There's been a million studies on "happiness". I'm too lazy to pull the evidence and post it, but if you're curious just google it.

The conclusion is basically money does not equal happiness, but you must be able to make enough to sustain a "comfortable" lifestyle. At the time of the study, 50k was sufficient to live comfortably. That number has probably changed.

Also countries with less racial diversity and free health care were happier. Less to worry about I suppose.

Who really even cares about happiness though?

It's all about supporting your family as they get old, and having fun. Both these things cost money. (unless fun = hiking, ****ing, etc)

Not like you're gonna be happy 100% of the time whether poor or rich, so who cares about it?

The research methods used in every single study of that nature that I have seen were horrible. They are basically worthless.

lol.

If someone can't make at least 6 figures a year in poker in the current environment I'd say they may as well just give up on the idea of ever making any real money. As far as making money goes poker is about as easy as it gets.

Henry

Idk where do you live, but video games and movies are both very common hobbies amongst popular guys and (granted, some, not all) hot girls. Like i'd have trouble finding a guy who doesnt play video games at all and i basically dont hang out with nerds by now.
Obv im not talking about 40hr/week wow addiction, but still, you are waaaay off here.

Op

Find random marketable skill that you enjoy, get good at that skill, make money. There are guys who got somewhat rich doing origami ffs.

Saying that its easy to make 6figs at poker is being dellusional afaik. I might be wrong though.

I'm Canadian. Playing video games or watching movies just takes too much time that you don't have if you have a life so no one who is not a teenager can afford to give up the time.

Find it ironic someone is saying they dont have time to watch a 2 hour movie once a week when they have 12,000 posts on here.

you underestimate how tough it is to make 6 figures in poker, and this is coming from someone who does make 6 figures in poker

yeah well we are teenagers, might be that.
I still kinda assume that our generation will play even when we are older, idk

Posting on here does not require large chunks of uninterpreted time.

Extremely naive.

Obv.

Solid level

If you think it's that hard for someone to make 10k a month on average while working hard at it and putting in hours then I'm not sure what to tell you. It's really not that hard for anyone sort of intelligent with good work ethic. Either way though, my main point wasn't even really the difficulty of online poker so much as it was that if someone finds doing that to be so hard then attempting to make sizable amounts of money more than 6 figures a year is a stretch.
No.

I was just stating if you haven't already worked a few years decently hard at poker, it's kind of worthless because the games ARE tougher, and who knwos how long this will last. A lot of ppl are making significantly less than even just one year ago, and way less than 2+. With all the bumhunting, regs chasing SNE, mtts being minefields, poker really is harder to make "easy" money than before. However, if it gets regulated, then let the boom begin.

to someone thats adept at learning poker it doesnt seem like it should be hard. plenty of intelligent ppl with good work ethic have no hope ever making 100k playing poker.
intelligence + work ethic DO NOT = poker success.

making money with poker IS definitely getting harder though. ive made more every year of played full-time, but this year has def been a struggle. im having to play approx %50 more to make a little more this year then i did last year.

*fingers crossed for regulation next year*

Can you sell?

You could get a real estate license or become an investment adviser.

You could have just as easily spent all that 2+2 time on learning a new language... what a waste...

Honestly though, no sane person is going to spend every minute of the day being productive, and its pretty ridiculous to say someone is wasting their free time as long as what they do with the time makes them happy.

Not really. Little bits of time are useless. Just finished testing some changes to my sports betting using data from the 2006 NHL season. Clear my head. Do 3-4 posts on 2P2. Go get a coffee and continue with 2007. Posting on 2P2 is actually the most productive thing I can do given I only want to devote about five minutes to something. Further, posting on 2P2 has value in so much as it allows me to observe a demographic that I would likely never get to understand otherwise. That has value. I can't see any value in learning a new language for my set of circumstances.

If it makes them happy then fine that is their business but they lose the right to then complain about being broke, viewed as losers by society, or unable to get laid. This topic is about how to make money and how you make money is by not wasting your time on crap that has no value.

