Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
The_Bowme
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:59 pm

Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by The_Bowme »

I hope it isn't too presumptuous of me to start a journal without an “introducing myself” post, but why create an extra data object in some server in India when the introductory text can do just as well here?

I’ve hesitated to start writing this journal as I think my relationship to my finances is so shot through with my emotional and philosophical concerns that it feels like a bunch of baggage to throw out into the internet for a site that’s about rice recipes and bike repair (jk), but as I seem to find myself returning often to this forum, I think it makes sense to be a bit more a member of the community.

I am 29, live in Denver. I have a job making $52,000 a year, and have a small but growing net worth. I often feel like my nut should be bigger, as I read Early Retirement Extreme when I was still in college, around 2008, and have read the blog and forums and related blogs since that time. But I guess things could be much worse. I graduated from University of Michigan in 2010 after studying Econ and Philosophy with $26,000 in debt, and went abroad to teach Spanish for two years. The job abroad paid 800 euro/mo the first year, and 1000 euro/mo the second. I found it difficult to save during that time, and ended up with about $3,000 in savings, while my loans were deferred and accumulated $10,000 in capitalized interest. My time in Spain was great, but I realized that I liked the anonymity and ease of life in my native language and came back to the USA.

I was scared of returning to the economy in Michigan (this was 2012), and so I followed a love interest to Colorado, and lived in a large closet with some friends for $125/mo in Boulder, while working a fairly hellish tax resolution job for 8 months. I applied for jobs like mad and got a position at an economic development lender in a junior position for $35,000 a year. I moved into a $500/mo studio in Denver. Since then, I bought a condo for $85,000, and got spooked over how much it was appreciating, and the inability of the COA to maintain a reasonable reserve, and sold for $115,000. I used all the profits to pay off my loans and save more, and sent $500 to each of my sisters. I have also been promoted at my company over time, and now have lost the junior part of my title, and as I said, make $52,000. My net worth is as follows:

Emergency Fund: $10K
HSA: $6K
2040 Target Date Vanguard Fund: $22K
Retirement accounts: $50K
Total: $88K

I live in an apartment with a roommate for $570 a month and don’t own a car. I’m saving between $1,900-$2,000 a month. I have a girlfriend (not the original love interest) who accepts me for my quirks and thinks the FI-bound lifestyle is cool and is supportive. I have a bus pass through work, so that’s free for me. I have a small group of friends here, but we get along pretty well. I don’t like being so far from family or Michigan’s natural environment, and think about moving back to the Midwest, but it’s hard to when the economy here seems so much healthier.

I struggle somewhat with a dysthemic/depressive streak, and have been in therapy for the past couple years. As an INTP, I find the only thing that gets me excited are various big ideas/”insight porn”, but haven’t found a creative competency that I find rewarding. I read Every Cradle a Grave and the Conspiracy Against The Human Race, and they have left me very uncertain about whether it could be ethical to have kids, yet I feel scared of how I will feel as an old man without a family or a successful creative career to look back on. I sometimes fantasize about taking my <$300 per month from my savings and just being a bum, but I know from experience that I’m not that big a fan of having to search for places to sleep, of having to watch all your shit all the time, and always feeling grubby, and I am fearful of losing the optionality of earning power if I leave the work force. But it seems like at the rate I am going, I will not have ERE options until much later, and in the meantime, I am working in a job that is quite stressful, and that I don’t feel “self-actualized”. I worry that I will finally save enough money to do what I want and find my opportunities to do anything I can really be satisfied with will have passed during accumulation.

I find myself thinking of my net worth often as a sort of mental idol that I ward off negative feelings towards my job. I did write a long essay on shittiness of jobs to try to exorcise these negative feelings last year, but it didn’t seem to help that much. I recently took a vacation to Spain to visit old friends, and my concerns with money did decrease without the job to worry about for a week. But seeing the employment situation for people my age in Spain left me feeling confused about whether I’m allowed to want something different, or if I am just thinking negatively and not appreciating how I already have it better than most from a financial point-of-view, and it’s my own screwed up preferences and anxieties that prevent me from having the higher quality of life that even people in much materially poorer societies enjoy.

I find myself trying to avoid financial independence message board where people specifically talk about their savings and income, such as the FI-related subreddits, as I worry it leads to me obsessing with money more, and also feeling extremely inadequate when I read about 26 year old couples who have $200K saved, not to mention the 23 year olds with $500K from the crazy economy we now live in. Seems like everyone’s a computer programmer…

I took a Udacity web development course and finished it, but didn’t really feel adequately prepared, or convinced that the career change was a smart one. It seems very visually focused, which I am not, and requiring constant study to stay on top of technologies ever changing, all basically to get people to visit sites to make miniscule amounts of ad revenue.

