Life Advice Needed for 2015

Comfort versus volatility. Comfort will provide comfort. Volatility will provide growth and plenty of pain. Choose wisely.

Just try and think about it 5/10 years down the road, are you going to regret not taking the chance?

Personally, I would attempt to build your own business... I am in the process of doing something similar with a classmate of mine as well and travelling to India very shortly to start. Its exciting and scary but I think it is definitely worth the risk. Good luck in whatever you decide

On January 05 2015 10:08 TheTrees wrote: Comfort versus volatility. Comfort will provide comfort. Volatility will provide growth and plenty of pain. Choose wisely.

Good post

where do you work on the west coast? bay area? oracle? cisco?

teach me programming before you go back to China and I'll give NL/PLO training

notice you play FR I could teach heads up and you would get better a lot faster. Could also show you live poker there are a lot of good soft cardrooms around here. ive got a few months of learning to do on my own but maybe down the road when i'm somewhat proficient we could trade some lessons. I'm studying Java right now is that a waste should i go with something newer or start with the basics? pm me msn or skype or w/e if you ever wanna discuss or have questions about hands.

On January 05 2015 10:20 Jamie217 wrote: Just try and think about it 5/10 years down the road, are you going to regret not taking the chance? Personally, I would attempt to build your own business... I am in the process of doing something similar with a classmate of mine as well and travelling to India very shortly to start. Its exciting and scary but I think it is definitely worth the risk. Good luck in whatever you decide

If you don't mind me asking, what type of products are you trying to produce/import? If you ever need a US connection, let me know. I have a background in sales/international shipping. Working on a company myself (while in law school).

On January 05 2015 12:37 TheTrees wrote: Show nested quote + On January 05 2015 10:20 Jamie217 wrote: Just try and think about it 5/10 years down the road, are you going to regret not taking the chance? Personally, I would attempt to build your own business... I am in the process of doing something similar with a classmate of mine as well and travelling to India very shortly to start. Its exciting and scary but I think it is definitely worth the risk. Good luck in whatever you decide If you don't mind me asking, what type of products are you trying to produce/import? If you ever need a US connection, let me know. I have a background in sales/international shipping. Working on a company myself (while in law school).

Implementing a golf in schools program into the high end boarding schools of India, Im also an accredited CPGA pro so thats where that came from... Definitely something Ill keep in mind though thanks I appreciate it

gl mate making the decision regardless!

On January 05 2015 12:35 traxamillion wrote: notice you play FR I could teach heads up and you would get better a lot faster. Could also show you live poker there are a lot of good soft cardrooms around here. ive got a few months of learning to do on my own but maybe down the road when i'm somewhat proficient we could trade some lessons. I'm studying Java right now is that a waste should i go with something newer or start with the basics? pm me msn or skype or w/e if you ever wanna discuss or have questions about hands.

Just PM'ed you trax

On January 05 2015 16:15 mnj wrote: gl mate making the decision regardless!

Thanks mnj!

Edit : thought about what I wrote and realized there is no way for me to know what is a good idea.

On January 05 2015 19:59 hiems wrote: my opinion, I think you should stick with it for now. i think what you are feeling about burnout or not being challenged is very common for young adults in their early careers, especially for males so I would wait a bit to make a plunge if you decide. I think general rule is minimum 2 years work experience and that is minimum. also, you might be approaching the problem wrong way of trying to find happiness by being the best hacker or whatever instead of just making an easy call and having a great life. do you have some sort of nation identity after living here the past few years? next couple will be even more formative for you...so it's probably not just a strict EV problem.lastly that marriage thing if you choose to seal it might be hard otherwise. don't hate me if your friend becomes billionaire or something but its probably not likely. if you can you should def try to have the best of both worlds and perhaps work on some capacity as a consultant and get some stocks gotta be ruthless.

I totally understand. I feel like I am still very young and would love to have someone like you to talk me through that I am too impatient right now. Can't really complain about my work, and it is actually one of the best teams in the company to work for (not crazy workload and great projects). Just sometimes I look around and see my friends doing something that is more interesting than mine, making me a bit envious.

For the past 5 years I am on an international student status (F-1 visa). The government allows 1 year of post-graduation training, so I am using that status to work at the moment. I extended that status till the end of 2015 because I am STEM major.

Current plan is that I will try to hit my 2 year mark at this big company and try to get promoted by the end of the year. I will make a decision when it comes closer. Like I said, if my current job gets better, I might stay regardless of legal status (can have them move me to Vancouver or something).

Do you really expect a bunch of poker plays to tell you to take the option with the least potential value and a boss? Clearly go for the partnership, especially if you're under 30 with no family (pretty sure you are). Have fun, be your own boss and build something of your own, boring programming jobs are not going anywhere. Hopefully you have a bit of money saved up, then its a no brainer decision.

