I'm going to offer a counter-point to your suggestion:
I don't believe changing the external environment, or income, or people who you are near, is going to do jack shit.
Here's why: I feel exactly like the OP. Failed weight loss. Failed relationships (in my case it's making good friends / co-worker relationships). A giant list of failed or incomplete side projects. Still can't pay off my loans.
The difference: I make 3 times as much as the OP. I work for (and have always worked for) exciting startups. I live in a trendy area of NYC (not SF, but the same health-minded social stuff).
The money, the atmosphere, the location: false hopes. They don't change you you are. You're not your salary. You're not your neighborhood. You're not your job.
YMMV, but as someone who's been-there-done-that and hoped that a better job, more money, and better location would somehow fundamentally change who I was, I think that line of hope is no different than someone who thinks a bigger TV, fancier car, or hotter wife is going to make them happy. It won't.
EDIT: Let me be a bit more specific. I don't like it when people do some hand-waving and claim that it's just The Way It Is.
The main issue is that your environment does effect you, it just doesn't change you.
Money: I've lived on ramen & water. I had friends who understood that drinking cheap beer at home was the best I could do. Once I started making more money, I certainly thought I could avoid spending more. And for a while, I did. But things start to add up. First, you network with people who make the same Good Money that you make. So you pretty much have to up your entertainment budget or else be a recluse. Like it or not, your old peers will envy your money. You'll stop getting invited to basement parties (age is certainly a factor too). You decide one day you deserve better than living in a slum with bars on your windows and doors and rats in your walls and upgrade to an OK apartment. You decide it's time to "grow up" and stop buying used clothes. You decide Natty Light isn't the best beer in the world. Your old $25k/year lifestyle is now a $75k/year lifestyle with only incremental changes. This leads me into...
Location: If you move to a yuppie place, you'll spend yuppie money. Coffeeshops cost more. Old dirty grocery stores give way to Whole Foods. There will be subtle, almost subconcious pressure to spend more and be even more critical on yourself than you already are. The "keeping up with the Jones'" cranks into high gear. If you feel like a fat loser in the midwest (or wherever), it's 10x worse when you're surrounded by wealthy in-shape people. Trust me. My smug sense of being better than most people when I lived in poor suburban/rural areas has given way to feeling like a worthless fat piece of crap every time I walk outside (this is a bit of an exaggeration, but with a BMI around 30 I'm easily the fattest guy I can see 95% of the time).
And finally, job: A job is a job. Some are better, some let you work in your boxers, but from 10,000 feet they're all just ways to give you more money to spend on shit that you hope makes you feel better but doesn't. You can try to derive happiness from a job and for some people it works, but it never worked for me because I don't really have much control over my job. At 25 years old I'm not yet in the position of actually making big changes. Sure I can decide on a framework or the language to use, but do I choose which direction the company goes? Do I make hiring decisions? Not yet. Certainly in 5 years this will change but at 3 years out of college, even in startups, you're not given the sort of responsibility, IMO, that gives significant job satisfaction.
Anyway this is all just IMO. There's certain to be folks with the exact opposite feeling on this, so I'm not claiming I'm right, just that this is my experience.
It's not the environment that matters, it's the change of environment. Switching things around gives you a reset button. Over a few years in a particular life circumstance, you usually learn a lot about what you want in life. But you also acquire a lot of inertia and old habits. A move, new job, and new social circle gives you a reset button that you can use to pick up a new set of habits.
Of course, it's up to you to actually press that reset button.
One of the best things I ever did with my life was to found my own company. The company failed - it just petered out and never went anywhere. But it got me off the "Java developer for a small financial firm" track, helped me learn a whole bunch of new skills, and those skills got me a job all the way across the company.
> It's not the environment that matters, it's the change of environment.
That's a good point. I think as long as a person doesn't put too much hope into the idea that the environment itself is going to force changes upon oneself, it's a good idea.
While I understand your opinion, I couldn't disagree more.
