I've made some questionable decisions
Life off the beaten path
I just turned twenty-six and feel like time is slipping by particularly fast. I started to feel this time pressure at twenty-five, but it’s more noticeable now. My concerns are primarily financial. Like many twenty-somethings, I am not financially in the place that I thought I’d be by this time in my life. Growing up with the internet, I was exposed to a lot of outliers who were earning ten times the amount of money at twenty years old than I’m earning now.
Almost all of us are average in almost every way. When I was a kid, I thought things would be different because I grew up a bit of an outlier. I was a Russian-speaking Jew in the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama. I seldom tried in school and still managed to do well.
University taught me how the world really works. I suddenly had to try, although I was able to pass some classes with a medium amount of effort (I think some of the mandatory courses freshman year were designed purely to funnel tuition money).
Once I left my not-so-little town, I realized that I was just like everybody else. Not strikingly good looking, not genius-level intelligent. There’s always a room where you’re average, especially in New York.
Every since I graduated university in 2020, I have involved myself in high-risk business ventures yielding various results. I thought that it would be a good idea to rent commercial real estate. I thought it would be a good idea to open an art gallery. The former made a decent amount of money and gave me a reason to stay in New York. The latter made a small amount of money and gave me a reason to self-loathe. Neither of these things, however, really made sense for me.
Some of my friends and acquaintances, meanwhile, picked paths on the corporate ladder; growth and security. Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages to everything.
Sure, they got guaranteed pay. They valued stability and a known path.
This path, however, came with temporal inflexibility. They had to be in the office at a certain time. Their boss would call them and ask them to do more, and they couldn’t say no. Sometimes they couldn’t go too far away from the city unless they took some time off.
I said no to stability, the idea being that there will be enormous upside after several years of making very little money. That might happen. It might not.
I’m still thinking like an American when it comes to money, specifically when it comes to the amounts of money in question. By European standards, especially by Georgian standards, I’m doing okay. But as an American, I feel like I should be earning more.
When I met people from Ukraine who had quit their comfortable lives to move to the US under brutal conditions in exchange for a larger nominal salary, I couldn’t understand why. Now I do.
They became lower status relative to their new neighbors, but they also became higher status in their home country simply by having “made it” to America. The fact that they were getting paid minimum wage washing dishes and that they lived with 4 roommates suddenly didn’t seem to matter.
Let’s divide people into two categories — those who don’t have the urge to drop everything and fly to the other side of the world, and those who does. I’m firmly in the latter camp.
There have been many stories of those who didn’t act on their youthful impulses and came to regret it. It’s now clear to me that I have acted out my rebellion to my parents and my country, and that, were I to return permanently to the United States, I could lead a full life knowing that I didn’t hold back on my dreams.
I don’t want to end up like like another DJ who moved to Tbilisi at forty years old in order to find himself.
I suppose the grass is always greener.
This journey through mediocrity, however, has shaped me. New York David wouldn’t recognize Tbilisi David. New York David would likely have never been able to shake off his urge to move abroad.
I don’t regret leaving New York, nor do I regret settling in Tbilisi. It may be an unconventional path, but if you know me well, you know that I was going to do something crazy anyway.
However, no matter what happens to me, there’s always corporate America waiting to put me in golden handcuffs.