Ask HN: I made a ridiculous amount of money and feel “depressed”
Having said that, this lifestyle has been taking a huge toll on me. I won't say I'm depressed, but I'm becoming so disillusioned with life. I've so much goddam wealth that literally everything comes easy. I've travel oversea frequently in a hope to feel alive - and for a short time I do. Drugs, women, crazy adventures. Then I come back to this small town and it seems like there's nothing to strive for. I have everything I want in life. Nothing is a challenge anymore. The other day I randomly bought a house for $45k in cash so I can rent it out, but i kinda lost motivation after the first week
Anyone feel like that? I feel completely directionless. I tried going to meetups and everything but I can't connect with anyone because our interests are so different.
48 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 162 ms ] threadhttps://www.nationalservice.gov/pdf/07_0506_hbr.pdf
"Over the past two decades we have seen a growing body of research that indicates volunteering provides individual health benefits in addition to social benefits. This research has established a strong relationship between volunteering and health: those who volunteer have lower mortality rates, greater functional ability, and lower rates of depression later in life than those who do not volunteer"
if you dont want to go to "the moon" maybe you dont want anything more. just to rest.
In terms of keeping active, I would recommend moving closer to a major metro area, this could be on the outside of the beltway so you possibly drive or take a ride in to reduce your rent/mortgage. Remember, it is hard to keep the mind busy when you live in a place with little to no activity.
Have you tried spending time working on your other hobbies, looking into things you would like get involved in (learning the ins and outs of cars, setting up a home datacenter, getting more in-depth knowledge about your favorite music genres, designing your own clothes, car mods etc.). If you do not want to move have you looked into ways to enhance your local community to bring some life into it, create jobs, get to know the locals better, conduct local hackathons, and start small conferences to get others interested into what you do, etc.?
As for hobbies, I actually have a few. The problem is that many of them are more of a lone activity, and that makes me feel even more isolated
As for the local stuff, that's why I bought that house in the first place. Wanted to get more involved in the community
As a result of it, I did extremely well financially even with my very little income as a grad student. I've achieved my saving goals for the year 4 months in. But I've grew to much pride, lost my sanity, became numb, lost my sense of enjoying life. Perhaps that was part of the reason my wonderful girlfriend broke up with me. By the way, I lived in a small Midwest town. I lived frugally and minimally and I'm not really obsessed with things in the first place, so saving 50% of my income being single wasn't hard. I woke up everyday checking my investments and saw it growing but felt no joy. Sometimes I would stay in bed for the whole day and sleep. I wasn't rich but I was so financially stable that I was going to be alright no matter what happens.
Thanks to several changes in life, I now do feel joy again. I don't know what exactly went right, but I did the following:
- Not obsessedly following the r/fire community anymore. I now spend more money to buy gifts and experiences for people I love (not superficial ones, the kind of I would have to think twice buying for myself). I come up short financially but ahead in my sense of self worthiness. I feel I'm not a money obsessed scumbag anymore. You might find having a better time doing this because I don't have a big income. But anyway, try to make other people who are important in your life happy for what you can provide: money, time, experiences and you won't regret it.
- I started working out hardcore first because the girlfriend that dragged me to the gym. FYI, I am a typical computer nerd, who was massively unfit (underweight) and has never played a sport in my life. Nowadays, I try to work out once or twice a week. Just having a trainer train you for the first week so you know what is what is enough for you to get started.
- I moved to the coast, not that I planned to. I live in a much nicer place with more freedom and amenities. There is a huge difference in living in an intellectual and welcoming town compared to the middle of nowhere, homophobic town.
- I quit social media cold turkey. I don't have Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, almost anything that allows me to peek into the others' lives anymore. I probably won't ever come back to Facebook.
- I started to think positively about others: seeing what they were able to achieve given the situation, not how inferior they are to me. And I told everything to them to make them feel they share with a friend.
- I watched the highest rated movies on imdb. Perhaps the two that resonated the most with me (those were rewatches!) were sunset blvd and groundhog day. Especially groundhog day. You are in a loop and everyday is the damn same. It changes when you see it differently that kind of stuff. I have never found watching fictional movies and books useful or joyful before. I have always been a nonfictional person.
- I started to be more bold, adventurous and reached out and collaborate with people I admire. We work and talk about projects that makes us no money. But I can't say how much I love seeing a personal email from people telling me about new things they're planning to do.
I know not everything I said will be applicable for you, but I hope at least some of those you might find something useful. Good luck and I hope you feel better for the new year!
Secondly, you have lost what the Japanese call "reason for getting out of bed in the morning", which is when you start to die, no matter what your age is.
The longer you live like you are the less you will have to connect with anyone about.
Worry less about the money and more about doing something that you feel has some purpose. It doesn't have to be some feel good save the planet/whales/children, just something that you believe in and needs doing.
Don't throw away the advantages you have built/won/stumbled into, just take them and use them.
Lastly back to the taxes, they pay for schools, hospitals, roads, immunisation programs, disaster preparedness etc etc - given they are not exhorbitant, just pay them and feel like you are contributing to the greater good.
The book "Smartcuts" by Shane Snow address the issue of wealthy people feeling depressed. Its a great book!