I've lived in Costa Rica and Honduras as a child. As an adult, I've also lived in Minnesota, Chicago, Rhode Island, LA, Fresno and now the Bay Area.
Depending on your personality type, the city where you live is going to have a dramatic effect on your outlook on life. For instance, if you're a foodie or an artist Providence Rhode Island is going to be phenomenal for you. If you love sports, microbrews and hanging out with fraternity buddies, Chicago is phenomenal town. If you love hunting, fishing and "Going to the lake" every weekend, Minnesota is really wonderful. If you're trying to get into the film industry, or visual effects industry, there's no other place to be other than LA.
But, if you're a young programer and want to live in a place where in an evening you can meet over a hundred other programmers doing cool assed shit with in functional programming, NoSQL, startups, iPhone programming, mobile, search, natural language processing, etc... Then, I would suggest avoiding Dubuque Iowa, and I'd suggest moving to the Bay Area: http://www.meetup.com/Hackers-and-Founders/calendar/13712630... </shameless plug>
No, location doesn't change who you area as a person, but it certainly does open up a lot of different options if you're interested in that.
No, making more money doesn't make you happier, but if you're seriously interested in debt reduction, and you commit to avoid "keeping up with the Joneses" and choose to live in a crap part of town for a year, while you pay down your credit cards, making $120k vs $60k is going to get you closer to your goal all other things being equal.
A job: Wow, I couldn't disagree with you more.
At 25 years old I'm not yet in the position of actually making big changes. Sure I can decide on a framework or the language to use, but do I choose which direction the company goes? Do I make hiring decisions? Not yet. Certainly in 5 years this will change but at 3 years out of college, even in startups, you're not given the sort of responsibility
Completely disagree. In the Silicon Valley startup scene, no one cares how old you are. They generally care about what you can do and how well you do it. I hang out with 23 year old founders that have raised millions in funding, have revenue, are close to profitable, and have hired a dozen people. I have a hunch the scene in NYC may be quite a bit different.
My motivation for posting my wall of text is that I just don't think his problem is external. Maybe external changes will prompt some introspective changes, maybe it won't, I just genuinely don't believe that latching on to meaning given to you by others (job, house, debt reduction) has inherent value when it comes to getting over an existentialist funk.
Leaving NYC for somewhere that isn't one of the world's biggest urban pressure cookers is actually pretty useful for re-adjusting your perspective. My blood pressure drops about 10 points every time I'm on vacation. Don't forget that this place is ranked dead last on the "happiest places in america" chart. Even when I think I'm happy here, my physical stress indicators tell me otherwise...
at least on the social front, I disagree strongly. Having lived both outside and inside the "silicon valley" area, god damn, It's a /whole lot/ easier for a nerd who best relates to other nerds to have a fulfilling social life here than other places. Hell, even compared to the east bay, I've lived in El Cerrito, near Berkeley, and silicon valley is dramatically better.
NYC rates, yep. I'd make significantly less elsewhere.
Three things:
NYC is expensive. A 6 pack of crummy beer is $14 across the street from my office, and a studio in Harlem is still $2,000/mo. Realistically, $100k/year in NYC is like $60k/year elsewhere. I know quite a few people making six figures that live 2 hours outside of the city because they can't afford it and I've read that you shouldn't even consider having kids in Manhattan until your household income is over $200k/yr.
Second, IME a lot of startups in NYC have deep pockets. I believe this is because most of the startups in NYC are funded by big companies with NYC HQs. Otherwise, they'd start up elsewhere because everything about running a biz is expensive in NYC (employee wages, taxes, rent, etc).
Third, there's a talent drought in NYC. If a tech savvy type of guy wants to be on the east coast, they usually end up Boston/Cambridge.
High cost of living + startups w/ lots of coin + talent shortage = $$$$ for devs.
Also, I made some broad generalizations. There are plenty of self-funded startups in NYC too.
