Quitting the rat race
seanbarry.dev
seanbarry.dev
> I’m earning the most money I’ve ever made and yet I’m the least fulfilled I’ve ever been.
I’m making the most I’ve ever made and I’ve never been less happy and more depressed. I despise being a cog in a huge corporate machine, it’s like the job was designed to be as unappealing as possible.
At the same time I can’t get over the fact that I have it better than the vast majority of humanity. I feel guilty hating my job, I won’t complain to people IRL because how could I? I have it made by all accounts. This guilt completely consumes me and adds a special level of self hatred, if I’m not happy with this, maybe I never will be?
Unlike the author though I can’t just quit, so endure it I must.
jack of many master of few
One way or another I will leave, it remains to be seen what that will actually mean. For now all I can do is keep putting money away and praying I get lucky.
I still make less than most HNers, but it’s decent for where I am.
I don’t know what the exit plan is. It never seems like you have enough. I’ve even looked at minimum retirement savings needed and I should be good for my current lifestyle, but I don’t feel like the numbers are right or I keep coming up with excuses. There is a lot of anxiety around this.
I know it first hand. I got completely burnt out, ended up drinking too much, and lost everything.
At least with this career there is a chance to start over, depending on age and compensation.
But one small slip-up, whether it be a serious medical problem (especially in the US) or otherwise, and the "numbers" can be thrown out the window.
Fingers crossed.
On the flip side, it has never been easier for parents to ensure prosperity to their children. For some people, if your parents [and or spouse's parents when applicable] have saved enough to de-risk your [and your siblings'] financial situation; are there anecdotes of how to leverage that to exit the rat race [or probably not enter at all]?
On the second point, you could obviously time inheriting assets to retire early, but I think there's risk in how it was done so that you didn't jeopardise future generations or lose purpose. There are typically existential risks for family businesses, as an example. It's easy to lose motivation/purpose if you have it easy and get things on a platter. There's exiting the rat race to retire or exiting to be self-employed in some fashion, as one consideration.
There is clearly not enough incentive to bring a bigger portion of a population towards a [somewhat subjective] better quality of life. This might be the polarization inherent to human nature.
So far we have done well to curb and mitigate crime, risky events, etc. Maybe the next phase will be more long-term focused including sustainability, responsible waste management, sensible regulations on fast-food and healthcare, etc.
Let owning property while the market rises benefit the few, we cultivate human capital more broadly. We have to be cautious of bloat, red-tape, short-term-thinking spreading to more systems and processes. We have to do something about education systems that seem to face too much inertia and vested interests among other reasons to not witness significant-enough innovation.
^ a few random thoughts in response to your first point
Land and home ownership has become harder, financially and psychologically, even for middle class and above.
However the negative behaviors you mention is mostly younger people and they will not usually be owning homes by themselves. So your home ownership hunch might apply to the family of such actors; extrapolating, the general social fabric around potential negative actors is the realistic indicator. Which is a much more complex problem.
What happens if you take a 90 minute bike ride each day without changing your hours at all? Would anyone notice? Would they care?
Work is about dollars per hour. Salary is a trick.
So if you can get in daily rides and still meet the expectations of your employer, awesome, you're doing it right.
You're likely also doing right by your employer, since the daily exercise is giving you lots of health benefits and keeping you performing at a high level mentally.
If it doesn’t, then you are just working for assholes
They inevitably move, only to find the new place they're in sucks, just in different ways.
Or they find another job, but just discover more things they hate there.
Or they find a new partner, only to discover a new set of annoyances.
The same psychology leads people to think they'll be happy if they finally get that new car, or that new house, or that new TV.
All of it comes from the same place: assuming that happiness is something you can find by simply changing your circumstances.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are absolutely good reasons to want to change those circumstances! But it's critical to understand that oftentimes there is no one change of circumstances, one decision, one thing that will result in happiness.
I know it's a cliche, but I think I'm old enough now to confidently say that, yes: Happiness really does start from within.
What does age have to do with it? You're one person. It's anecdotal data.
I'm old enough now (5 years later) to confidently say that, yes: Quitting my last job really did make me happier.
Actually an entire field of psychology is based on the idea: cognitive behavioral therapy.
But you seem like you need to pick a fight, and I'm honestly not in the mood, so carry on.
"Bluntly, every person I know who's expressed these kinds of sentiments is guilty of the same mistake"
I have less money now, but I don’t care. I’m much happier being where I am now.
People underestimate just how much work life affects your entire life.
We need a four-day (32-hour) workweek. Give me a 20% pay cut, I don't care. Most of us here make well over $100k/year. What we need is TIME.
Typically when I play a game I like to explore every nook and cranny, trying to find secrets and glitches and stuff. Lately it just gives me anxiety to start a new game when I know it will be on deck for years. I've been playing through Tomb Raider since 2019 and I'm not finished yet... I think I need to consciously change my play style and expectations, and just barrel through main story lines.
I went over to a younger coworker's apartment last night to play video games, which is a very rare activity for me. Left 4 Dead was a lot of fun a decade ago. He loaded up whatever the latest call of duty zombie horde shooting game is, and it was more stressful than fun. I have an interesting anecdote about stress and Tomb Raider. In 2020 my heart AV nerves all stopped working. My effective heart rate got down to 20-30bpm, and wouldn't increase with demand. A few days before I ended up in the hospital, I tried playing Tomb Raider just to see what would happen. After about 5 minutes my peripheral vision started to black out and I felt like I was having a panic attack!
LA Noire and other games like it (e.g. Red Dead Redemption, Destroy All Humans!) seem to have the opposite problem, where I seem to remember the game being more engaging and challenging (in a fun way) than it is now. I guess that's a result of growing up and getting "smarter".
We haven't even touched on the micro-transactions/pay-to-win stuff...
As for the panic attack- I read an interesting book recently called The Body Keeps the Score. It's about PTSD and how, even today under the DSM V, it and similar conditions aren't getting the attention they deserve. While reading this book, I realized that my "fascination" with Dead By Daylight (similar to Left 4 Dead) might be rooted in adrenaline/stress hormones rather than pleasure hormones. Indeed, I had (have) several "hobbies" that my brain seems to be interested in for the stress they cause (like stock trading, holy fuck). The book poses that my subconscious thirst for stressful activity is actually a coping mechanism that is derived from my dysfunctional attachment style to my parents and my subsequent childhood experiences. In other words, stress and worry are all I've ever known. I'm in therapy and taking an SSRI for this now, and I'm significantly better than I was, mentally.
Speaking of Red Dead Redemption, I am working toward being able to robustly stream games from my desktop computer to the living room TV. I'm hoping to try playing through Red Dead Redemption 2 once it's all set up and working. It's non-trivial, as I will soon be relocating my desktop to a detached guest house. I think the reason I am drawn to Rockstar Games is because of their level of immersion despite the relative lack of gameplay complexity. I like that the only customization in L.A. Noire is picking an outfit, and if you want a bigger gun you have to open a car trunk in the middle of a shoot-out.
I am certainly nostalgic for the games I played in my youth. StarCraft, EverQuest, Starsiege Tribes, Medal of Honor and Battlefield 2, Freelancer, the list goes on. My old friend came into town a couple years ago, and we had a small LAN party for old time sake. We spent an hour just getting StarCraft to run reliably on everyone's computers. It was just as fun as ever.
That does sound interesting, I'll have to check out that book. My wife copes with a vaguely similar sounding past. I think her "Left 4 Dead" is watching shows like Criminal Minds. Glad to hear the therapy and SSRI are helping you. It's tough.
I recently started trading individual stocks for fun, but with a relatively small principal that won't stress me out. I see so many "news" articles telling me which stocks to buy, and I've always assumed they're manipulating me into being a sucker. So, I've been blindly taking the free advice to see what happens. I'm only down about 10% right now. Also, my investment in SHIB coin is due to take off like a rocket at any moment!
