My problematic relationship with life and failure

[LordFall]

Have you tried posting content? You don't need to be a grandmaster to build an audience around it. It'll also expose you to auxiliary skills like video editing, audience building, marketing and monetization which will help you figure out a path deeper into chess or away from it. Talk to @integral about it he is also a chess guy. You can post a chess video in the next few days and have one stone built in your personal brand already even if you decide to not go all in on the path. It's a bit discouraging at first to get like 4 views but at least it's progress and tangible data and output. You're also blessed with the short form content algorithm which is a lot more rewarding than long form so if you make an engaging reel you could get 1000-50k views on your first one. 

I would also warn against just going to school for the sake of it, you're gonna put yourself in debt and waste a lot of useful time and energy. What happens when you have a master, $50K+ in debt and still no idea what you wanna do?

1 hour ago, trenton said:

In terms of skills in chess, I was a teacher and a chess coach. I am interested in social sciences and learning complex systems. I could probably teach something like sociology while using research to inform public policy and discourse. I also had good accomplishments in chess such as winning tournaments and beating a national master along with other titled players. I guess this demonstrates the depth of mastery within this domain, but the actual skill is pointed to in a book for personal development by cal Newport. It is about sustained focus, flow, and becoming really good over extended periods of practice. This is what I like most about chess. If I can transfer deep work to other areas of life, that would be great. I have already done it with other board games very easily. If I can apply that to social systems then that would be excellent, similar to deep work in the tech industry. I remember in the case of board games it was partially the competition that drove me to deeper focus. In social sciences the driver may different from competition. It might instead be finding a way to prevent unnecessary suffering while understanding humanity as clearly and comprehensively as possible. One of the bonuses is that I may prevent children from having their futures stolen by parents who are drug addicts if public policy reform is to be effective.

If your main skillset in life is studying and mastering systems why not master business? It's the one core skills that unlocks everything financial. If you don't you will remain broke anyway even with a masters in sociology and have little impact so might as well put the cart before the horse.

Once you understand the math of business life becomes more simple you can look at it in terms of time/energy that you put in and the money/life that you get out of it. To me what jumps out from your post is you're underestimating the energy and stress that your family saves you by housing you for free, they do stress you out by criticizing you but unless they're abusive that should still be positive sum. Then TO ME investing years in school without a rock solid plan of what you want out of it is a bad investment. It has the advantage of having a structure and perhaps teaching you some discipline but the ROI on it is so bad especially now with the AI revolution. 

Edited 3 hours ago by LordFall