Prs to be making me less broke? Financial Follies

[TheRover]

Um, doesn't grad school or whatever cost money? It seems like wasting money on education with no plan to use it is one of the big mistakes that got the poor old boy into this mess in the first place.

[tuq]

I think some of you guys are vastly overestimating the blog thing. While 'cardo is regarded as a thoughtful writer, people tend to gravitate to things that are positive and make them feel better; reading the ramblings of a depressed individual does not accomplish this, unless it does so by the unintended consequence of making people happy they're not him.

This doesn't even take into account that many of Anacardo's posts are tough to slog through because the words aren't exactly ones we trot out on a daily basis.

All that said, if nothing else this thread brought offTopic and CMI out of semi-retirement, two guys I thought about nominating currently in the "best writer" thread because their stuff is awesome.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Um, doesn't grad school or whatever cost money?

[/ QUOTE ]

It depends.

Stuff like law school? Yes

Many PhD programs? No.



It all depends, but many PhD students make upwards of 20k a year while they study (doing research or TA stuff)

[Mama Poker]

[ QUOTE ]
This might be a good time to state preferences, as if I had the right to hold them.

THINGS I HATE:

Sales, customer service. I just can't [censored] deal.

I'm not dealing with food, sorry.

I like industrial / construction work okay, but hooo boy am I bad at it.

I have no experience in anything else other than academia and cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

Join Americorp and volunteer to teach kids in New Orleans.
That will help get rid of some student loans I believe.

[MegaloMialo]

What i have read so far makes me think that it would do you some good to do some hard labor for a while and meanwhile try to clear your thoughts.
Are you planning on returning to poker one day? Are your dreams that you can one day support yourself through poker?
Do you have any idea what you would like to do?
I am not sure why you ask for advice when you seem to know very well what you wish and don't wish to do.
Am i wrong to assume that you had illusions of being able to live through poker and fell flat and realized that you had little to begin with and even less now?

[Burlap]

It doesn't matter what you try to do, you will fail. Your current attitude towards life will always tell you that whatever direction you're taking, it's the wrong one.

That is unless you take upon yourself the task of replacing the self-ingrained negative thought patterns and habits you have unknowingly embedded into your psyche.

I read your emo thread in EDF, and can sympathize. You are way beyond depression, and well into the seventh circle of hell. I know because I have been there myself. Good times.

Your posts read like Schopenhauer. You have zero desire to do anything, because nothing seems like it could possibly satisfy. Therefore; life = pointless, effort = drudgery, and suicide = LDO. But this is all just your own false estimate of the future based on your current state of mind.

Quite obviously there are many people enjoying their lives despite their illusory existence and futile efforts, and it is not because they are dumb. And believe it or not, you will too.

You don't have to be Patrick Antonius, or Schnieds, or Tiger Woods to have an exciting and enjoyable life worth living. This took me way too long to realize. This is an all too common problem for many modern-day North-American males, and is the basis for a ton of movies like The Matrix, Fight Club, Office Space, and so on...The pervading attitude being: Not the best = worthless. If you are a 9-5 subordinate nobody, YSSCKY.

Fortunately, you are not in as bad a shape as you may think, and will one day look back on this time of your life and be very grateful. You are in the midst of learning, albeit the hard way (and the best way), the absolutely astonishing power of the human mind, and how it has absolute dominion over creating the reality you perceive - positive or negative.

Right now you are feeling as though you are very unfortunate, when in fact you are one of the most fortunate people in the world, as you have to be very intelligent to have come to the depressing conclusions about life you have grown to know and love. But you already know you are smart, and that compliment barely registers with you anymore because you believe it to be a hindrance. I assure you it is not. You are smart, but you are also insane. And therein lies the problem. You are well on the path to homelessness and suicide if you don't change your mental attitude, and you don't want that because you will smell like urine.

In your ISSCKM thread, limon called you a coward, and he was right. You may not have believed him because you don't physically experience the sensation of fear or anxiety anymore, but that is because you have altogether stopped putting yourself in situations that you find threatening, basically - life. You have completely taken yourself out of the game and are too paralyzed to make the next move. You no longer worry about this because it easier to think about just ending it all. But believe me, it was fear that got you into this mess in the first place.