But enough bellyaching! I do enjoy various activities, and am working through Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and working on improving in Chess. I keep up my Spanish studies with Anki, and I do find time to read. I cook a lot, and go out for drinks with friends and my girlfriend fairly often. I play tennis, and try to go jogging, although I haven’t been able to lately due to a knee injury (from running). Things are okay I suppose. But I feel like thinking about FI is creating a weird premature midlife crisis in which I need to decide what I care about now before it’s too late, and decide which potential futures to close.

I feel like FI ideas should be freeing, but I think I have found a way to make them not so much. Lately I have been thinking that working a job is maybe like sleeping, and instead of sleeping 8 hours, I am sleeping 16 hours, and I am ERE already--just a late sleeper! Clearly I’m slipping into madness :) It’s just there are so many maintenance activities and forms of procrastination that my 8 hours of early retirement a day seems so short.

Hmm, well anyway, thanks for reading. I think the individuals who post on this forum are wonderful and insightful--also giving and kind. I really admire the supportive community, and the wide supply of interesting points of view that are represented. Thanks for letting me introduce myself and get some thoughts off my chest!

thrifty++
Posts: 1171
Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 3:46 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by thrifty++ »

Welcome. Cheer up. When I was your age I was working in an extremely stressful job earning $63k and was actually in negative net worth territory. I dont even know how much but somewhere in the vicinity of minus $10k to $15k. I think your net worth is actually pretty awesome at your age. I am 35 and am at $135k net worth but am feeling really good about it. Sounds like you need to try and segue to a less stressful job. Having been there it doesnt get any worse than low pay and high stress. I have done my best to keeping shifting those variables in the opposite direction.

George the original one
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Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:28 am
Location: Wettest corner of Orygun

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by George the original one »

In 5 years, without changes, you'll have a net worth around $200k and that's nothing to sneeze at for a single person!

The_Bowme
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:59 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by The_Bowme »

Thanks for the encouragement, that is helpful. Just a matter of keeping things in perspective.

I wonder if there are that many less stressful jobs that pay well without a more specialized skill set. My skills right now are mostly financial, and related to loan underwriting. And that basically means having middle school algebra abilities and basic accounting. But I have been thinking about looking for something else, and was working through this book recently. I think maybe I need to get back to it.

On the other hand, I really like the people I work with, the benefits are good, and I get a month of paid vacation. It's just that while I'm at work, there is too much to do it seems like. Maybe better stress management is an alternative answer.

Anyway, cheers.

The_Bowme
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:59 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by The_Bowme »

March 2017

Salary $4,384.31
Other Income $37.57
Total Income: $4,421.88

Rent: -$561.00
Internet: -$50.00
Clothes: -$30.00
Phone: -$86.00
Spending Money: -$40.00
Bicycle: $10.00
Alcohol : -$159.00
Restaurants: -$100.00
Recreation: -$160.00
Grocery: -$140.00
Coffee: -$5.00
Laundry: -$5.00
Travel: -$1,500.00
Gifts/Patreon: -$27.47
Contingency: -$14.00
Total Expense: -$2,887.47

Saving: $1,534.41

May 2017

Salary: $2,921.34

Rent: -$560.00
Internet: -$50.27
Clothes: -$30.00
Phone: -$46.00
Spending Money: -$169.00
Bicycle: -$10.00
Alcohol : -$150.61
Restaurants: -$152.55
Recreation: -$50.00
Grocery: -$75.00
Coffee: -$5.00
Laundry: -$5.00
Travel: -$22.05
Gifts/Charity: -$15.00
Total Expense: -$1,340.48

Saving: $1,580.86

Current Nut:
Emergency Cash $600.00
Emergency Savings $10,000.00
Vanguard Brokerage $25,996.00
Vanguard IRA $15,329.00
Vanguard Roth IRA $3,439.00
401(k) $34,721.00
Alliant HSA $5,219.85
Total: $95,304.85

Catching up on my journal. Saving was a bit down the last few months, as I ended up taking a 12 day trip to China (10 with flying), which cost a bit. I also spent a bit more on restaurants in May, and more on recreation in March, from a mix of Ubers, movies, and buying music festival tickets in advance. I guess I’m trying to be better about not being overly abstemious and enjoying my life too, but it is difficult to strike a balance. I guess I’m comfortable with how I’ve been doing, but I look forward to not having travel expenses for a while, and reining things in a bit on bars, restaurants, and similar type spending.

