I didn't grow up with piano lessons, summer camps, sports, tutors, TV. I grew up reading the same comic books every day. However, we always had food to eat like instant noodles/microwave dinners. We owned our house so I can't say if we were super poor. Maybe house poor.

I guess that's what drives me to maximize the value of every dollar I make. I can't order everything on the menu without thinking about the price and the opportunity cost. I don't think I will ever be able to order freely like Civic Blues to be honest. Nowadays my relationship with money is to save and invest as much as I can so I can be financially independent and retire early and spend my days mastering hobbies. Been focussing on that for the last 3 years since I was 21.

Even when I purchased my cars, I only bought them because they were 20-35% below market value. That way I could break even or lose minimal amounts of money due to depreciation after owning and driving them for a few years. I don't think I'd ever buy a new car either. The only time I'll upgrade is when the next car is a steal haha.

I died laughing. :rofl:

YOOOOO totally did not hear this side of the story... I don't know how many of us here have had these type of "wishful thinking"
-maybe if I chased after a girl in asia...
-should have could have talk on previous decision on a girl
-your goal of moving to to Tokyo is BOLDDDD. Hell, I'm sure those who are married here would have to convince their wife to changing jobs / career.. let alone moving to a city far away; either your gf is the best gf ever and you'll marry her or she'll resent you for life ahahahah sorry.


This is a great topic, generally family oriented people *ahem asians, have a bold take on this and want to ensure they are honorable kids. Compared to those who got kicked out of their house at 16 yrs old... they just fly away.

It's a fine balance act, as long as you do keep communication, visits and have a good heart, I'm sure your family wants the best for their kids.. .HECK, i'm an immigrant... my parents moved here for a better future for us.

Yeah I must say I'm quite lucky to have her.

Even now, after we've kinda sorta dropped the idea to move to Tokyo in the near future (permanently) unless an amazing job opportunity were to arise or whatever other miracle occurs, we're still very much planning on grabbing working holiday visas before we both turn 30, and live in Tokyo for at least 3 months (WHV is good for 6 months with the option to extend another 6 months). I think what makes us as a couple great, is how we're both comfortable stepping outside of our comfort zones to challenge ourselves to mix things up a bit every now and then.

The reasons she was against moving to Tokyo and why it took so much convincing to get her to even remotely consider it, is because she understands the Asian work culture, and she says she specifically left HK and moved to Vancouver in high school to escape that work-to-death culture. Getting her to go to a country where people literally kill themselves because of the work culture after she finally left that kind of environment, is challenging for significantly different reasons than me.

Been 28 for a week and fuck all has changed since I was 18, except for having no social net.

Feels like I was born to occupy a seat, and I should get nothing else no matter how much I try to reach out. No transferable skills, and limited prospects to enter a new industry. I can fuck off to a country where nobody knows me for a week every year, but that doesn't fix the shit I run into once I get off the plane in Vancouver.

I've had a plan since I was like 20 to make sure I don't fall into this situation where I feel like my life sucks 10 years from now and there's nothing I can do to change it.

Just curious about how you can make it through 10 years and be stuck in the same social setting, financial situation, career in the last ten years?

It's so odd that someone that used to be such a constant in your life, is no longer such. Simply, they no longer exist in your life aside from a passing thought or a reminder from a kdrama. Yet, everything you do is a result of their influence. Learning a new skill that you didn't take seriously when you did it together, you remember the little pro tips that they gave you. It's so odd to have these little snippets of someone who was always there, who is now becoming an afterthought.

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I burned out of my initial career plan at 22, and it put me into a position where I was pigeonholed into the career I transitioned my existing skills from.

Social setting is disconnecting from people who I thought I got along with, and never being able to pick up from there because it shot my confidence and self-esteem to pieces. Every time I try to make a new connection, I talk myself out of maintaining it because I remember what happened before.

I've kept it up through a need to make money, destroying myself mentally by faking that everything is okay, and a nicotine addiction.

I feel like you're not alone on this though. Most people I talk to seem to tell me that their social lives have suffered as they get older esp into late 20s and 30s because of competing priorities like work, partners, children, mortgages, etc.

I personally think it's ok not to be hanging out with your friends all the time.

Work to live? Or live to work? :considered:

Read a book called Essentalism.

We have 4 buckets to distribute our time.

Family Friends Health and Career

if you got a gf, got married, had a kid, you're putting more in family.
As we get older with our career, we get promoted, we have to "earn our salary".

We can only balance 2 buckets really well.... something has to give. Obviously, our friends, when they date... they are in the same bucket too... so it's just reality.

