What am I missing

Hello, just stumbled across this game earlier this week, currently a level 3.  I sit in front of a computer all day for my job, so I log in several times a day, but it only takes a couple minutes to blow through my stats, using energy at the gym and nerve trying to commit crimes.  Then I just wait hours for the stat bars to refill, so that I can blow through them in an instant again.  I feel like I'm not doing something right, any help is appreciated.  Thanks.

It needs to be said that Torn is a marathon game, not a sprint. Everything in the game takes a long time to accomplish, years in fact for many of it's aspects. Few things can be accomplished in a few hours. 

For now, do the new player missions, get a feel for the game. There's a lot to discover. The Tutorial and Guide's forum is great. I suggest Baldr's Basic Advice:

https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=61&t=16034448&b=0&a=0

Join a faction to discover a whole new side of the game as well. Definitely aim for a faction that accepts new players with at least 1 million respect to get your feet wet. Good luck!

During my time in Torn thus far, I’ve found it helpful to set personal goals for myself. Here are some of the things I’ve worked towards:

(1) Getting to 100 in a particular crime skill

(2) Investing more money in my bank over time (aiming for ~2 billion eventually)

(3) Getting enough points to open my own bazaar (which I was just able to accomplish)

(4) Making it to level 15 to unlock travel (letting me buy items from other countries)

If you need more inspiration, I recommend looking at the different medals and honors available and seeing if anything looks fun to pursue.

Torn does take time, and it is a marathon. If you’d like to stick around for the long term, I recommend enjoying the journey as you go.

Adding on - there are a lot of things that runs in the background such as education courses, coding viruses (requires intro to CS), bank interests, etc.

Personally, I find that a good way to have a feel of the game, see what aspects are available for play and have some sort of direction would be to chase merits.

As Inoyss [3465377] mentioned, level 15 is also a good target to work towards to especially during the first 2 weeks when you have newbie protection.

Happy Torning!

A lot of people mostly just log in briefly to train/do crimes/take drugs/fly and then spend more time online during a chain or ranked war. 

Personally this is what I spend way too much time doing in Torn (in no particular order):

1. Chatting in faction chat
2. Reading forums
3. Reading the personals section of the newspaper
4. Buying & reselling stuff on the item market
5. Playing silly forum games in the Fun & Games forum
6. Chatting with friends 
7. Reading my personal stats 10x a day to check if I’m any closer to some merits yet
8. Stalking Scouting my ranked war opponents
9. In the past - writing newsletters and/or forum guides for my faction 
10. Playing poker
11. Looking for targets so I can go on a mugging spree (generally unsuccessfully)
12. Chatting with George 

If you want to get more into the social aspects of Torn, try looking for a faction to join that’s active and chatty. It can be a little easier to make friends with faction mates if you’re not sure where to start, you also can hopefully get some good advice on growing in the game. :)