I have no one to talk to about my feelings

Yeah, I think that's a pretty common struggle a lot of people have. Sometimes parents aren't the most emotionally aware themselves. Maybe friends here can work, but it takes time to build those deep connections.

I think comparing yourself to others is usually not a great way to go. There's always going to be a bigger fish. Someone better, richer, smarter, stronger, etc. It's more productive to compare against yourself in the past, and think "have I made positive progress or not?".

I think confidence comes with experience (I've done something like this before and it turned out okay, I feel confident doing it) and competence (I'm good at this), which comes from time and effort put into whatever you want to feel confident about.

This will be different for everyone and each person is wired differently, but here goes.

First things first: take a breath. It's okay if you don't have life figured out yet. You're 16, and you've got a ton of it ahead of you. I was 24/25 when I finally figured more things out. A lot of it comes from experience, and you don't finish developing until mid 20's.

Take care of your physical health. Get in a good exercise routine, eat a healthy diet (less processed foods, less sugar, more vegetables) and stay on top of your annual check ups. It's easier to get in shape early and stay in shape than trying to do it later in life. Good health is the basis for happiness. Strength training & muscle definition will also make you look nicer, and that's a good confidence booster.

Take care of your mental health. Understand how emotions affect us, and seek help / therapy / other resources when needed. This one was definitely the toughest for me, especially in our current culture where men aren't encouraged to express emotions.

Take care of your wealth. Learn about personal finance, how to properly use credit cards, live below your means, and be financially secure (/r/personalfinance is a good place to start). Financial security takes away a lot of stress, and while money doesn't "buy happiness", I fully believe that it can prevent sadness and buy opportunities for happiness.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes (low consequence mistakes! Don't get arrested, get injured, get addicted to hard drugs, etc). That's how we learn and grow. Experience is just mistakes plus time. There's that saying, "a master has failed more times than a novice has tried". Be humble and try to learn from everything.

Find passion for hobbies. It's fine to have some passive time-passing hobbies (tv, youtube, etc.) but try to blend that with active ones. Hobbies where you learn and get better over time, and can do it better than the average person. This might be easier to do later in life since many require money, but there's plenty of lowish cost things that you can pick up. A intro Yamaha guitar is $200 and there's a ton of free lessons online, e.g. JustinGuitar.

I lead a fairly monotonous life

Build the life you love for yourself first, and then share it. Partners come and go, but you're with yourself forever. If you love yourself & are happy with yourself that will naturally attract people to you. And even if in the mean time you don't find the right person, you're still happy with life!

Or stay with a company for many years because they IPO'd, the stock 25x'd and your still vesting RSU means that no other offer can even get close.

You sound like a nerd

I'd guess I qualify as a "nerd", but that label applies to so many people now. This nerd does pretty well in dating.

Yeah, someone in say ATL is not going to get the same salary as someone in NYC.

150k is absolutely not the ceiling though.

Yuuup. I think I have more than enough to chubby (?) fire but the current income is way too good to give up!

/r/wewantplates

Which part of that is important to you? Someone coming from a not-rich parents Low salary? Accumulate over time instead of a one-off event? Leveraged speculative purchase of real estate instead of stock?

And why does any of that matter? I take everything here as people gloating / celebrating, and there's nothing wrong with that IMO.

my story is easily replicatable

Is it? I feel like we all have some bias towards our own experiences.

Is any of it "try to replicate"? There is literally not much to talk about. Oh you are at 100% vtsax? Me too. Oh you spend below earning and have a high SR? Me too.

People post here to celebrate their financial goals and gloat a bit because talking about finance is taboo in a lot of other communities, and here was a place where they felt comfortable sharing it.

Except the trend lately seems to be picking at every little detail about how it's not realistic or how they don't deserve it.

And what does it even mean to replicate? Can you go back in time and switch major? Study harder? Interview better to get that first good internship which launches the rest of your career, and then hit the right startup / FAANG / some other high paying role to get millions before 30?

There's definitely people looking for serious stuff on there. Found my GF on it!

You'll be alright. 17 is young and you got a whole life ahead. Work on social skills, keep yourself in good shape, take care of hygiene and you'll do just fine.

I had a 5 year end in February and it definitely helps to get to a new place. It keeps you busy and takes your mind off of things for a time. Getting furniture set up, plants, decorations, etc.

And putting up "my" decor instead of "our" (well, mostly hers) was actually really fun!

5'10 / 180 is just on the edge of overweight. That's not really average is it? You can replace 20 pounds of fat with muscle.

Do you want to hear about more impressive flex? Or will you always find something about the situation to say "the flex is not as impressive".

Gonna be a sad revelation that most are attracted to personalities already, and he just has a terrible one.

Ready player 1/2. What a waste of time.

My father is the same. I think just going through life, being successful and not squandering the opportunity he has provided me brings him a lot of happiness. But I do wish we have more straight forward talk about that kind of stuff too.

I try to, but doesn't have to be that much. If there's nothing to say there's nothing to say.

I'm a guy who journals! Sometimes they'll be very long entries with a lot of details, feelings, etc, and other times it's just a short blurb on what happened. Usually 2-3 times a week.

Mmm golden handcuffs are a thing. I'm almost certain no company could pay me more than what I get now because equity and stock growth here is so insane over the past 3 years.

Or you start picking up nicer instruments as you get better and want something more! I dropped 2x $600 recently on a nicer acoustic and electric after the cheaper stuff.

But the nice thing is that if you treat the nicer guitars well they generally hold their value if you ever do decide to sell (but why would you do that??)

In the age of covid a pre date call was pretty standard, and honestly I think this could work well into the future as well. It's much less committal, very safe, is better than photos, and it shows a bit of how the other person lives.