China was quite interesting. I went to Hong Kong, Guilan, Xingping, Wuhan, and Beijing. The food was of course excellent, and ridiculously cheap. Did have to watch out for being scammed, though. I at one point almost lost my smart phone on a regional bus, and had to go back into the bus choral and look through identical buses trying to find it with a Chinese-speaking friend. The bus driver ended up coming and finding us to return it. My girlfriend also lost her wallet in a taxi. It made me think we may be both quite airheaded, hopefully not too dangerously in combination, but I tended to worry about are combined lack of life competence. But then I relaxed and decided that life isn’t just an optimization problem.

Overall my impression was that the Chinese people are quite honest in major matters (i.e., respecting property), but with a tendency to seek advantage in transactions through misrepresentations, fudging calculations, etc.

As part of the trip, I read a history book on China, and a couple books on recent developments. Reading about the various wars and famines the country has been faced with reminded me of how anomalous current living standards and relative peace in many regions of the world are. The current development has been basically decided top-down, but within the past centuries the same top-down process led to massive famine. Seeing in person how China is developing by a mix of market liberalization and government fiat gave me a sense of wonder, but also a discomfort with the complexity and interconnectedness of financial arrangements behind the growth. They seem robust and so fragile at the same time. It did make me realize the level of comfort that we take for granted in the US, but also see the relative social isolation of American culture. I did realize how important my relationships are to me being so far away from the life I knew. Mostly I was traveling with friends, but when I ended up on my own for the last leg of the trip, I felt very lonely. As an introvert, I can underestimate the importance of closeness to people in my life, but I think this reminded me of how much I need it, just at a low intensity level generally.

Flying in airplanes tends to make me reflect on my life, as I always think about the possibility of dying in one (statistically stupid I know). It made me think I should be more intellectually involved in something I’m passionate about with my life. I was talking with one of my traveling friends about his brother-in-law who is a philosophy professor in Kalamazoo. I guess I always have thought as that as a career that was as difficult to undertake as instagram celebrity or successful author, and the job prospects do seem grim. Nevertheless, I find myself fantasizing about going back to school for it and becoming a professor. It’s hard to tell if it is just a fantasy though. I am relatively intellectually lazy in my day-to-day life, and I am not sure if this would change if I didn’t have a 40 hour per week job. It does give me a sense of urgency about determining whether I need to make a major life change soon, and in what direction that should be. It’s so easy to drift though, and my job is quite good in most ways. I do think about Joshua Sheets’s point on the Radical Personal Finance podcast, that around $100m in savings, you have enough freedom to radically re-orient your employment approach, and that this may be a more fulfilling life strategy than true retirement.

I also read Tyler Cowen’s Stubborn Attachments, which was a sort of overall intellectual defense of the status quo neoliberal economic regime by someone who I do respect a lot intellectually, and had some grounds for optimism that maybe the world isn’t so corrupt/awful as I often think. Of course, he admits his argument would fail if historical pessimism is true, but he says it succeeds if there is at all a reasonable ground for optimism about the future, which I think there may be, though maybe my expectation for that is around 40% right now. It’s funny how much my way of thinking feeds my personal habits into my overall worldview, and how difficult it is to track the direction of causation with my personal disposition and my level of sanguineness about human life on the grand scale.

Noedig
Posts: 191
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:15 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by Noedig »

Don't be hard on yourself. You are saving, you are out of debt, you have a low enough cost life to coast for a bit, increase the buffer, and let the pattern emerge. You are young and can make a major shift once the an idea gestates and takes hold. I think, you are doing OK.

thrifty++
Posts: 1171
Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 3:46 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by thrifty++ »

The_Bowme wrote:
Mon Jun 05, 2017 3:50 pm
I do think about Joshua Sheets’s point on the Radical Personal Finance podcast, that around $100m in savings, you have enough freedom to radically re-orient your employment approach, and that this may be a more fulfilling life strategy than true retirement.
$100m? Sounds like a hell of a lot. Did you mean $100k? I surpassed that limit about a year ago. Which podcast of his was this one?

