​I’m a day trader. My focus is a single commodity, and it’s one that affects me personally. It is my own energy. Every action I take, every period of time I devote, I am either gaining or draining energy. Some trades provide me with short term gains, but long term drains. There’s a catch too. My energy - or at least my capacity to spend it, is finite. I must sleep every day, no matter how many energy gaining trades I make. 

​Eight hours of sleep puts me in my peak position of leverage for the day. Less, and more depending on the circumstances, puts me at a disadvantage. I start my day with meditation. Meditation is energy neutral at worst, and gaining at best. It’s main benefit is clearing my mind for a day of trading without distractions. I follow with exercise - either a light routine of stretching, or a full strength training workout. This is energy gaining, but I must be careful how I use this gain to both take advantage of the near-term high, and sustain it for the day. 

I like to follow exercise with a creative task. This typically does not gain me energy, but it does not overdrain me either, and the costs are worth it. Some of my best creative work is done during this period; my first typed draft for this post included. Once my creativity juices have been spent, I need to fuel up with a healthy breakfast. Some days this means eggs, others a fruit bowl or smoothie with peanut butter. Regardless, eating a healthy meal might put me in a short term drain, but will boost my energy levels for the day. 

As I prepare for a session of deep work, sometimes I’ll have a coffee - knowing I’ll pay for it with a nap later. Napping is not something I do only on days I drink coffee. It is a great energy gainer, if played right. I pay with 20 minutes of my time for the nap itself, and 10 minutes for washing my face, brushing my teeth, and refocusing after, and I have just gained substantially for the day. Played poorly though, I can lose time and energy but napping longer. 

Managing my mid-day is most difficult for me, because it invites the most randomness to it. I’ll try to fit in deep work sessions, but I can easily get pulled into a call, distracted by emails, or sidelined by another random occurrence. Here it’s important for me to weigh the costs and benefits of each event thrown my way, and be prepared with a playbook for mitigating any time or energy losses. My go-tos include exercising, coffee, journaling, meditating, a healthy social meeting, going for a walk. 

The evening is a vital period that sets me up for the next day of trading. How I close the day will affect how I open it. Ensuring not to make any foolish plays in the evening, like staring at blue lights and scrolling, can be done by having an evening, or pre-bedtime ritual. Similar to my morning ritual, it involves isolated silence. Reading and writing by hand are two of my daily evening habits that have played the role of easing me into a restful, eight-hour sleep, and positioning me for the next day. 

I lied in the beginning. I don’t trade a single commodity. The other commodity is my time. Knowing how I spend my time affects my energy though, and I find there is no time to waste. Wasting time wastes energy, beginning a vicious cycle of wasting both. By trading wisely throughout the day, I free up so much time and energy for myself, that I’m able to do more, and test new trading strategies. And I’m always looking for new ones.

Minimalism begins with a ceiling, but taken down its logical path, introduces a floor. ​

Our government’s technological infrastructure sucks, and yet the government imposes on so many parts of our lives. People are attached to their devices, but not to their communities. There is a gap between our devices, and our communities, that, if filled, would do wonders for our communities. ​

A few ‘this-for-that’ applications:

• Uber for community projects
• GitHub for legislation and community ordinances
• Blockchain for community funding

Uber for Community Projects
Who builds our roads? Who fixes our sidewalks? Who plants trees on our block? There’s a glaring gap between the people who physically work on a neighborhood and the people who live in it. More and more, downtowns are becoming inaccessible for many. At the same time, their physical infrastructures are deteriorating and becoming overwhelmingly costly (time + money).

What if people could pick up jobs like fixing a sidewalk or planting a tree the same way Uber drivers pick up a rider? Jobs that need to be done can be signaled to a network of operators that can pick them up. 

A system like this could work against NIMBYism culturally, as it would connect us more to the people who work in our neighborhoods, while providing a positive and much needed service.

At the same time this will help people feel a closer connection to their community by taking part in its needs. Empowered to fix ‘that thing the city really should take care of’ themselves, people will feel more attached to their communities.

This has the potential to scale, such that it could work for  small community projects, or larger construction, infrastructure projects (high speed rail).

GitHub for Legislation and Community Ordinances
Lawyers, politicians, and cops have a hard time keeping up with the granularities of our legal infrastructure. It’s pretty much impossible for many citizens. Proposing anything, whether it be a minor, but important, local ordinance, or state and federal legislation, requires overcoming unending legal hurdles. Many choose not to involve themselves in this legal leviathan, but many are forced to. Both are severe problems. 

We can increase engagement and understanding of our legal systems by treating them like software engineers treat code - with version control. Version control can tell us exactly what differences were made when, and exactly how a new proposal would affect our product. Citizens can propose new legislation to an open-source law book in the same manner users submit pull requests to open-source repositories.

Clear access to and awareness of our laws can offer a layer of protection for many who are oppressed by bad actors. Transparency would work to incentivize agains acting in bad faith.

Blockchain for Community Funding
Financial transparency and participation. All government and community expenses would be immutably visible on a public blockchain. Additionally, funding can be allocated by a voting system. All citizens pay taxes. Citizens can now have a say in how that money is allocated. This will streamline funding efforts for community projects (e.g. street lamps, sidewalk repairs). Blockchain is the obvious solution here. When there is a lack of funds for a needed project, it will be clear why. Citizens may be more inclined to pay more if they are certain it will be put to good use, so this infrastructure can also provide support for sourcing more funds for projects that would benefit the collective.


