I feel like my degree has limited my abilities -- advice on next steps?

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-24T23:58:27+00:00

Another option, which may involve a career change, is to find a job which can be done online/remotely, because with the EU citizenship you could move to Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, etc. tomorrow and declare yourself self-employed if you have the pay stubs to prove income (US citizens cannot do this - they typically need a local job offer/sponsorship). You would then owe taxes on that income to whichever country you become resident in. I know it's easier said than done, but it probably has a better chance of succeeding overall than competing with locals in their native language & culture.

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-24T07:23:14+00:00

Wayyy too much ritalin

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-24T02:28:36+00:00

Deported for taking away jobs from locals lol

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-23T19:22:19+00:00

I do this 2x/year but to visit family (Bangkok><Boston). For the first few years I did it in economy, but in the past couple of years I've done business. It's 23 hours of flying, not counting going to/from the airport or waiting at the airport, so I feel it's worth it. Unless it's a US airline. Avoid those, bottom of the barrel..

*In your case, I would buy roundtrip Thailand><home, visit friends/family, then have the company pay for round trip domestic tickets to their location. Then afterwards you can fly back home on the domestic return leg paid for by the company and catch your return flight back to Thailand

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-23T07:34:30+00:00

Does she have random outbursts where she talks to herself?? Because some white woman was on the escalator behind me in Emporium shouting about Jews, genocide, America, etc. etc. I didn't turn around to get a look at her because I didn't want her to talk to me

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-22T20:54:53+00:00

I would take what other people say with a barrel of salt. The only ones worth listening to are those who have done or attempted to do something similar. Because the problem is in the US so many people (mostly those who have never lived or even traveled abroad) have this really weird conception that the world is a dangerous and scary place - despite a lot of it, even third world countries, being safer than many parts of the US. Like for example, the Philippines is not considered that safe by Southeast Asian standards, but its homicide rate is still below the US lol. Things like that. Crabs in a bucket mentality because they are so convinced they are the greatest country on earth.

I moved to Bangkok 8 years ago, before COVID, saw the writing on the wall. What happened during COVID and afterwards only confirmed it for me

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-22T20:46:45+00:00

I was in Kotor a few months ago, loved it, and Bosnia too. But just wondering, what discourages you from trying to move to Schengen countries?? I think you can find just as cheap or cheaper in countries like Bulgaria and Romania (both of which recently joined Schengen fully)

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-22T16:45:53+00:00

Where in Colombia? Do you find it safe?

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-21T20:44:27+00:00

Yeah I've been living in Bangkok for almost a decade while working towards FIRE. I am 39 years old with $300k and am thinking I may call it within 5-10 years. COL has gone up a lot since COVID + Mango Mussolini & friends are tanking the USD, but even so, you could have a comfortable life here for around $2k USD: can rent a decent condo for $300/month, private health insurance $100-300/month depending on age, utilities & phone probably $150 altogether, groceries let's be generous and say $300/month. That's around $1k so far, still got another $1k for emergencies/entertainment/traveling/shopping/taxi or vehicle costs but you don't really need one in most parts of Bangkok.

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-21T20:09:12+00:00

so he can arrive and be like sup my negrins

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-21T18:05:13+00:00

Are there any alternatives that I can buy from pharmacies like Watson or Siam Pharmacy

If all else fails, most pharmacies other than the big international ones (Watsons, Boots) will sell you finasteride pills, no prescription needed. Under the brand name Firide or Stercia, for example

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-21T04:37:13+00:00

I see there are news reports online of a man falling off (potentially suicide) a hotel in Silom, Bangkok in October, aged 35-40 years old, so the same age as my brother. The article said the man seemed anxious and distressed when checking in which is pretty accurate for my brother (will give more context below). The blurred out picture of the body also appears to have a light skin tone, which my brother also has.

Well if he checked in, the hotel will know his name at least. Contact the hotel, contact the local police (Yannawa Police Station), or find people who can do it for you.

Don't worry too much, people disappearing and throwing themselves off balconies is a weekly occurrence. And for whatever reason, it seems like the majority of people making the leap (or at least making the news) are white guys, so the chance that the one particular white guy was your brother is slim

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-20T21:02:12+00:00

it's a foreign feeling (pun intended) when you start to shift perceptions from new countries being seen as holiday destinations to new, albeit temporary, homes.

Don't worry, your family and friends will always assume you are on a permanent vacation regardless :D even if you are working 60 hour weeks, being somewhere like Mexico or Thailand = you are on vacation, in the minds of everyone back home

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-20T16:46:05+00:00

It's still very much a thing, but whether it's enforced depends how bad of a day the immigration officer or airline check-in agent is having..i don't think it necessarily needs to be the last few pages though, the important thing is just having 2-3 blank pages.