The_Bowme
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:59 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by The_Bowme »

thrifty++ wrote:
Wed Jun 07, 2017 2:08 am
The_Bowme wrote:
Mon Jun 05, 2017 3:50 pm
I do think about Joshua Sheets’s point on the Radical Personal Finance podcast, that around $100m in savings, you have enough freedom to radically re-orient your employment approach, and that this may be a more fulfilling life strategy than true retirement.
$100m? Sounds like a hell of a lot. Did you mean $100k? I surpassed that limit about a year ago. Which podcast of his was this one?
Yeah, sorry, in banking we use M for thousands and MM for millions, and it's force of habit at this point. I think it's something that's been a theme in episodes lately, especially when he talks about his different levels of financial Independence. It may have been this one that he touched on it most directly:
https://radicalpersonalfinance.com/rpf-camp-mustache/

The_Bowme
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:59 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by The_Bowme »

Noedig wrote:
Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:49 pm
Don't be hard on yourself. You are saving, you are out of debt, you have a low enough cost life to coast for a bit, increase the buffer, and let the pattern emerge. You are young and can make a major shift once the an idea gestates and takes hold. I think, you are doing OK.
Thanks for the feedback. I guess I tend to take things too seriously/be too anxious. I think I need to work to find a way to reframe things for myself a bit.

thrifty++
Posts: 1171
Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 3:46 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by thrifty++ »

The_Bowme wrote:
Wed Jun 07, 2017 2:18 am
thrifty++ wrote:
Wed Jun 07, 2017 2:08 am
The_Bowme wrote:
Mon Jun 05, 2017 3:50 pm
I do think about Joshua Sheets’s point on the Radical Personal Finance podcast, that around $100m in savings, you have enough freedom to radically re-orient your employment approach, and that this may be a more fulfilling life strategy than true retirement.
$100m? Sounds like a hell of a lot. Did you mean $100k? I surpassed that limit about a year ago. Which podcast of his was this one?
Yeah, sorry, in banking we use M for thousands and MM for millions, and it's force of habit at this point. I think it's something that's been a theme in episodes lately, especially when he talks about his different levels of financial Independence. It may have been this one that he touched on it most directly:
https://radicalpersonalfinance.com/rpf-camp-mustache/
Cool thanks. I will have a listen. Not quite up to that one yet. Will jump the que. Nice to know I have hit some sort of "level". I like my job anyways which is nice.

Riggerjack
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Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by Riggerjack »

First, when I was your age, if bills were paid, and I still had beer money, all was well with the world. I didn't even contribute to my 401k until I was 30. You have savings, you will be fine.

As to obsessing over money, that is something that goes away as savings become automatic. Time will fix this.

I understand the impulse to understand and fix the world. But you will be better served by focusing on the things you can control, then the things you can influence. Though we do spend a lot of time and energy here comparing theoretical fixes for all the world's ills. I look forward to sparring with you over in the politics forum.

The_Bowme
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:59 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by The_Bowme »

Riggerjack wrote:
Wed Jun 07, 2017 3:17 pm
First, when I was your age, if bills were paid, and I still had beer money, all was well with the world. I didn't even contribute to my 401k until I was 30. You have savings, you will be fine.

As to obsessing over money, that is something that goes away as savings become automatic. Time will fix this.

I understand the impulse to understand and fix the world. But you will be better served by focusing on the things you can control, then the things you can influence. Though we do spend a lot of time and energy here comparing theoretical fixes for all the world's ills. I look forward to sparring with you over in the politics forum.
Do you mean obsessing will go away with automatic saving? Or just that my brain will eventually get tired of the novelty of thinking abiut the accumulation process? I could see the latter happening, but wish it would happen soon!

Yeah, I have trouble keeping the macro world separate from my individual life. I guess I enjoy the grand narratives so much, but then even if I try to limit my focus to what I control, I worry about worst case scenario and that I'm neglecting to prepare. I also worry I'm a squirrel saving up nuts in a yard that's about to be excavated. But I suppose I enjoy saving the nuts enough that it's okay.

I enjoy your views in political threads though they're fairly different from where mine are these days. I'll try and weigh in more!

Riggerjack
Posts: 3180
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by Riggerjack »

Modeling the macro world, as you call it, is fun, but your life improves as you improve it. No part of pondering the big picture improves your picture, and is a distraction from making your own improvements. But distractions can be fun and good, in moderation.
Do you mean obsessing will go away with automatic saving? Or just that my brain will eventually get tired of the novelty of thinking abiut the accumulation process?
Yes.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3180
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by Riggerjack »

BTW, I don't generally read the journals, but the title was too good to pass on.

