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I have delayed considerably in resolving this one, and I feel bad because I didn't give as frequent updates as I would've liked, and I never got back to @Chimpy but also hardly anybody asked.

My slight hope was that people may chime in more and provide suggestions or ask questions to help direct my life in a way that made me feel more positively about it, but that didn't happen.

I should've bought mana and made the liquidity like 10,000 or something lol.

Anyway, I'm resolving this NO. And I'm happy (irony?) to explain why.

For wider context: as I said earlier, at the time I made this market I felt very unsure about my life. I was about a month away from a dramatic life shift and there was great uncertainty surrounding it. While I was excited for it in many ways, I was also apprehensive. My living conditions would change dramatically, my work life would change dramatically, my friend situation, almost everything about my life would change. And it would be changing in a way that was highly dissimilar to the life I had been living up to that point.

These changes were largely instigated by me, but partially motivated by exterior factors.

Overall, if I had to rate my life satisfaction or quality or happiness or whatever positive metric I want to choose, I'd say I was close to an 8 or 8.5. I had nerves and apprehension about my life changes, and I was already in the middle of preparing for a move which was very exhausting and eating into my life and the things I wanted to do, but still the material conditions of my life was good, and I had things to look forward to, and was also enjoying some of the benefits of leaving my old job and the summer I had.

So, one year later, where am I? Well, since the last update here are how my life is going in the major realms:

In the realm of romance (which I think probably has an outsized effect on my happiness more than anything), I've struck out. Pretty badly. I thought I was out of the woods in the realm of emotional distress from my ex. I wasn't. I continued to suffer for a while. The person who I alluded to with whom there was a spark just raw ghosted me, and anybody else I went on dates with didn't work out. I really became interested in someone from work, and after a pair of months trying to figure out what her deal was and if she felt similarly, I basically got a not horrible response but found out she's seeing someone who I had no idea about...so yeah.

That dead ended there.

As far as work goes, I have gradually shifted away from that more "fun" job, as I got a promotion at the other one, and then also got offered a temp position in another position until almost the end of this year. Right now I'm making more solid money and it is greatly relieving some of my stress. Regardless, I'm still "part time" and not getting insurance through an employer. If I were paying for that I'd probably have more peace of mind, but also have a tougher financial situation.

I moved out from my dad's, with whom I moved in after returning to USA, and my roommate and I get along well, as we both expected, if not better I think. And my living location is incredibly better. However, the size is quite a bit smaller than I would ideally want and it's making creating a satisfying living arrangement a little tough.

My roommate kind of has one foot out the door, too and so he has not unpacked some things and has someone made me a bit unable to feel "settled" in a sense. it's keeping me from decorating and furnishing my place further which is detracting from my happiness.

Recently, because of AI news, I've run into the internal conflict again of whether what I'm trying to do with my life really matters at all, because it's more of a long term plan and I'm increasingly feeling like the world has a sizable chance of just fucking ending before I'd even be close to accomplishing my goals. So this certainly hasn't helped. Although I did some interesting things related to impactful careers.. and there is hope.

but I'm not suffering from AI doomer/dread as bad as I was in the spring/early summer last year.

If I had to rate my life happiness or satisfaction now I'd say that I'm like a 6.5-7. And I think perhaps the greatest indicator of such a thing is how much time I spend on my phone now and rotting around and scrolling.

It's probably somewhat fair to say that this is also a contributor rather than just solely a reflector of my life satisfaction, but I think it works the other way too, and gun to my head I'd say it works as a reflector more than contributor. And I have been under a kind of malaise of procrastination for some time now, partly due to being overworked, which I neglected to mention above, I've been overworked to absolute fucking shit, but it's finally clearing up. perhaps when this market closed it was at the worst it's been.

Finally, this summer has afforded me the chance to tackle some "summer bucketlist" items of mine for living back in the USA and for that I'm grateful. Just, there are other external, too large factors causing me to feel worse about my life than I did last year.

I hope this answers any questions that anyone has (none of you care anyway, I'm sure).

I may make another market of this type at the end of this year around the new year. I do love new year's resolutions, after all.

@No_uh I was rooting for you, buddy! If it helps at all, increasing your date volume can improve your situation romantically, and if you're making more money, that's easier to do, but you have to put yourself out there a whole lot more. Not spend a bunch of time figuring out whether someone is also interested, just ask. Ask a bunch of people, people you might think you wouldn't be into. Dating apps help here.

Good luck and if you do another market for next year, I'll buy a yes in that one too 👊

@No_uh You put a lot of effort and reflection into this! how is it going? Other than working the part time job, are you enrolled in a educational program or something similar?

@Chimpy Great question, sorry for not responding faster. I can make another large update here soon, but I will tentatively say that my feelings about my life are slightly more negative than they were at the time of this market's creation, but if I had more time to reflect (which I will take before resolving) then I could decide otherwise.

Also, there's a thing or two pending that could shift this resolution quite strongly.

sorry, a couple days late on the update. here is the update @snazzlePop and other potential traders:

I have been back in the USA for 6 months as of like yesterday.

Things are, imo, not bleak by any mean. I have lots of support, good friends and family, plenty of savings, and opportunity (in the general sense), but as far as my personal satisfaction goes, I am lower on my life than I've been since coming back here so far.

