Creating meaning in my life

[ebaudry]

When I was 26 (a year ago), I came to the realization that the only thing that you can possibly ever accomplish in life is to be happy. It's the best thing you can do for you and its a tremendous gift to everyone around you when you are doing everything you can to feel happy and good about yourself.

It can be very difficult to figure out what makes you happy, but I would suggest removing from your life sources of "manufactured desires" meaning basically not watching TV (or at the very least not watching commercials), taking control over how you react to the various imposed media around, meditating would be a great idea (but most people are too lazy... its a vast understatement to say the rewards outweigh the "cost" of energy). Removing yourself from those imposed wants is the "easiest" way to free up your conciousness. Then your mind will see much more clearly what you personally want, and will be able to better tune out the things that companies, parents, governments, cultures etc are telling you that you should want.

I left the finance field so i can't really suggest going that route. No bombs going on, but the way you can mess with people using money is pretty atrocious too.

I'd try to meet new people as much as possible. If you think about it most (all?) of the opportunities that come into your life are through other people. Also that shared community is one of the keys towards avoiding depression.

Philosophically speaking, I would recommend to try and realize that you don't need anything outside yourself to be happy. You don't need good work, you don't need nice stuff, you don't need to live somewhere expensive. You just need whatever it takes to make yourself happy and at peace. And with a little effort you will find that what you want is completely under your control. The desires that make you feel unhappy or ill-at-ease right now can be unlearned/reprogrammed if you are willing to try. It takes a long time to undo "mental habits", but the potential reward is so valuable that making "lot of money" seems like a waste of time. If you find that you enjoy making money, then by all means go for it. But almost everyone who sets great wealth as their goal, ends up really wondering why at some point later in life. Some because they realize how difficult and far away "a lot of money" can be, and some because they get as much money as they ever wanted and find it doesn't provide for them at all what they anticipated. For most people it is a severe burden.

Anyway if you want to philosophilize at some point, pm me or something.

If you enjoy reading (or listening to books on CD), then you might check out "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. He was the first writer that I personally found to discuss conciousness and presence and how to use them to transform your life into a joyous experience, bringing great relief to all the "problems" that our overly-active little monkey brains are capable of providing. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Best o' luck

[JaBlue]

Become a Big Brother for or a mentor or whatever they call it there for some poor DC kid that could use even your help and guidance

[mason55]

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Become a Big Brother for or a mentor or whatever they call it there for some poor DC kid that could use even your help and guidance

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I have actually already looked into it. They require a one year commitment and I'm not sure if I'm going to be here a year.

[shant]

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Learn Flash. Your programming skills will transfer over into Actionscripting. The pay is great

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can you throw out a number? also can you give a number for C#/java programmers with similar experience level in your area as well?

just curious

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I do Flash animation/scripting/building of sites, so it's easier for me to get work with a broader skill set, but the guys that I know that do straight Actionscripting like building modules inside sites or stand-alone games make anywhere from 65-100/hr freelance, and if they're fulltime it's usually around 70-85k salary.

[arod15]

bang mauliks mother he is form the area and you can be like everyone else.

[ethan]

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How much money do you have?

Save up, quit your job and go travel the world. Don't come back until you "miss home".


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Go to Nepal. It seems to have worked well for Bruiser.

Another option would be saving up until you can buy this.

[ptmusic]

Do some career assessments (MBTI, Johnson O'Connor, Birkman Method, CareerLeader...). Hire a career coach. Read "What Color Is Your Parachute?" by Bolles.

I've been going through the same thing for over a year now. My journey has brought me back to school for the first time in over 15 years - I'm going to graduate Business School. I'm seeking advice and learning about myself.

Good luck.

-ptmusic

[ebaudry]

Someone asked me a little about how I apply the ideas I mentioned in my last post. I thought I would share my reply here in case its of interest to anyone else.

_________

I'm really glad that you got something out of my post, I wondered at the time if anyone would care, but decided it would be good for me to write it anyway.

Putting those concepts into practice is (for me at least) very difficult. It requires rejecting most of my youth's patterns and especially being very mindful about where my beliefs and habits come from. I have been realizing over the past few years how so much of my assumptions about how the world works and how people relate to each other are based upon sit-coms, marketing directed at fueling my desires, and just general unconciousness where I have taken as "fact" my observations of some key few relationships (mother-father, me-father, me-mother, siblings, significant others).

Those patterns and habits are it turns out are largely focused towards keeping me entrenched in whatever situation I find myself, whether good or bad. Simply my behaviors are very often based around avoiding change, minimizing perceived risk, taking the easy path, and so on.

I have been making huge "sacrifices" to pursue my new vision of peace and happiness not derived from material wealth. You may be finding the same things as I did: My v.expensive house didn't make me happy, neither did my BMW, or eating out at nice restaurants and taking expensive trips. I feel naive admitting it now, but I truly believed that each of those things were going to make me happier. I believed (mostly from my Dad and from Finance Profs) that once I had a lot of money everything else would fall in line. The reality was very different. I would liken my experience to a tolerance. It was taking more and more money to "get my fix" ($50 used to be a lot of money, then $500, then $5,000, you get the idea), and I had access to basically as much money as I wanted.