The_Bowme
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:59 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by The_Bowme »

Riggerjack wrote:
Thu Jun 08, 2017 8:11 am
BTW, I don't generally read the journals, but the title was too good to pass on.
Thanks, I certainly amused myself with it.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by JollyScot »

I know what you mean with the comment that everyone can make too much and seems like you are behind. Relative to anyone excluding people on a site like this you are in fact miles ahead. Although I managed to get over the line quite quickly, for a good chunk of my saving I was making about what you are.

When I was on less I made the decision to buy a house straight away and I rented out the spare rooms, the savings from this and additional income then went to pay for a second house which got rented, before finally picking up a third. This got me maybe just under half of my net worth .

It wasn't until I made a point of really going after the higher paying roles (and countries in my case) that my income jumped. It probably sped up my journey but only by a couple of years over what I was originally doing I think. So don't worry about feeling "behind" you are in face light years ahead of your peers.

The_Bowme
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:59 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by The_Bowme »

@jollyscot

Thanks for the feedback! It's hard to keep things in perspective when comparing myself to others in the FI community. It makes me think I need a higher paying job, but I like my current team and work place relative to what I imagine is out there. I think about real estate investing sometimes, but it's hard living in a place where houses cost 5x what they do where I'm from in Michigan.

Did you pursue specific job changes in your career? What countries were helpful to relocate to?

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by JollyScot »

Hmm not sure if what I did directly led to the higher salaries but I don't think it hurt me. Basically in my first company I actively tried to pick up or change to a new role as often as I could. So over the 4 years I was there I ended up with about 5 distinct jobs.

Gradually I ended up knowing the technical side as well as the theoretical side, this breadth of experience ended up making a change of job much easier as I had knowledge of most areas that a company might recruit for. If I didn't then I had demonstrated that I could pick up a new role and run with it so it would be less of a risk for them.

In my case for country I ended up going to Switzerland, it did pay more but initially after expenses I made about the same per hour as I did in the UK. After the first year I figured out the country a bit more and reduced the expenses back down to a much smaller base which added savings much faster.

For my role there I tried to pick up as much work in the team as possible and then simplify it down and improve it such that I would produce 2-3x what my peers would. I think this ended up directly leading to a consulting company asking me to do pieces of work with them after I "retired" from full time work.

Best I can say for income increase is actively seek out opportunities where you are and always look to improve on what you have been given. In the longer term you begin to stand out relatively speaking and the rewards begin to jump with it. Don't be afraid to take a leap to a new role either, a lot of people will never do it and it is only really hard for the first 3-6 months. That is when you learn most of what you will need and for me it was always the most interesting time in a job.

The_Bowme
Posts: 56
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Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by The_Bowme »

Thanks, JollyScot. That is helpful feedback. I think I have basic doubts about my competence and attention to detail that make me risk adverse as far as changing roles goes. But I think I am leaning towards making more room for that.

In my most recent update, I finally hit $100,000 in assets.

Emergency Cash: $600.00
Emergency Savings $10,000
Cash Savings: $4,006.79
Vanguard Brokerage (Target Retirement 2040): $27,516.23
Vanguard IRA (Target Retirement 2040): $18,637.67
Vanguard Roth IR (Target Retirement 2040): $3,639.89
401(k) (Target Retirement 2040): $39,369.01
Total: $103,769.59
Monthly SW@.04: $345.90

Took a little longer than I expected as I had some bike issues that had to be fixed. On the plus side, I rebuilt my first bike wheel, which was challenging but a pretty good feeling afterwards. I also splurged on a new laptop (~$500) and a kindle paperwhite ($100). I have to say both have been great, as my old technology was becoming a bit of a quality of life issue. When a laptop can't even juggle two pdf texts you're comparing smoothly, it gets annoying. So I've been happy with those purchases. Also had some expenses helping girlfriend move, and have been eating out a bit more than normal. I would like to rein the spending a bit now though, don't want to ascend to a plateau I can't get off.

I sort of set up $100,000 as the point where I would relax a bit about finances, as in try to think about it less, and be more interested in quality of life now. For me I guess that means more tennis, more philosophy, more other reading, and less time reading about financial independence. But the general wealth of knowledge and broad interest of posters means I will keep coming back here, even if less frequently.

Perhaps also taking my job selection filter more along what sounds interesting to me right now rather than what is optimizing for income, effort, and risk trade-offs.

I have been accumulating some cash savings, with the vague intention of moving about 5% into gold as a portfolio ballast. But I need to make that determination 30 days before I do it per my investor statement, and I feel like reading a bit more on the topic would be useful first. Been listening to Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises on audio book lately.