Detailed explanations: I continue to see and enjoy spending time with my family again. I have made a few new friends as well as reconnected with old friends, some even more than I was connected with them before. My one part-time job is fulfilling and fun, but is inconsistent in terms of hours, and so even though the hourly is fine, it's unlikely to be able to support me, and there is no potential for full-time employment. The other part time job has nice people but pays dogshit and there may be opportunity for full-time employment but the pay would still be worse than the other job, is not exactly what I want to do, and currently is far from where I'm living. I do not like the amount of driving I'm doing.

Back in December I got in an accident (my fault) and my car was totaled by insurance. It was very humiliating and luckily the way it turned out, I actually came out ahead in the short term with my new vehicle, although my insurance premium is higher now which means long term I lose of course. But it could've been worse.

I reconnected some with my ex. I don't want to go into too much detail, but Although I'm glad I saw her there was a lot of bad shit in it for me and it kinda wrecked me emotionally and left me feeling very down. Very, very recently I met somebody new and there seems to be a tiny spark of potential, that would be great if something worked out.

I am struggling to find full-time satisfying and well paying work near my family. Matching all 3 of these desires (satisfying, decent paying, and near family) is largely what is causing me the greatest issue now.

I am barely able to cover my expenses with my part-time jobs even with living for free with my family. and I'm still uncovered in health insurance.

I am still exploring school options, but in my field I wish to pursue it seems incredingly unlikely that I can do that near where I am.

Now that I read this it doesn't seem horrible, but for my personal goals I'm quite disasatisfied.

If i was at least able to save more or have more time with a more conistent work schedule I would be happier.

I would love for traders to give any advice possible if they think it would raise the likelihood of YES resolution. I am very open! I may even add more liquidity to the market(?)

How are things now?

@snazzlePop Will update later today (spoiler: the estimations of my life right now are lower than they were before).

I would like to boost the boost the liquidity of this market if I can to attract more traders and hopefully solicit advice from people if I can.

How are things?

@DontGoHome Good question.

Update just shy of 2 months back in USA:

I got a car (and car insurance), and the 2nd part time job I was referencing in the last post. I also got a dresser for my clothes which was one thig I was sorely lacking while here. I am still not very well reconnected with old friends, but a few I'm rebonding with well. I got accepted into the short term program I was applying for and that is a huge boon to my long term positive outlook.

Other new things positive things: I went on a couple dates, and although they didn't go perfectly, the person was quite nice and we're becoming okay friends (I think). I've been able to see and do some various fun activities to feel part of the local scene again, and see almost all members of my family again at least once, and many a few times. I was also suggested to apply for a full-time promotion at the 2nd part-time job by some people there, because they think I'd be a good fit. There are many pros to applying for it, but it doesn't particularly align with my longterm goals so I'm not sure what to do just yet.

Some negatives: I am currently still struggling to get a good idea on how my financials look, as moving back has incurred lots of somewhat sizeable one-time purchases which I don't expect to have on the regular. I am driving way way way more than I want to, and I feel bad about it. My two part-time job work schedule has my hours being quite weird, and even though I'm not even working 40 a week, I feel as though I have less free time than I have in many years partially because of the strange and changing hours, but also the time I need to be in the car to get to the workplaces.

Overall, I would say I feel better about my life here than I did a month ago, which was better than I expected it to be after coming back, but there are still some major short and longterm concerns I have.

1 month update: I came back to the USA on September 14th, and miraculously in the first ten days I've managed to receive everything I shipped home (although i was charged more than I anticipated because of trump's tariffs affecting even personal use goods worth over $100 or something), I took my driving license test to re-acquire my license AND PASSED (i was actually nervous about that), landed a part-time job that may be a bit inconsistent in terms of hours but will pay well per hour, may land a second part time job, and have been able to take care of a few things necessary to settle my old life in Japan. I also applied to a program/school i hope to get into, won't find out until next month.

this is all generally positive stuff. so im feeling up about that.

on the flip side: ive still got to find a car to actually drive, get auto insurance, and also health insurance, im living rent free with my dad at the moment but i dont have all the space id like or furniture id like to have, and i generally abhor all the driving im having to do to get everywhere as a passenger or drive. and i am having a little trouble reconnecting with some old friends still.

You got this!!

@AbiA Thank you, thank you!

I'm betting 100 on sunk cost bias.

@CraigDemel oh well! I should have cautioned against following sunk cost bias with your ex!

@CraigDemel Unsure what you mean about this, could you explain further? I'm not sure what sunk cost bias means here,

@No_uh putting more resources than is optimal into something, just because you put resources in before. For example, you buy a stock at X, the company goes bankrupt, the stock goes down 25%, and you hold on to it instead of selling before it goes to 0.

Are you ok with sharing the specific nature of the change?

@TheAllMemeingEye I may add more details later but for now I've filled it out a lot more. I hope the new description answers your question, specifically the "context" section.

Please ask any other questions you want :)

@No_uh thanks, that explains everything 👍

Projecting; 1 year is not enough adjustment time for me. But you'll probably think of the change fondly in 10 years.