# 26 year old's haphazard guide to living

as of the last update of this post i am 26 and the date is 2nd fructidor
232 according to french revolutionary calendar (2024-09-16 according to
g*orgian calendar)

this is my personal best practices document, to keep reminding myself
how to do things, and what are the essentials, the spheres of life,
sources of beauty

feel free to use this to own regard and to understand where things might
not work for you. your mileage may vary,

i am not an expert at living (who is), but again - writing this for myself
and maybe for a friend

## maxims/quotes

- slow is smooth smooth is fast
- git gud
- push yourself
- be fast with action, be patient with results
- speak evil of no man
- never go full retard
- pati legem, quam ipse tuleris [keep the law you make yourself]
(monostichs of cato)
- as a human, you are only entitled to death
- record what you can (journal/make notes) - do not go overboard tho
- Since fickle life turns on uncertain perils, -- Consider each day you
struggle through a gain. (distichs of cato)
- Πάντα ῥεῖ (everything flows) - heraclitus, the great
philosopher
- Finite time and infinite time contain the same amount of joy, if its
limits are measured out through reasoning.  - Epictetus
- continuous learning
- The game taught me the game. (Edwin Lefevre, in resources)
- All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. (Benjamin
Graham)
- momentum is everything
- be outcome independent
- one should accept the truth from whatever source it proceed (Maimonides)
- avoid being a victim/loser mentally
- When the same Abba Anthony thought about the depth of the
judgements of God, he asked, 'Lord, how is it that some die when
they are young, while others drag on to extreme old age? Why are
there those who are poor and those who are rich? Why do wicked
men prosper and why are the just in need?' He heard a voice
answering him, 'Anthony, keep your attention on yourself; these
things are according to the judgement of God, and it is not to your
advantage to know anything about them.' (Sayings of Desert Fathers)
- you have no chance to survive make your time

sources:
- <https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/cato.html>
- <https://en.wikiquote.org>

## time

i cannot think of more important and underappreciated resource than time

time defines everything

other things happen in time, and if you waste it, or allow your attention
(which
really - is time) to be stolen by other entities - you are fucked

profoundly fucked

of course here, i mean time as space for action, for doing things

once accepting we need 7-9 hours of sleep as average mortals, we need to
deal with things in this timeframe

always remember, as with everything - you are the first priority for
planning and for your action

i believe simple steps to take are:

- plan your general goals (write as many as you have and pick 5 you are
going focus on for
current year/season)
- note your seasonal/yearly goals (i do not think this is as important
to differentiate, currently
i am doing every 6 months)
- every week write your successes, failures and aims
- from aims plan your every day (can use notebook/app/whatever is comfy),
go as detailed as you can do
, a perfection would be a timeblocked system but checklist already will
put you miles ahead
- never overcomplicate, you do not need second brain, you need only be
aware and mindful
       the hell are you doing
- control your environment as much as you can, if you have some online
addiction BLOCK BLOCK AND FUCKING BLOCK. leave social media as if you
are not able to put time there productively and it does not benefit your
general position or joy, you are out. and in most likelihood - it does
not. i do not expect social media influencers are reading this phlog -
but if you are please contact me (email later in this post).
- same applies to physical addictions, getting rid of these should be
an uppermost priority as one cannot kill time without injuring eternity
- codependency is an addiction

resources:
- <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjyfsfdUsaI>
- <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People>

## finances

finances are something that came naturally to me due to my father being
insane about the topic

i needed to live through university on less than shoestring budget, so i
am probably terrible at giving advice as i am past all the needed stress

the basics are:
- have a general spending budget - put that to an account
- if you did not have a plan to pay off or make more money using a debt -
this is a dumb debt. never have dumb debt
- use a credit card sensibly for big purchases for safety of that
- have 6 months of wages saved on a current account
- invest as much as you can either into simple low-risk savings account,
or etf, such as s&p500
- always assets > liabilties (and when buying anything question it
assett/liability status,
and are you capable of selling it/getting rid of it in sensible way)
[if you do not know what assets and liabilities and relationships is idk
read rich dad poor dad, read some finance subreddits, a lot of work to do)
- always look for easy money and get it when you can
- passive income is the golden standard but in some ways is more of
an idea
than reality
- look at 9-5 as a temporary research - not a means to live (if you
truly love it - then keep at it, but be aware it is going along the sea
in someone elses boat)

always pay yourself first, and if unsure pay yourself first

to follow moneysavingexpert money mantra regarding buying:
skint? - do i need this? can i afford it?
not skint? - will i use it? is it worth it?