The Body Keeps the Score mentioned some alarming statistics... I don't recall the exact figure, but MANY Americans are dealing with some amount of PTSD whether they recognize it or not, as a result of having a non-secure attachment style as an infant. It sounds kind of strange that a lifetime of strife could come from how your parents were with you as an infant, but the science seems clear-cut.
With stocks, generally speaking if you are reading about a stock in the news, it's too late to hop on the roller-coaster and you will get left holding the bag. Most of my money is in index funds, but it still stressed me out trading a small portion with individual stocks.
Avoid ARKK/Cathie Wood. I have no idea what she's doing. She just loaded up on TSLA, as she does when one of her picks tanks, but automakers typically trade around a 4 P/E and TSLA is still well-above that at ~$120/share. TSLA will almost-certainly fall below $100 this year and perhaps even below $50 in the longer-term.
That also made me notice that, even though I played quite a few single-player games when I was younger, most of my fun with games was on multiplayer/competitive games, it could be a grind to get better but there was a practice and I could feel myself leveling up my skills and playing them better, some up to competitive levels. That's always been more satisfying to me.
Newer high budget single-player games (feels like in the past 10-15 years) also feel much more like an interactive movie than a proper game, I don't want to be clicking to interact with a movie, I like mechanics and figuring out the metagame, I realised that watching something unfold with some interactive action in-between is not really my kind of gaming.
For the last 10 years I've basically stopped playing videogames, my gaming nowadays is mostly getting together with some friends and playing tabletop, it's social, it's fun and you always get to see a different persona of the people you know.
Then adulthood came and I just don't have time to enjoy games. I do watch a ton of TV shows and movies because they're easy to start up, put down, or even watch while doing something else that doesn't require full attention.
I do occasionally do a Let's Play of a game that looks promising, ideally one with little commentary, where the player focuses on the story elements rather than completion (prioritizes talking to characters over a speed run, or 100% quests completed, all collectables collected, etc).
Those are unfortunately hard to find (though I'd highly recommend the Cinematic Playthrough of Last of Us for anyone interested in experiencing the medium at its absolute best).
The nice thing about a Let's Play is that you get the story elements of the game, and can 2X speed through slow dialogue, skip action sequences as soon as they become monotonous, etc. You don't get to explore at your own whim unfortunately, but I've found it a good middle ground for being able to experience (and talk about) excellent games, while investing 10-20% the time actually playing it would take (not to mention it's free). It does tend to be more enjoyable with games that are fairly linear, rather than something like Fallout where there are thousands of ways to explore the game and align your character.
Other than that, I enjoy playing board games with friends.
Where else in the world people dont spens most of their lives at work?
I work for a large swedish company in USA. None of my coworkers in sweden work less than 40 hrs, like not even one.
So is having that choice really relevant and does it really make it different than USA.
If Swedish residents can work fewer than 40 hours at their discretion, why is it you think most in your circle do not take advantage of this?
Qualtrics released the results of a survey recently stating that 92% of Americans are in favor of a 4-day workweek (that's not necessarily 32-hours)[1]
Maybe because they want the money and working 40hrs isn't so bad? But i really have no idea.
That survey isn't directly related to your original point about working less than 40hrs.
If you are claming that its much different in other countries mere existence of some law isn't enough, it would be a stronger point if you had quoted how many people are actually taking a paycut in those countries in exchange for a day off.
Also sounds like you haven't really looked into laws of MOST first world countries ( whatever that means) yet you made that claim without any proof.
I've worked in some manufacturing domains where unions negotiated the ability to essentially opt-out of large amounts of the work year. There were people who would take off Nov-Feb to essentially focus on families during the holidays, hunting, etc.
I think, to a certain extent, the fact that we're highly productive yet have an expectation to work constantly is a measure of our value systems. (Obviously, highly context and culturally dependent.)
It would be interesting to see how cultural aspects affect this. In the West, it seems like so much of our life/identity is focused on our job. "What do you do for a living?" is one of the most common opening questions upon meeting someone. I wonder if the impact of work life on one's happiness more muted elsewhere.
it might sound embarrassing to admit, but it was actually watching Fight Club and the scene animating the Ikea catalog and the accompanying monologue (and overall theme of the movie/book) really got me thinking about it. i was mid-20s when that came out, and it definitely planted a seed. people do remind me of that when i mention making soap!
A virgin will have serious FOMO over sex. But the more experiences you have with different partners, the less special it is ie. the less FOMO you get since you've "been there done that."
The adage is generally that wisdom comes with age, and there are some things in life that are difficult to internalize until you’ve gone though the experience.
To me, it’s just another way of saying “the more life experience I gain…”.
I believe that if you never were in a position where your job was a soul-crushig source of misery and despair, you've been lucky to live a sheltered life.
Most people don't have the privilege of picking and choosing outstanding jobs with decent work/life balance, nice colleagues, reasonable deadlines and considerate stakeholders. Most people have rent/mortgage to pay, kids to feed, and unfavourable odds of improving their life with low risk and impact on your life. I'm sure they gained a lot of life experience too.
Personally, I’ve been on both sides of this conversation. Grew up dirt poor, started working as a teen to help my family make ends meet, and dreamed of a “better” life where the work I did mattered to me and the money I made would be sufficient to not constantly wonder where the next meal comes from. A constant source of that soul crushing misery and despair.
Later in life, I was fortunate enough to experience the lifestyle afforded by a Silicon Valley salary after working my ass off to get there, an “arrival” of sorts.
Younger me had no ability to comprehend how/why this high paying job would make me more deeply unhappy than I’d ever been in my life.
Life experience is contextual and relative, but important nonetheless.
I would go further - majority of people on this planet live painful and miserable life.
also, if you have moderate ambitions and desires, with time you may reach a point where you've met them. Then you are less focused on those for happiness.
so I do think age has something to do with it
I quit and then asked: “what if I stayed and do I regret leaving” on my last 4 companies.
Universally the answer is no I don’t regret it. One imploded and laid off like 60% of people after turning into a nasty political hell hole. Another laid off massively and is now world renowned as a failed story. Another gave me zero opportunities and everyone was yelling at each other all the time.
Believe me, I tried to enter my internal universe and be happy not learning and not growing.
Being bored to death and underutilized if you feel highly talented and creative is a form of death.
Op needs to answer: What has he done in his life? Built a unicorn and IPOd it? Jet skiing with super models? Inventing cures for diseases? Or did he sort of sit in a cubicle typing and reading Reddit for the last five years.
A lot of those on here, I don’t listen to their input on what successs is.
I will never be happy until I am climbing to the highest potential I can get to. No one is going to talk me into being otherwise.
By all means, people can say what makes them happy!
My point is that we have no grounds for criticizing another person's subjective experience or personal life choices, nor is that desirable as a goal for this website.
How would you say the OP adds to the discussion if what they say, almost by definition, is meant to shut down discussion? Or is your issue with pointing out HN guidelines? It feels like you're reading way more into my point than was actually there if you think I was criticizing anything related to their life decisions.
It's fine with me if someone has that point of view. But I don't think a forum like HN, which is supposed to be about fostering dialogue, is the best place to share it, or at least share it in that manner.
I've already explained this: "It's supposed to be about intellectual curiosity. Not questioning other people's life choices and giving unsolicited advice."
You've actually warped the direct quote "No one is going to talk me into BEING [emphasis mine] otherwise" into "Nothing you say can CHANGE MY MIND". The OP is talking about how they feel, what kind of person they are, what kind of life they intend to life. Not talking about some kind of belief about a subject X.
