I posted a bit about what I did above, but I don't think I am a good person to learn from. Every single bit of my trip to now seems to be predicated on divine

I posted a bit about what I did above, but I don't think I am a good person to learn from. Every single bit of my trip to now seems to be predicated on divine intervention or unbelievable luck, depending on what you believe. One thing that I did, which I felt helped a lot, was running a board game group in Tokyo. It was not a minor endeavor in retrospect; I had to get a bigger apartment/house, I cooked, and I didn't charge money; I even paid for advertising on FB and Google. However, as a result, I met a lot of interesting people and met a lot of people from backgrounds normally wouldn't (IT of course, but media, manga/animation, caretaking, Soka Gakkai (!), politics, etc..) However, I really did only do it to play board games, it wasn't a scheme to improve my work prospects. I didn't count the costs when doing it, since I considered them important to my mental health. This also created an organic way for me to get to know people from work better ("Hey, do you want to drop by and play some games with my friends?")