I've used clear dental aligners for 12 weeks. This my experience.

Some of you expressed interest in my experience with clear dental aligners from Smile Direct Club. (Previously known as Smile Care Club.)
I have been using the aligners for 12 weeks now and have had a problem free experience so far. But there are a few notes I'd like to mention if you are considering these for yourself. But first, progress pictures!

Before I started my treatment:

After 12 weeks of the treatment:

The angle of the second photo is slightly different than the first, so that changes the perspective a little, but you can still see the progress, especially with the top teeth.

The treatment plan I believe is about the same for everyone, except for the length of the treatment.
When you first get started, you have to take photos of your teeth from several different angles and submit them online. This feels kind of ridiculous as the faces you make while doing this look insane. I actually cropped the photos so they only showed my mouth.
Once they approve the photos, you buy a $95 evaluation kit. It includes a kit for making an impression of your teeth. They use these impressions to create your aligners. If they decide after receiving the impressions that you don't qualify for the program, they will refund you the $95.
If you are accepted and you decide to proceed, you have to pay $300 up front and then $100 per month for the duration of the treatment plan. I believe my treatment plan lasts 15 months.

When you get your first set of aligners, the first thing you will notice when putting them on is how tight they are. They will probably hurt too. They usually hurt for the first day or so. All of the movement that each set of aligners do is on the first day. After that, the aligners just hold your teeth in place while your jawbone and gums "heal them into place."
You wear each set of aligners for 3 weeks.

The only issues I've had were with the first set of aligners scraping the inside of my mouth slightly. I haven't noticed that being an issue with the subsequent aligners. On the current (5th) set of aligners, I've noticed that as my two front teeth are being pushed closer together, the gum is being squeezed behind them, causing the roof of my mouth to wrinkle. This seems to be going away progressively. This isn't really a big concern for me though.

Smile Direct Club tells you to clean the aligners only with cold water. I actually don't know how I could stand wearing them without actually brushing them with toothpaste. I used toothpaste that is a gel and doesn't have any grit to it.
There have been no issues with the aligners after cleaning them regularly this way.

Anyway, this is about the extent of my experience so far. If you have any questions, please let me know.

The 50/50 rule. (Or, "Should You Really Just Live For The Moment?")

 The 50/50 Rule.

    Who is more valuable: Yourself now, or your future self?
    Memes are floating all over the internet telling you how you should always live for the moment. But it doesn't take much to realize that approach to life isn't without its problems. If you don't spend some time preparing for the future, (perhaps by working to earn money) you will likely be in a situation you don't want to find yourself in. Possibly without shelter, food, adequate clothing, or (gasp!) cell service.
    However, if you only spend your time working and saving for the future, you won't have much of a life now. And you might die before you expect, effectively wasting your life preparing for a future that you didn't have.
So throughout your life, what is the best way to allocate the one most valuable resource we have?
    One major problem with figuring out the answer to this question is the fact that we have no idea how long we are going to live. We know the average life expectancy of US citizens, (78.7 years) but your life might be significantly shorter or longer. Heck, we might even soon see technology that enables people to live indefinitely, assuming they never get blown up or melted in vat of acid. So unfortunately, all we can do is represent your life in terms of percentages.
    If you were to spend all of your time living for the moment, this is what a graph of your life would look like:

    And this is if you spent all of your time living for the future:

    The fundamental problem with only living for the future is that there is no room to ever enjoy life. It's always about the future. Even when you get to the future.
The problem with only living for the present is that you are effectively ruining life for yourself in the future. These are both problematic. So what if you averaged them together? You'd get this:

You are effectively spending half of your time for the moment, and half for the future.
    But what about the fact that life is allegedly finite? Shouldn't we spend more time living for the moment the older we get? I mean, once you're old, you've got little left to lose, right? This is what that would look like:

But wait! Statistically, the longer you live, the more likely you are to die! So shouldn't you live more for the moment when you're younger? That would be something like this:

Well, the last graph doesn't make any sense, does it? Why would you spend more time living for the future the older you get? Your future is theoretically shrinking, and your likelihood of dying is going up! But living for the moment when you're young means having to spend more time saving for your older years in your midlife. These graphs are simplified ideals, obviously. But once again, if you average the graphs together, you get this:

Once again, we're back to 50/50.
    Every time I have come up with a reason to slant the graph one way or another, I have always found something that averaged it back to 50%. So it presently would appear that the best way to allocate your time is following what I call the 50/50 rule. Spend 50% of your time living for the moment, and 50% living for the future. Because you know that not preparing for the future is unwise. And you don't know what the future holds, or how much of it you have.


Ps. I'm sure there are good critiques of this thought. Please let me know what they are in a gentle and tactful manner. ;)