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If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
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Let's go!
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• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
​
Let's go!
​

• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

I bought my OTTB in March and I had no idea the hell that summer would unleash upon us. He has super thin skin and a slick coat. The first humid day after a big rain he came in covered in giant mosquito bites. Like 50.
I put a fly sheet on him but it’s now rubbing his shoulder, tried a different size and it still rubs.
I had been fighting some mild pastern dermatitis on his back legs since I got him, but now I think I think I may have been washing it too much because the skin on his heel is dry and painful. He was slightly tender footed yesterday and I feel so bad.
Whenever he sweats he gets super itchy. I live in Texas so I have about 15 minutes of riding before he is just an itch monster.
Anyways, I’m just venting. I feel like a terrible owner who can’t keep her horse comfortable. Other than the itchiness he seems happy as a clam. He’s been in Texas/Oklahoma all his life so I’m not sure if he’s always been like this or if this is new.
Thanks for listening y’all ~

I know I am older than most people on here. However, I still feel like I am in my 20s. LOL
I have lived in Southern California for nearly four years now. I am looking for people to chat with about whatever. I enjoy movies (horror, thrillers, drama, comedy), Some of my favorites include: The Butterfly Effect, Momento, The Dark Knight, The Green Mile, 28 Days Later, Aliens, Gran Torino, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Mist, Pulp Fiction, Watchmen, Clerks, and many others. TV shows (The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Family Guy), and music (mostly rock and alternative like Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, AC/DC, Wet Leg, Wolf Alice, Third Eye Blind, Guns N Roses, Local H, and many other bands). I also enjoy watching American football (NFL). I sing karaoke. Going out for food and drinks is also fun.
I am open to people of any country, race, age, gender, orientation. I usually get along with women better than I do guys.
People who know me in real life likely have no idea, but I have struggled with chronic depression over the past few years and I have had social anxiety for pretty much my entire life. So, socializing and meeting new people can be challenging for me.
To provide myself a little privacy, I created this new Reddit account.
If you want to, feel free to send me a message, and tell me a bit about yourself.

I know I am older than most people on here. However, I still feel like I am in my 20s. LOL
I have lived in Southern California for nearly four years now. I am looking for people to chat with about whatever. I enjoy movies (horror, thrillers, drama, comedy), Some of my favorites include: The Butterfly Effect, Momento, The Dark Knight, The Green Mile, 28 Days Later, Aliens, Gran Torino, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Mist, Pulp Fiction, Watchmen, Clerks, and many others. TV shows (The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Family Guy), and music (mostly rock and alternative like Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, AC/DC, Wet Leg, Wolf Alice, Third Eye Blind, Guns N Roses, Local H, and many other bands). I also enjoy watching American football (NFL). I sing karaoke. Going out for food and drinks is also fun.
I am open to people of any country, race, age, gender, orientation. I usually get along with women better than I do guys.
People who know me in real life likely have no idea, but I have struggled with chronic depression over the past few years and I have had social anxiety for pretty much my entire life. So, socializing and meeting new people can be challenging for me.
To provide myself a little privacy, I created this new Reddit account.
If you want to, feel free to send me a message, and tell me a bit about yourself.

I know I am older than most people on here. However, I still feel like I am in my 20s. LOL
I have lived in Southern California for nearly four years now. I am looking for people to chat with about whatever. I enjoy movies (horror, thrillers, drama, comedy), Some of my favorites include: The Butterfly Effect, Momento, The Dark Knight, The Green Mile, 28 Days Later, Aliens, Gran Torino, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Mist, Pulp Fiction, Watchmen, Clerks, and many others. TV shows (The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Family Guy), and music (mostly rock and alternative like Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, AC/DC, Wet Leg, Wolf Alice, Third Eye Blind, Guns N Roses, Local H, and many other bands). I also enjoy watching American football (NFL). I sing karaoke. Going out for food and drinks is also fun.
I am open to people of any country, race, age, gender, orientation. I usually get along with women better than I do guys.
People who know me in real life likely have no idea, but I have struggled with chronic depression over the past few years and I have had social anxiety for pretty much my entire life. So, socializing and meeting new people can be challenging for me.
To provide myself a little privacy, I created this new Reddit account.
If you want to, feel free to send me a message, and tell me a bit about yourself.

