BIC_BAWS Adventure Thread
 

*forked from "The Official No Need To Start a New Thread, Thread" by RabidRat, on request from BIC_BAWS*

Incoming word vomit.

What do you guys define as a high value individual? This term has popped up across social media lately, but ignoring the TikTok/IG brain rot perspective, what does this mean to you guys?



I find it difficult to have this conversation with those amongst my age group as in most cases - it's the opposite. They didn't have a sense of direction in their early 20s, but now they do. Or tbh it's just that life hasn't beaten them up yet or enough, to get to this point of what the fuck. Whereas, the demographic here is older, so well most of you have gotten your 20s and 30s out of the way and life has fucked you up over the years.

Going to preface this by mentioning that everyone's definition of a high-value individual or 'success' is different.

For me, a high-value individual - in the context of someone's character - is a person who's reliable, open-minded, respectful, resourceful, and trustworthy with the confidence to uphold his/her personality and self-worth. That person acts with purpose and is self-disciplined with established values and goals.

A high-value individual to me might not be a high-value individual to you because our core values will be different. In the same vein, a 'successful' person to me might not be 'successful' to you - it's all relative.

What is the social media hivemind saying about high-value individuals?

I don't have an answer to your high value individual question, but I've certainly gone through several phases of burning myself out, and I have since vowed to myself that I would never put myself through that again unless I am literally fighting to survive to meet the basic need for food and clothes for me and my family.

I can safely say that I am chained down as much as any typical husband / dad with a huge mortgage on my back. I know there is no getting out of this because there are still 20+ years to go on the mortgage, 10+ years before my kid turns 18, (And what Chinese parent could really let go of their kid just bcos they turned 18?) plus all the expenses that go along with the journey. But most of the time I don't feel trapped.

It goes without saying that it's bad to feel burnt out and trapped. For me, I am actively and intentionally not allowing myself to get into situations where I would be burning myself out for an extended period of time -- IMO short bursts of taking on more than one can handle every now and then is pretty much a fact of life, so that cannot be entirely avoided.

The other thing is to not feel trapped. I know it sounds corny, but I don't feel trapped bcos I love my wife. I love my kid. I have a loving family, and I both enjoy and treasure our time together. Knowing that, and feeling that on a daily basis are the reasons why I do not feel trapped. Like I said -- it's corny, but it's true.

You have a lot on your shoulders. Is there any way you can take on less? You mentioned lifestyle inflation, and that might potentially be a good place for you to dial back on. Can you slow down / take on less, or let deadlines and standards slide a little? Some bosses will push and squeeze every last drop of usefulness out of his staff, and I would go back to the same old cliche bcos it's true -- employees are dispensable, but you are not, at least not to yourself.

But I wouldn't cut back on the time and things you do for your friends. At this moment in time, they are your core support network and non-family family. Should you eventually build a family of your own, you'll inevitably cutback on how much you do with and for your friends.

Good luck!

High value = all you ballers on RS

My bro,

The problem is you’re being influenced by others on how your life “should be”.
Instead of what it is and what you already made of it.

Let me explain, And this is comparable to Plato’s allegory of the cave (omg my fucking philosophy degree actually is poignant for once) all you’ve been focusing is on the “world of forms” that is presented to you. The reality is your life is what you make of it. You can choose to be in this rut and let your success be defined by this unrealistic social media standard or you can say FUCK THIS. I’m an individual. I make my own definitions of success and the only master you need to honour is yourself.

My bro you are so fucking far ahead of most people your age that you’ve already lapped a few of them. Hell there are people who are twice your age and cannot achieve we you have achieved.

Facts:
You own a single detached house in the GVRD. I was living with my parents at your age.

You drove bmws and m3s and now CTRs when I was driving Sentra XEs and fighting buddy guy at KFC’s.

You have enough disposable income that you can afford a car hobby and go to track days. Like real fucking track days where a normal weekend is basically minimum 1000 bucks gone.

