I just figured out how to use the local banking system and I will be able for the first time to pay my rent from my actual salary received in this country (as opposed to savings from my previous life). Also I always hated shopping for groceries and now I can do it without much pain, because I've found a way that works for me. As I reflect on this, an expression comes to my mind: "leveling up." I don't have the same problems any more which I used to have. I grow and face new challenges.
Did you, fellow rationalists and transhumanists, ever have that feeling? Any particular accomplishments, big or small, that made you feel you're advancing? No matter fast or slow, in big steps or tiny, but firmly forward!?
I'm thrilled to read your stories!
Also about banking.
A few years ago I shared a bank account with a financially irresponsible partner. After we (messily) broke up, I balanced the account but never got around to closing it. For years it was in the back of my mind that she might have taken it overdrawn by some tiny but cascading amount, plunging me into credit blacklists or forcing me to have to deal with her again.
Late last year I decided to put my mind to rest, so one lunchtime, I girded my loins, wandered over to a nearby branch of the bank and asked about the state of the account, which had been blissfully inactive for three years. Since then I haven't really been afraid of checking reality for what I fear is true.
On a related note, many of my personal development stories that end in "I don't worry about X any more" usually involve experiencing some sort of especially horrible example of X to which all lesser X-instances pale in comparison. We've discussed artificially inducing this at the London meetups, (referred to as "terror therapy" or "extreme CoZE"), but the idea of subjecting oneself to traumatic experiences in domains of existing discomfort doesn't seem to be a popular one.