This conversation with you is becoming very tedious, and I'm repeating myself, so I doubt that I'll be continuing.
I didn't misquote; I said "amounts to" in order to indicate I was paraphrasing because it seemed like it would benefit from rephrasing since it appeared we were talking past each other. Although what you've pointed out comes across as a difference without a distinction to me. Saying "No one is going to talk to me into BEING..." is just as apt to shut down healthy conversation.
Fair enough when it's just a vague, general sentiment like "making the most of your life." What is probably worth being open minded about is how you define the objective function that maximizes that potential. It might be a little odd if I defined "making the most out of my life" in the same way I did when I was six (or even 16) years old.
If you have worked in most tech jobs, at large or medium sized companies, you have not met people like me. I took risks. Major ones. I left comfort.
I'm happy for your success. I assume it was earned with hard work. I hope it works out. A lot of startups with high valuations are feeling the crunch right now. Many of those will peter out and the founders will join the rest of those depressed by their life choices and/or feeling like victims of circumstance. There's far more to success than forgoing comfort and there's far more to happiness than success.
For my part, I co-founded and built two companies for ~4.5 years each: one in hardware and one in SaaS. The SaaS one was in the second batch of TechStars Boston. I had some success and I'm happy I did it. I learned a lot and it was generally fun. But, I trashed my health and wouldn't recommend others do it under the guise of happiness.
Nowadays I do industrial research on language VMs. I get paid very well. The work is gratifying. I have time for my kids, I'm learning things on the job. And I work with great people. I'll probably start another company some day because I like the variety of work and the thrill of the chase. My startup experience gave me a broad network and introduced new opportunities, but I'm only marginally better off compensation-wise than peers that worked a more conventional career. I'm almost certainly behind in terms of lifetime earnings. Many of them are impressed that I struck out and built multiple companies, but that has no real bearing on my happiness.
I'm not sure what being in the top 0.5% means without knowing the metric. If you love starting companies, have at it, but I can think of more challenging paths if you're looking to reach your full potential. Some of the smartest people I've ever met built the foundational technologies that allow SaaS to even exist while working for decades at the same company. I don't know how happy they are, but I know how impactful they've been.
Is your point that in order to take risks to be happy you need to be so cock-sure as to be closed minded? I tend to disagree and would probably characterize that as reckless as opposed to taking informed risks.
From a more scientific perspective, there have been plenty of studies done on happiness, and it's virtually undeniable that our external environment has at least /some/ effect on our happiness.[1] I'd argue that one has to ignore or dismiss a massive wealth of studies in psychology to insist that happiness only comes from within.
[1] Since I'm talking broadly, this might act as a good summary - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
(Jet skiing with super models BTW is one of the most ephemeral ways of gratification one can seek, probably induced into you by media -have a look at Girard's theory of mimetics to understand why you even want this- and as such something that will only impress the most superficial of people, if you tell them "I super-model jet skiing" when asked what you did with your life - all of which make me believe this must be a young person writing.)
I don’t want to speak for the OP, but I think they’re using age as a proxy for “I’ve seen this same pattern enough times to…”
Also, there's no evidence that the OP is older than, say, me, which is why citing age is largely irrelevant.
I'm not. In fact my previous comment would still be valid if the line "What does age have to do with it?" were omitted. The important point is that the anecdotal observations do not apply universally.
We are probably reading their comment somewhat differently. Because of the way they couched their statement as rooted in their personal experience, I assumed their were implying it was anecdotal and obviously not a generalizable, objective truth.
"I think I'm old enough now to confidently say that, yes: Happiness really does start from within."
As I already stated, I read the OP as if the latter. Despite the often pedantic nature of HN, there's a lot of room for nuance and interpretation human communication.
"Bluntly, every person I know who's expressed these kinds of sentiments is guilty of the same mistake: [living outside southern California]."
Thankfully I learned years ago this doesn’t work and got past this mindset. Changing circumstances has never significantly improved things for any length of time.
> Happiness really does start from within.
I’ve also never had any luck with this and am increasingly convinced some people aren’t destined to be happy.
Roughly everyone. Happiness is an unattainable construct designed to sell you more stuff and experiences. It isn’t real.
Contentment, though, now that’s achievable. But it doesn’t get talked about because it doesn’t monetize well.
The Oatmeal has my favorite explanation/take on this: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy
i’ve had jobs that didn’t feel like work.
not sure if you intended by you come off defeatist.
if i was again at a job that was making me sad or angry i’d:
1. list things i hate
2. list things i don’t mind
3. work to do more of 2 and less of 1
if after a year it’s still unbearable look for a different job. talented people have more options than they realize.
Yeah in the limit you can't achieve capital-H Happiness with a change in physical circumstance but I don't think that's what's at stake here.
The circumstances of my work make a large difference to my happiness. I know because I've been in a number of different circumstances and my happiness has varied greatly.
So maybe what some people think are the sources of their unhappiness is actually just making their unhappiness more obvious.
I don't believe this take is fair or correct. FANG-like jobs are designed to depersonalize workers, compell them to work extremely long hours, force them to be constantly on and available, and basically live for the company, only to be pushed out of the company by design and get fired as disposable canon fodder at the slightest bump on the calendar.
The pay might be good, but it resembles a deal with the devil.
Have you ever wondered why the average tenure at some top tech companies is measured in months, and reaching a milestone like 4 or 5 years is lauded as a major achievement? I seriously doubt that so many people is just "externalizing their happiness". Sometimes it's really the job that kills you inside and does so by design, don't you think?
That mostly doesn't match my experience in two ~5y stints at a FANG:
* Depersonalize: maybe; not sure what you mean by it here.
* Extremely long hours: not at all. Most people worked ~45hr/wk counting ~1hr/d of lunch. I averaged a bit less than that.
* Force them to be constantly on and available: no. One of my roles had an explicit oncall rotation where you were primary for about one week a quarter and secondary for another week. The other role had no oncall. When you were off no one expected you to be in contact, and several team members had configured their phones so that their work profile was completely deactivated outside of work hours. At times when I was excited enough about what I was doing that I wanted to work extra my manager pushed back hard, getting me to think about the impact on team culture. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34329670
* Be pushed out of the company by design and get fired as disposable canon fodder at the slightest bump on the calendar: I worked closely with ~50 people and didn't see anyone fired. The people who got somewhat close to getting fired were ones who were having trouble getting things done, but in a sustained low output sort of way that was clear to everyone they worked with and not a "slight calendar bump" sort of way.
And honestly, I was averaging maybe 5 hours of real work a week in some stretches. Ofcourse crunch time happens, and it is team dependent, but one has to take control of their experiences in any company or situation instead of relying on others to make their expectations happen.
It was dehumanizing in its own way because you are such a small cog in a large machine, but nobody worked long hours, nobody was forced to be available all the time, nobody really needed to sacrifice for the company (because everybody was such a small cog) and even the lowest performers I worked with could basically not do anything to get fired. Many people there were also "lifers" because the job was so easy.
Most people left due to having ambitions for more impact, not due to being burnt out.
A recovering alcoholic friend of mine once told me this syndrome is well known in 12 step programs. They call it "doing a geographical."
There are irredeemable places, and places that just don’t work for an individual. They key is knowing when it’s a problem instead of just running somewhere random and hoping it’ll fix all your issues.
Personally? I feel way better in sunny, dry climates. My mood improves a ton and I legitimately feel healthier. Right now I live in the exact opposite and I don’t like it.
100% - and for some people to excel in connecting with themselves, they need a calmer environment - or just more simplicity.
But his sentiment reminded me right away of the book "The Quest of the Simple Life" by William James Dawson.