I think you need to give yourself a break and celebrate your achievements instead of focusing on what you’ve missed. You got time to make mistakes. You got time to retool and and change course if you find your current employment unfulfilling. Same with relationships.

Don’t be too scared to take risks. Even if it doesn’t pander out, you’re still miles ahead. Just plan accordingly though and stop using social media as a foil of success.

You're right, in our 20s, we have no idea what success or direction is.

Then now, in this generation, there are those who are dead set focused on ______.
Some make it big and props to them. Others crumble and realize there are hurdles which some, are impossible to overcome and you must pivot.

Life is always about being humble and pivoting. No you won't ever make it to be Basketball start, you're 5'1. No, you won't be a senior VP thanks to bamboo ceiling.. no you won't ever be a doctor cause you can barely pass grade 8..... reality hits hard.

I think it's about being good to yourself first, then being good to the community around you.

Looks different for everyone - for some this is service, for some people this is creating economic opportunity, for others it's leading them into a better experience.

For me, it's been about choosing my battles more wisely and playing a game that has a bit more benefits at the moment. Dropped cycling and picked up running because it's more social, dropped DJing clubs and picked up hosting, dropped car stuff and picked up DJing/travel

Life has a way of beating you up when you least expect it. For example, cancer could strike you anytime and I've seen it happen to people in their 30s. Social media masks most of the daily struggles that people face on a daily basis and unless you come from significant privilege, most do face a daily grind.

I will say that as a parent for almost 10 years, the daily struggles of being a parent are far greater than the struggles of those who are childless. Let that sink in for a moment and re-orient your perspective.

I didn't own a detached house until I was 38. I have never bought a brand new car in my life. I have an empty passport. You're doing fine.

On the other hand, you do have to enjoy the journey and find ways to derive joy during the daily grind when you can. Help your neighbour out with something, or open the door for an elderly person. Smile back at a toddler.

I recently celebrated my 10-year wedding anniversary with my wife. It was very meaningful - more meaningful than I realized. (And I hate to say it, but celebrating 10 years with someone is actually a real achievement these days.) When you invest in relationships with other human beings, your perspective changes as well.

I've had this conversation countless times over the last couple of years as many friends and acquaintances enter what feels like a quarter-life crisis. It’s fascinating to see how different life has turned out compared to how people expected it to be. Here are some recent events that triggered this conversation.

Financial Strain: Realizing they’ve peaked monetarily but can't afford the travel or hobbies they dreamed of.
Living Situation: Finding themselves still living with their parents by ages 30-32. With no realistic plan to ever leave and grow their character
Relationship: Discovering they're not as desirable for a long-term relationship with their ideal partner and facing the need to compromise on certain "must-have" criteria.
Friendships: They only have HS / college or one group of friends that don't value them and have very limited world outlooks and hobbies.

When it comes to being "high value," I think it largely depends on the perspective you're looking at:

Social Media / TikTok Perspective
IG/TikTok, targets 15-25 year old who are on self-improvement journeys who aren't happy with their life. "high value and happiness" is equated with having:

- $150K+ High income
- Successful social circle
- $500K-1.5+M NW by 30-35
- 10-12% body fat + muscle
- Looks maxing
- Fast cars + Nice watches

It's an intense and often superficial standard in which 95% of people will never obtain and the message seems to resonate that you're a piece of shit if you don't have this.

As a Full Individual Character


This perspective values depth of character over appearance or material success. I think this is very important and is easily lost in the sauce in your 20's.

High Value for Adult Friendships in Your Mid-to-Late 20s
AstulzerRZD adds another layer, noting that value in friendships can vary. For some, it’s about service; for others, it’s creating economic opportunities, or helping others have meaningful experiences.

In my experience, infiltrating friend groups and being someone that others wanna re-invite out and accept is a game of value whether people agree with it or not. On top of basic things like good personality and being funny, providing economic and social opportunities too—like hosting, connecting friends with business referrals, or planning golf/ski events. They help you build a social circle with friends from different aspects of life (close friends, work friends, sports groups, car groups, friends in different city etc.) has been a game-changer for me in terms of finding a sense of belonging and maximizing enjoyment of experiences/life.