This is largely a thank you post to the HGG community, and Dr. K. in particular. You all literally saved my life. I will always be indebted to you.
A few years ago, I was contemplating suicide. I was a 26 y/o virgin with only minimal dating experience. I grew up in a religious cult, started by my father, and while deep down I didn't believe it, it took me until I was 26 to accept it emotionally and begin healing from that process. I was broke, just fired from grad school, and desperate to continue in school because I believed, at that time, that my worth was only as good as my intelligence and career success. But because I had given up on my religious background, I had no friends, no allies, no safe place to express my feelings. Every day, I would apply to new labs at my university, continue teaching in a subject I didn't care about, then come home, drink alcohol, and practice playing Russian Roulette with a revolver my father gave me for my 18th birthday.
A couple of weeks after doing this, my best friend from college called to tell me that his father had killed himself. I'll spare the details, but it was unexpected and gruesome. At the funeral, my friend's mother was telling me about his father. That he had been sexually abused as a child, that he felt immense guilt for his career success, and that he never thought he deserved the love of his two highly successful children or his wife. He was 55 when he killed himself.
I spent a week with my friend at his house. I slept on the couch, and helped with cleaning, cooking, helping with anything I could. Never once did anyone cry. It was dead quiet, except for the comedies the family watched together. I secretly cried in the bathroom when I took showers, as it felt like the only place I could feel my sadness without disrupting the family's "peace".
I returned home, shaken to my core. If my friend's father could be 55, with a loving family and highly successful career, and still feel the need to kill himself, then how would I ever survive? How would I ever be happy? I was due to go back to school, but I didn't want to go. I was too overwhelmed and helpless. Where once I had held a cultist religious belief to keep my going, now my source of hope was gone. I got out the revolver again, this time loaded it, and then started crying.
I don't know what moved me to do this, but I called an acquaintance of mine who I knew was interested in collecting guns. I told him I had a gun I didn't need, and wanted to see if he was interested in buying it from me. He came over that evening, and I showed him my father's revolver. I sold it to him for $5. He knew what I was doing, and to this day he still checks in on me every once in a while.
The next day, I went to my school's mental health provider, and got a recommendation for a psychologist.
Growing up, my identity was shaped by my father, through emotional and sexual abuse, to think that I was a chosen one, born to save the world through my intelligence. My father is highly intelligent, and narcissistic. As his first child, he expected me to be everything he was, but better. He grew up in a trailer park in rural Texas, where he was surrounded by sexual abuse, violence, and drug addiction. He and his 4 siblings were highly motivated, and all of them worked hard in school to get scholarships and go to college. My father worked himself silly, got 2 master's degrees, and found a prestigious engineering job in the national security sector. The sector he worked in exacerbated the paranoia he had from growing up in an abusive environment, and simultaneously gave him a superiority complex.
He was actually a decent father for the first few years of my life. My parents fought often, but he did his best to take care of me as best he knew how. He was work-obsessed, and his religion that protected him from the abuses of his upbringing made him extremely misogynistic. So, while he wasn't the most pleasant to be around, he wasn't the worst.
That all changed when I was about 4 or 5. In the span of a year, my mom became accidentally pregnant with my little brother, and my father's father died. The drive to Texas for the funeral was the beginning of a youth full of sexual and emotional abuse. My father nearly killed us all in the car with his road rage. I was so scared I soiled myself. We pulled over at a gas station to clean me up, he beat me and told me how much he hated me, and how selfish I was for not holding it in. When we arrived at his moms house, he made me shower with him, and sexually assaulted me as punishment.
From then on, I was keenly aware of my father. In public, he would laud me, shower praise on me, and tell everyone how proud he was of me. In private, he would hold me down in bed, force me to make eye contact, and repeat everything he said to him, as he told me he hated me, that I stole his opportunity for success away from him, and that I was the most selfish person he knew. He would force me to memorize bible verses, sing hymns, and pray for forgiveness for all of my many sins. As a young child, I had no idea what my sins were. He brainwashed me into thinking I was sent from God to save the world using my intelligence. Growing up, I wanted to be a musician. I was very talented, but my father was incredibly jealous of my abilities, and forced me to study math and science, because that was what he believed saved him from his abusive childhood.
