I'm a 35-Year Old Underachieving Failure In Life - Get Your Sh*t Together #4

In these posts I write a reply to a real person on Reddit who needs advice. Reddit has many communities dedicated to Self-Improvement and people ask for help with a broad range of issues.

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It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed ―Theodore Roosevelt

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I'm a 35-year old underachieving failure in life. Tell me what I ought to do.

u/SteadfastEnd,
Just got fired from my job weeks ago for failure to meet quotas (a job I'd been working for 12 years.) In an less-than-happy relationship right now, still a virgin (due to a fundamentalist Christian upbringing, lots of hang-ups about sex), have little savings, still Chinese-illiterate (despite having lived in Taiwan 11 years and trying hard to read the characters,) sleep very poorly (I usually can't fall asleep until 3 AM no matter how early I go to bed,) all in all pretty miserable about life. I have OCD and ADHD and still live with parents due to the tough financial situation, as ashamed as I am about that.

I do have potential - people keep telling me I'm a talented musician, I will soon have 2 masters degrees, and I did test into Mensa a decade ago, but my life is a long series of blunders, waste and mistakes. I'm high IQ but low wisdom.

I've been considering taking psilocybin because I'd heard it often gives people the harsh-but-necessary reality check look at their lives and themselves and leads to drastic improvement. But a family genetic history of schizophrenia and bipolar make it dangerous for me to try that drug.
My current plan is to just apply harder for jobs, work harder, exercise more, sleep more, eat healthy, etc. But anyone have any other advice or things I may have missed?

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Dear SteadFastEnd,

First, I’m sorry for the difficulties you’re having. Losing a job of 12 years would be a challenge for anyone. Work’s so important to people’s lives. When we lose a job we can also lose a sense of purpose.

I’ve been reading a lot of these types of posts and what they have in common is they are long lists of past regrets.

The thoughts we think, and the words we speak about ourselves, are a bigger indicator of future success than anything from the past.

The past is in the past. Leave it there.

Let me share an example with you…

Stock and cryptocurrency traders use moving averages to time their trades. Moving averages are powerful tools that, if used correctly, can make a trader a lot of money. They aren’t perfect though.

Moving averages are created from historical data. It doesn’t matter if you use a 200-day moving average or a 1-minute moving average. It will only show what’s already happened.

A moving average can fool a novice into thinking they can predict the future with it. But past performance doesn't guarantee future results.

A moving average only shows the trend and a trend isn’t destiny. The trend of your life is not your destiny either. It will feel that way though if you live in the past.

Here’s an exercise that might help you let go. Write down all your regrets on a sheet of paper. When you’re done, set the paper on fire and let it all go.

After you’ve done that, change the words you use to describe yourself. You called yourself…

A 35-year old underachieving failure in life.

But you also said you’re a talented musician who’s close to having two master’s degrees. I suggest building a self-description around that. A 35-year old underachieving failure wouldn’t be either of those things.

Exercising more, applying to jobs, and sleeping are all good things. Taking psilocybin is a personal choice. You have to decide what’s best for you.

But you must eventually accept yourself for who you are. I can’t tell you who you are. But I can tell you who you’re not.

You aren’t your parents. You aren’t the religion you grew up in, and you aren’t your past. Choose who you want to be right now. Now is all we have and it’s all there is.

Just for today is a saying used in recovery. It works because you can give up anything for one day. Then when tomorrow becomes today, tell yourself just for today. You can also choose to be happy just for today. Today’s all you have anyways so give it a shot.

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