Effectively ALL of what I was told about what makes a satisfying and successful life. I was told the right thing to do is work hard, go to school, get a good stable job, get married, settle down, have kids, buy a house, own several depreciating assets.
Life is about being happy. Nothing else. Do what makes you happy, because that car, vacation, or other piece of consumer shit won’t. Nor will living by scripts somebody else wrote for you.
I had my house paid off at 30 and was traveling 5-6 times a year. High-level in the gaming, lottery and promotions industries. Misery. Now I have a humble life and I paint and craft things and I go dancing. And I’m happy. I could pick up the tools again and make a highly successful Steam game, but I won’t. I already proved my point in my career and creative output, and I don’t want to anymore.
I gave everything away and now I live a simple life where I volunteer, work at crisis shelters, do recovery mentorship, housing outreach and other things. I am happy and I do not care about the trappings of the material world anymore. I chased the hologram until I caught it and discovered its true nature.
One of the things I’ve learned from my favorite psychology professor is that paying attention to my conscience, doing what my gut tells me is the right thing to do, is the most effective treatment for depression I’ve ever found.
I used to be enamored of basically financial success and exploration. Now I most highly value the lack of things nagging at my conscience.
I’m pretty poor, but I’m happy.
I used to make a lot more money making software. During that time, I kept maybe 25% of the promises I made to people professionally. I would very often say “This’ll be done in three weeks” knowing I’d have a better chance of landing this or that contract, also knowing the three weeks was extremely optimistic.
I did that all the time. Very bad character in retrospect. No wonder I was anxious and depressed. Always feeling like some kind of hunted animal. Somehow, I thought of myself as a good person because I lied to myself.
Now I do work where I keep approximately 97% of my promises (I track this). I make less money. Honestly the work I do is easy. But the payoff in terms of my serotonin and dopamine levels is huge. I feel solid. I rarely have trouble getting started with my day.
I’m hoping to take on slightly harder, slightly more meaningful work. But now that I have a taste of being reliable, I never want to go back.