I processed all of this through psychotherapy with my psychologist, and it helped immensely. I kept applying for research jobs, and got a PhD in a highly competitive field. I made tons of friends who welcomed and supported me. But it wasn't enough, and I still felt lonely and purposeless. I was capable of doing, and getting better at feeling, but not accepting myself, and still carrying judgement for myself. I still felt as though life was passing me by, and I had no choices to make, only adversities to survive.
It was during COVID when I discovered Dr. K and HGG. I was in Texas at the time, and had just survived the big freeze, where I had a week with no water or power. I was looking for jobs, not feeling like anything I did mattered, and that my relationships were hollow. Dr K's lectures helped me to accept my past, to allow myself to be patient, and to process the insane amounts of trauma I had survived. Every interview was helpful, and allowed me to grow my compassion for myself. I began meditating and coaching around the same time, and my psychologist began a group. Through all of that, I had an experience which allowed me to be enlightened, and that experience has made me incredibly grateful for my past, and has even allowed me to forgive my father. And while I say I forgive him, he will never be a part of my life again. The forgiveness is for me, understanding how he became how he is, and forgiving myself for my late start. I didn't put any effort into forgiving him. I just realized it happened, and it took me a long time to accept that.
I'm writing this today from a place of incredible gratitude. Since all of this, I discovered that I was using porn to cope with the memories of abuse, and the insanely high expectations I held for myself. I have been working on that addiction. I have had 2 long term girlfriends, and a healthy sex life, and sex communication with them. I've lost over 60 pounds through cycling and weight lifting. I eat healthier and feel great. Though I still resent my career, I have learned (better) how to detach from it. In two years I went from being un-hirable, to being a professor. My boss and I are starting a company. I am single now, but I have begun to overcome my social anxiety for being so far behind in life, and am starting to date again, knowing that I am enough even with my intense doubts. Despite intense social anxiety, last night, I made a new friend at a bar, because he liked my bike. We went on a bike ride this morning with his wife, and it was very nice. I have learned guitar, and I sing in a community choir, and try to make music as much as I can.
I am still not happy. I know nothing I do or experience, nor any person can fill the gaping hole in my heart. But the change now, is that I allow myself to feel my discomfort and unhappiness. The tears, dry-heaves, and flashbacks have all made room in my life for happiness and gratitude. That is something I never thought I would ever feel. And eventhough my social circle isn't as big as I'd like, and my friends aren't as close as I'd like, and eventhough I'm single for the moment, I know I am enough. I know I have survived hardships, and that I can do incredible things. I know I don't have to do incredible things to be deserving of love. And when I do die, it will be because of something out of my control, and I will not be to blame for it.
If you are struggling, please reach out for help. Talk about your feelings. Feel your feelings. Especially the ones that make you feel the most helpless. Your feelings cannot harm you. They are there for you as a way to protect you. If you do not feel safe with your emotions, it means you have been trained that sharing your emotions isn't safe. I encourage you to find a safe person or place to share your feelings with, and to treat yourself with the same amount of respect and dignity you would give anyone else. And for those of you who have also found this same peace and acceptance, understand that you cannot force it upon anyone else. Many times, people have tried to help me find this peace and acceptance I have today, but I had to find my own way there, when I was ready. If you have people in your life who struggle, please just be patient and supportive. You can't do this for someone else.
Thank you so much to this community, and to Dr. K especially. You are all incredibly kind and helpful, and I have been given so much insight into who I am, and what I am capable of, through your support and sharing of your own stories. Treat each other well, and do your best to be the person you needed when you were a child.