Now let's go full-circle for a moment: sometimes the job, or circumstances, stand in the way of this ability to find inner peace, or sometimes just think. Even standing apart in a vacation for a few weeks gives you the ability to snap out of it. It's true in my experience that sometimes, the job needs to change.
The attitude expressed in one of the top comments above around happiness being within and not connected to changed circumstances is narrow, I've had this debate with friends who are high-achieving types. They argue that one should adapt and make the best of it, and often it's you and not the job. They also drink a lot.
That was my life for years. Then I changed _everything_. Quit job, broke up with my girlfriend, sold my flat and most of my possessions, different job, became a "digital nomad".
Now I'm "happy". I found a job that doesn't have all the things I hate about working. I can do sports I enjoy much more frequently, I'm not stuck in a loop where everyday is the same.
I guess I agree that _one_ thing most likely won't be the key to happiness. I think the key is figuring out what makes you happy(I think a lot of people don't know) and what makes you unhappy(this is usually easier to identify). Then doing more of the things that make you happy and less of the things that make you unhappy.
I'm not sure if that's what "happiness starts from within" means, but that's what worked for me.
Edit: I guess being happy also depends on the definition of the word. Depending on the definition, maybe I'm not happy.
After the 3rd such place, and a complete inability to effect change - I threw in the towel and started my own agency 2 years ago. From the outset I made the purpose of the company to be quality of life, not profit. Fewer clients/hours per team member, more time to execute and put out work you are proud to hang your hat on. No assholes (teammates OR clients).
For the entirety of the past 2 years, including the hard bits of actually getting it off the ground and getting those first few customers, the difference has been night and day. My stress levels are the lowest they've been in years. My relationship with my wife is better. I never dread Monday, and rarely pine for Friday. Sometimes it really is the environment, and sometimes that environment is pervasive in a particular industry.
But how do you get started? I have tried a few times and every time I got discouraged and it didn’t pan out. It’s just overwhelming, and I don’t know where to start. Then I’m doubting my abilities and thinking whether I really want to work like a dog for very little pay for months/years to start the business? Or maybe I’m just better off doing another 18 months stint followed by 6 months off to recover.
I know I’m not alone in this, but haven’t figured out how to get out of it.
Any insights on the above, or a blog if you’ve written about it already?
- I've been working in my industry for over 12 years and have amassed a decent sized network and twitter following along the way
- I don't have kids, so my costs are lower, and my time is my own.
- My wife makes good money and was supportive of me taking a hit to pay while I got things going (I didn't draw any money from the biz for the first 6 months, enabled by the next thing on the list)
- I had a close friend be willing to give me an essentially risk free, low interest loan of $30K to get things going. Enough to cover me for those 6 months. Loan was structured to be forgivable if business failed in the first 2 years, 5 year terms @ 5%, with no payments or interest accrual in the first year. Obviously a loan like this is a rarity, but if you are sitting on some savings that could be a good stand-in.
- I ran a business once before many years ago and learned a lot of the hard lessons that time (taxes/accounting/entity structure/hiring)
- I do digital marketing & WordPress dev - which means the service I sell is also a skillset most founders need (ability to market their service, set up a website). I'm also pretty comfortable selling to both a technical and non-technical audience, and I'm comfortable pitching directly to and managing the expectations of C-suite folks.
All of that combined is a pretty great place to "start from zero". Success wasn't guaranteed but I certainly wasn't going about things the hard way.
Anyway to get first few customers I started being pretty active in places where people who might need my services gathered - Slack communities, subreddits, et cetera. I tried to give insightful advice where good answers could be given in a few paragraphs. I offered to look at peoples issues directly or to solve really small problems for free + an ask to consider me for larger projects or retainer work, or to just say nice things if someone was asking for the types of services I offered.
I also pitched 2 customers who normally would have been below my going rate/retainer size as basically a "I need some case studies, someone has to go first, you'll get a bit of a deal if it's you". Once I had those first 2 customers as a base and a nice referral pipeline as a result of them and the presence in those communities I was able to grow from there.
When I had around 4-5 steady retainer clients and a bit of padding in the business account (about 4ish months in?) I started hiring help. I had a lot of previous experience hiring and working with international teams so I leveraged that to save some cash early on by hiring in the Philippines, Romania & South Africa. By the end of year 1 we were a team of 4 (myself included). Total revenue was around $200K, of which I managed to pay myself around $60K before taxes.
At the end of year 2 there is about 8 of us now including our first full time US hire. Year two was just shy of $600K in revenue and I was able to get myself back into 6-figure territory compensation wise, give everyone raises + Christmas bonuses, and still keep several months of runway in the business account. I don't expect the biz to make me a multi-millionaire any time soon (and that's not the point anyway), but things feel pretty stable at this point and growth remains strong. Results probably not typical.
I see zero chance of being able to pull it off myself though.
The parent comment glossed over "the hard bits of actually getting it off the ground and getting those first few customers" -- it's really hard. Five years in now things are going okay, but it took a while to get back to the came total comp I had pre-starting-my-own-biz, and even now the level of work is much higher (but so is the comp...).
If I had to do it again I'm not sure I would, and would definitely do a lot of things different. The big one would be going hard on biz dev from day 1 (or even day 0; start prospecting before incorporation), with #2 and #3 being talking to an accountant and lawyer ASAP once I could afford them.
Agreed on accounting & legal - though this is easier now than ever with services like Bench.co - which I set up on day 1 right after spinning up the business entity & bank account.
You can change your circumstances in another way. Reduce your expenses despite all the money that's coming in. Then find something important to you. It feels like it should be something altruistic. Funnel money to it. But also funnel your time and energy.
Buy some property in Detroit and build a safe house there. Fly in once a month to be involved, actually forming concrete, or roofing, or whatever. Then be involved in forming the management team, and be the board chair or something.
Or found an IT version of a farmer's market. Whatever that means.
Design and build a cylindrical windmill that stinks, but can be installed on balconies to harvest $5 of energy per month. Then invite people who know what they're doing to teach you how to get that up to $20/month and cost only $50 to build. Refine it until you can distribute kits.
Launch a wheelchair repair service. Coach a 4H club.
I know recent events have made altruism look bad, but I'm not advocating... well, I guess maybe I am. I never really looked into it, so I don't know. But I know it feels kinda good to shovel a neighbor's driveway every so often.
For two reasons: 1) it contradicts my lived experience and 2) it contradicts research.
Let's start with money. I used to be poor and now I'm not anymore. I used to have all kinds of anxieties about money, surprise surprise, once I put my nose to the grind, earned more of it, and developed a healthy financial cushion, those anxieties disappeared and I became happier.
My anecdote isn't the only data point, there's research out there which indicates that more money correlates with more happiness (though the effect has diminishing returns once you hit the upper middle class).
There are at least three really big external factors I'm aware of which are correlated to happiness in a big way.
1. Money
2. A supportive network of family and peers
3. Health and fitness
Every time we look we find that as people improve their circumstances in these areas, they report greater happiness and fulfillment in their lives.
I'm not saying that striving for inner peace and all that is necessarily a waste of time. It has its benefits. But frankly I think if you want to be happy you can do a lot worse than busting your hump to sort out the three things I just mentioned. If you're broke, sick and alone, inner peace isn't really a priority. Working on those problems is.
After all, we're discussing a blog post of a young bored top-earner from one of the most impressive cities in the world.
If anything, getting older is strongly moving me away from your mindset. To the extent that well-being is intrinsic it seems to be more about the causal relationship to environmental factors. Some people are better at managing workload, setting boundaries, avoiding stressful situations and finding a "scene" that fits their values and abilities. I've seen these people do very well.
There are plenty of people out there ready to tell you that happiness and well-being are all about attitude. But when I look at the people in my own life who have said this none of them have been particularly happy or seem to have figured things out for themselves. And it's no coincidence that some of the strongest advocates for "individual responsibility for happiness" are bad bosses and abusive spouses who have a vested interest in keeping people in bad environments.