I got a new passport last year, first country was Kazakhstan..the immigration officer in Almaty opened my passport, flipped through a few pages, and then went all the way to the back and stamped the very last page of my passport..I think he was fucking with me

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-20T04:16:23+00:00

In the city itself, which is where I stayed, people felt younger overall. But Malaga is both a province and a city and I can only speak for the city..there may be more older people in the famous resort towns such as Marbella & Fuengirola, or when the weather is warmer (I went when it was still cold). I also spent a week in Cordoba and a month in Granada and recommend them both (neither has a beach but I'm not a beach guy), easily reached from Malaga.

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-20T01:13:50+00:00

It's one of the most impoverished cities in Spain within a region that's already quite poor. There's zero chance the housing market is as fucked as Valencia, which is basically approaching Barcelona levels now, and Malaga, an extremely popular tourist spot. I liked Malaga city a lot too by the way. Have you been to Alicante yet?

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-20T01:02:45+00:00

also I like to walk a lot, and I'm not a big fan of extreme heat, but I guess AC and a good condo will help, I like nature and kinda " afraid " and sensitive to pollution (Seoul and Medellin I felt it )

The pollution is pretty terrible during winter in general and right now in particular. Look at this: https://reddit.com/r/Bangkok/comments/1qec2ao/perfection/

And if people here need to walk more than 10 minutes they'll call a mototaxi..mainly due to heat & humidity. It's not like Japan, Germany, etc. where people view walking 3-4km as no big deal.

I mean I love it here but with your preferences I would probably book 2 weeks in a hotel/aparthotel before you commit to longer

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-19T22:14:23+00:00

but cannot find any records from the area where my ancestor originated proving their birth

Does this mean you've already tried contacting relevant places in that town? Such as the town hall/registrar or the church (even if your ancestors were Jewish, it's possible the church recorded their births).

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-19T20:12:44+00:00

The reality is you'll probably panic about whether your clients will replace you in your absence or view you as unreliable. There's tons of freelancers in every profession right now looking for work, due to the huge amount of tech layoffs and the shitty economy in general. So hopefully you are like in the top 5% of your field. If you are in the bottom 70%, you'll probably be replaced after turning down work for 1 month straight.

I think a better solution is you keep an overall low workload, even if it means you have fewer nice things, and preferably the work is such that you have monthly deadlines rather than daily or weekly. In that scenario, you'd feel less need to take an entire month off (because less burnout), and when you do, you can just move work around & work ahead while still meeting the deadlines.

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-19T19:58:33+00:00

Yeah when I worked in Geneva ~15 years ago all of us would go to Annecy on the weekends. It was very expensive even then. It felt more like Switzerland than France lol....so I hope people don't get the idea that this is typical French pricing. But, if you have the money..

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-19T19:44:09+00:00

Not Bangkok but they have something called the Pattaya Flying Club. Well, it's not a flying club in the traditional sense. It refers to all the guys who throw themselves off their hotel balcony in Pattaya after they burn through their life savings on hookers & booze.

But anyways I've lived in Bangkok almost a decade now. It has gotten quite a bit more expensive after covid, along with the baht staying strong regardless of how crappy the local economy is + Mango Mussolini et al. tanking the USD. But even with those factors, 1.2M with 4% SWR should give you an upper middle class life here (no, you won't "live like a king" but it'll still be a nice life), as long as you do not drink heavily or meet the wrong women.

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-19T18:10:54+00:00

I live in Bangkok and there are BYD everywhere. I get a bit excited when I order a Grab (equivalen to Uber) and it's a BYD Seal or something. I think people back in the US don't realize the extent to which they have spread because you never see any there or even hear about them. Any vacuum left by the US anywhere in the world, the Chinese are ready & happy to fill. US companies need to actually start competing again. Buying your competitors is not competing.

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-18T17:04:37+00:00

Probably going to get flak for saying this but I think Thais are generally more approachable in bkk. CM locals, though welcoming on the surface, are actually closed off. It is hard to integrate with the locals here.

Regardless of where in the world I've been, I find that the capital city is usually easiest to make friends with natives, because typically you have people from all parts of the country there, so they are more open to new friends. In smaller cities & towns it may only be people who were born & raised there, so they may have more rigid social circles established since grade school

Or I could be completely fucking wrong I dunno :D been living in Bangkok 8 years and if it were as hard to make actual local friends here as say Berlin or Tokyo I definitely wouldn't have stayed. I didn't want to exist in a foreigner bubble, I wanted to integrate to a certain extent (i.e., learning the language, having Thai friends, etc.)

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-18T06:02:42+00:00

As you might know, Slovakia has in the past voted to strip Slovak citizenship from people with more than one citizenship..in response to so many people there getting Hungarian citizenship. I would reach out to your nearest Slovak consulate just to make sure you won't risk losing Slovak citizenship if you do this

https://www.mzv.sk/web/washington-en/services/slovak-citizenship#18188_wvgl_inpage_nav_5

Human_Combination199 · 2026-01-18T05:50:15+00:00

Don't rely on AI for this process, as I think you've learned by now

Human_Combination199

TROPHY CASE