Clearly you need to try and figure out the potential of your friends company etc, and America is a pretty nice place. But ya... I'm all for education risk taking when young and able to recover easily if things go wrong.

just to give you some balance to the opinions and present a different side, in my experience (speaking very generally) people are very keen to give you opinions that are biased towards things they're doing in their own life, thinking that if they can convince you their way is best then it kind of justifies and validates their own choices. it's a natural human thing to do and you've got to take advice that isn't purely objective with a grain of salt.

if sticking with ur job increases the probability you can continue to live and stay in the USA/Canada/equivalent first-world rich country then this could have big advantages depending on how heavily you value that in quality of life considerations. China is for sure taking off and there are new exciting opportunities coming up but the air quality in Beijing is going to take years off your life and I'd be a little worried about food safety as well. If your job is easy then why not try to work on a startup in your spare time instead of wasting time grinding poker (which is a complete dead-end waste of time hobby if you're still just at micro at this stage). Could especially be something to think about if going back to China decreases ur odds of being able to come back to USA in the future if things don't work out there.

Also why on earth did ur friend drop out with one semester left?

hey i've been thinking about this "issue" (which is more of a thinly veiled brag :D) for a bit and i think the correct mindset is understanding that neither of these decisions are going to drastically change your life or level of happiness. i think there is a lot of literature about how humans are terrible at choosing/picking what actually makes us happy.

for an overachiever like you, i think you'll be successful in either decision. so choose like your trying to figure out what movie you wanna watch for the night. do you wanna see an action-thriller or a comedy? either way the movie doesn't define you. and there's plenty of life afterwards.

hey simon, i don't have any strong opinions but just want to say thanks for answering my stupid programming questions and gl with whatever you decide

i think there's a lot of truth to romm3l's post.

On January 06 2015 15:09 Romm3l wrote: just to give you some balance to the opinions and present a different side, in my experience (speaking very generally) people are very keen to give you opinions that are biased towards things they're doing in their own life, thinking that if they can convince you their way is best then it kind of justifies and validates their own choices. it's a natural human thing to do and you've got to take advice that isn't purely objective with a grain of salt. if sticking with ur job increases the probability you can continue to live and stay in the USA/Canada/equivalent first-world rich country then this could have big advantages depending on how heavily you value that in quality of life considerations. China is for sure taking off and there are new exciting opportunities coming up but the air quality in Beijing is going to take years off your life and I'd be a little worried about food safety as well. If your job is easy then why not try to work on a startup in your spare time instead of wasting time grinding poker (which is a complete dead-end waste of time hobby if you're still just at micro at this stage). Could especially be something to think about if going back to China decreases ur odds of being able to come back to USA in the future if things don't work out there. Also why on earth did ur friend drop out with one semester left?

On January 06 2015 19:20 bigredhoss wrote: hey simon, i don't have any strong opinions but just want to say thanks for answering my stupid programming questions and gl with whatever you decide i think there's a lot of truth to romm3l's post.

Thanks romm3l and bigredhoss! I think you guys are right. Leaving the States does decrease the chance of me coming back, which is still something I need to think about. I still have a couple of months ahead of me so I can really sit down and weigh both options.

It is going to be hard for me to participate the startup business while working at the big corp at the moment. First, my buddy wants to do hardware (building wearables), which makes it hard to work remotely. Second is legal concern (can't really do 2 jobs with my current legal status). Lastly is kinda just myself, but current job makes me a bit drained (my company is known for overworking their employees), making me not want to really do any extra programming things outside of work. Hence the poker grind (and other video games) just to keep me sane.

I have been making mobile games on the side though, which is something I am passionate about in terms of programming. I did mention that to my friend, and my friend is willing to split the company later down the road to open mobile gaming business (after I joined), which sounds exciting to me.

Answering the question on why my friend quit with 1 semester left - I did ask him again when we met couple of days ago and he said that he got all he needed from school, and he only had humanity classes left. Finishing school only drags him down for another 6 months. He lives on the edge haha.

Still some time for me to think this problem through, thanks everyone for reasoning this with me.

On January 06 2015 18:25 mnj wrote: hey i've been thinking about this "issue" (which is more of a thinly veiled brag :D) for a bit and i think the correct mindset is understanding that neither of these decisions are going to drastically change your life or level of happiness. i think there is a lot of literature about how humans are terrible at choosing/picking what actually makes us happy. for an overachiever like you, i think you'll be successful in either decision. so choose like your trying to figure out what movie you wanna watch for the night. do you wanna see an action-thriller or a comedy? either way the movie doesn't define you. and there's plenty of life afterwards.

Thanks mnj! I really like your analogy.