How I Wasted my Life (at age 32)

So today I want to talk about how I kind

of feel like I, I wasted most of my life

so far. Have you ever found yourself just

playing Rainbow Six late at night and

you're thinking to yourself, what am I

doing with my life? And you might be

thinking, but Daniel, you did all of these

things. You did that and you did this and

you were married and you had 5 girlfriends

in the past. So what are you complaining

about? Yeah, but it's kind of meaningless

if you— if you've gained something and

then you've lost it and you no longer have

it, then you don't have it anymore and it

doesn't really count. It's in the past,

and the only thing that really exists,

the only thing that matters, is the

present. The past doesn't exist anymore,

it's just the memory. You can't go back in

time, and the future hasn't happened yet,

so it doesn't really exist either. The

future is just what we expect is going to

happen in the future. For example, if I

dated the hottest girl in Harrietsham,

then yeah, at the time whilst I was dating

her, that would have been the best thing

in the world, and I'd be really, really

happy, and I would have felt like my life

is not a complete waste of time. But after

it's finished, after the relationship is

over, then I don't really have anything to

show for it apart from, you know, maybe a

few pictures, maybe a few videos,

but I don't really have anything, you

know, like a tangible physical thing that

I can enjoy after the relationship has

ended. She's, she's gone. I don't really

have anything left of her. And then it

just makes you feel like, well, if it's

over now, then I'm not really getting any

satisfaction from it anymore.

If I compare my life right now to my life

about 15 years ago, or maybe 12 or 13

years ago, back when I was about 17, 18,

19, or even 20, there really isn't

much difference. And in factuality,

I've probably lost more than what I used

to have back then. I mean, back then I

still had a dad, and then back then I

still had Toffee. Back then I still had my

innocence and my pureness. But now I

don't really feel like I can say the same

things anymore. I've actually got a net

loss, a negative, a net negative now

compared to 12 or 13 or 14 years ago.

I guess you could say I had some

achievements along the way during my 30s,

and I accomplished a few of my goals.

Like, I achieved a pretty good level of

Japanese. I got level 2 proficiency test

JLPT. I achieved some proficiency in

Korean, got married. I had several

relationships that were quite good at the

time, and I grew a pretty big YouTube

channel and made a lot of money off of

YouTube. But all of those things are in

the past, and I'm not really benefiting

from those achievements as of right now by

very much. For example, learning things

and becoming good at things are quite good

skills to have. It's quite, it's quite

useful if you know how to fix a sink or

unblock a drain or replace a toilet.

You can use those skills in the future and

in, in jobs you could use those skills.

But if you learn a skill and then you lose

interest in it and then you lose the skill

because you don't practice it anymore,

then you're not really gaining anything

from learning the skill. So my achievement

or my accomplishment of passing level 2

JLPT, although it was nice at the time

and I've got the certificate, the

certificate doesn't really help me in

life. I can't show the certificate to

people and then they do good things for me

because I wouldn't be able to pass level 2

anymore. I couldn't pass it again because

I've become so rusty with my Japanese. I

stopped. Studying Japanese properly a few

years ago, more than a few years ago, and

I haven't even used Japanese since I left

Japan, which is over a year ago now. I

haven't even used Korean in how many

years? 5 years now since I last spoke

Korean and had to use it. I don't use it

at all now because I don't need it, so

I've kind of lost the skill. I don't

really feel confident with my speaking

abilities. I don't have any Korean or

Japanese friends or girlfriends or family,

so it's completely pointless. To be able

to speak those languages anymore, and I

just don't care enough to keep learning

and trying to get better and trying to use

it to make money because there's so many

different ways in the world to make money,

and using Japanese or Korean or language

skills to make money is something I've

tried in the past and I hated it so much.

And then in the same way, I don't really

see my relationships as not a waste of

time because they didn't really accomplish

anything. They didn't result in anything.

