Three years ago:

  • 26 years old, living in a basement with a toxic, nobody, inferiority-complex-harboring roommate.
  • University drop out.
  • No friends, no mentors, no support network.
  • Virgin, no girlfriend, picked up cheap hookers to get laid.
  • Made $30k/year, nailing wood together in a shipping yard, with unskilled immigrant laborers.
  • No one in my company knew I existed or cared. Professionally, I was a nobody.
  • Played video games when not sleeping or working.
  • Dressed like I was 9, poor personal hygiene.
  • Incredibly poor social skills, lack of emotional intelligence, insight into other people.
  • Overweight (352 lbs), struggled with depression, and suicidal ideation continually.
  • Life focus was the lower half of Maslow's hierarchy of needs: http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow-pyramid.jpg

Then I decided, for whatever reason, to change things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uVOWQLfYd4
Today:

  • I'm 29, living downtown in a penthouse suite, with a (male) rommate who is not only older, wiser, and I respect, but who respects me, and has given me actionable career and personal-growth advice. He has also quantitatively improved the career of at least two other people I know - his friends. I respect him immensely.
  • Still a university dropout, but now with two of the highest sought-after certifications in my field.
  • Definitely not a virgin - laid by two club sluts in the last ~5 weeks, cold pickup at a club, and had sex at THEIR place, no my apartment.
  • Make 82k/year base, and ~15k-25k in (free) company stock benefits working for one of the top five software manufacturers on the planet.
  • Professional development. -- a) I have 4 emails from people at LEAST 2 layers of management above me, thanking me for completing a project 1 week ahead of the deadling approximately 1 week ago.
    -- b) I have two juniors who individually took me out for coffee about 2-3 weeks ago, asking for career advice. And you know what I told them? I told them I appreciate their trust and inquiry, and I'm going to spend the Dec/Jan vacation preparing to give them advice. Because they're both solid as fuck, and will go far in their career. And I want them to remember me as not "just a SR", but rather a guy they respect and come to advice. Gotta build relationships like my mentors have built relationships with me.
    -- c) Four weeks ago, I had two managers look me in the eye and ask whether a team member should continue being employed. I said no, two days later, he was gone. People far above me trust my advice.
    -- d) Today, I wake up (I work as a site/systems reliability engineer), drink coffee on my balcony overlooking downtown (and not a shitty suburb filled with "gangstas" and immigrants), and grin, and ask myself: "What cool shit am I going to fuck around with today? What neat problems am I going to solve today?" I love it.
  • Still play video games -- DGAF. It's challenging, entertaining, and this is my life, and I choose how to have fun in it. I've had a 22 year old girl (with a massive ass, Jesus) call me out on playing ARMA instead of fucking her, and I just cold cut her off. Two weeks later she was sucking my (slightly left-curved) dick. This is my life, I choose how to live it. Video games are fun. I do what I find fun. DGAF. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pc_tftJQ9M
  • Above-average social skills. -- a) Picked up chicks relatively regularly from clubs, working on a serious relationship.
    -- b) Developed non-creepy relationships with tons of chicks. Don't want to fuck them, but I do know at least one of them wants to fuck me. Nope. Need them for advice, rubber-ducking, not pussy.
    -- b) Not only given presentations in front of my company, but COACHED managers (I don't manage human beings yet) and Sr. software developers on how to give effective department- and company-wide presentations.
    -- c) I've created, strengthened, and maintained a relationship with two human beings outside of my family who are incredible mentors with respect to my career and personal growth. Their advice and guidance has helped me immensely.
  • 240 lbs -- still a bit chubby (6'6"), but I'm working on it. Have been steadily making progress for the last 1.5 years.

Self-betterment/fear-conquering is better than women, drugs, suicide, music, food, entertainment, etc.

My shitty and humble-brag advice. I'm 29 years old, and I don't manage humans or make over 100k - so take this (compared to other TRP advice-givers) with a massive grain of salt.

  • Women are boring. Once you've been laid a few times ... holy shit, women are like retarded men with pussy. 2/10 women (IMO) are worth talking to beyond getting laid. Granted, 2/10 men are worth talking to at all, but ... when you've been a virgin for so long, you tend to think women are the shit. Nope. They aint'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imgYGfH2yNM
  • Drugs are an unconstructive way of dealing with problems. If you are addicted to anything - video games, drugs, work, alcohol, weed - you should build a support network to help you handle the problems which are causing you to run away and not deal with your problems constructively. You can't do this alone. Nobody is that macho. Nobody has a dick that big. Find mentors. Ask for advice. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/6b/44/6a/6b446a2ff4f7a70671f5c0b0e1017f83.jpg
  • Climb a mountain, and tell no one. Pussies and failures tell other people what they're going to do - esp. on New Year's Day. Men, with a capital M, lose weight, and then casually chat about it with their acquaintances 2.5 years afterward. Talk is cheap. Stop talking, start doing. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/b7/f4/b0/b7f4b08c072b9df4c86fad0f427e3bee.jpg
  • Examine your personal and professional relationships, and find out what you're getting from them, and what you're putting into them. -- If you're doing coke and drinking with a bud and you're 18, that's probably fine. -- If you're doing coke and drinking with a bud at 35, and your career is nowhere -- maybe it's time to find new friends who can guide you toward success? -- If your closest friend is a person who is toxic, or is dragging you down -- do you have the courage, at your age, to make new friends? To better yourself? Because it's not all gravy like this post, it's a ton of hard work.
  • If I had to give 1 piece of advice, that I'm 100% sure of, and that I've ran by my mentors, and people I respect, and strangers, and have seen work in multiple different context, it'd be this: there is no order in the world around us -- we must adapt to the requirements of chaos. (Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions) Stop crying - the world is not supposed to be fair or make sense -- instead: adapt.

Anyways -- good luck, and thank you TRP.
Adios.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an_zUbgwOCQ