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:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Notes -
10 months ago, I made this post. I'm sure nobody cares, but I wanted to write an update, mainly for my own sake - putting this all out in the open should light a fire under my ass. When I wrote the original post, I was recovering from an injury that made me homebound for 3 months and for that whole time I was just trapped with my thoughts with no ability to release that energy anywhere. It got so bad, I was even getting panic attacks every other night before falling asleep. It's gotten better since, but I've still got a long way to go until I'm satisfied. I got in shape, fixed my health, and got significantly more social. Selank was a silver bullet for my social anxiety and I don't know how I've lived my life before it. The levels of stress I was experiencing in social situations were insane, even the times where I would rate my stress level a 4/10 would probably feel like a 7/10 to a normal person, I was just so used to being stressed. Now it feels like I don't have social anxiety. I still have some, what I imagine, normal anxiety here and there, but it's not crushing to the point where I can't function in social situations. My only issue now is my own beliefs and mental limitations that prevent me from getting better. I'm slowly working through them, but it will take time. In those 10 months, I've become a lot more proactive with my existing friendships and that yielded a lot of results - I've got something going on almost every week, and I've taken a few trips with friends. I even was an extra in a commercial my friend produced, something that I would've definitely avoided doing before Selank. My social life genuinely did a 180, and I imagine I'm currently at the "this is what an average 28 year old's social life is like living in the suburbs" level, which is great, but I'm not happy.
All this socializing just makes me face my inadequacy - sometimes people would ask me what I do these days and I would freeze and mumble 'I trade equities and crypto', and I can feel the judgement coming because it usually either means that I'm an unemployed loser or one of those course peddling scammers. And if they learn that I still live with my family, it pretty much confirms their judgement. Not everyone does this, but when it happens it feels horrible. I've caught myself trying to overcompensate for it by doing absolutely retarded things like wearing my expensive watch when I absolutely had no reason to or trying to squeeze status indicators into conversations just to make sure they know (no, my former classmate doesn't need to know my tax bill for the year is 6 figures). It's embarrassing to even write about it. And all this ties to my other issues - I haven't met any new people at all. In fact, I don't even try. Still living with parents at 28. Unemployed, never had a job. Yes, I have some money and I'm doing better than ever, but on paper I'm a chud and I'm embarrassed of it. It's funny, because the solution is so easy - it starts with just moving out, I can definitely afford it. But then I'd be spending an extra ~$30k/year, probably living a worse lifestyle than I do now. My monkey brain is rejecting this idea. Not to mention, that it still doesn't solve the other, more complex parts of the issue such as lack of identity. Trading is a snoozefest, I don't even get dopamine hits from winning trades anymore. I probably have 2-3 more years of it in me, but then what? Not to mention that never having a real job and making money off trading just destroyed my perception of money - losing $50k on a trade is okay in my head, but somehow spending $30k-40k/year on a my own housing is an unacceptable expense.
Anyways, I'm fucking weird, I'll have to get over it and 'grow up'. At the very least, crippling social anxiety is no longer the main issue and that feels liberating. The plan is to wrap all the business up by the end of the year and do some solo traveling. I can be someone else while traveling, so no feelings of inadequacy and no mental limitations to prevent me from meeting people. I'll also be around a bunch of new people that are my age and are willing to socialize, an environment I haven't been in since college. After that, I'll do month long stays in young people hubs - NYC, Austin, etc. Hopefully that gives me some clarity on what I wish to do with my life.
Your perspective on life and yourself is bad, unhelpful to you. You should try to work on that on a daily basis. Establish something more realistic and helpful. Good news: Views and beliefs are all wrong, as in never 1:1 with whatever 'reality' is; never set in stone; and can be changed. You may have heard the saying "all models are wrong; some are useful". So investigate what you've got currently, throw out the counter-productive ones and establish good beliefs. Knowing what to want is as important as knowing how to go about getting what you want.
You have no idea how lucky you are, and how many opportunities may be open to you. You're self-employed and you have a ton of money. That's not something to be ashamed of, at all. You can proudly present yourself as a consistently successful trader. Which is awesome. Maybe don't mention "crypto" to people who may have prejudice against that. Yours is an extremely good position that the vast majority of the world's population does not have. Make more use of it! Move out, into to your own place in a high quality of life area. Spending an extra 30k a year is a no-brainer to go for. You make around 10x that much each year, it sounds like. What good is your money if you don't invest it (outside the markets!) to have a good time in life? What use is your 7 figure hoard if you die a year from now? You never know when death will come for you. And time is the one thing you can never earn or replenish.