Most people get into a relationship with

the relationship lasting forever, or for

the rest of their lives, or for the rest

of their partner's lives in mind. No one

gets into a relationship thinking, oh,

I'm only planning to be in this

relationship for 2 years, I'm only

planning to be with her for 1 month and

then I'm done. Most people don't think

like that. So if none of your

relationships have worked out and they're

all over and they all failed, then it's a

failed relationship. Having like 20 failed

relationships in your life does not mean

that you can say that your life was not a

complete waste of time. It was a waste of

time because it's over now. It doesn't

matter if you, you had the best marriage

in the entire world and you had the best

partner that you could ever possibly find,

because you lost it. It's not here

anymore. Like right now, as of right now,

this very moment, I'm not with the

best partner in the world that I ever had.

I have nothing. You know, in a way it's

kind of like stocks. So if you start off

with your initial investment, you've got

$1,000, and for example, you put it into

Apple, and then after a few months you're

up $500. So you're pretty happy about that

because you're up $500. But then a few

more months pass and then some

catastrophic news comes out.

Like Tim Cook's, uh, cereal, you know

what, and then Apple stock gets slashed in

half, and then you've lost your $500

gains, and then you've also lost half of

your initial investment, then you haven't

gained anything. And then all that time

you had your money invested in Apple was

complete waste of time because right now

you don't have anything to show for it and

you've actually lost the money. And I feel

like achievements in life a bit like that.

So you actually have less now than what

you had when you started. So yeah,

sometimes I do feel like I have wasted

most of my life up until this point, even

though I've had a lot of experiences and

I've been to a lot of countries, traveled

to a lot of places. I have tried quite a

few things. I've probably tried most

things in life at this point, apart from

the really extreme things like skydiving

or bungee jumping, which I'll never have

any interest in doing. But yeah, I do feel

like I've done quite a lot in life, but

the problem is all of the things I've

done, they haven't, they haven't produced

anything for me that helps me right now.

It's like you could build a wall or you

could build a house, and building the

house, the process, you would have learned

a lot of skills and would have taken a lot

of hard work, But you get a result. You

have the end result. The end result is a

house that you can live in, which is

obviously very useful. Or you have a wall

that, that prevents people from coming in,

which is also very useful. Or maybe you

grew a vegetable patch and then it's

producing vegetables. My point is,

all of the things that I did and achieved

haven't produced anything for me.

So all of my failed relationships, they

haven't, they haven't even produced me any

children. You know, at least some people,

they get a kid out of the relationship and

they, they can successfully say that

they've successfully carried on their DNA

and their bloodline doesn't end with them.

At least they've put a kid out into the

world and then they can go off and find a

new woman. I can't even say that because

for some reason, uh, my sperm doesn't seem

to work properly. And I haven't managed to

create any kids anywhere. I guess that's a

good thing because I wouldn't be able to

provide for them. But sometimes I do

think, wouldn't it be nice if there were

like little Daniels all over the world? I

guess that won't happen. And I don't know

how that would benefit me if I had a kid.

Maybe he'll grow up and become a

billionaire and then remember me and say,

oh, he's my father, and then he'll give me

some money. I don't think that would

happen either. And maybe kids aren't

really a great example. But what I mean is

all of the other things I achieved, like

learning Japanese, that doesn't really

produce anything for me, does it? The

whole reason why I decided to learn

Japanese in the first place was because I

really wanted a Japanese girlfriend, but

now I don't really care about having a

Japanese girlfriend anymore. It just seems

like a pointless skill to have, and doing

translation work doesn't interest me in

any way. I'd rather just play Rainbow Six.

I don't know, I don't understand

how there's people who actually enjoy

translating. They must enjoy it. I'm

pretty sure there's people out there who

really love translating and they're like

professionals and they take it seriously

and they're masters at the craft and

they're like, oh, look at me, I'm Mr.

