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Comment by wombat-man | Hacker News Reader

This is like the dream. I feel like I would spend the time learning an instrument, or maybe do online learnings to maybe get another job I actually enjoyed doing.

Can't even hate and hope things work out for that guy.

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In my experience it gets boring very quickly. In my case I hadn't automated anything, the company was just bad at utilizing their staff and they were happy to keep me on the payroll doing next to nothing. It resulted in my worrying about skills deteriorating and being more depressed than usual.

I learned to play the fiddle the past two years working from home during Xcode's abysmal compile times. Sadly my new M1 max whatever has solved that problem, ha!

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/303/

Truth be told I'm a sucker for an enterprise software position with long compile time.

This is like the dream.

If eight hours a day of free time is the only thing separating you from your dream, then there must be SOME way to adjust the math of your life to get that for at least a period long enough to learn the instrument or train for a new job or both.

Reducing your monthly expenses by 1/12 means you could take a full month off and get a jump start on the training you want. You could also add overtime or a part time job and increase your income by 1/12 and then take two months off. Think of it like buying your freedom.

Eight hours of free-time AND eight hours extra mental energy.

yeah it's not just the time. I am kinda tired at the end of the day. Certainly too tired to whole heartedly take on a non-trival side project. I need 'non productive' activities like meeting up with friends or some kind of recreation.

That math gets a lot harder when you have a family.

I'm in a good place now. But if I were getting paid essentially for free, I might just take on another job. But given his current job is $90k, I'd maybe start thinking about shooting for a higher paying remote gig.

Instrument mastery is a much longer process as far as I can tell. Takes years.

“The only thing”—only half of all weekdays if one follows the in-bed-for-eight hours recommendation. And you of course have to eat and groom yourself outside of those hours.

I’m not saying that you are wrong. But it seems weird to dismiss a whopping 40 hours a week as a seemingly small thing.

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