investing is a complex topic and skill, deserving for its own article
but resources
should give the general mindset

resources:
- <https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/>
- <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reminiscences_of_a_Stock_Operator>
- <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intelligent_Investor> - treat it
as a reference
- <https://memo.barrucadu.co.uk/personal-finance.html>

## fitness

physical health is so goddamn important - and i have learnt this way
too late
than i wish

if you are a man you gotta do resistance training (as in weightlifting)

i am generally an absolute beginner at this, so just look at
the resources, they explain things a lot better than i ever will, also
was expounded upon in previous article

if you are bad with food just measure things and go for sensible things
do not go apeshit with the fridge

idk how is it to have low appetite, then again - look at resources

remember to note what you do, although this should go into time
but if you do not log your workouts, you are breaking some of the maxims

resources:
- <https://liamrosen.com/fitness.html>
- <https://stronglifts.com/>
- <https://cronometer.com/>
- <https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/get-running-with-couch-to-5k/>

## hobbies/skills/work/employment

this is going to be an intense section

how can you finally make yourself useful? how can you be believable?

get a skill and git gud at it until someone is willing to pay for it

get necessary papers if you want to be certified(tm) at it

if you fail this, no point to anything else

always gain new skills as sum of skills is more than each of the
skills separately

if you see you are stopping to grow at work, try to find a new job

and be aware, your value truly, is what are you worth to other people

internal comes from the external

external comes from the interal

so get going git gud at something

i sincerely think if nobody is willing to pay you (or respect you)
for something, you are
not truly gud at something, you are a hobbyist at best (nothing wrong
with that, just be aware that then this is a secondary aim)

of course this does not mean do not play around and never have fun,
just be mindful of what are you doing with your time. cataloguing anime
series you torrented might be fun and a good escape, but at this point,
you just might need therapy and mentoring

the more difficult the and less conventionally fun skill is the lower time
barrier and skill set barrier to entry. for example, gaming is an easy
skill, but to make money with it, one needs to have high entertainment
skill or extreme extreme gaming skills to be at esports

on the other hand accounting has very high time and low joy barrier,
but it is then very easy to get a job only with accounting and semi-good
social skills

this especially works with skill joining - somebody who knows a set of
difficult conventionally low joy skills - idk - accounting + assembly
programming + calculus + ironman + strongman - will most probably have
lots of interesting success if added to some decent social skills

remember to read books...

-
<https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/25002298-how-to-fail-at-almost-everything-and-still-win-big>
- <http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=1177>

## relationships

probably after fitness, my second weakest sphere, i have been doing
things wrong quite a bit

i think all what i have seen boils down to:
- meet as many as good people as possible
- always try to enter better rooms
- be mindful of any kind of person you are planning to spend time with and
(i am allowing you to) be judgemental to your benefit. of course, going
back to the mantra, speak evil of no man, so just slowly grow distant,
sometimes confront, but confront like an investor a company that kept
losing money on herman miller aeron chairs
- avoid people with serious mental issues, especially the ones that
cause emotional instability or toxic behaviour (bpd/npd), treat them as
if they had poop tattoo on their forehead
- do not spend time in places with sick people (looking at discord
chats, other netgroups especially due to their low barrier to entry),
they might put a poop emoji tattoo on your forehead
- be aware that if you are not having fun, you might need to put in more,
and figure out have to have fun having things in mind
- search for people with high integrity, high intelligence and good work
ethic for doing work with, for closer relationships i think empathy,
openness and being emotionally stable is critical
- if you have brainworms (which will affect other things) - get as
much support as you can - books, therapy, medication (although being
physically fit will also help), as only then you can remove the poop
tattoo from your forehead
- be proactive in your people search and keep in mind all the maxims
and quotes stated

a lot of this stuff is paradoxical

again, i am anti-expert so if anyone has advice, please email me

lich atto dataswamp dotto org

## mentors

if you can, find a mentor, can be parasocial or social (of course better
if social)

i am sorta in bad position here, i have some semi personal irl mentors
but working on this

just somebody who is at a position you aspire to

i believe it is important that this person lives now, as otherwise the
microculture will be profoundly different

here are some people who do that for me
- scott locklin
- scooby1961

## conclusion

this was some heavy stuff

enjoy some music:
- <https://www.youtube.com/embed/DanrEYWmrqw>
- <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O0m4PdQz8M>