October Is Lovely This Time of Year
(Originally published October 30, 2023)
When I started this blog, I had a really grand vision for what DepressiveHacks was going to be. It's been over a year now and things have certainly gone vastly differently than I originally anticipated. I have had some really unexpected surprises and met some incredible people. Let's get up to speed.
So since my last blog post, I have been let go from being a Publisher at Nifty Gateway. I had some auspicious dreams of using my position as a Publisher to help bring local artists in my area into the digital art world. My goals, as usual, were ambitious. I ended up publishing my own photography and a drop from a very talented photographer I met through sharing various web3 communities together. While the experience definitely was positive, I actually lost money on this initiative and never recouped what it cost me to actually publish NFT drops. Part of this was that the market dried up as I got onboarded. Part of this was my need for more experience in this field. Regardless, I appreciate the opportunity that Nifty Gateway gave me.
That being said, being able to pivot is key. Not everything that I try to do is going to be a success. That's okay, though. This evening, I finally updated my website to remove the Publisher tab. It reminded me of the other opportunities I have in front of me. It reminded me of how I had no idea that any of those tabs would exist at one point. The world is full of possibilities. You never know what's going to happen.
As winter begins, I will start browsing more for additional work to do in order to occupy some of my free time and help distract me from seasonal depression. I would really like to increase my freelance business consulting. I haven't done any in a while and I think it's time to start looking for a new project to help with. Of course, this won't come in lieu of my other commitments. Usually, the goals and timeline of consulting gigs are rather specific and short-term.
I also recently got a new vehicle, which has been a personal pain point for a while. This has really tied up my funds for a bit, but the goal is to get these short-term expenses paid off and finally have some reliable transportation. This is something I really procrastinated, seeing as I don't do any work that isn't fully remote, but being stuck without transportation really limited my mobility and impacted my mental health. It's one thing to actively choose to stay home. It's another to be forced to. I would say that this distinction hadn't occurred to me before. This purchase also required me to liquidate some of my stock portfolio.
I'd like to talk about this briefly because I think it's important. I'm a big fan of the "buy-and-hold" investment strategy. I don't sell investments often. I feel that patience, which I generally lack in most aspects of my life, is essential to being a good investor and seeing success. While this is valuable to me, it also creates a sense of guilt any time I actually do want or need to sell something. It is not a decision I take lightly. It took me multiple months to get to a point where I wanted to sell stocks to fund my deposit on a new vehicle. This was very hard for me. I took losses on almost everything I sold. I think that the investments were sound, but the time horizon was shortened when I needed the money.
This post was originally titled "Q4 and 2024" and I actually scrapped that because I really don't have a clear vision of what's next. A new vehicle has taken up a good portion of my focus over the last couple of months. I've started paying back my student loans. Balancing out my budget to get car payments and loan payments each month without putting too much financial stress on myself is really the focus through the end of 2023. Meanwhile, I'll keep doing what I can. Looking for opportunities. Networking. It's really in times like these where the little things add up to the next big thing. Thanks as always for reading.