A lot of people resist the idea of needing to provide "value" in friendships, saying they only need their close high school or college friends. But, expanding your social circle can make a big difference, helping you find connections in different "pockets" of life.

take a social media break. start w a couple of days, see if you can get to a couple of weeks. pretty quick you'll figure out that a lot of that anxiety is coming from a non stop barrage of social media presence that only exists to exploit.

mix up the podcasts. dump the doomposters and just toss in some good car content. Chris Harris, EVO is doing one now. Even Fat Marrah has had good guests on lately.

Lastly - it's hard, but don't compare yourself to others. You're leading in the life game right now, it's just the early part of the race. Got a house at your age, you're earning well, and that you're taking care of people. You still make time for yourself and your hobbies. For real man - save some pu$$y for the rest of us.

Really your only bonehead play that I know of is dumping your E36. The only real high value individual is BMW Individual

Two things I'm trying to start valuing more before I enter 30-32 and kids are in play is finishing out the passport and investing in relationships. I feel like as a first gen Canadian, we're pretty lucky in that economically we're probably top 10 in the world for pay to work life balance.

Life is way more enjoyable with people and your 20's is the best time to explore and develop these friendships and relationships!

I always found it hard to not compare yourself to others to determine if you're living the best life possible. What helped me was I realized that I didn't have to same starting ground as many folks growing up widowed parent, so there's many ways I've never had the opportunities to do a lot of the things I aspired to do by 28. That helped me appreciate everything that I have but my mind always tells myself there's always someone who had it worse that is doing better than you. :lawl:

Other people put it better but being high value is tricky for some people because it's about who you are, not what you have, and that's a harder thing to quantify.

On top of that the people pushing that are usually either faking that they have it (either lying about having it, renting things or being in huge debt), or lying about how they got it. A buddy of mine is friends with a bunch of those kinds of people and it's all BS. Nepo babies claiming they're #selfmade and conveniently leaving out the huge leg up and pile of cash their families gave them.

Any other old timers here reading this and glad as fuck they're not in their 20s in 2024?

I was half joking about my post where the ballers here on RS are of high value, but I was also half serious.

Look at all the people who regularly show up to the Stock and Noob Meets (except for dark0821 - fuck that guy :D) People of good character, are reliable, trustworthy, and have their own stuff together that is unique to them.

I used to think high value meant ballin' outta control like Hehe and his trillions, but I digress. There's some correlation of high value to monetary and material possessions, but ultimately, it boils down to the person and their values etc.

Extreme example, but you have a guy like Badhobz who hates everyone, but if you were in need, he'd take the shirt off his back and offer it to you. And maybe give you a beating with a bucket of KFC.

Edit / Disclaimer: I don't hate on dark0821 - I'm just picking on him because he's always bailing for the meets, but kudos to him for trying to show up. :)

I'd say a lot of the people I'm around these days fulfil the above criteria. At least 50% of them have great upbringings, grew up in Fraserview, N.Burnaby / Westwood, given all the opportunities to succeed and they took it and did well.

With that said, I think there's maybe < 1,000 people total in Van that fill the above criteria between 21-35 without inheritance lol.

Almost 95% of the my friends who are homeowners had a $100-300K+ help from their parents or SO parents. Perks of immigrant parents making it :fuckyea:

Imo having your shit together by 20's, your life has never been more comfortable.

You're WFH, Costco delivered to your door step w 20% off uber eats gift card, 12-2PM hits and you're saucing your S2000 to play some sports with your friends.

After work 4-6PM, you take your Type R up Seymour to go ski in the winter, then head back for a dinner/date that requires no in-person approaching because dating apps or friend referral.

Then proceed to sleep in the next day because no commute to work! YOY you're making more than you believe you'd ever make, I can't believe this is life lol

Then wtf are you all complaining about!? Sounds like a sweet life to me, go shred that pow, go smash that pussy!!