The posting aspect doesn't really apply to that demographic observation rationalization. Regardless, my point was that you are capable of finding things that are more productive than 2+2 but you post here because you derive some form of satisfaction from it, and there is nothing wrong with that.

You really think that most people who watch TV or Movies in their off-time are broke losers who can't get laid? I'd be surprised if that demographic is less successful financially and socially than the demographic of people who have over 10,000 posts on an online forum.

I'm open to suggestions. I'm looking for something that takes between 5-10 minutes that I can do every 45-60 minutes. I have already read the newspaper.

I think people who are broke losers who can't get laid watch a lot of TV, movies, and play a lot of video games and that they could stop being broke losers who can't get laid if they reallocated that time. That is a different claim than the one you are stating. I still think engaging in passive entertainment means you are not doing as well as you can but depending in the person's circumstances they might be fine regardless.

With respect to 10,000+ posts that is really a bimodal distribution. On the one end you have people with zero social skills who never leave the house and can't afford any other entertainment and on the other end you have people who don't work.

I'm in agreement with you on too much passive entertainment being bad for you (that goes for any non-productive activity in excess). Though in moderation it's perfectly healthy as a way to wind down from working hard all day.

I'd say it's more unimodal where those two categories overlap. How far skewed it is towards deadbeat should depend on the forum. But just because playing video games and/or posting a lot on forums doesn't entail the most successful demographic and aren't the most socially acceptable or intellectually enriching forms of entertainment doesn't mean doing either is a waste of life. To each his own imo.

Sorry, gonna stop now... feel like I'm derailing the thread. In response to the OP, go back to school if possible (or work a standard job to pay the bills for now) and focus the rest of your energy on finding something you are passionate about. Your best bet to getting wealthy/successful is finding something that gives you an insatiable desire to become disgustingly good at -- the rest will fall into place after that. It's cliche but it works.

There's more to life than allocating every second that you breathe to improving your current situation - if you're not taking time out of your week to do non productive activities, I don't think you truly enjoy life to the fullest. If you're working 80 hours+ a week and still not finding yourself in a very comfortable financial situation, maybe you should take time to figure out how to be more profitable in less hours - being a workhorse isn't too enjoyable.

Henry I really doubt you get laid by attractive women or even feel happy about yourself - feeling the need to quantify every minute as productive and post 13,000 times seems more like you need people to certify you're intelligence and give you an ego boost. Sorry for the attack but I just felt like writing.

so... you just now figured this out? heh, welcome to the forums.

I think you might have misunderstood my point mostly because I made it badly. I'm only against passive escapism non-productive use of time -- basically video games, the intenet, movies, and TV. I don't advocate working all the time. Renting the ice and playing hockey with friends then going for some drinks is good -- playing six hours of NHL2010 is bad. I actually used this example earlier and I also discussed fishing and basketball as good so maybe I'm not making my point as badly as I think. The only thing I'm against is wasting time on stuff that isn't real -- escapism.

By productive I meant more than just financial and certainly not being a workhorse -- I assumed that would be understood because I have talked about not working and spending the bulk of my time socializing. I consider spending an afternoon on a patio drinking enjoyable but it is also productive while spending the same afternoon playing WoW or watching TV is a complete waste and can only be enjoyable to someone who is looking to escape reality -- usually because they are unhappy with reality.

The last part I think is where the confusion over what I was saying sets in. The only people I'm advocating being something akin to a workhorse are the people who devote a lot of time to escapism. If they devoted the time they devote to suspended reality to improving their life they wouldn't have a need for all that escapism and would start to view it as pathetic that other people do. We are all going to die and I view being old as pretty bad so you need to enjoy life when you still can but enjoying life is not the same as passively watching other people do something on a screen or pressing a bunch of buttons to make images move.

This is quite typical of someone from the older generation who didn't grow up with modern entertainment technology, so I'm assuming you're in your thirties or older. Essentially playing videogames with some buddies is little different from playing football with the same buddies. They're both games of skill and pursued for entertainment value.

What I'm saying is your reasons for discarding videogames apply equally to sports. The only additional benefit sport concedes is improving fitness but videogames have their own benefits and if you are like me and engage in sports and videogames there is no downside.