...BLAH BLAH BLAH, yeah I know. That's exactly how all this crap sounded to me not too long ago. Until one day I just said F' it and finally went about actually doing something to change my predicament. I decided that if I was going to kill myself anyway, I might as well put forth at least a few months of solid effort in the hopes of regaining my sanity, and if I still couldn't get it together, then gg life.

Fortunately for me I was able to pull it together, and learned quite a lot about how my mind works, and why I was convinced into thinking I could never be happy again.

Every individual is entirely ruled by their habits and ongoing mental dialog. So much so, that no matter how hard they try to alter their outer circumstances, if their imagination is not lined up with their desires, they will ultimately fail. Your mind moves from your deepest thoughts and beliefs to their corresponding actions, or "inactions" as the case usually is.

For example; if you want to lose weight, but you're constantly thinking about how disgustingly fat you are, or how much of a huge effort you will have to put forth, or how distant your goal is, you will feel crappy and your brain will not release the energizing chemicals that would otherwise fuel your motivation, and spur you into the proper action. Not only that, but it will also likely release cortisol (a stress hormone), and make you feel lethargic, depressed, and incapable, and you'll probably go on a massive eating binge and regain that 1/4 lb. of fat you burned off earlier in the week.

On the other hand, if you keep your mind on your goal, and dismiss your present circumstance as temporary, and realize that change is always very small and incremental, and always 2 steps forward and 1 step back, you will find these increments slowly adding up to noticeable improvement, and not get too discouraged and self destructive when things don't go perfectly or you slip up a bit.

"Losers visualize the penalties of failure. Winners visualize the rewards of success" - Sports-psychologist Rod Gilbert

"Pessimists think so negatively about doing the whole thing perfectly, that they end up doing nothing and become passive. Whereas the optimist always does a little something, always takes an action, always feels like progress is being made. Pessimists continually use their imaginations to visualize worst case scenarios, and then conclude that those scenarios are so hopeless that there's no cause for action. Therefore pessimism always leads to passivity." - Steve Chandler, 100 Ways To Motivate Yourself.

Most people either laugh at the suggestion of self-help/motivational material, or read a book once and conclude that it's all B.S. since they experienced no significant change. To me that is like reading one poker book once, tossing it in the corner, and concluding from your dismal results that you suck. Learning to develop a positive attitude is no different from learning anything else. You have to continually apply yourself until the thoughts you experience when absorbing the material become so ingrained into your mind that they become second nature. Like riding a bike, tying your shoelaces, or learning to play poker. This is what is meant by "subconscious mind". Habitual thoughts or behaviors that act below your conscious mind, and guide your every action and reaction to any situation, despite what your conscious desires may be. You really can create your personality as you go along.

The more you drown out your negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones, the easier it will become, until eventually you begin to do it naturally without thinking about it. All of a sudden (about 2 weeks into it for me) your body will start producing chemicals that it has long since forgotten about, and you will, almost as if by magic, feel confident and capable. You will automatically begin to enjoy things that you once had no interest in. Your right-brain (creative imagination) will start handing over to you all sorts of creative ideas and solutions that you could have never imagined in your current state. It will also remove fear and give you the courage to act. You will look back and laugh at the way you perceive the world right now, and fully realize that you were in fact insane.

This is what it really comes down to. The chemicals being released from your brain as a result of your habitual thought patterns. Thoughts are just strengthened "neuro-pathways" that can be created or destroyed. When you begin to release those energizing chemicals, courage and action become automatic, and a feeling of lightness and relaxation becomes apart of your everyday experience. This is how a "sane" person operates, and is the reason why he seems able to enjoy the things that you scoff at.

To most normal (and especially successful) people, a positive attitude was ingrained in their minds through nature and nurture. Daddy encouraged them at soccer practice, or mommy consoled them after a big loss and made chocolate-chip muffins for the whole team. For whatever reason they were loved and guided to make the right decisions in life. But you and I, it would seem, were never afforded that luxury. But this is not a curse, it is a HUGE blessing. We have seen first-hand from the disastrous effects of our own negative thinking, all of the turmoil our attitudes have brought into our lives, and now have a deep understanding of how a positive attitude would dramatically alter our situations. Whereas the already "normal" person may never bother to go about investigating the inner workings of his mind, and may never get past his own personal limitations.