So I decided to re-evaluate everything in my life based on the idea: What would I create in my life if I believed I had the ability to put anything I want in it? So my now ex-wife and I started working on the issues that plagued our relationship and realized that we would be better off and happier with other people (me with another conciousness-minded person, her with a different yuppy, so to speak). I gave her our house, sold my car, quit my job and went about trying to live a better, more peaceful life with less money.

So now I try to think of myself as not so different from a monkey (in opposition to the dominant paradigm that acts as if the planet, all animals and plants are here for our personal amusement). I differ from a monkey primarily in the level of conciousness I display, and frankly I'm a bit jealous of the monkeys since my brain keeps me a little too busy for my taste. That shift in the way I interact with the world adds a lot of humor and easy-going-ness to my life since all us human-monkeys act in such ridiculous ways (myself included). Before I do anything, or start any new project, I try to think about what part of me wants to do it, and if its in line with my happiness goals. So work-wise, I realized that there is no activity, no matter how interesting or fulfilling, that I can do happily for 40+ hrs per week. I can't even do the things I love for that long for any significant length of time. So I decided to try out the 'what would you do with your time if you won the lotto' idea. The answer for me is shockingly simple (once the t.v./marketing derived desires are set aside): I want to sleep as much as I want, at whatever times I want. I want to spend a lot of my time with friends and making new ones. I want to spend a lot of time reading and learning, but on my own pace, sometimes spending all day doing that, sometimes going for weeks without. I want to partake of hobbies that I enjoy, like poker, pot, hanging out, philosophizing, walking around, mtn. biking, etc. I want to give back to my family a little bit to feel like I am balanced towards them. I want to help my 24 y.o. sister enter the "adult world". And I want to help do my part to keep western civilization from poisoning the planet to such an extent that I can't go outside or drink water anymore

Then on the practical side, I need some money to pay rent, car insurance, food and so on. So I tried to figure out how to make money doing what I wanted to do anyway. This is really a very key concept. The result of it is that I never feel like I have to work. The idea of work is actually starting to be a little fuzzy in my head. That said, I do a lot, and many others would call it working, but is it really? I would do those things whether or not there was money in it, and I do it whenever I want. True there is a lot less money being made now than before (about 25k/yr or less, vs. 100k/yr or more before), but along with these shifts, I have really started to care less about the material side of things. I still have a car, party a lot, go on trips and so on, but I now view my car as transportation rather than as a toy, I party in cheaper ways (more pot, less bars), and my trips are cartrips to SF or wherever instead of flying to France or Amsterdam.

So the money these days comes from activities that fit into the above wants. I want to help my family so I do handyman work at my sister's house and act as a financial planner for my dad. I love games, especially poker, so I read everything I could find on how to make money doing that and am currently trying. (4-tabling $20+2 STT for $500-$2000/month). I want to help the environment so I started a non-profit called Sustainable Home Improvement in order to help homeowners make environmentally sound decisions when they remodel or upgrade their homes. Basically I try to keep my activites varied so I don't get bored (which my overly active brain likes to do if I spend too much time "working"). I end up playing poker about 20hrs/wk, helping my dad 1-2hrs/week, fixing my sisters place 1-2hrs/wk, sleeping 8-10hrs/night, and doing about 1 hour a week of trivial to-do list type stuff. If I needed more money, I would start examining other habits or interests I have and perhaps try to write something, tutor some kids in Algebra, or make a porn website, or anything else that seems neat anyway that might make some money.

There are some things that I am irreversibly giving up though, and I just have to be ok with that. I won't ever be able to buy a house on my own in L.A.. Not really a problem since I see moving to Portland or Vancouver at some point, but still its a "loss". I also am eliminating at least 90% of the dating pool since traditional values are still running strong there. I won't be taking care of a housewife, or sending my kids to a private college, but I don't beleive in "taking care" of other people financially, and think the tuition spent on school is many fold more expensive than its value. I have learned way more from my own reading time than I did in the classroom.

The net result though is a simple and peaceful life. I don't have to worry anymore about what my best available balance transfer credit card offer is. I don't worry what others think about me b/c I don't rely on them for a job, social structure, or anything else. And anyway, most people I know think I'm a little crazy for most of my beliefs. But they also knew me 2-years ago when I was a married yuppy trying to take over the company I worked for.

Anyway, I probably left out a lot, but hopefully I drew the broad strokes. Life is incredibly short and I won't spend it doing what others think is best for me. It's difficult at times (especially around LA) not feeling like people value the same things as I do, but its a small price to pay for my freedom.

-Eric

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

how do you play tv?

[1800GAMBLER]

Great post.