ahead compared to last year, but I'm also glad that I've been making the effort. I'd probably be cashflow negative for a few months already if I hadn't made this resolution.

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