Comment by throwaway877544 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway877544 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway877544

The startup nearly killed me but I cashed out ~$3M after taxes. It’s all invested in a portfolio of index funds.

I moved to a ski town in Colorado and ski 3x per week and volunteer teach fitness classes 4x per week.

My wife and I have plenty of time and money so we “live sexy” - basically we’re swingers. We try to hook up with others for a threesome our foursome once a month or so. It is insanely fun but only works because we have a super strong relationship.

Hooking up with others has been great motivation to stay healthy. I live close to the main street in our town and walk to the grocery store most days for lunch. I’m in the best physical shape of my life.

I sleep on average 9 hours a night. If I ever feel at all in a negative mood I take a nap and feel great again.

I stay lightly in the entrepreneurial game but don’t do anything that demands much of my time. Working ~20 hours a week I’ll do ~$100k in profits.

My wife and I talk a lot about how we’re basically cheating at life because money isn’t supposed to buy happiness but in our case it definitely has!

Do you find being physically fit, skiing, having sex and napping fulfilling enough? I think I'm too obsessed with creating, be it writing novels, video games or new products to be happy living like you do but I also think that can hold me back - I enjoy creating too much whereas the focus should perhaps be to make money instead so you can get the life/freedom you want.

I’m still very creative but I consciously prioritize my happiness which I’ve found largely correlates with low stress, physical health, and sleep.

I’ll do a few productive benders a year where I shut myself in for a week or two at a time, but invariably I start feeling crappy and need to get back on a healthy schedule.

I think in the long run my life would be better if I struck a better balance between your approach and my own and it's something I've been thinking of doing, in particular with getting healthier.

If you’re looking to strike a balance, this image might be helpful to you.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b9/4e/0a/b94e0afba9b340e414fd...

I think OP’s Hedonism is a perfectly reasonable way to stay happy.

Contrary to religious beliefs, having regular, consistent, and healthy sex is good for the mind and body.

Even your Kama Sutra is a guide to a virtuous and gracious living that discusses the nature of love, family life, and other aspects pertaining to pleasure-oriented faculties of human life.

Stoicism and Hedonism would have been my personal approach to life.

Regular and consistent sex is very healthy, important, and normal. Don’t forget about it while you go along your creative journey.

Interesting, hadn't heard of Mohism before. I'm not looking for more hedonism and I'm fine with the amount of sex I have. I'm talking more about overlooking my health by spending too much time working specifically. It's a startup issue time management issue I think, I (and others like me I guess) keep thinking once things are more stable I'll have more time... but don't want to end up waiting until it's too late.

What industry was the startup? How many years did you work on it? How old when you started? Did you have any previous startups?

Thanks for re-upping my motivation this morning :) Congrats on enjoying life!

Always interesting to see what other people think is 'cool'.

I love my wife too much to swing. Couldn't and don't want to imagine someone else having sex with my wife.

That's because you (and me too) equate sex with intimacy (in the emotional sense). This is not true for all people and I don't judge.

You're right, but most people can't do the distinction properly on emotional level, and unless they actually go through it, have no clue how they react. Once you're sure it works OK 100% of the cases, on both ends, then its probably healthy for relationship.

Anecdote - one of my ex was talked into a threesome with another girl by her ex, thinking how refreshing it would be (and she is not a typical nice girl with a good heart to start with). She couldn't handle it at all, and it contributed to their breakup quite effectively.

Nothing for me, I prefer quality rather than quantity (maybe not the best comparison, but I lack better in this case).

We mostly do FFM threesomes and soft swap (oral only) in larger group situations. She’s just not that interested in other guys, moreso the ladies, which works for me.

I like to see her happy. She likes to see me happy. The dynamic obviously isn’t for everyone but it works for us.

Would it work the other way around also? Would it be okay for you to do FMM?

Independend of my wifes choice of doing ffm, i will not do this until i'm compftable with fmm and i'm not. I don't even care for ffm or fmm very much anyway but fmm is the deal breaker for ffm.

The ~20 hours per week part feels really interesting - having a nice income while working part-time in a small town feels great, could you share the secret? :)

Part of it is managing high end vacation rentals. I don’t want to mention the rest because it could out me too much.

The secret is that having money is the fastest way to make more money and it’s a much greater multiplier than effort / intelligence / even luck.

Yeah it helps. I got a $500k line of credit with something like a 2% interest rate last year. Makes it easy to pounce on opportunities.

Sure, but I'd still love to know what kind of opportunities you can pounce on with $500k generating such a nice income.

Assuming startup you mean a tech businesses, how have you found moving to a town? Do you think having a wife is the primary reason you don't get bored to death doing that?

I grew up in a glorified shed on a small fishing island hours off the coast of Australia so the simple life in beautiful nature is something I miss. However I imagine it would be so boring not being able to work or socialise with similar people (tech minded.)

How's ski town life? We're looking at moving to the mountains, not sure what it's like never having lived there full-time before.

I must be getting old but napping whenever you want sounds like the best perk.

How interesting. I'm happy for you that your life has turned out the way you wanted. I do wonder what your 60-70 year old self will say about you now.

Anecdotal experience from talking to old people or those with serious illness or those who had a near death experience. I never once heard I wish I worked more, the recurring theme is more in line with I wish I spent more time with loved ones and had more fun.

The Bronnie Ware book about this is great (Top 5 Regrets of the Dying), summarised here: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/palliative-nurse-sha...

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