To me, stories like this one read more true to life: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34406760#34409368.
The ONLY thing that is real is how YOU feel.
Doubling my salary and being paid what I am worth by doing what I wanted to do brought me a peace of mind I never had in the last five years (since I immigrated to a new country). I do not have to worry about so many things anymore, it's truly amazing and liberating. I can focus on what truly matters. I can take risks. I can plan for the future without having to go to the depression realm of looking for a better paying job.
Did I hate the jobs I did before? Some of them, but the money aspect stressed me a thousand times more than the work itself. When you don't like your job and do not have the money, you have to worry about both. When it's only your job, you know what to focus on and if you have enough savings, you can be bold and take risks.
A few years ago, I read this NYT article titled "Your Job Will Never Love You Back" [1] and that tagline is stuck in my head since then. Your work doesn't define you and even your dream work will have boring parts.
I'd suggest to go to therapy to focus and work on yourself. Better days are yet to come!
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/business/your-job-will-ne...
How does one frame the other way. Ie I don't care if only a 1000 users experience it, but I'd rather be part of a 10 person team pushing out while features used by 1000 users for hours each day.
I dunno if such roles exist and pay reasonably enough and are sustainable? And how does one politely disregard other kinds of impact in favor of this?
I work 40-ish hours a week, have ample vacation, and am paid enough to own a fairly basic condo in Boston, all by my late 20s. It’s not glamorous, I don’t earn $300k+ a year, and it’s certainly not a prestigious resume entry, but hey, I like my life so far. It’s definitely sustainable. Enough so that my wife and I will probably start a family soon.
For software to be sustainable with only 1000 users, it's got to be something that a small number of people use to do their jobs. Look for B2B software targeting a small niche.
The other route is software that is trying to get to a billion users, and just isn't there yet. If you get into a startup scene, you can definitely make a career of it.
Their response left me flabbergasted: They thanked me! Personally, by email. They actually took out time of their own busy life to write a simple thank you note.
Never in my professional life have I experienced a response anything like this. Not as a researcher, being harassed and scolded by reviewers. Not as an embedded dev, by users or contractors being blissfully unaware of my existence. Not as an open source dev, hidden behind a pseudonym and fake "professionalism" in Github bug reports. The closest thing was perhaps professional recognition amongst colleagues.
I'd rather make a big personal impact on a small number of people than a small incremental impact on a large number of people. It's way more satisfying. Come to think of it, teaching and mentoring work similarly.
I think there’s a huge difference in the value we feel ourselves contributing based on our own interests and what our company does.
I am working in the world of peer reviewed research now, and I think that’s one of the best places I can contribute to. I’m proud every day to start working because I know I’m helping, even in a small way, the many researchers around the world moving human knowledge forward.
I used to work in avionics development, mostly for defense purposes. Some people would hate it. I liked it for awhile, and then I reached the end of learning new things there. I left shortly after that to start my own company, the peer review research-focused one.
I never want to work for ad tech. That’s not the right answer for everyone, but I’d I was working in ad tech, I’d probably feel similar to you.
What do you work on, and how does that sync with your world view?
How much of your unhappiness is your job, or more so a function of having a continually growing list of responsibilities that can become to feel suffocating (e.g., marriage, kids, managing people at work, etc).
Because it can be a taboo subject, I’ve seen people misattribute their unhappiness to a single thing when it’s really a culmination of many things … and their isn’t a way to “fix” the unhappiness (you can’t “un-have” a kid)
I have none of the other, suggested, confounding factors. Quitting my last job was fantastic and 100% the best thing I could have conceived of to improve my life.
I also had a very similar sentiment re: cog+machine, although found it more of a combination of amusing and tragic (rather than unappealing).
The idea of fathering a child is legitimate nightmare fuel for me. I already feel trapped as it is, though thankfully there’s no risk of it happening.
And for many, it's one small slip-up, poor choices, medical problems, etc. and they may have to look forward to these sorts of jobs ... potentially until they drop.
I have no back-up plan, and ageism is a thing. I have to play this software engineering game for as long as I can to avoid the service sector when I'm older. And I have to play it very carefully.
Right now I'm sitting pretty, good income, unlimited vacation, work from anywhere. A "dream" job. But for how much longer?
Fingers crossed. I am not sure about turning to drugs, that would likely amplify the hell and make suicide even more of a viable option.
It's a grim outlook, I try not to think about it.
Definitely though it will become an issue later in life, though I have to wonder if agism really will be a problem for us, or if it will be that we simply quit the rat race of keeping up with the industry. I'm thinking about all the older developers/engineers I have worked with over the years, and they all had one thing in common- they did not or would not keep up with the industry. Some were working with System Z mainframe stuff, some were working with VB.NET, and most moved into management.
Management is certainly one way you could save yourself from aging out (whether through agism or not keeping up).
It’s all relative, and you are viewing their jobs through the lens of an engineer making 6 figures.
Someone wouldn't spend 30 years working retail in utter misery the entire time, these are intelligent people who have agency. I spent ten years working these jobs and the people who were there for life were relatively content.
Maybe this is something related to older generations, but I for one have never been happier. Of course my life isn't perfect, but I would never in a million years go back to my childhood/teens/yearly 20s. I have so much more freedom to express my self, to move in the world, to see and experience things and just in general do whatever I want. I never had the capital necessary or capability to do any of these things when I was a kid.
>I despise being a cog in a huge corporate machine, it’s like the job was designed to be as unappealing as possible.
Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but I think this is part of the "dream job" myth i.e. "if you work a job you love you don't need to work a day in your lift". This is pretty much garbage advice and only works for few rare people. I accidentally fell into my niche. I don't think I would have ever applied for position such as mine, but as new graduate I got an offer that was too good to pass by (however I expected to work here for couple years, gain some money, and then move to a bigger city and find job in my actual field), but when I started I just decided that I was going to be the best in my team/department. I took couple hours every day from work time to study and I became a professional. I wouldn't say I love my job, but I'm good at it and that makes my proud which in turn gives me joy. I've been doing pretty much same thing for almost a decade now and I've never been happier.
I grew up in a rural place, no mountains but we substituted beaches, marshes, and ocean. When I go back to visit I can't believe how beautiful it is. But, I prefer to live in the city where I can walk to coffee, pizza, chinese, mexican, etc. I never visit city parks, the grass and trees don't speak to me at all of nature and as an engineer I see beauty in architecture and construction and (after studying economics) the dynamism of human striving.
It's fine to decide to drop out of the hurly-burly, but don't call your fellow city dwellers rats, they're people making a go of it. The carbon footprint of the average New Yorker is among the smallest in the world, that's what population density gets you, and rural areas? they're filled with human suffering, don't kid yourself.
In reality it's the opposite. Coming to terms with the fact that the world is screwed up rather than you is a much scarier prospect given the implications.
If you blame yourself you can hit the gym, lawyer up, buy some meditation apps, everyone will applaud you on your great self-help journey etc. Of course a student of economics would love this story, it's very profitable!
Where does that come from? I struggle to see how any person living in the first world could be amongst those with the smallest carbon footprint.
But it’s not less than, say, someone living off the land without electricity and subsistence farming.
Maybe among smallest in the world for a large city?
1. https://www.livescience.com/13772-city-slicker-country-bumpk...
2. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/23/city-dwe...
2. https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states?country...
3. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/13/climate/clima...
Could you point to exactly where you think the author did that? I didn't see it.
At most there was, "Every storefront specifically engineered to attract me inside with gimics like flashing lights." Which may be true of London, though I can't say personally.
