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Comment by patrickbolle | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for this. I'm a web developer, recent college grad. I freelance and travel a lot. It's cool, but I hate the work for the most part. I do lots of tiny UI tweaks and stuff every day. It's slowly killing me inside I think.

The upside is I work from 'hpme' and can sleep in and have lots of freedom and stuff, but when it comes to work... It's destroying me.

I have been living in Costa Rica for the past year and I'm incredibly jealous of some of the locals here. Some of the locals running surf shops or tour companies or ______ are living their dream. Less stress than me, 10x happier. It's incredible.

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The grass is always greener. You're (theoretically) making more money than them and most likely have a more flexible schedule. They're also tied to location. You can get bored of Costa Rica and move tomorrow if you want.

There's nothing to be jealous of. You can start a surf shop if you think they have it better than you.

For sure! I totally agree with that.

I love my current position in life because of that flexibility and freedom, just the work is so-so :)

That doesn't seem quite right to me. You might be making more money in USD, but their cost of living is likely far lower. The cost of real estate and rent in major American metro areas is insane these days, and that's where all those high-paying software jobs are located. Even in many of the not-so-major areas, the rents have gotten really high. So sure, you might be making a lot, but it's all going to some landlord, or getting tied up in a house that could very well lose much of its value if the market crashes again like it did in 2008.

> Some of the locals are living their dream. Less stress than me, 10x happier. It's incredible.

I see this every day in West Africa. People spend huge time with their families, people build their own houses, and grow their own food. Sure, it can be hard manual labor, but certainly virtually everyone has money for a bottle of beer (or 10) every day.

We have a lot to learn from the "undeveloped world"

this is EXACTLY my goal here ....pushing myself into getting started... we CAN live comfortably without the gut wrenching feeling everyday ...for me it started with the garbage warrior... a house that provides all your energy, food, water, waste treatment... combine some of these excellent ideas with automation and ...your house takes care of you - only problem is - everyone doesn't have their own little chunk of dirt to build on...

Wow, never seen/heard of that movie. Really cool!!

Seriously, been reading your blog this afternoon and love it man. Maybe I'll stop by in Africa next year! Hah.

I 100% agree.

Maybe I just wasn't built for the tech field, but something about sitting on the computer all day feels wrong.

Just open a surf shop or a tour company since you like it. Automate shit out of it and hire locals, you are your own engineer.

I don’t see why not. Diversifying is always a good idea. Web-dev is a good source of income to fund these endeavors. You have all the cards up your sleeve IMO.

That's what I've been considering for sure. I'll (hopefully) always have web dev as a fallback to make some extra cash on the side if something falls through.

Thanks.

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