Mainly spent my day idly

11:59 PM

I can't say today was that great of a day. I did some work, had a video call with my parents, did my daily brain training, sprouted some lentils, and watched some YouTube videos. I still haven't watched any anime or played any video games. I did play this "game" called Trivia Crack, I hope that doesn't count as a game, because it's knowledge-y related, and not like a video game RPG or mindless idle game or anything. I won a Survival game in Trivia Crack today, and I've won every trivia match I've had so far, won like 5 games so far. I like Trivia Crack.

but yeah, I can't really say I did much else today. I was on Twitter or X a lot too, I was on Threads a bit. I guess I got rid of video games and anime, but I'm still on these social media apps. It's not like I'm posting much or anything right now. I'm mainly just reading and liking posts.

I watched Bryan Johnson, the Don't Die guy, today. I watched a video of his for the first time today. Actually, I think I've seen a few of his other videos before, like his speech regarding the lawsuit with his ex. His video today went over his entire life from birth until the present. This guy is a billionaire today (and he's vegan too), but he had normal upbringing like the rest of us. He grew up in a Mormon family, he played football in high school (and I think college), and he did missionary work in his teens to early 20s.

In his mid 20s he had a kid, he had never had a girlfriend or was in a relationship prior to this, but he married the person he had a child with. In his late 20s, he founded a company called Braintree, which would acquire Venmo when it was just starting up (for $26 million too, which is still already a lot), and Venmo would be acquired by PayPal two years later for nearly a billion dollars, making him a fortune, and he grew his wealth since then, and he's a billionaire today.

How did he get a chance to acquire Venmo in the first place? And how did he get his company the $26.2 million needed to acquire it? He doesn't explain that part. He explains his parents and family were poor growing up, enough that taking a vacation to Hawaii when he was a kid, cost them a significant amount of what they had. He was a missionary in, I think, Ecuador, for a few years, I doubt that paid much if anything at all. Yet when he was 27 or so, his company Braintree, was able to acquire Venmo for $26 million. How'd he get Braintree to be worth that much anyway?

My company Stealth Launch, I'd probably value it at $50k to $100k. I don't even know. I think it's a fair valuation at $50k. It can make more than that a year, if I worked enough to make that much or more. It definitely can't buy a $26 million company (yet?). This is my first time writing about it publicly like this. I actually never have taken the time to even mention it at all until now. Yeah if I worked at it more, it can definitely make a lot more. I do feel a little depressed and pressured and anxious, just thinking about that though, thinking about having it make more, and grow more.

It's not easy to run a company. I can be stressed if I think about improvement and the work I need to do for it. It's the same kind of stress I get when I think of having to cut the grass in my backyard. It's a chore that is mildly inconveniencing, not any big issue or anything, I know this, yet it stresses me out. I know it's a weak thing to say that, I get it. I'm writing exactly how I feel here. Even though I do have everything, and I am in a comfortable state, with no stresses or worries, I am still reluctant to expand and do better, because it's change, and it's work, and it's stressful.

Maybe I should stop complaining and just do what I need to. I don't know. It's just so easy to be lazy and not do anything instead. Again, even though I don't play video games or watch any anime anymore, I still end up watching videos like the one about Bryan Johnson's life, and not doing much else. It's basically the same thing.

This is something I need to reflect on and improve upon. I can do anything that I set my mind to, if I actually start working on something and actually do something.

There is a subreddit called r/NEET. I sometimes visit and read the posts there. I've posted there before too, but it was years ago. I'm not even a NEET. NEET stands for Not in Employment, Education, or Training. I've read and visited that subreddit since maybe 2018-2019 or so, even while I was fully employed, even while I was fully employed and in school (education) at the same time, and also training, the complete opposite of NEET.

So the people in r/NEET have all the free time in the world. They don't work, they're not studying in school, they're not in training for anything. These people are some of the freest people on the planet. Most of them live with their parents, literally often in their parent's basements (that stereotype is real), or they live on disability. My source is that I've read through hundreds of their posts there, and they discuss these kinds of things, they often post about the situation they're in and so on.

The funny and unironic thing is, I am just as free as them. I have as much freedom as them to do anything I want to do, ever, at any time. I'm not bound by work. I am currently working, I have my own business that I run, I am also in school, I'm currently taking a calculus course online (today was the first day of class actually). And, I have the same exact problems as them. I know I'm not alone when I explain the difficulties that I have with doing a chore like cutting the grass or doing actual difficult work to grow and expand the business. It's some invisible and debilitating force, or maybe it's something I've picked up from them, from reading hundreds of their posts.

So, I am not here to disparage them, it might sound like I am, but I understand how they feel and I am trying to relate. There is also another similar subreddit, r/antiwork, but they don't discuss this topic of "being lazy" and "not wanting to do anything" as much, even though they do. When I used to visit these subreddits years ago, it was to observe what these people were like who didn't want to work or do anything. It took five years, but I understand how they feel now.

Most of them just spend their days idly. I did a lot of that today, to be honest, watching videos and playing Trivia Crack. It's really hard to get yourself to do things, or again, maybe it's because I've picked up this kind of lazy mindset from them? Let me just grab a random post or several, and just quote it or them.

"I just don’t know what I’m doing. Or what I’m supposed to do. Currently I’ve lost all interest in my hobbies. All I do is lay in bed, let youtube loop game grumps and doom scroll."

"I'm playing Earthbound and FFIX since two weeks ago and i'm not very far into them at all. There's just times i'm just lazy as fuck to play a SP game and just play some multiplayer game or just chill and watch youtube for days when im bored. "

Well, it's honestly depressing reading some of their posts. A lot of them have pretty much lost hope in their life and that's why they post like this. Everyone is in a different life situation, but none of them do anything, they feel defeated and hopeless.

Anyway, I don't want to be like them, so I'm going to try my best to not be. I've also seen some posts of some of them complaining about cleaning, about having chores, about having to work out to get a fit body. I get it, it's hard to do work. It's easier to just sit around and watch anime and play video games. It can feel hopeless and despairing when you feel like nothing you do gets the results that you want. Something that shifts me out of this mindset, is to just realize how much hard work it took to create that game or anime, and that these people weren't being lazy when they made this, and if they can do something amazing like that, I can too, it will take work, but it's possible.

Anyway, that was my day today.