Monthly Update
On Depression
I've been able to get (relatively) on top of the depression by going to bed earlier and exercising more. There is a night and day difference on days where I sleep/exercise and days where I don't. And because the depression is chronic/cumulative, I have to do these things every single day in order to crawl out of the hole. I also think the fact my job/environment is so under-stimulating right now is contributing a lot to the problem because there's nothing to distract me from my own thoughts/get me engaged by default. That is to say, everything I do is the result of me forcing myself to do it rather than a byproduct of other systems in life, which is causing me to over-rely on willpower.
My general paradigm on depression has changed a bit with research and lived experience. My current theory is that depression is a symptom of major collapse in the body's stress response. It's therefore not really a "chemical imbalance," but depression can very much be caused by unbalancing your body.
So basically, any stressors that you don't deal with accumulate over your lifetime and eventually turn into burnout/depression. This is obviously why trauma can cause depression, since that's also something that overwhelms the body's stress response, but this is hardly the only cause. Other stressors include poor diet, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, lack of social connection, stress from work, pollution, etc. Also,
constantly small distractions and multitasking also lead to more stress. It's really not surprising depression is as common as it is given the Standard American Lifestyle manages to be nearly as unhealthy as humanly possible.
Which is why a treatment for it that involves overhauling your lifestyle is far more effective than psychotherapy or medication. In particular,
exercise is shown to be 150% more effective than either.
When my depression spikes, it tends to be brought on by an accumulation of stressors (usually lack of sleep, which triggers less exercise and bad diet), which then causes me to ruminate on all my problems and decide that
I'm Uniquely Flawed and Bad. But it's the depression causing that thought, and the thought itself is not true.
Which is not to say I shouldn't take how I feel seriously. I have worked through an enormousness amount of personal hangups and old trauma through a combination of journaling and Plotkin, but this stuff alone is not enough without fixing the lifestyle that's frequently triggering the breakdown in the body's stress response.
WL6
We've been reading the ERE book for the MMG I'm in, and it's been a great experience to review the basics. The last time I read this book, I was 22 and most of it went over my head. Now that I've had a decade more of life experience and reached basic FI, the book reads on a whole deeper level.
Chapter 5: Strategy, Tactics, and Guiding Principles feels like the exact answer I need to my current problem, and I wasn't ready for it before. In particular, this part really stuck out to me, and I've been thinking about it everyday for the past week:
ERE Book (edited for clarity) wrote:Since specific efforts create specific outcomes, all effects are goals, whether you want to achieve them or not.
This is mind-blowing and I've been going through everything in my life and applying this principle.
Do I keep eating out because I'm bored and under-stimulated? Gaining weight is a goal. No, I don't want to gain weight. I want to lose weight, but this effect is the result of a specific effort (I drive to the fast food place and buy fried chicken), and so I should think about it as a goal.
Do I browse reddit while I'm at work because I view my work hours as time I'm wasting anyway? All the mental health problems caused by screen use are now my goal. No, I don't like this goal. I don't like feeling bad. But the effort is creating the outcome, and so this is the goal.
Stay up too late talking to internet friends and then get behind on sleep, causing a lifestyle spiral? That must be one of my goals.
This has been really helpful because it's forcing me to actual confront my actual behavior and not live in the eternal salaryman-mode of "I make too much money, my job is too easy, I'm going to do whatever I want because it doesn't matter." Because while it is true $10 on fast food is hardly a dent in my portfolio, it IS a dent in my health, and it's keeping me trapped where I don't want to be.
So I'm trying to apply this thinking to my depression and my lifestyle. If I have too much stress, too much boredom and isolation, and too much crappy food, then depression is my goal. My actions are creating this outcome, so to get a different outcome, I need to change my actions.
Realigning my strategy
I'm adjusting my goals as follows.
1. Health - This is really the backbone of anything I do, and I need to focus on this more than anything. This means diet, exercise, sleep, and low stress.
This is a funny area to some extent because I'm actually doing better than 90% of Americans. It's just that once you've ran a 10k, you start to realize the ceiling on athletic achievement is WAY higher than slug-you thought, so I want to challenge myself to be as much of a shredded fitness champion as possible.
My currently lifestyle is 2-3 days a week in the gym, 50/50 eating at home and eating out, 8 hours of sleep, and shitty stress management. Having already done some experiments, I've found that I'd like to get to this point:
1. Exercise daily, no need for the gym because I've mastered home exercises. Also know how to do this to avoid injury. Get outside and hike or ski.
2. 100% eating at home, cook plant-heavy meals. No sugar, alcohol, or caffeine. I already know how to cook so I just need to make this stick. I also don't drink alcohol and no caffeine outside of one cup of green tea. The no-sugar is hard, though.
3. Sleep - 9-10 hours of sleep makes me feel better. Need to wind down for at least an hour before bed to sleep well.
4. Stress management - Need to avoid screens mostly. Constant distractions and multi-tasking increase stress. Meditation and long walks help alleviate it.
Also need more social connection but that particular goal is somewhat of a moving target since I'm moving.
2. Moving
Already talked about this a bunch, so the tl;dr is:
1. Get rid of crap - The ERE principles are helpful here. I'm getting rid of a lot of stuff that I don't need based on this book. Weirdly, I'm getting a lot of pushback on this from people in my life (don't get rid of your old dishes, AE, just move them! Even though you have about 50 plates, you should keep them!) and I don't quite understand why.
2. Rent house - Giving this to a property management company for now so I don't have to deal with it. I will probably sell it once I know where I want to live, but I'm just renting it for now.
3. Travel and explore new areas - Current plan is to probably bring the dog and stay in cheap hotels while driving. This, however, is going to get expensive quickly so I need to think about how to manage that. I don't want to couch surf or house sit because I am working from home while doing this and want total control over my schedule and total reliability in not being subject to other people's random desires.
4. Pick somewhere and actually move there.
3. Writing
Going to keep this up as my main hobby because I think it's good for me and it's the main thing I want to do with my life right now. You do have to be careful with writing because it's a solitary activity, and so it's easy to get detached from your life if you get too involved with it. But given everything else I'm doing, I think I can find balance.
I'm writing cold war fiction, so that means my list of tasks here involves a lot of research.
1. Continue to go to new writing groups in areas I travel to
2. Write daily, obviously
3. Continue research (I have read like 10+ books on this topic and counting)
4. Continue to learn Russian
4. Money
My networth finally went up again. It was flat all last year despite my constant contributions from my paycheck. My NW is now $700k.
Current plan is to keep my job until I have a location to move to because the job can fund more convenient traveling. Also the current economy is still not great, so I'd like to keep working until it stabilizes.
I have finally accepted I have zero interest in salaryman nonsense any more and I'm finally ready to quit. No more hangup on my job being my identity and self-worth. Huge progress there in getting out of that block, but I still don't want to quit until I have my new lifestyle squared away first.