I know I am older than most people on here. However, I still feel like I am in my 20s. LOL
I have lived in Southern California for nearly four years now. I am looking for people to chat with about whatever. I enjoy movies (horror, thrillers, drama, comedy), Some of my favorites include: The Butterfly Effect, Momento, The Dark Knight, The Green Mile, 28 Days Later, Aliens, Gran Torino, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Mist, Pulp Fiction, Watchmen, Clerks, and many others. TV shows (The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Family Guy), and music (mostly rock and alternative like Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, AC/DC, Wet Leg, Wolf Alice, Third Eye Blind, Guns N Roses, Local H, and many other bands). I also enjoy watching American football (NFL). I sing karaoke. Going out for food and drinks is also fun.
I am open to people of any country, race, age, gender, orientation. I usually get along with women better than I do guys.
People who know me in real life likely have no idea, but I have struggled with chronic depression over the past few years and I have had social anxiety for pretty much my entire life. So, socializing and meeting new people can be challenging for me.
To provide myself a little privacy, I created this new Reddit account.
If you want to, feel free to send me a message, and tell me a bit about yourself.

Hey all! I searched the group and didn't quite find what I was looking for.
My question is at what point do I contact my artist? I have one peice on the arm in question and I will be going to the same artist so I am not worried about the actual tattoos themselves (his work is amazing) and I have a few ideas already in my head on what to add.
I probably won't be setting an appointment until September since I like to be outdoors during the summer and, thankfully, it isn't difficult to get in his books. All of this to say, I don't want to be a pest but really want this to be a very cohesive, patchwork-type sleeve.
When is too soon to contact an artist in your opinion? Anything I can do to prep (design wise) before I contact him?
Thanks for the help!

anybody have any alt j tattoos they'd wanna share? thinkin of some cool ideas but I kinda want a little more than just the delta.

I made a post earlier this week that was took down for some reason. This is an update. To sum it all up: My sister and I are completely alone. I take care of her and make sure she gets to school, is fed/watered, and mentally in the best place that she can be during this. Last year we were took away from our dad who physically and mentally abused us, and we're sent to go live with our mom. Mom was doing great for us for a while until a couple months back, she left on a business trip with her boyfriend in Texas and ended up going to her boyfriends house in Arizona. She left food here, had the rent payed a few months in advance, and it all lasted until recently. I can barely get in contact with her now, I know she's okay but just don't know why she would abandon us like this. I think her boyfriend is controlling or manipulating her to act like this. Either way, now I'm the one who's taking care of everything for my sister and making sure the power stays on, making sure that she eats, and makes it back home alright. I work part time at FedEx. But now I'm looking for full-time work because I'm not making enough to deal with all of this financially A lot of days we don't really eat much, and I go without eating to make sure she does. When we don't have enough food, or the power goes out, she cries and asks why mom isn't here and have no idea what to say. I just don't want to see her suffer through this and she's been through more than enough with dad. I'm willing to step up and take care of her until she is able to herself. But right now I can't. I took advice from the nice people I received in the comments on my last post. I alerted her guidance counselor and even the police. They interviewed me, and inspected our house. They said it could be a lengthy process but they'll get back to us soon. I think they're trying to get in contact with my mother. I just know it'll take a while for them to get us help. I don't want to see her go hungry, experience this heat when the power goes out, or have another eviction notice on the door when the time comes. I'm sick of it all and mentally I'm not okay because of it. I just want to know who can provide immediate help when it comes to food, rental assistance, and bill assistance. We live in Illinois currently. I have a appointment set up with LIHEAP for Monday also. It's a struggle trying to take care of this with barely any money but I'm trying my best, I promise. I didn't get to read a lot of the comments on here last time, so I'm going to screenshot them just in case it gets took down again. Thank you all so much in advance.

After a long psychedelic hiatus I am back in it and have had some life changing spiritual awakening type trips on mushrooms (4g PE). My respect and appreciation of the mushroom has never been at this level. In fact back when i did psychedelics in my youth I had no idea what I was doing and misused them, but my recent psychedlic renaissance has been significantly profound and healing. My girlfriend and I are considering getting matching tattoos to commemorate our spiritual trips but not sure what sort of design to get. We don't want it to be obvious - so straight up mushroom picture or psilocybin molecule are out of question. Anyone got any suggestions for us?
EDIT: it's been about 4weeks since the trip and we're still inclined to get the tattoo, we'll probably sleep on it for another 4 weeks and get the tattoo then if we're still feeling it. Def not trying to rush this

Hi all! I'm posting on behalf of my sister, who needs advice on how to proceed with her medical school journey.
She took the MCAT twice last year and got a 511 and 509. She just retook the MCAT in May after using the Blueprint prep course to study, but got a 510. On her practice tests she was getting 518/519, so she's confused on why she didn't do as well on the actual MCAT.
Her friend used the prep program UWorld and got a 518 on the MCAT a few months ago. After my sister got her most recent MCAT score (510), I suggested she use the UWorld program and re-take the MCAT one last time in late June. She's already submitted her primary applications, but has edited them to add that she's taking the MCAT once again in June.
Is taking the MCAT one last time (the fourth time in two years) a good idea, or will it make admissions committees look down on her? Has anyone here used the UWorld program and seen good results? Are there other program recommendations?
These are the medical schools she's applied to thus far:
Albert Einstein COM, Boston University, Charles H. Drew UOM, Chicago Medical School, Columbia University, Hofstra, Emory, George Washington Uni, Georgetown, Icahn at Mount Sinai, Kaiser Permanante, Keck at USC, New York Medical College, NYU, Oregon, Rutgers, SUNY Downstate, Tufts, UCLA, UC San Fran, University of Colorado, University of Illinois, Wake Forest, Weill Cornell, and all the medical schools in Texas.
She said she knows many of these are out of the question due to her MCAT scores. Can anyone recommend more medical schools she can apply to with her current MCAT scores? (highest is 511).
Please be kind, I don't know much about the medical school admissions process and am just trying to help my sister :)

Hello!
I will be visiting your beautiful city in June and would like to get a tattoo while I am there. I have a general idea / design and am looking for black and grey only, no colour.
Does anyone have a studio they would recommend?
Thank you!