King of Translating, I'm the master, this

is how you're supposed to do it, I'm so

proud of being the master of translating.

Are there people like that? I guess there

are, but I just can't imagine being one of

those people. Japanese is kind of a weird

skill, to be honest. It's not like one of

those other skills that is 100% going to

improve your life every day unless you

live in Japan and you're constantly having

to use Japanese in like a business

environment, or your family only speaks

Japanese and you live in Japan and you

couldn't live without Japanese. And even

though I lived in Japan for 2 years, I

can't really say that I really, really

desperately needed Japanese.

I only really needed it to speak to

girlfriends or to speak to my ex-wife,

but if they could speak English, then I

wouldn't really need Japanese. I never

really felt like I needed it to survive,

like to go shopping or to buy food or to

get basic things done or to travel around.

I didn't really feel like it was that

necessary to, to know Japanese.

And then when you're out of Japan, you

never use it unless you really, you know,

unless you really push yourself and force

yourself to find ways to use it, which

kind of makes you think, if it's really

not that important to be able to speak

Japanese, then it's obviously not a very

useful skill. I don't really know what

kind of skill I could have learned that

would be benefiting me right now because I

don't really do anything. A lot of people

say, why don't you learn to drive? Well,

you should have learned to drive because

it would be so useful. You could just hop

into a car and go anywhere anytime you

want to. Yeah, that's great, but the thing

is, I don't want to go anywhere. I'm

perfectly happy just being here at home.

If I could go anywhere, I would, I would

be here. This is where I'd go. There's

nowhere in the country that I really want

to go to so desperately that I would need

an automobile to get to. And if I really

wanted to get there, I'd just use public

transport. And if there's no public

transport going to that place, and it's

probably a pretty crappy place then

because no one wants to go there.

Learning to drive would be a good skill if

people relied on you to drive them about,

and to be honest, being someone's taxi

driver has never really interested me.

Well, I guess you could do it for a job

and you could earn money, but if I'm

having to drive my friends— if I had

friends— or my family members around

places because I'm able to drive, then I'd

rather just not be able to drive so

they're not going to bug me about it.

They'll be like, Daniel, please, can you

drive me here? Can you drive me there?

Why won't you drive me? You're not doing

anything. So at least now I can just

say, oh, I don't know how to drive, I

don't have a license, so ask someone else.

It's kind of a weird question, isn't it?

Do you feel like you've wasted your life?

And what counts as a non-wasted life? Is

it creating children? Is it creating

wealth? Is it building things? Maybe it's

all of those things, but maybe if you just

enjoyed what you were doing at the time,

then it's not a waste of time because you

enjoyed doing it. And even though I have

less to show for than what I had when I

started my journey as an adult,

I don't know, sometimes I just can't help

but feeling like My 20s just went past,

and although I had a bit of a fun time

here and there, uh, right now I don't

really have anything to show. There's no

fruits of my labors from my 20s, mainly

because I didn't really have any labor. I

just have this feeling that my 30s aren't

really going to be any better than my 20s,

and in fact they're probably going to be

worse than my 20s because I don't feel

like I can top my 20s. I did quite a lot

of things in my 20s that were quite nice.

And, um, yeah, in the same way that my

life was better when I was 22 compared to

when I was 32, my life is probably going

to be better when I was 32 compared to

when I'm 42. When I'm 42, I'm probably

going to look back at my 30s and be

thinking, wow, my 30s were so much better

than what I foresee my 40s

going to be. It's kind of like things

hit a peak, they hit a ceiling at a

certain point in your life, and then after

it hits the peak, it just— it's just

downhill from there. And I kind of feel

like I've already hit the peak, probably

in my late 20s. It's a bit like investing

in a stock that you think is just going to

go up and up all the time. You put a lot

of money into it, and instead of taking

your gains when it's up by 40 or 50%,

you don't, and then it all comes crashing

down and it never goes back up as high as

it once was, and then you sell for a loss.