You make it seem like that ~200k salary for a 25 year old developer is the norm in NYC. It is not. The only industry that comes close to that number in NYC is in finance (hedge fund, IB quants, algo trading).
I've working in NYC for 10 years in various industries. Here is my observation of pay rates from highest pay to lower:
Finance line of biz (eg. quant model programmer)
Finance IT
megacorp software corps (Google, M$)
startups no equity
startups w/ equity
other industry IT (publishing, media)
My observation is that nyc startups pay slightly more than your run-of the mill fortune 500 but less than megacorp software shops and finance. Even less of a base salary if they offer equity. Granted I may be talking to the wrong startups and anomalies exists but your characterization is off.
Yes, NY is expensive but your limiting your scope to Manhattan. The average salary for people living in NYC is 50k, most of whom work in Manhattan. They somehow manage to "get-by". Also, high cost of living doesn't automatically equate to every company doling out high base pay.
I don't believe changing the external environment, or income, or people who you are near, is going to do jack shit.
Here's why: I feel exactly like the OP. Failed weight loss. Failed relationships (in my case it's making good friends / co-worker relationships). A giant list of failed or incomplete side projects. Still can't pay off my loans.
The difference: I make 3 times as much as the OP. I work for (and have always worked for) exciting startups. I live in a trendy area of NYC (not SF, but the same health-minded social stuff).
The money, the atmosphere, the location: false hopes. They don't change you you are. You're not your salary. You're not your neighborhood. You're not your job.
YMMV, but as someone who's been-there-done-that and hoped that a better job, more money, and better location would somehow fundamentally change who I was, I think that line of hope is no different than someone who thinks a bigger TV, fancier car, or hotter wife is going to make them happy. It won't.
EDIT: Let me be a bit more specific. I don't like it when people do some hand-waving and claim that it's just The Way It Is.
The main issue is that your environment does effect you, it just doesn't change you.
Money: I've lived on ramen & water. I had friends who understood that drinking cheap beer at home was the best I could do. Once I started making more money, I certainly thought I could avoid spending more. And for a while, I did. But things start to add up. First, you network with people who make the same Good Money that you make. So you pretty much have to up your entertainment budget or else be a recluse. Like it or not, your old peers will envy your money. You'll stop getting invited to basement parties (age is certainly a factor too). You decide one day you deserve better than living in a slum with bars on your windows and doors and rats in your walls and upgrade to an OK apartment. You decide it's time to "grow up" and stop buying used clothes. You decide Natty Light isn't the best beer in the world. Your old $25k/year lifestyle is now a $75k/year lifestyle with only incremental changes. This leads me into...
Location: If you move to a yuppie place, you'll spend yuppie money. Coffeeshops cost more. Old dirty grocery stores give way to Whole Foods. There will be subtle, almost subconcious pressure to spend more and be even more critical on yourself than you already are. The "keeping up with the Jones'" cranks into high gear. If you feel like a fat loser in the midwest (or wherever), it's 10x worse when you're surrounded by wealthy in-shape people. Trust me. My smug sense of being better than most people when I lived in poor suburban/rural areas has given way to feeling like a worthless fat piece of crap every time I walk outside (this is a bit of an exaggeration, but with a BMI around 30 I'm easily the fattest guy I can see 95% of the time).
And finally, job: A job is a job. Some are better, some let you work in your boxers, but from 10,000 feet they're all just ways to give you more money to spend on shit that you hope makes you feel better but doesn't. You can try to derive happiness from a job and for some people it works, but it never worked for me because I don't really have much control over my job. At 25 years old I'm not yet in the position of actually making big changes. Sure I can decide on a framework or the language to use, but do I choose which direction the company goes? Do I make hiring decisions? Not yet. Certainly in 5 years this will change but at 3 years out of college, even in startups, you're not given the sort of responsibility, IMO, that gives significant job satisfaction.
Anyway this is all just IMO. There's certain to be folks with the exact opposite feeling on this, so I'm not claiming I'm right, just that this is my experience.