It's been a while since I posted...Things around me change, but I'm at a standstill myself. Others learn to better themselves, but I feel as though I haven't advanced one bit. Career wise, friends and even relationships, I haven't made much, if any, progress. Being too comfortable is never the way to go, step out of your comfort zone and just do it. What is it that needs to be done? It's a blur when no goal is set and I'm still stuck in this forest.

This pandemic situation isn't helping either, working from home seem to be such a perk, but now I come to realize that working in an office environment, seeing and interacting with your co-workers everyday is such an invaluable thing. I miss commuting to work even though it took more than an hour.

I think it's about getting outside your comfort zone but in a focused way, with clear goals, a plan for reaching those goals, and a way to monitor your progress.

Always happy to bounce ideas off of each other for goal setting - my friends have been really helpful for helping me imagine what could be possible and understanding what I need to get there.

Any of y'all try virtual dating yet?

I did my first one today, and it came with it's challenges - I chatted with her for just over an hour and my telus internet started fading. Had to switch to a voice call in the end lol.

It's a sign! :lol

I'm wondering why folks are able to agree and acknowledge child abusers, sexual predators, racists, neglecting parents...etc deserve punishment for their cruel acts. YET...they fail to find empathy for the victims who oftentimes end up becoming traumatized severely from it (imagine being abused your entire childhood/teenage years without speaking about it). Guess where a big majority of these folks reside? To me, they are some of the strongest people in the world I know, and their substance use is merely to escape from their harsh realities for a couple of hours a day.

^ Stockholm syndrome

On a funny note first; people get abused by their boss ALL the time, even bullied, BUT "it's ok", "i really do need the job", "it's really not that bad"....etc.

How many girls / ladies are in abusive relationships (heck even their pimps)... treats them like shit...

Next example didn't come from me, but from a HKonger, which stuck with me during the China communist explanation.

"heck, you're going to into bad relationships anyways, abused by bad bf / taken advantaged by random guys...(even sexually assaulted), it's ok... since it's with someone I know" so it's acceptable and self justified.

If you're asian... try explaining to a white kid that you got a serious beating... "why don't you just leave, just call the cops" ...

Because those people don’t affect them but things like property crime, discarded drug paraphernalia, etc. does. It’s also the superiority complex, too. People like to think they’re better than others.

It's unfortunate and the disconnect is so strong that they refuse to empathize with another human being in such hardship. Any thoughts, feelings, or ideas that you all think could benefit our communities in better acknowledging, recognizing, and understanding those struggling?

imo it's vulnerability problem. acknowledging and reaching out to disadvantage populations is scary for many reasons - it requires someone to not only know themselves well and what their boundaries are for helping people, but also to have the courage to believe that everyone's trying their best given what they have.

I work with vulnerable populations all the time, and as a healthcare professional we oftentimes help too much without knowing it. I think it should be more about empowering them to help themselves. If they're not willing to change themselves it's hard for someone on the outside to do anything.

When you can show to them that change is possible, that they can get themselves out of a bad situation, they're more likely to act.

First of all, I truly commend you for doing what you do - it isn't easy and definitely a very tough job mentally. I understand the principle behind this and agree that in order for us to "disassociate" ourselves from work when we're not working, we have to wait for them.

We can provide them our encouragement, support, and everything else but the moment they step back into the real world (ie. their violent partners, non-existent close supports, their tent home...) it's likely they'll seek to escape again. I guess I've been feeling really hopeless about the situation as a whole and how the government has yet to come up with an approach where we meet vulnerable folks where THEY'RE at as opposed to them meeting us at our expectations of "when they're ready". Nobody wakes up thinking about using substances for fun...rather, they wake up with pain and suffering from their past and present traumas. It's almost impossible to support their psychological needs if we've yet to resolve their basic hierarchy of needs though. What are your thoughts?

Despite what's been going on since the 1960s, I'm so happy to be working with other like-minded colleagues, and knowing that everyone else in this line of work is such wonderful people and truly want the best for the less fortunate folks.

Very well said!

I lost my first car on Friday. I got the call that it's officially written off today. I started taking things out of my car and honestly, my heart aches and I just want to cry. I know a car is an object, for most people it's a tool to get them from Point A to Point B. If I'm being honest, this hurts almost as bad as when my girlfriend ended things with me.

Fuck.

https://i.imgur.com/HNFSP2N.jpg

I always considered cars to be like pets, especially when they behaved in ways you didn't want them to :lol

I had one car written off in my driving life. Like you, I was rear ended and ICBC wrote the car off. It hurts more because the car 'died' under no fault of my own and it all happened in a finger snap.

I saw your other photo. Man, the new Jeeps look like Tupperware.

Sorry for your loss.