In addition to counseling, I have seen a psychiatrist and will be trying some medication. We'll see if that has any positive effects. I've still been running twice weekly, doing body weight exercises, short meditation, eating fish, etc. Cheers!

The_Bowme
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:59 pm

Re: Derp und Drang: The_Bowme Journal

Post by The_Bowme »

I've taken a break from the forums as of late as I'm trying to reduce the amount time I spend thinking about money, saving, etc. I think it was occupying too much of my mental space, and not really an optimal place to be. I'm also not tracking my account balances right now, just monthly spending, and putting excess money into a mix of savings and Vanguard. I read this quote from David Foster Wallace the other day that matched my thinking on this right now:
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.
Although I still find it a bit suspect how much people will quote his life advice given how he ended up.

I just took a trip to Colombia with my girlfriend, which was interesting. Had a really good time, though it also confirms that I overall prefer to be home in a comfortable setting where I can have my books, internet, etc. The economic aspect was interesting there. Lots of people trying to sell trinkets all over the place. You can tell there is an entrepreneurial spirit there and a willingness to work, but a lack of available productive positions for people. The stuff they were selling was basically Chinese produced necklaces, beads, basically useless junk. When you tell them you're not interested, they shifted into saying that they were trying to provide for their families. Some of them said they were from Venezuela, which definitely made me more likely to just give them some money (a little bit of USD goes a long way for the poor in terms of Colombian Pesos). It was an odd mix of selling and begging. Perhaps a more dignified form of begging in some ways. I wonder how accurate the overall free market hand-waving about technological unemployment can be when countries like Colombia, which has a relatively free market, has so many people willing to work but basically forced into unproductive jobs.

Another observation: I spoke with an Uber driver in his early 20s who lived with his parents in a neighborhood he described as dangerous (he'd been mugged a few times). We discussed his schedule, and he said he did it 12 hours a day, and found it terribly boring (as you might imagine). We talked about why he worked so long, and he volunteered that he would only make 300,000 COP net ($105 USD) per month driving 8 hours a day. A sobering number, even if he does have free room and board from his parents to make it work. I did wonder if I had missed something with my imperfect Spanish, but I am pretty sure that's what he told me. Based on how cheap the rides were, I guess it could be possible. It's a reminder that a lot of the world already has the expense side of the ERE down, as well as the work ethic, and just lack the economic context to do very well. Sobering for sure for a white collar guy like myself.

All that emphasized for me how lucky I am to live in a fully developed country from an economic standpoint, even if people are comparatively isolated and we have our fair share of social problems.

I turned 30 at the end of January. When I considered that at best I'd lived 1/3 of my life already, it caused some stress. But then, upon reframing it as 1/6 or so of my adulthood, I relaxed a bit. While in Colombia I spoke with a guy from San Francisco working as a full stack developer. He mentioned he'd gotten into it through a Income Sharing coding camp (App Academy), where no upfront cost was charged, but they took a percentage of ones paycheck afterwards.

I realized that I have been circling around the idea of switching to tech for a long time. I've had so many "buts" though. I feel like I am already past the age window to start as a developer, and that getting an entry level position is extremely competitive. I also have the opportunity cost of my current loan officer job, which is relatively good with $55,000 gross a year for 40 hours, a month of vacation, 3% 401(k) match, healthcare etc. But the thing I've done in the past 5 years that got me most into a flow state "zone" was working on my Front End Udacity Nanodegree. And a tech gig could give me so much more lifestyle flexibility to match with the FI tendencies.

I read an Ask Reddit thread about advice from 40+ year-olds for people who had just turned 30, and they said not to feel like it was too late to change career paths, and that it was a good time to do it if one was feeling unfulfilled. I am still leery of coding bootcamps, and am worried that they are perhaps something of a scam, with their incentives out of alignment with the student's, and signficant information asymmetry. However, if I could find one that had a future income sharing arrangement contingent on getting a tech job, that would give me confidence that our interests were sufficiently aligned, and that they were not selling me a lemon so to speak.

Right now, I am looking at Lambda School. They are one of the few ones you can do remotely. If I could get accepted, I would strongly consider quitting, and living on savings while I went through the program. Definitely on my mind right now. Also wanting to move to Chicago to be closer to family.

Anyway, since I'm not contributing actively to the forum right now, I figure it's not fair to expect people to follow me here, but I think it's worth writing now and then for my own benefit. If anyone does want to throw in 2 cents here or there, I certainly will appreciate it.

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