The most difficult year in my life

What I learned in 2024.

I used to make $30,000 a month while traveling the world. Now I’m doing manual labor in Russia. The old Raymond would have paid someone to do the work. The current Raymond can’t afford it.

I have nothing against manual labor. Many members of my family worked in construction, including my father. And for several years, I worked as a longshoreman at the port of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Working on the laptop for over a decade like I’ve been doing isn’t healthy. And to be honest, sitting behind a screen for too long becomes tedious and boring.

The work I’m doing is installing quartz tile. It’s my first time working with this type of material. I made a lot of mistakes when I started. I thought my mistakes wouldn’t be so bad… until more work was done and those small errors ruined the progression.

So, I took it all apart and started over.

The results were better.

By dismantling the initial tiles, the rest of them clicked much better.

There’s a parallel between working with tiles and my circumstances. While my life was more fun when money was abundant… something was missing.

The work I was doing wasn’t fulfilling. The people I was working for weren’t people I felt proud working for. On Instagram I showcased the highlights of traveling, but every time I shared something, it felt artificial.

Something wasn’t clicking with my life.

It’s taking a lot of time and patience to figure things out. If I were alone, I’d eventually find a solution that worked for me. But I’m not alone anymore.

I now have a family. The things that motivated me before are no longer viable. I have to find new motivations while balancing between the various changes to my day-to-day life.

One of them is a second “brain” feeding me opinions, feedback, and criticisms. Constantly. After 18 years of living alone, this is still taking some getting used to.

I miss my old self. I miss my old life. But there’s no going back. The only way is forward. I attempted a divorce a few years into the marriage, but it never happened. Now that we have a daughter, who I love dearly, I have to adapt.

It doesn’t help that the majority of this year was spent in a foreign country. Hardly anyone around me speaks English. And when and if I find someone who speaks my language… it’s almost always their second language.

During my trips to America, people say my mannerisms and accent have changed so much, they would consider me a foreigner.

I miss having deep conversations. I mss having the environment to think deeply. I’ve lost touch with talking with someone who understands nuance, context, and tone.

The people in Russia have a serious and practical nature. Joking feels like something you do quickly, while keeping a straight face. Being lighthearted isn’t normal.

I’ve changed a lot. Being here has changed me. Overall, I believe it’s for the better because I’m a positive person. I look at the “old” version of myself and see how I often naive, unwise, and foolish. So I can’t say it’s all bad.

It’s just wildly different.

Things have been tough lately, but I’m still here. What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger. Figuring out the balance between happiness and making enough money to live a good life is hard. Many people live their entire lives without figuring it out.

As we head into 2025, I hope to be one of the few who solve this problem — to be find a way to support my family without sacrificing my health, happiness, and sense of self. It will be the most challenging thing I've ever done, but also the most rewarding.