Warning: This is a personal vent on my personal situation. I doubt it will be worth your time.
High school days were the peak of my life. School was easy, and I was fortunate enough to find interest and some talent in math olympiad. I climbed my way through before getting stopped just before the TST.
I remember them giving out big π-shaped chocolates for the IMO contestants that year, and getting really bitter because it looked so cool.
After I hit that wall I parted way with math to become a CS major because startups were a thing and I believed I could start the next Google by my own hands.
Fortunately I got accepted to a pretty good university.
So all in all, I didn’t quite get there but still, I worked hard, and was able to take pride in my achievements.
Good times.
Anyways, after that I had multiple breakdowns, flunked the school, and spent 10 years mostly playing card games and masturbating.
It’s not that I didn’t try—rather I did multiple times. I was full with great ideas, some I still believe are viable, but overconfidence and lack of diligence got me and I underperformed quite bad.
Not one project was persisted until fruition and tens of half-assed unfinished ones were only a burden. For each ambitious projects, ultimately I hurt multiple people, and isolated myself more.
I can only attribute my failures to myself.
It’s a really bad feedback loop. I start a project, get anxious fearing failure, fail because of lack of confidence and diligence, go back to cry in bed wondering where it all went wrong.
One time I needed to do a simple CSS work, couldn’t make myself to do it, and just stared at the monitor for a whole day. Work was a simple static 3 pager for 2 weeks. I did not finish it. I got into a legal trouble for that. Fun times.
I can feel time and youth slipping away. I am clearly aware of how important this time is in my life. I also can feel the deteriorating working memory, and no longer feel like the smart guy good at math. I recently tried to solve some MO problems trying to recall fond memory of my AoPS days, and failed miserably.
I know. I should get a good sleep, exercise, reconnect with my friends, network with people, feel good about myself again, pick up new skills, finish that damn GTD book once and for all, diligently work on my projects, and it will be all good. Priviledge alarm is ringing left and right and I’m in my mom’s basement furiously masturbating to a deepfake porn.
I do not know why I felt the need to post this here. I lurk this site a lot because it fits my worldview of putting logical thinking above most things. Maybe I wanted to reflect on my situation somewhat objectively by placing myself in public.
Not sure how I should wrap up this post. So I will not try.
This was ultimately the answer. This advice convinced me to apply for a job and I am now more productive than ever.
I was fortunate enough to find a job at a startup with lots of smart people, and I feel very alive again.
Just wanted to say thanks.