Another month, another entry into the saga of finding something with more rooms than my current studio apartment. In my last entry in June, I was dealing with burnout from moving quicker than anticipated. While i’m happy to say that I’m no longer feeling burnt out, hopelessness has been gnawing at me as unforeseen obstacles have been getting in the way of my progress.
But setbacks are a part of the journey. It’d be boring if it was smooth sailing all the time; as frustrating as problems can be, they’re chances to test your mettle and, at the very least, gain experience to make similar issues in the future not seem so bad. Still, it can be a lot to deal with, especially if it’s one thing after another with very little rest in between.
One way I like to keep myself grounded whenever problems mount and negative thinking creeps in is envision my mind as a garden and everything in it — my thoughts, memories, skills and experience, and relationships with others and the world around me — are various plants, each with their own purpose, needs, and ideal conditions. And, as the subtitle to this article suggests, it might suck when life drops a new shipment of bullsh*t right on top of your petunias. But the key is to look at obstacles as blessings.
After all, manure makes for great fertilizer. It’s just a matter of making sure how to use the excess of it in the short-term and better plan for the next shipment in the long-term.
In this post, we’ll explore the following…
A status report on progress, both what’s been going well and what’s been a thorn in my side.
How to keep focused and optimistic, even when life is piling on challenges.
The value of reframing setbacks as prompts to change and grow past your current situation.
Practicing gratitude in practical ways and how that can help you stay the course.
When It Rains, It Pours
Trouble always seems to happen in waves, clusters of problems, one after the other. It doesn’t help either that your brain is a pattern-recognition machine so even if there’s just one setback, it immediately starts looking for other things that might be going wrong. While vigilance is useful, it’ll turn into a cycle of anxiety if left unchecked.
To stop the cycle, there are two things you should do: ground yourself in what’s still going right and find the hidden gems in the bullsh*t of what isn’t.
For instance, here’s what’s been working for me despite the chaos of the past few weeks:
First, what’s been working out well:
I opened a separate savings account at a credit union to incentivize saving and get me closer to my financial goals. Keeping this account separate and without online access keeps me from touching it. And, in addition to a good interest rate (6% annually for balances up to $2500), this is the first step to build a relationship with a credit union which has better tools to help me address other financial obstacles.
I hard-launched the pay-what-you-want resume writing and editing service. This went better than expected with eight requests queued up right away in the first week. And while the PWYW model isn’t guaranteed income, almost everyone insists on paying something and getting the chance to help others, build relationships, and prove my skills to more people has value as well. Plus, it’s been fun meeting new people and helping them with their goals while inspiring some other ideas I want to play with before the year’s over.
I’ve added a coaching page for the site to better sell my services as well as improved my elevator pitch. S2C’s model is a little weird, talking about game theory and showing how practical it is beyond just gaming. In owning that weirdness, I’ve improved my elevator pitch when introducing myself: I’m a personal and professional coach that owns a gaming community. No matter who I talk to, at least one half of that statement prompts curiosity well the other builds a clear connection with who I’m talking to. Weirder still, I’ve had a handful of people each week mention how they could use my help or want to schedule meetings with me way more than when I called myself a business strategist.
I closed on two new clients. I mentioned the two warm leads last month. I’m happy to say they’re now being onboarded this month. However, because of the credit-based system I use for work agreements, we’ll have to see how adjustments to income shake out when invoices go out at the end of the month and everything stabilizes.
And now, the setbacks:
My machines are revolting. Earlier this week, I woke up to my refrigerator not working; an ice blockage in the air duct caused my fridge to start temping at 60°F while the freezer was well below freezing. This, unfortunately spoiled all my groceries overnight. Then, the next day, my main computer I use for gaming and work’s CPU started overheating to the point that it’d turn itself off after 5-10 minutes. Dusting out the case, cleaning air filters, and remounting the AIO cooler twice a with fresh thermal pace, the temp remained high at roughly 190°F when idling (for those unfamiliar with computers, the CPU shouldn’t be almost hot enough to boil water in most cases, let alone when you first turn the machine on). So that’s now in the shop until further notice which wouldn’t be such a big deal if it didn’t cut me off from a ton of my friends and getting to play games with them.
For every dollar I’ve made with the PWYW resume service, I’ve spent at least five covering expenses, some foreseen, some not. Buying new groceries, paying for the computer’s diagnostic (and the eventual repair cost, provided it’s just the cooler failing), paying utilities that keep getting more expensive, updating my driver’s license, all while trying to exist in one of the most expensive places in the U.S. with a comparatively low median income has taken a toll on my mental health. The irony is that it’s so expensive, it’s hard to save up to move to somewhere with more opportunities and better cost of living. This catch-22 has been eroding my mental health and while I’m often an optimistic person, the past week alone has me feeling especially hopeless.
I feel further away with my goals. Because of the above, I’ve had to rely on using credit to cover some of these unforeseen expenses. The stress has also caused my executive dysfunction to flare up, backsliding on things like cooking at home, exercising, and working on content because I feel so overwhelmed.
Given the two lists above, this month’s metrics are a mixed bag:
Eliminate outstanding debt and establish a safety net.
Balance between expenses vs. total income: 12.36% (steady; should be increasing)
Money left over each month (cashflow): 11.00% (steady; should be increasing)
Credit utilization ratio: 99.16% (up from 96.52%, should be decreasing)
How much of my income goes to housing, utilities, and insurance: 38.95% (steady, should be decreasing to less than 33%)
Savings (days/% of one month’s expenses): 4.3 days/14.33% of one month’s expenses (up from 2.9 days/9.67% of one month’s expenses; should be increasing)
Buy a house/condo/duplex/townhome OR find a new place.
Become more creative and calm.