None of those things are exclusive to people living in their 20s. Except maybe to a certain extent (over)use of dating apps. btw dating online isn't new it's probably mainstream for 2 decades now.

But then again I can really do without all the social media-envy, keeping up with the joneses, widespread "mental illness", gamification of dating apps, lack of intimacy, social awkwardness I see of many in Gen Z.

Damn....I'm channelling boomer energy now. Time for my afternoon nap.

Another thing people should be doing if the daily grind is getting them down is to become active in your community. Setting up activity groups is one way to do it, but there are lots of other established community groups and organizations that cater to every niche out there.

In my 30s, I was a Toastmaster for a few years and it opened up a lot of doors and built my confidence. I have no problems getting up in crowds of hundreds of people and speaking. Speaking to an executive probably makes me more nervous than speaking to strangers.

Nowadays, I'm on a couple advisory committees. I'm also on our strata council. I've grown my network threefold in the past 6-7 years.

Take people out for coffee and give them opportunities to talk about themselves and to share their stories. It goes a long way, gives you perspective, and potentially inspiration to do more in your life.

Yeah flex culture back then was only limited to your school and your network, now it’s bombarded 24/7 on tiktok/IG.

I miss the days when:
Kids wanted to be something else than a youtuber/content creator.
Nobody trying to get famous shilling yet another generic hotpot/bbt place with the same monotone voice.
There was no rampant cheating using AI in university.
Car forums not facebook groups.
Beetles and rolexes had a good discount.
Craigslist instead of facebook marketplace.

Sigh, time to eat my metamucil and get my steps in.

Jokes aside from my circle, the ones that “made it” locally were in medicine, even then their parents paid their tuition and $ for downpayment. The rest of us had to leave BC to get experience and come back. The ones that did came back was only due to family, it’s too lucrative in the US to come back to Canada.

Life's great for the upper percentile, not complaining one bit.


But if you're stuck making $50-60K, gg lol

Not to sound morbid but I am shocked the suicide rate hasn't skyrocketed over the past 5 years.

If I went from my current situation, to being 25 again and in the same situation I was at that age in this current environment, with the knowledge of what it takes to get back to where I am, I’d legit kill myself

The only reason why I can think of it hasn’t blown up is that ignorance is bliss, if you don’t understand what it’s like to be comfortable, you don’t have a reference to your happiness.

I mean if you include opioid deaths it kinda has.

So to that point I had a fairly disturbing conversation with a family member who her and her BF have been working in the DTES and SRO’s for the last couple years doing social work.

They said basically prior to Covid, your stereotypical addict was a white male, 30-50, had an accident, had some trauma, got hooked on painkillers and was forced in their addiction to move into harder drugs and ultimately ended up homeless etc.

They said these people actually had “ok” prospects of recovery as they may have had a family before, they knew “good” times when they weren’t in addiction, they knew that if they were to become clean there might be some sort of light at the end of the tunnel.

However, they said now, a very alarming trend among addicts are basically kids, 15-25 years old, who literally do not give a fuck about -anything- they don’t care about dieing, they don’t care about OD’ing, they will tear apart their SRO, they will assault other residents, they will steal from one another etc. and when they try to council these people, they are essentially hopeless. They’ve never had anything but stress and trauma in their lives, they have no reference to “good” times in their lives, they are hopeless.

It was really awful to hear, terrible.

While some of my friends have gotten amazing self-discovery while living at home, I got a lot of it from moving abroad.

Looking back, if they had paid me the same salary in Vancouver / Seattle / NY, I still would've moved for the exp

Like badhobz said, celebrate your achievements.
Try not to stress about debt. You’re in your 20s, who doesn’t have debt at that age. Most people aren’t out of debt until they’re 50.
Be grateful your debt a is going towards a home you can call your own and fun toys and experiences. I know people who are in crippling debt due to poor life choices or life handing them a bad hand. Work eat sleep pay debt, well that’s life. There are lots of people working 16 hour days, not spending a dollar on themselves to provide for their family.
I know it’s not super helpful advice but I hope it helps put things in perspective as far as debt goes.