> don't call your fellow city dwellers rats
"The rat race" is a well-known, long-standing metaphor. "The term is commonly associated with an exhausting, repetitive lifestyle that leaves no time for relaxation or enjoyment." "The earliest known occurrence is 1934." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_race
I know, that's my point, that's why the headline was all he needed, everything after that was belaboring the point. I watched the video and I read the rest because I imagined something new would be said, but nothing was.
Right? London is a great city. If you can't enjoy it, maybe it's just not for you. Try a different one.
I look up and I see colleagues in their 40s-50s. 20-30 years of experience in the industry, with the performance of their RSUs they probably easily have $2m+ net worth. I really don't understand why they don't quit.
Just a naive example: Buy a cheap house ($250k) and live off of $40k/year for the next 40 years ($1.6m). You can always freelance or do extra work on the side if you want to splurge on a vacation or major purchase.
And I "enjoy" my job. It is comfy and interesting most days. But it is just such a massive time sink, after accounting for the chores of life and the "ramp up" and "ramp down" time before work, it honestly feels like I have maybe 2-3 hours a day on the weekdays of time that I can honestly say is my own. I can't imagine doing this tradeoff for another 15 years, but we'll see.
Props to the OP for having the courage to do this. I hope I can muster up some of the same courage soon.
You will then owe 20% (pretax, 30% post tax) of your "imputed" salary for the kid, as well as possible alimony. If you don't come up with 20% of your generous salary you git tossed in a cage, even if the kid only needs a tiny fraction of that for a decent life. For many it's impossible to step down their career without being tossed into prison, as the judge uses "imputed income" to calculate what you owe based on what you can potentially earn. That is if say you go from engineer to carpenter, you may now owe over 100% of your salary for support.
But if somebody heads for relationship straight from romance movies with drama all around and sex is #1 criteria... Then outcome is pretty clear.
Obviously just one data point and divorce rates are high. Do you have any data on this specific case: depressed about job, quits job to be happier, results in divorce. It seems quiet possible that given the circumstances, quitting the job might decrease the chance of divorce by helping remove so much stress from work.
Such a toxic, capitalistic, misandronistic mindset.
If you’re a man and quit working - you’re in the fast track to being broken up with.
I don’t know why we act like gender norms don’t exist.
They’re inconvenient, uncomfortable, and people want to pretend they don’t exist because there’s a one in a million exception.
In the real world a man who can’t provide is going to find out almost no woman will tolerate that, even if they claim otherwise.
Economically I don't see the advantage to staying together with a high earner that quits their job. Take half, plus the 20% support (they'll have to work now because they'll be tossed in jail if they don't pay, and imputed income will be at their high professional salary), then you can find a new person who doesn't work outside the house and let them contribute their half with chores. The sooner the divorce the better as they'll have to go back to work after the judge's order. Versus just having a person who doesn't work outside the house without the 20% of an engineer salary income stream.
This all sounds really fucked up but realize over 18 years we're talking about possibly $1M+ (tax-free) on the table. People will do some crazy shit for a million dollars.
this doesn't seem necessary or accurate
But not every man (or woman) does these things, and likely their spouse will be doing them as well. If I do half the child care and chores, while my wife does half the child care and chores AND earns all the money, how much is she going to like the arrangement?
$300k / yr is the new $100k / yr, and I'd hate to project what it'll be 20 years from now ($2m / yr?)
200K in some places won't let you have a nice apartment in a safe place, 100k in some places and you can live in a king with your own private kingdom.
Maybe I'm in denial, but I'm not super worried about getting another job right now. I'm enjoying the time off and reevaluating my priorities. There's even a work-related benefit: the extra time / lack of stress has allowed me to read up on tools etc that I haven't been using (although lately I've been tuning out of career stuff entirely).
The 4 hour work week has a far better treatise on this than I could ever write and I highly recommend reading it. You’re incredibly resilient in your 20’s. I’d rather be coming out of prison as a 20 something than be a millionaire in retirement.
I was/am that person. I actually did quit and retire for a while. But then I went back. Mostly out of guilt. I felt guilty not working and building up my kid's trust fund during my peak earning years. It felt like I was betraying my family by not continuing to bring in income while I could.
I quit at 33, didn't work for 3 years, had the best time of my life.
Then I got a fun, flexible job that paid below market, but more than paid the bills, and didn't take up all my time and still allowed me to do what I wanted with a decent-sized chunk of every day.
After a couple of years of that, I ended up with an adult job, and my hours are no longer flexible, but it is fully remote and pays about market for a HCOL area, while I can live anywhere I want in the USA.
Quit around 30, didn't work for a full year.
Then worked 20h/week for about 2y while I invested the rest of my productive time into hobbies or pet ideas.
Then I went back to similar job different company. Took me about 2y to get career back to where I left it, but remote and live somewhere I've always dreamed of.
I don't want to live in self inflected poverty in Tulsa, and I enjoy my work enough that I'd rather find something else to work on that I find interesting.
Good luck keeping up a resume for freelancing.
Also, I have nothing better to do than work.
But I’ll note that $40k/year isn’t nearly enough to live on for people in their 50s unless you’re unusually healthy or someone is subsidizing your healthcare. Healthcare gets much, much more expensive with age.
My employer spends $20k towards my family’s overall healthcare consumption, and we still spend $10k out of pocket.
Regarding taking a break: what have you got to lose?
No programmer I know whose resume says “I took a year or two off to travel the world” has had any trouble getting a new job when they come back. Hiring managers will be jealous, perhaps, but not upset by your choices.
Depends on what kind of healthcare is required. I'm from a country with "extremely cheap" healthcare (Ukraine), but if you are diagnosed with something nasty you either shell out hundreds of thousands to go to a place with expensive healthcare to get that CAR T-cell therapy or you die.
It really wouldn't. I had to take a year off waiting for a work visa, it was great and I got my highest paying job role straight after.
I'm at the very young end of that range. My answer is, when you have a couple of young kids and you live through the past year of inflation and stock/real estate devaluation, you scale up the retirement number by a pretty large multiplier to feel safe. My early retirement target is now around 10M (HCOL, want optionality to send kids to private school, got accustomed to nice things) and I'm not there yet.
Fortunately the trajectory is looking good, so I'm starting to ratchet down the time and effort I spend on work. As I do so, the stress is starting to melt away and I find myself able to better tolerate and sometimes even enjoy my job now. I don't need the job so I can take a risk here or there, drop a few balls on the floor, take some random days off to spend with the kids or get through some yardwork, etc.
Of course is not that simple. I won't bore you with my life history, but I spent most of my career living paycheck to paycheck, and only got a high paying job recently. With the double wammy of moving to the US and stock plummeting, my life savings are paltry. I'm still renting and I project it'll take me 2-3 years to save for a down payment.
In fact I'm confident that if you graduated 3 years ago and have been working in tech in the US, you'll likely have more wealth than me.
Not everyone stick in a company for 10 years. Some take sabbaticals, some have medical bills, some go travel for 2 years.
I was earning peanuts up until my early 30s. Also if you are not in US and not in Tech which is lets face it, majority of people - you are nowhere near these numbers.
Survivorship bias at its finest.
- a lot of the people who are in their 40-50s today never saw the packages we are seeing today (well, until two years ago)
- some of them carry a family with kids. You will only understand the math behind it until you’re in it.
- life does not work like an xls spreadsheet. It’s not like you « decide » to live of $40k/year. You meet people, things happen and the next thing you know, your « basic » needs require 50% of a significant salary.
- people need a purpose in life. I have seen plenty of people with FU money keep going with their job if they like it. Not everyone dreams of creating a company or living in the countryside.
Not because I didn't save more, but because I wasn't able to save more. I do look brightly towards the future and hope I'll turn for the better.
