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Wellness Wednesday for December 4, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=H_XMqRhLhic

Amazing advice for those in their 20s.

I agree with everything they've said. It's excellent advice for the right audience.
Tl;dr - Find right peers, commit to girl, live under your means and take biggest risks your safety net will allow.

I turned 30 this year. A part of me feels great. I did all those things.


But, with that being said, I need to rant.

Rant ON:

Their audience is Americans without responsibilities. It's harder for immigrants with responsibilities.

This is what your 20s look like if you do everything right as an aspirational immigrant :

  • 18-22 - Undergrad at the best national university (IITs, C9, T9, Russell, SKY, etc, etc.)
  • 22-23 - Apply for a top grad program so you can move to the US (fastest way to enter the US)
  • 23-25 - Finish grad program to start working in the US
  • 25-27 - Pay off 150k in debt (international students need to pay out of state tuition) & get an H1b so you don't get kicked out
  • 27-29 - Build security deposit for you and parents (~$300k buffer) and get Green Card so you stay in US / found company
  • 30 - FUCK

Do everything right, you still lose 7 years to responsibilities & immigration. I don't think any of these points as luxuries or high up on the hedonic treadmill.


I know Dalton and Michael caveated it for people with circumstances like being stuck in another country (presumably immigrants). But, it comes across as lip service. In Bay Area's 'high agency is everything' worldview, a person's reasons (as I outlined above) are equivalent to excuses. Everything that's not 'doing' is an excuse.

I rant because of their hard emphasis on '20s'. Nothing magically changes at 30. But the industry looks at you differently. In typical Gervais principle status economics, you can be classified as loser, sociopath or clueless. The terms are irrelevant. The crystallization of your status tier at 30 is important.
The immigrant self-sorts into 'clueless overperformer' through their 20s to get around logistical limitations and external responsibilities. They're aren't definitionally clueless. They see the hierarchy for the farce it is. But, they are shackled until they complete the 7-year ritual mentioned above. At 30, they decide to switch gears into the competent sociopaths that they actually are. But by then, it's too late. The opportunity has passed.

Naively, I wish we were a base 12 society. Aesthetics matter. 30 will remain an important turning point, because 30 has the right aesthetic. In a base 12 society, you'd have 36 base10 years to turn 30. That's enough time to stabilize your life & complete a full transition to Gervais' sociopath.

Ofc, it is wishful thinking. A truly high agency person can YOLO their way out of any impediment.
Afterall - "Kal karo so aaj. Aaj karo so ab."

IMO most immigrants I know (all of them are in software development, so very narrow selection) are doing much better than majority of their home bred peers. Yeah, you lose a couple years in grad school, but you're also jumping straight into a high paying job that puts you into the 80th percentile for income. Even in your example, the aspirational immigrant is entering their 30s with a '$300k buffer', that puts you ahead majority of Americans. The only aspect that immigrants lack at is social - most don't have great social groups or romantic relationships, but I don't think that can be excused to the immigrant hardships to the full extent. Plenty of my American friends in their mid 20s have few friends and maybe 1-2 (if any) relationships under their belt, so I think that's just how current generation is.