As for material , I highly recomend anything and everything by Napoleon Hill, but especially the audio book "Keys To Positive Thinking". It is absolutely brilliant, and will clearly point out to you just how incorrectly you are thinking. The basic principal is what the cheesy spin-off DVD "The Secret" was spawned from, and it is better known as the "Carnegie Secret" or "The Law of Attraction" but does not work in the same way that Shannon Elizabeth would like to believe; i.e. changing the card on the top of the deck. It does however create the energy in you to spur you on to the correct action WRT your desired outcome.

Choose audio-books over written material if possible, and listen to them MANY MANY times a day until you begin to feel better. From then on, a half/hour a few times a week should keep your spirits up. Listen to it in your car, or better yet, get an MP3 player and listen to it wherever you go.

Don't stop immersing yourself in "positive attitude" material. You may begin to get "bored" of it from time to time, and stop listening to it after a while, or begin to feel like you have mastered the art of being happy, and don't need it anymore. But with someone who naturally thinks the way we do, that could turn out to be a huge mistake, as you may begin to re-adopt your old thought patterns and fall back into the abyss - and may not find the motivation to dig yourself out again. Anything that you don't keep working on, you will become rusty at, and lose many hard-earned benefits.

And definitely stop reading all that post-modern, Nietzsche-type crap. You're lucky you haven't killed yourself yet.

Now go be a sane person, and quit it with these emo threads FFS.

Miscellaneous-
Exercise, especially cardio.
Eat well.
If at all possible, avoid alcohol. It will depress you for days afterward. If however, a few drinks are necessary to maintain casual or professional relationships, at the very least don't get smashed.

[Blarg]

Cardo, they've turned martial arts into aerobics with tae bo, and then the tae bo dude came out with a phoney stick fighting aerobics. I've also seen a show on a guy who came out with a staff-fighting aerobics. Why not a sword fighting aerobics? WTF is more cool than sword fighting?

Personally, I've often thought nunchaku practice was great and fun upper body coordination and aerobics conditioning. There's really any number of weapons and martial arts based activities that are really fun and great aerobic training. Plus they can even give Sally Housewife the happy illusion of competence and quasi-badassedness, which is cool.

Ever see the stick drills in things like Kali? Awesome. I'm sure this could be done.

[Anacardo]

[ QUOTE ]
I think some of you guys are vastly overestimating the blog thing. While 'cardo is regarded as a thoughtful writer, people tend to gravitate to things that are positive and make them feel better; reading the ramblings of a depressed individual does not accomplish this, unless it does so by the unintended consequence of making people happy they're not him.

This doesn't even take into account that many of Anacardo's posts are tough to slog through because the words aren't exactly ones we trot out on a daily basis.

All that said, if nothing else this thread brought offTopic and CMI out of semi-retirement, two guys I thought about nominating currently in the "best writer" thread because their stuff is awesome.

[/ QUOTE ]

Firstly, that whole 'your first duty is to entertain' card is kind of overplayed. I think Requiem For A Dream has done pretty well, for example.

Secondly - and don't mind me getting all wistful for a second - there was a time in my life when I didn't whine, and had lots and lots of thoughts / ideas on subjects other than myself. I would like to think that, eventually, I can return to that state of being.

[Triumph36]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think some of you guys are vastly overestimating the blog thing. While 'cardo is regarded as a thoughtful writer, people tend to gravitate to things that are positive and make them feel better; reading the ramblings of a depressed individual does not accomplish this, unless it does so by the unintended consequence of making people happy they're not him.

This doesn't even take into account that many of Anacardo's posts are tough to slog through because the words aren't exactly ones we trot out on a daily basis.

All that said, if nothing else this thread brought offTopic and CMI out of semi-retirement, two guys I thought about nominating currently in the "best writer" thread because their stuff is awesome.

[/ QUOTE ]

Firstly, that whole 'your first duty is to entertain' card is kind of overplayed. I think Requiem For A Dream has done pretty well, for example.

Secondly - and don't mind me getting all wistful for a second - there was a time in my life when I didn't whine, and had lots and lots of thoughts / ideas on subjects other than myself. I would like to think that, eventually, I can return to that state of being.

[/ QUOTE ]

The difference is, Requiem for a Dream is a movie and you'd be writing a blog. Any two-bit emo person can write a blog - however, depressed people talking about how depressed they are is totally uninteresting.

I think Burlap's post is terrific.

[tdarko]

Though some may know who Burlap is, I don't and this post now eliminated the two I was trying to decide between.