Create five pieces of content a week: June 2026 average was 0.25/week (down from 0.67/week).
Develop better cooking, meal prep, and nutrition habits.
Consecutive days of not eating out (except for special occasions or work functions): Longest streak was 3 days, down from 6 days.
Current Main Focus: Improving savings to 7 days’ worth of one months’ expenses.
Note: Goal #2 is paused to focus on Goals 1, 3, and 4 first.
Serenity to Accept What We Can’t Change and Courage to Change the Things We Can
When life happens, it’s a good reminder that there’s only one thing that’s directly within your control: your reaction to whatever happens to you. You can plan, be proactive, and exercise agency, sure. But, for instance, no matter how healthy you are, you never decide when you get sick or with what. However, you do get to decide how you deal with that sickness.
Such is the essence of game theory, learning how to ride the waves of chaos and chance and make the best plays based on what cards you’ve been dealt and what pieces are left on the table.
Luckily, none of the problems I listed above are health-related, even if they slowly erode my sanity and composure. But there are still plenty of moves left to make; your mastery of the Great Game is knowing how to turn a loss into a win and an obstacle into a boon.
For example, here’s how I’ve chosen to see the problems I listed after I had some time to collect myself and let go of the frustration and hopelessness:
It sucks that my refrigerator failed and I had to throw out all my now-spoiled food, but I learned how to troubleshoot temperature-related issues and fixed the problem myself. I also got the opportunity to clean and reorganize the shelves, dial in the temperature controls better, and take better stock of what food I have after grocery shopping.
It sucks that my PC is in the shop and there’s still uncertainty about what the problem is, when I’ll get it back, or what it’ll cost, but I know the case, fans, and intake filters are super clean, I got practice applying and removing thermal paste, and the boredom has let my brain focus on other things for entertainment (like working on content, exercise, and going for walks).
It sucks that I’ve been working very hard to increase my business revenue only to spend more than I made on unforeseen circumstances, but the resumes I’ve sent back have already made a positive difference for those people, I got to stress test how many I can do each week while balancing the rest of my work, and it’s given me ideas for other ways to develop S2C’s model and the services I can provide others.
It sucks that I’ve regressed on some of my goals, but this is an opportunity to practice being kind to myself and realign with those goals. I deleted all food delivery apps to force myself to cook more and practice meal prep while saving money; I’m working out at home while I look for a new gym (when I can justify the expense of a membership); and I’ve been addressing chores I’ve neglected and tasks I’ve fallen behind on.
It sucks that everything feels like it’s falling apart, but sometimes these moments of collapse are reminders that what is doesn’t need to be and that this is a prompt for something new.
Life’s obstacles can be frustrating and painful but pain is a useful signal prompting us to change what we’re doing. And sometimes, you need to get fed up enough to move in a better direction rather than remaining comfortable in what’s familiar and holding you back.
A Push from the Universe
With being a game theory nerd, a lot of my mindset revolves around absurdism and the randomness of the universe. Because of this, I’ve been drawn to tarot cards, not for divining the future, but as a random story generator that can help contextualize your thoughts and feelings by giving you a different perspective. Each card has imagery that evokes certain emotions or situations that, depending on your own emotional state and the question you’re asking, can mean different things at different times. The past few weeks remind me of two cards: Death (XIII) and the Tower (XIV).
The traditional imagery of the Death card is a skeletal knight returning home on a white horse, holding a black banner with a white rose. The Tower’s imagery is a stone bastion being struck by lightning in the middle of a storm, mid-collapse and on fire as people fall from it off the cliff below. Though both of these cards seem negative on the surface, they hold a deeper, positive meaning as symbols of rebirth and rebuilding.
One could argue the knight was defeated and died in battle… yet he still moves, still came home, and his skeletal face even looks a little happy even if his family and the priest welcoming him back look disheartened. Who he was is no more… but he still remains and is something new.
While the Tower is falling, the card itself symbolizes not just rebuilding from rubble, but that to begin rebuilding, there must be a violent upheaval to remove the old, entrenched structures and make way for newer, better ones.
Whenever I’m bombarded by a wave of problems, one after the other, I realize that the universe (or Life or the Great Game itself) is stripping me of what’s holding me back. Some if it may be permanent, most of it is a temporary loss I can recover from but I must be mindful of how I move forward, ensuring I don’t make the same mistakes.
Like Death’s knight, I’ve been battered and feel defeated, yet I’m still moving forward with something inside me craving something new. Like the Tower, everything has broken apart and while there was much jaw-clenching and screaming into a pillow while I lay face down on my bed or pillow, the catharsis of upheaval has given me clarity of how to build a stronger foundation that better suits me.
Going back to the garden metaphor, when you find an excess of sh*t, weeds, broken fences, and pests nibbling at what plants remain, you have your work cut out for you. Yeah, the petunias might be in disarray, but maybe it wasn’t the season for them. There might be other plants that are doing just fine but nothing’s stopping you from just plowing over the whole thing and starting over fresh.
What’s Next?
With my main computer in the shop and money tighter than usual, all I can do is keep my head down and focus on what I still have: my Chromebook and learning its OS since I’m still not that familiar with it; trying new recipes and meal prep strategies; learning new marketing strategies to better fit how I explain what I do; working on written content while storyboard video content when I can record gameplay again; and plan a few new projects that I want to leave as a surprise for now.
One of these projects has been probably long overdue. The more I think about it, especially in context to Death and the Tower, the confidence I won a few months ago when I posted that video on Instagram coupled and the frustration from the ordeals of the past few weeks are the fuel I needed to try.
We’ll see what blooms from all this extra fertilizer.
Game in thumbnail: Farming Simulator 22 (GIANTS Software)