Final Thoughts
I am not advocating for the government to be more involved in our lives. Quite the opposite. I am advocating for citizens to be more involved in their communities. 

Cheaper Than You Think
Traveling and committing full time to pursue a self-directed learning endeavor were two separate ideas that had been growing in my mind for a while. The two don’t seem in obvious alignment; traveling involves burning money while leaving a job eliminates an income stream. Where is the bisection between the two?

Well, I’m not the type of traveler who fills his days with typical tourist activities; I’d rather live somewhere new for an extended period to immerse myself in the culture and way of life of the location. I definitely enjoyed some tourist-musts so far during my time in Bali (I highly recommend catching the sunrise at Mt Batur), but my expenses resemble a typical cost-of-living breakdown more than a vacation budget.

This allows me to take advantage of the power of the dollar in a place like Bali where my monthly cost of living is cheaper than my Boston rent. I wasn’t even living in luxury. Sharing a four-bedroom apartment with three roommates. I thought I had a pretty good deal paying $1400 for a downtown Boston apartment. Today, I enjoyed a phenomenal Thai lunch for $5.
When I actually made my budget spreadsheet: flights, accommodation, and additional cost of living expenses, I realized I had already saved enough money to buy myself a decent chunk of time. At that point, it was just a matter of weeks until I would arrive.

The Trouble with Advancing at a not so Advanced Company
Graduating from Carnegie Mellon, and landing a Data Scientist role out of undergrad might sound like a dream to some, but a piece of paper and a job title are not what makes a career or life fulfilling. The term Data Scientist, like many job titles, has become overused and too vague. The company I worked at is in an old industry but was nonetheless trying to rebrand itself as a type of tech company. Unfortunately, from the inside, there was no incentive to innovate. I found myself crunching out tools for automated reporting instead of solving interesting data science problems.

It was clear to me that this would not be a place for me to grow, so I began seeking new employment as a Data Scientist at tech companies, many of them startups. The reasons I failed to land a job came down to a lack of production-level experience, which would prevent me from hitting the ground running in a fast-paced environment.

I decided I would need to get that experience. I began rounding out my software skills outside of work. To be the effective, hit-the-ground-running, data scientist I wanted to be, I had to be able to build the software necessary to support data science research.

Confidently Building your own Curriculum
The self-education pursuit was liberating. I was not constrained to pursuing solely resources that would directly benefit my current job. As I delved deeper, I was realizing where my interests were pulling me, and soon enough I had put together a curriculum for myself, that not only included books and projects on software and web applications, but also on cryptography, something I had been keen on exploring for a while.

These subjects were not only hobbyist pursuits but practical for the career I wanted to build for myself. Having begun work on my curriculum, I still felt like I was wasting 40+ hours a week at work, and wasn’t gaining anything from it. I knew I wanted to commit full-time to my new endeavor. Having no familial or other obligations holding me back, I knew this was the time to do it.

Leaving
As I would be leaving the states for a considerable amount of time, there were four things I had to say goodbye to. Two forever, one temporarily, and one that turned out not to even be real.

The two permanent ones were my job and my apartment. Like most companies, mine had a two-week policy. The process was relatively simple logistically. An email got the ball rolling, and then it was just a matter of transferring some projects and saying goodbye to my co-workers.
Living in a pretty popular city, finding a sublease was no problem. Within days of posting my apartment on craigslist, I had already scheduled enough viewings, and within a week I had my landlord drafting the sublease for the new tenant to sign.

Saying goodbye to my friends and family was the hardest, but with modern technology, keeping in touch is easier than ever, and ultimately they recognized how important taking this trip was to me. Honestly, what threw me off the most was how on-board my parents were compared to my siblings. I had grown so used to the opposite being true most of my life, that I almost second-guessed myself.

The easiest thing to part with was my stuff. It turns out, I didn’t really have much. I consider myself a practical minimalist. Maybe it’s just part of being a millennial, but I don’t have unnecessary physical things. My bedroom furniture was sold on craigslist as easily as my apartment was subleased. My few extra books, winter clothes, and my guitar I was fortunate enough to be able to leave with my parents.

Arriving
With the power of the internet, planning travel is easier than ever. I like Google Flights and Airbnb, but there are a plethora of other tools available to search and compare flights and accommodation. Doing research on the legalities of long-term stays is also a must. Again, this has made me grateful to be a citizen of a country with a strong passport like the United States. Travel visas for many countries in Southeast Asia (and many other parts of the world for that matter) for US citizens are either not required for stays less than a certain amount, or only require a simple process to extend.

Practical reasons aside, I cannot overstate how beneficial the environment I’ve found myself in has been to my effectiveness in my learning pursuit. I can easily transition from relaxing to working throughout each day. I’ve taken advantage of the abundance of co-working spaces and cafes to work in, and I’ve been able to fit in yoga, meditation, and Muay Thai classes, that, along with great weather, nearby beaches and other nature spots have done wonders for my peace of mind and creativity. It really has been an amazing experience thus far.

Going For It
​While I consider myself prone to hesitation, I also constantly challenge myself to actions to avoid regret. Experimenting with how you spend your time and money is the only way to figure out what works best for you. I am by no means rolling in cash, but I was able to take advantage of the buying power of the dollar to buy myself time. It’s a glorious feeling taking your destiny in your own hands. As to where this will lead me, well only time will tell. If you find yourself hesitating in a similar situation, my take should be clear. Go for it.