The ones who really succeed in "quitting the rat race" don't show up because they have next to no interest in discussing this with you, or anyone else online.
I don't mean the silence from HNW individuals, I mean the real quitters, who are sitting round a version of Thoreau's Walden pond NOT WRITING ABOUT IT
The "FIRE" community are the front edge. Once they get there, they stop obsessively telling people how they did it.
The best choice I made was closing out my socials. I do wonder why I keep HN open (as I am sure, do many people who choose to read what I write here) and I suspect it's also going away, when I turn off, tune out, and drop off.
My superannuation (pension in UK speak) is vesting out inside 6 months. It's not HNW. I won't be in lambos. It is more than enough for me and my partner, to be quiet, and sufficiently comfortable in our declining years.
If I misjudged the market I'll either go back to work, or not. "it depends". It might be in this field, it might be in another. A surprising number of older (and not so old) retirees work because they want to (I know many work because they have no choice)
This is the tricky part. If you're in the rat race, the feelings you get in the mountains are way more intense.
If mountains become your life, it won't be long until they become the norm, making you flee back to some urban jungle.
It's the contrast in your life that matter.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/06/happiest-...
That's a really bold claim. I fail to see any evidence of it.
Anecdotally, it's not true at all. A huge portion of my city dweller friends are miserable and constantly talk about quitting their jobs or moving. I cannot think of a single friend in the mountains who is as miserable. None of them want to move to a big city removed from nature.
I have mostly heard this from folks who have been there over a decade, often with young kids. Everywhere has its problems, of course; pick what matters to you.
Anecdotally, this is somewhat true for me. My wife and I moved to a rural location last year and every few of months we make a trip to "civilization" (e.g. a major city) to "recharge". Waking up every day surrounded in nature and breathing in the sweet air of a pine forest is great, no doubt. But being able to walk to a pizza shop or bike to a park are something we really miss too.
We're in bit of a pickle though, our daughter will be starting school in a couple of years but the public schools here are not very good. They have some of the lowest scores in the state and the state's scores are some of the lowest in the country...
The "happiness trifecta" still seems to be a sense of purpose, autonomy, and expertise. Money just helps remove stressors.
I'd like to see more stories of people working to open a path in a system where it didn't exist before. Like, "how I carved out a new position at this huge company that gave be a better sense of why I do what I do". Everyone tends to think they need to go to a small place to have a big impact, but I think you can bend the world wherever you are a bit if you know how to define the targets, and get there slowly, one day at a time.
Big career changes are sometimes worth it, though I wouldn't follow this guy's lead. I found this experience from a woodworker who left architecture much more interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQoqGPnRLbU
I posted this late last night (BST) and I’m shocked to wake and see it was so heavily read and discussed. Thank you everyone!
The post received some justifiable criticism for making it sound like I’m about to disappear in to the mountains to live like a hermit in a poorly thought out, idealistic middle finger to society.
In reality the change I’m making is to move to a much smaller place where I still have people and the urban environment around me, but with a much healthier balance of the things I value: family, nature, and quiet. Importantly, I’ll be a 15 minute walk from the seaside and a short drive away from the mountains - so I’ll be able to escape to them as often as I want.
I also want to find or create more meaningful work, even though this means my income may be lower.
I don’t have FU money from working at a FAANG company, so my personal runway is ~6 months. I won’t be taking significant time off.
The most ironic thing is that change isn’t immediate. It’s going to be six weeks before my obligations here expire and until then, life continues as it has done previously. As I write this comment I’m standing in a packed train on the way in to the city, but today with a little smile on my face.
My only humble suggestion is to write a journal of your experience being "off the rat race". And maybe share some of it.
Good luck.
If you want to quit the rat race you’re going to have to sacrifice a lot, unless you checks notes “[work] at a top tier investment bank as a software engineer”.
You're still in the race, but instead of burning everything to get in front and "win" (win what ?) you're just taking a stroll at the back, enjoying the view while chatting with your friends
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Bradbury
(burning out and quitting definitely removes that possibility)
If instead of "rat race vs not" we frame it as a tradeoff between possibly conflicting attributes, which may vary person to person and at different points in life, I think we'd have a more fruitful conversation.
It's amazing how many people simply want to tear others down, I think, deep down, many wish they could do the same as this man.
This is of course unfair to him and he shouldn't be beholden to other people using him as an exemplar, nor is it likely that he's done nothing since retiring, but it's an understandable reaction.
Most family and friends I’ve spoken to are completely fine and generally supportive.
Even when I quit my $1m/yr job, people were like - “if it feels like prison and is making you miserable - do it. Life is too short.” I took up another job at a 60% paycut. That turned out to be terrible too. So now I’ve not been working since June and traveling and living in different areas. They’re all supportive cause they’re like, “you’re living the dream. No responsibilities. You have money to live off of. Do it!”
It’s hard to imagine finding anyone who isn’t supportive of retiring early and is actually your friend.
My job was great. I was working from home (precovid), my manager always did his best to unblock me if I was blocked and let me go if I was going. My biggest fear was not liking being retired and having to come back to a worse job somewhere else.
Also, my friends and family are not in tech. My income to them was very significant.
> It’s hard to imagine finding anyone who isn’t supportive of retiring early and is actually your friend.
They do love me, that I know, but we've been indoctrinated with what success is in the u.s..
That said - I had absolutely terrible (toxic) jobs that most people couldn’t last even half the time I was at.
We wish the author well in his endeavors.
A college grad who joined FB in 2012 would have made more money at FB than any other likely alternative including founding their own firm. The same was true for at least a dozen large firms. These big firms came with the added benefit that one didn’t have to worry that your 12 hour days of toil would lead to a layoff at the end.
But yes, good for him. I also like the mountains.
At some point I realized that without this massive dehumanizing system to fire me regular income, the alternative is that we are out in the wild fighting for survival every minute, not knowing where my next meal is coming from.
What our system gives us seems decidedly better but man, it can be mentally tough to keep trucking along.
We are social animals, and many of our goals are the defaults set for us by our social cohort. Very seldom do we take the time to think deeply about what we really enjoy, much less have the courage to act on what we might think in a way that would mark us as different. After all, any rejection of the defaults is a subversive threat to undermine the entire system!
Good for you, Mr. Barry. I for one am very excited to hear more from you in the future!
- coworkers
- working culture
- autonomy
- sense of ownership
- sense of impact
- how much you actually get to code
- whether the coding you're doing is interesting
I think a lot of software engineers need to hang out with more people who are less well off than them. Befriend the grocery store clerk, talk to the mechanic fixing your car. If you're in a bubble of wealthy people, it gets really hard to appreciate the benefits that you have simply because you stop seeing them as benefits and see them instead as the status quo.
Where did this come from? It wasn't in the linked article.
It resonated with me, right up until the "on Twitter" part.
A few weeks shy of 20 years ago, I was a fed-up high school student and made probably the best decision of my life so far. I loaded my stuff in to the back of a beat-up Nissan 720, drove it over to the high school to return their books and sign a few papers to drop out, continued driving a few hours down the road to Georgia where I unloaded stuff in to storage the next day, then started walking the Appalachian Trail...
Just a few minutes ago, I got off the phone with a friend from 500-odd miles in to that walk; he recited a line from Thoreau about most men leading a life of quiet desperation.
My friend had to cut our call short, as a childhood friend of his was on another line, presumably with news about their recent stage-4 cancer diagnosis. We're talking about a canoe trip, and I very much hope we actually make it happen. But, in the meantime, I have an infinite list of bugs to work on.
I had ~30 people reach out to me in DMs on twitter.
Some were people who feel in a similar position but don't know what to do. Others were people who have been where I am and offered advice.
Twitter is just a tool to connect with people outside of the immediate circle I have around me, I don't think there's any problem with using it as such.