TLDR at the bottom. Using my sisters throwaway acct. since I don’t really use Reddit to post.
My boyfriend and I have been dating for about 4 years now. We both already know that we want to marry each other, and have known for at least a year now- if not more.
We both are currently struggling financially. We’ve been talking about weddings, engagements, rings, etc. and agreed that we both would want a long engagement so that we would have time to save for a nice wedding. Then, we talked about how expensive the engagement ring itself can be.
That got us on the topic of whether a ring is necessary for an engagement. He asked me if he proposed to me with no ring, if I would still accept his proposal. I said that I didn’t see a ring as the determining factor for an engagement, also I’m not much of a jewelry gal anyways, so I would accept his proposal.
We’ve talked about taking a different route with it and maybe getting a matching tattoo on our ring fingers. My boyfriend also said he wants to consider getting me a ring later into the engagement when we can afford it.
When I talked to family and friends about our ideas, quite a few of them said it was trashy/cringey and to just wait until we can afford a ring to have a proper proposal. Not gonna lie, only two friends of mine actually support me on this idea of ours. It has me thinking that maybe what my family and other friends are saying are true; Maybe we should just wait until we can afford it?
TLDR; Friends and family are telling me that a ring-less proposal isn’t proper, going as far as calling it cringey. They’re telling us to wait until we can afford a ring to get engaged, but my bf and I have even considered getting matching tattoos instead of rings. A ring isn’t a priority in our books, especially since I don’t wear jewelry. Most of my friends and family consider that trashy… Is it?
Edit to add; Thank you everyone for your thoughts and input on my situation. I do want to say real quick, that I’m not looking for cheaper rings. I don’t ever wear jewelry, and even if we got a cheap ring for me to wear, it would be a waste of money since I wouldn’t wear it. At this point, I’m looking more into alternatives to rings. I liked the idea of the tattoo because me and my boyfriend could “show off” our love still, without me having to wear a ring all the time, but a good bit of comments have told me that it could be a bad idea. Any other suggestions are great :) thanks again!

TLDR at the bottom.
My boyfriend and I have been dating for about 4 years now. We both already know that we want to marry each other, and have known for at least a year now- if not more.
We both are currently struggling financially. We’ve been talking about weddings, engagements, rings, etc. and agreed that we both would want a long engagement so that we would have time to save for a nice wedding. Then, we talked about how expensive the engagement ring itself can be.
That got us on the topic of whether a ring is necessary for an engagement. He asked me if he proposed to me with no ring, if I would still accept his proposal. I said that I didn’t see a ring as the determining factor for an engagement, also I’m not much of a jewelry gal anyways, so I would accept his proposal.
We’ve talked about taking a different route with it and maybe getting a matching tattoo on our ring fingers. My boyfriend also said he wants to consider getting me a ring later into the engagement when we can afford it.
When I talked to family and friends about our ideas, quite a few of them said it was trashy/cringey and to just wait until we can afford a ring to have a proper proposal. Not gonna lie, only two friends of mine actually support me on this idea of ours. It has me thinking that maybe what my family and other friends are saying are true; Maybe we should just wait until we can afford it?
TLDR; Friends and family are telling me that a ring-less proposal isn’t proper, going as far as calling it cringey. They’re telling us to wait until we can afford a ring to get engaged, but my bf and I have even considered getting matching tattoos instead of rings. A ring isn’t a priority in our books. Most of my friends and family consider that trashy… Is it?

I want to get a tattoo of it. I have other ideas relating to the song, but would love to know if they came up with a symbol for it. The song is so important to me.

I literally had no idea that my tattoo was such a big thing on the show. I was at the dog park when someone asked me if I got it on Ink Master, I said yes and she snapped a picture. Curious, I googled it afterwards and man- what a shock. For the record I love it- Roland did exactly as I asked. My other tats are very “whimsical” “funky” as well so it fits right in on my body.