Look up the best books on refurbishing your mind and its beliefs, and getting shit done. You already know how to teach yourself difficult things and succeed at them. The advice from @OracleOutlook on having two major hobbies that build you and where you build something is a good one.
Best of luck! Back yourself, man. And please post another update at some point.
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I do remember that post and I was wondering what happened next.
Honestly I would start paying rent to the parents. $1500 on the first or the 15th every month, give you some incentive to actually move out.
For never having a job: you're an independent trader who works remote. Everyone who has ever had a boss is a little jelly.
The future divide of people your age when they get older will be people who had assets that appreciated with inflation and those who didn't, and the difference will be a deep chasm. You've already saved your money, go live your life.
Honestly not a bad idea. I already pay for a lot of things around the house, but it's usually in random chunks. I paid half of the roof replacement bill last year ($15k). Making this a stable monthly expense would make me get used to this.
I'm extremely aware, and that's why I think I shouldn't relax now. Don't think I'm there yet in terms of numbers.
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I suspect that the activity of setting up a life away from your parents would help. You have enough to put 20% down on a quadplex - why not do that, live in one unit, rent out the others? Focus on making that building pretty, learn how to maintain things, spend more time having an influence in the physical world. Then your wealth will be concrete to you.
Maybe that's not your thing, but something should be. Seize the means of production!
Besides the career advice, the other thing is that everyone should have at least two hobbies - one where you build something and one that builds you. Like knitting and reading classics. Or wood working and volunteering. The first hobby, you plan, execute, and enjoy a product that you will use in the physical world. The second hobby, you do something that builds you up in virtue and makes you appreciate beauty and virtue in others.
Traveling is good to some extent but I don't think it's what you need to finally put your adolescence at an end.
I'm extremely bearish on real estate. The opportunity cost of putting a chunk of my money (and time!) into this endeavor is just too great, even though I understand that it would give me purpose and something to do day to day. Not to mention that I would also be a 'real estate investor' instead of a 'trader', probably an upgrade in people's eyes.
I agree. I need to work on this. The hobbies I currently have are non-social and all boil down to either increasing my money stack (online poker, side hustles) or keeping me in shape (swimming and working out).
You're definitely right. It seems like a temporary solution to the problem. But also, once again, my economically optimized brain is telling me I should do this now while I'm still young and living with family - going on long travels while paying $2.5k/month for my own place would make me hate myself, it's lighting money on fire for no apparent reason.
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Low seven figures at 28 with no job? You are already winning and this is honestly some ridiculously high agency flexing. Take it from me, someone with a Real Job in Accounting and Tax and who's been permanently burned out because of it: It will not stop the identity crisis or the feelings of inadequacy (if anything, it can strengthen it; impostor syndrome and failure to meet the demands of your job is one of the major things that can crater your self esteem). Professional life is mostly miserable and soul-destroying.
You need to get out more, and honestly travel is a good idea for you (within reason). The issue here appears to be that you've spent a lot of time isolated in one place and as such have a lack of life experience to draw from, which is easily fixable when you have disposable income to spend and enough motivation. Also your mindset isn't productive whatsoever; maybe stop whaling on yourself so much for failing to stick to the straight-and-narrow. Whatever you're doing is evidently working well for you and a job is not an end in and of itself, it is a means.
Yeah, seeing some of my friends get fired in the past year, leaving them with nothing in return, has proven to me that attaching identity to a job is not a good way to go about it. I think I'm starting to realize that what I crave is not exactly identity, but status. And a regular job, which would've probably been in software development since that's what I got my degree for, would've put me in the same mindset that I'm in now anyway if I went the traditional route. And I don't know what to do with this realization.
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One note: don't disdain social signals. Get some nice clothes, a good jacket (or whatever is culturally appropriate for well-to-do young men where you are), pay to have your shirts ironed by a service if you don't want to do it yourself. Wear your nice watch every day because that's what you do with a good watch - I've worn my nice watch every day since getting it on my 18th birthday. Get some good leather boots or expensive trainers or whatever.
It will send the true, correct message to your friends and family: I'm all right, my current lifestyle might be unconventional but it's working out, you don't need to be worried about me or pity me.
And by doing so, it will relax you a little as well.
It's hard not to.
Funnily enough, while being crippled with social anxiety for all my life, I never became a slob that didn't take care of himself. I already have a nice wardrobe, colognes, nice watches. I even have a pretty nice car. I think there's an aspect of me feeling like an imposter. Having some money in a bank account doesn't give me status. Someone that runs his own 'real estate management company' seems more prestigious than the guy that clicks buy and sell in his 'momma's basement' even if he makes more.
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