Martin
A monoid in the category of endofunctors
It's very easy to be pessimistic about the future--especially when schools and other similar things put so much pressure onto you to do well with the threat of not getting onto good university courses, and with the entire system making it feel like you need to get into a top university to get a job which puts you above the breadline (you don't, but it is still easy to fall into the trap of believing it even if you know that's not how it works), it can be incredibly stressful. Or, if you are out of education, I'm sure you have your own set of worries about the future, whether it be financial, emotional, or to do with relationships/family. Talking about the future is a good way to help tackle fears, and whether you are worried or not it makes for an interesting topic of discussion regardless.
In this thread, I want people to post two things:
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I have a few goals for my life in five years both on and off of Smogon. My ambitions for Smogon basically consist of boring "climbing the site ladder" type stuff, including where I want positions of power on the site and the level of authority I want to attain by certain years, so I won't go into detail with that, but irl my ideal situation is to have a reasonably paying job and to be in a financial position where I don't feel particularly constrained with my spending. My biggest fear in life is that I will be fighting against bills, educational fees, and the need to eat and have no freedom with regards to how I am able to spend my money, which in turn would mean that I am unable to fund my reasonably expensive set of interests. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at saving--I don't spend money much outside of standing orders for subscription services, and as such I am generally able to afford reasonably expensive stuff whenever I have cash flow into my account, and I hope that in five years time my life situation will still be in a position where I am living like I am now. If I look particularly optimistically I will have experienced life in another culture all together 'cause living in the UK in at least 2017-2022 is very clearly going to be extremely unpredictable if this country's politics don't perform a significantly bigger U-turn than Theresa May did on dementia tax.
Realistically speaking, I'm kinda unsure about the way I want to achieve my goals. I have a load of hypothetical projects that I keep telling myself I'm going to pursue after my exams are over, but of these I don't feel like I'm going to pursue them like I keep saying I will. I get delusions of grandeur all the time, and I feel like this clouds my vision with regards to what I can realistically achieve with my personality type or forces me into a pessimistic mindset that my biggest fear will be the only reality I know. If I push aside this fog of delusions and pessimism, I think that I will most likely either be somewhat constrained with regards to my spending or still living with my parents. The best way for me to maintain my interests is to minimise my outward cash flow while having a steady inflow (which will likely be close to minimum wage for as long as I'm a student, so around £50-80 per 10 hours), and this likely means being a slimy bastard who mooches off of his parents for food+shelter+electricity until I no longer have the option to do so. IDK if I will have a degree in five years or not, but if I don't I hopefully won't be far off of having one and, as such, will hopefully be approaching a position where I can break away from minimum wage--and I think I'm more than capable of reaching such a point by then despite how I've convinced myself that life can only go downhill from here.
In this thread, I want people to post two things:
- Where you want to be in five years (an optimistic expectation), and
- Where you think you will be in five years (a realistic expectation).
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I have a few goals for my life in five years both on and off of Smogon. My ambitions for Smogon basically consist of boring "climbing the site ladder" type stuff, including where I want positions of power on the site and the level of authority I want to attain by certain years, so I won't go into detail with that, but irl my ideal situation is to have a reasonably paying job and to be in a financial position where I don't feel particularly constrained with my spending. My biggest fear in life is that I will be fighting against bills, educational fees, and the need to eat and have no freedom with regards to how I am able to spend my money, which in turn would mean that I am unable to fund my reasonably expensive set of interests. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at saving--I don't spend money much outside of standing orders for subscription services, and as such I am generally able to afford reasonably expensive stuff whenever I have cash flow into my account, and I hope that in five years time my life situation will still be in a position where I am living like I am now. If I look particularly optimistically I will have experienced life in another culture all together 'cause living in the UK in at least 2017-2022 is very clearly going to be extremely unpredictable if this country's politics don't perform a significantly bigger U-turn than Theresa May did on dementia tax.
Realistically speaking, I'm kinda unsure about the way I want to achieve my goals. I have a load of hypothetical projects that I keep telling myself I'm going to pursue after my exams are over, but of these I don't feel like I'm going to pursue them like I keep saying I will. I get delusions of grandeur all the time, and I feel like this clouds my vision with regards to what I can realistically achieve with my personality type or forces me into a pessimistic mindset that my biggest fear will be the only reality I know. If I push aside this fog of delusions and pessimism, I think that I will most likely either be somewhat constrained with regards to my spending or still living with my parents. The best way for me to maintain my interests is to minimise my outward cash flow while having a steady inflow (which will likely be close to minimum wage for as long as I'm a student, so around £50-80 per 10 hours), and this likely means being a slimy bastard who mooches off of his parents for food+shelter+electricity until I no longer have the option to do so. IDK if I will have a degree in five years or not, but if I don't I hopefully won't be far off of having one and, as such, will hopefully be approaching a position where I can break away from minimum wage--and I think I'm more than capable of reaching such a point by then despite how I've convinced myself that life can only go downhill from here.