But I'm sure you can think of something worth learning that you do for its own sake rather than as part of an overall gameplan, whether that's playing violin or teaching wolves to play backgammon. Since you're suffering from anomie I challenge you to identify 3 things that you would actually find difficult to accomplish and which would have value for other people (not necessarily altruistic, but in terms of being recognized by others as difficult to accomplish).
Whether it's exercise, going to meetups, gatherings, or any sort of public place, trying new hobbies as you've done with the house, etc., I'd suggest finding at least one thing to do each day that forces you out of your comfort zone, and see if you don't notice a difference in your feelings and outlook.
If you're walking, speed it up a bit or even try a short sprint to force a recovery, and note any physical and mental difference as the body does its thing.
Can you approach it that way? "I haven't done my 'one thing' yet today--I need to get out/hit the floor/call a friend/whatever." Go to the library, hardware store, mall, church, something different, even seemingly mundane.
And yeah, maybe move if you need to. Sometimes a change can be beneficial in and of itself, and you don't have to go to the extreme Bay-end of the COL spectrum to find more opportunities--there's a range of options between there and remote small town.
Once that happens, you will feel a sense of satisfaction that will self-drive -- the more you help others out, the more you would want to continue. And since you are helping people out in the thing you are really good at, you will have to keep doing that thing to continue to inspire people and stay ahead.
Though, you will notice that starting out will be really tough -- your body and mind will find every excuse to not do it, simply because it is not your comfort zone.
We all need something to strive for and always want more, but it seems you're having issues finding what you want.
The way you feel just comes from being in your 20's and sorting out your feelings.
You are currently trading happiness for money. You won't get this time back, but you have the rest of your life to work and make money.
Being frugal is a trap. You don't want to be Scrooge McDuck. Better to have a bit less money and far more fun.
Apparently this is pretty common. We aren’t that good at predicting things that will make us happy or sad. There’s a great TED talk about this https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy/...
I think the problem I had was that when you have very little you are quite care free. You take chances and don’t worry about the consequences because you have little to lose and lots to gain. This feels good! But once you actually get somewhere you start to worry about stuff. What if I lose this money? What if I do the wrong thing and it all goes wrong. What should be a great position becomes scary and unstable.
Now would be a great time for some proper reflection about what you want from life that isn’t just about owning and buying stuff. You’ve bought your way out of that game now and it’s time to think about what’s really important to you. I also think Tony Robins is a genius for his ideas in this stuff.
With that in mind, the most important thing for you to do is to find a great community. You should really move to somewhere where people have similar interests with you so you can bond with them and form great relationships. You could maybe have long distance friendships, but they will never be the same as living within minutes of people you really love and want to spend time with. It's OK to spend a lot of money making that happen, because this will most likely increase your happiness more than anything else you can do.
Finding a "direction" or purpose is probably very important to your wellbeing as well (this is supported by evidence-- people who say they feel like they have a purpose in life are subjectively happier on the average). What do you really care about? What do you think is important in the world? Find a way to spend time moving that forward. For example, I like spending time on lots of different things-- coding, making art, making music, cooking, etc etc. but I need to decide how to spend each minute of my life so I just picked a metric I wanted to optimize for-- the net happiness on earth. Now if I feel directionless I just ask "Well what would help make the most people the most happy" and I can start heading in some kind of direction. It works well because the metric is really exciting and important to me. Another way would be to ask yourself "In 100 years, how do I want to be remembered?" or something of that sort. Just find a way to answer the question "what is my purpose in life" and you should be set for a while.
Those 2 big things are worth trying. But there's also lots of little things. For me exercise has a huge influence on how happy I feel on a given day-- if I exercised in the morning or the day before, I'm usually much happier. Eating good food has a significant impact for me as well. Talking to friends and spending time in nature are some more. Try out a bunch of that sort of day-to-day happiness/well-being advice and pay attention to what makes you feel good and make sure to do that often, ideally daily or weekly.
A lot of people are going to read that and think - how the hell is that even possible?
It does not seem to matter how many times it is said, or what studies show, but people don't seem to get it into their heads that how much money you have and how happy you are are completely unrelated once a certain level of income is attained. Or, putting it another way, happiness is mostly unrelated to the amount of money you have in your bank account.
I was once £150K in debt, and people don't believe it when I tell them they were actually some of the happiest years of my life!
So what to do?
I would talk to someone first off. I would suggest a good life coach as a starting point - Tim Brownson at A Daring Adventure (just google 'A daring adventure') is a stand up guy (known him for years) and a fellow Brit! He might help you find some focus on a new direction. He's lived in American for about ten years now I think so maybe his accent is decipherable now and he doesn't sound like a mad Australian.
So what kinds of things affect happiness?
- exercise / health - relationship - friends - purpose - contribution
and that special little thing a lot of workaholic Americans forget all about:
FUN!
The people who come, won't have the same interests, but at least you'll know some people.
Ps. You have too little on your hands, this will also fix that for some time.
Moving to a more interesting place is good advice though as is considering money a means rather than an end to itself.
Double-check with a professional that there isn't some physical disorder going on, and see a mental health professional.