5

I’m generally overwhelmed with the number of people that I would/should interact with on a daily basis as opposed to the total number I would generally like to speak with. On a normal day if it were up to me I would really only interact with a few people, my brother and a few friends. The many people that are a part of my life and are interested in maintaining communication aren’t not important, I just have found myself mentally and emotionally exhausted when I communicate with many people on a regular basis. The overall ability and value of my total relationships decreases the more friends I maintain regular contact with, I have always had smaller friend groups but significantly stronger bonds than I perceived my peers to have.

I’m realistically still very much juggling the first step of sobriety, the desire and willingness to be sober. I’ve stated it previously but I love getting high and being sober, especially spending consecutive days sober is very much new to me.

When I graduated I was aware of my impulsive nature and regarded my substance abuse as something that rewarded more than it taxed but as time has continued my outlook has drastically shifted. I built credit and studied the inner workings of credit agencies post graduation because I wanted to leverage low interest rates and build a portfolio of real estate. Once I had $50,000 in available credit the ideas of decreasing marginal utility and compounding interest began to compete with one another, I was operating under the assumption that my income would trend upwards and thus far in my career that has proven to be true. I greatly underestimated the stress and effect that holding debt would have on my overall mental health and thus ability to sustainably earn.

Experience will yield me the most value in the long run while tenure will prove also valuable if I am reliant on an employer other than myself. The competing interests of ideas I hold to be true have lead me down a volatile path and as I continue to study lifecycles I have come to a single conclusion, any opinion on lifecycles will be inherently biased as we all have one. Volatility in the early stages of an individual’s lifecycle has the ability to produce exceptional results (high utility) while the average will produce subpar results (look at the effect low socioeconomic standings have on earnings potential/intergenerational mobility).

The way we allocate the same income has a massive difference on the total utility we will each derive, are you maximizing your ability to experience happiness? Is your definition of happiness “correct”? Mine wasn’t, I had turned and still turn to hedonistic pleasures to spike my dopamine levels and yield high levels of utility. Turning to hedonistic pleasures to yield utility results in lower overall utility over the course of a lifecycle, on average, unless you are able to recover quickly and effectively.

I want to be sober… the more I say it to myself the more I will truly believe it.

I know that sobriety is the only way I will achieve everything I want in life, simply understanding that something is “true” versus implementing it and fully digesting it are two completely different things.

Today is Day 1, honestly today is really day 0 because I can’t seem to make it through a single day without altering my state of mind with some form of substance.

Thank you for reading this and if you have any comments or would like to engage in discourse I encourage you to “Send a Kite” through the contact section of my website.

“No one can achieve a thing until they believe they can acquire it.” Napoleon Hill