In the post, you wrote a paragraph starting with `Almost everything around me is designed to addict me.`, which seems incongruous with communicating through Twitter. I'm glad it has worked out well for you and those ~30 other folks anyway.
Mainly I intended to say that I have exited and successfully re-entered the rat race (actually, a few times), and fully support others in doing so. Do it while you can!
Many commenters clearly don't get it, and probably never will. But, I do, and I don't have a Twitter account.
I sacrificed a lot of value and security.
I have many more worries today, some more serious than any problem I had at that job.
But I feel enormous relief, I sleep better, and between the most extreme hurdles that come by, I am far far happier.
I don’t think there is any simple rule for when to change one’s outlook or change one’s scenery. Both are important tools!
I think I’m lucky because I get to live in a very walkable suburb in Melbourne AU. Feels less like a race, and more like a stroll. Instead of quitting and moving to the mountains, maybe just move to a place that’s a bit more liveable and work a job that’s a bit more flexible.
In short, you might experience flow outside of your day-to-day life (i.e. work). It becomes such an addicting feeling that you try to revolve your entire life around that new sensation.
It's funny, because much of the time it happens when people do something a bit difficult and outside of their current skillset. For software types it tends to always be something with nature or woodworking.
If you don’t like what you are doing, do something else. I don’t know if it’s worth trying to project your personal dissatisfaction into some broad diagnosis of social ills. Many of the alternatives to the rat race are pretty dismal.
In LA, I have the luxury of clean water, sewage, medicine, a decent cocktail, and, like OP, make a decent living. It's easy to decry modern society because you're not "happy" but, imo, that says more about you than it does about what you do.
Don't think the mountains, or the oceans, or the deserts are an idyllic virginal untouched Eden. You're going to end up getting yourself killed like the Into the Wild guy.
the author kept it brief by relying on cliche after cliche, telling us to make sure we watched a completely cliche video. Why do people who have a critique of society think that they're the only ones who ever thought of this stuff?
can't get enough of it? here, enjoy https://youtu.be/n-sQSp5jbSQ?t=28
Where did you get that from?
Yes: historically, the presence of tons of people on "the wild" periphery to grow and sell them their food, so they can live off of them...
The wild without that? It’s wild.
A more balanced approach is to move to the country-side and work remote. Many people do that. But I guess that wouldn’t be too novel to get Twitter and social media attention.
Imagine breaking a leg on a massive property, no roads to where you are, no cell service. What do you do? If you want to live, you crawl. If you’re strong enough, have enough will, and are lucky — you make it. Else, the coyotes eat you. Hell they might eat you anyway.
Addendum: just last week I was surrounded by the local pack of wild dogs. They were hungry and I saw one circle behind me. I drew my sidearm and yelled and they ran off. The point being, I had no help. None. If they were hungry enough, it would be me or them.
You should always carry a gun as well.
I was mostly trying to paint the picture most people don’t think about. When you’re off a common trail, no one’s there to help you
99% of people in the UK would take years of their life for the opportunity (even in other cities in the UK). Not for happiness, for the fast cars, nothing like that...to eat, to not worry, to have children, to live somewhere safe. Again, being in the race is a privilege, most people aren't racing, there is no sport...they are getting run over.
The lesson I think to learn is to be true to yourself and try and be objective when assessing life. I grew up in extremely rural, a very nature heavy childhood and there are parts of it I believe are fantastic. Meanwhile as I grew older, I found there were things denser populated urban centers could offer me. Every now and then I look back nostalically about how simple life was but there were a lot of tradeoffs in that context I wouldn't just get rid of now.
For me the compromise is to find a moderately densely populated area with access to densely populated resources. I have most all the access to nature quiet and sanity where I live, meanwhile within a 15 minute drive I can do most everything one has access to in say LA or NYC as far as things I care about and am interested in.
As with many things in life, I don't think the extremes are where happiness tends to lie, it's some compromise or mixture in between.
I love being in the wilderness. I love the quiet, the beauty of nature, the fresh air, the opportunity to stretch my legs and challenge my body.
And I love the city. I love good food and municipal garbage collection and plowed roads and the company of friends and family within easy reach.
I've often thought about buying a property closer to the Canadian Rockies (I'm close, but not as closed as I'd like), and then I remember that I'd have to maintain my own septic system, and invest in equipment to clear my own roads, and, and, and... and then I realize maybe my life ain't so bad after all. :)
With an investment into some technologies, you could live fairly nice. Dropping everything with no investment and just living off the land is a fairytale dream.
I do my adventures without medical insurance, looking up nearby clinics, and there is no embassy to turn to and no emergency contact. I try to be careful, but if there was an accident I’d accept this is the end of the journey.
I don't think they're mutually exclusive. One can think of wild places as paradise while taking the necessary precautionary measures to survive there. I've camped next to a lake with hippos in it that passed a few meters from me as they strode past at sunset. A cape buffalo has done the same thing. I know what these creatures are, I know to anticipate disaster. And yet these places are still the closest thing to paradise I've ever known.
When I wrote this, I had no idea it was going to receive so much attention. It was immediately after a call with my boss where I committed to leaving.
I have learned a valuable lesson: how important it is to be crystal clear with the words you choose and the message you convey.
Reading my post now, I agree it sounds like I'm naively planning on going to live in the mountains where I'll immediately die in a storm or get eaten by a bear. I also wrote "I'm the least fulfilled I've ever been". I should have written "this is the least fulfilling work I've ever done".
I am leaving an unfulfilling job, and an unfulfilling place, to move to a smaller settlement where I am a short walk from the seaside and a short drive from the mountains. I'll have a way higher quality of life, being able to do the things I love (hiking in the mountains and other general outdoor pursuits) at the cost of losing a significant amount of income.
This is a trade I'm willing to make, and it reverses the decisions I've made over the last few years. This is an important learning I hoped to share with others who may be in a similar predicament.
I don't have FU money, I still want to work as a software engineer and will have to very soon. The difference is that I will not trade quality of life for money, and I will try to find or create work on the terms that maximise happiness for me. These terms are different for everybody, so my solution is unique to me.
The TL;DR of my original post is "don't optimise for income over quality of life".
> The TL;DR of my original post is "don't optimise for income over quality of life".
On this, we can 100% agree!
https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/10/27/what-japan-makes-o...
I was also surprised by all the other terms I seen floating around that are a similar thing
Mountains, beaches, deserts, forests are all amazing. But you do get used to them and then miss the cool city life and convenience. But wherever you go, you bring your problems with you.
The drugs, alcohol,etc... in that video are solutions for the rat's unhappiness. It isn't the race that is the problem, it is the person.
There is wisdom in balance. Make a lot of money with the least amount of work-time and spend that money by traveling or living somewhere nice. Doing fun things. But none of that will solve the sickness of the human soul.
Having lived in multiple major cities — they aren’t ideal. Particularly, for children.
With the advent of starlink and wireless networks I think increasingly (I hope) children will be brought up with space. I know with remote work I moved and built a homestead, we are nearly breaking even while supplying all our food. I know me and my family are happier with the space, being outside, etc.
Less pollution, less noise, better air, better food, and generally safer.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-w...
Excerpt:
"In the past century, the American conception of work has shifted from jobs to careers to callings—from necessity to status to meaning. In an agrarian or early-manufacturing economy, where tens of millions of people perform similar routinized tasks, there are no delusions about the higher purpose of, say, planting corn or screwing bolts: It’s just a job."
Not judging harshly because I did nearly the same as the author years ago! Only I found a pot of emptiness at the end of the rainbow. I hope he really REALLY likes mountains ;)
But can't type it all out. Happy to answer any particular question.
In short: I saved up enough not to quit rat race forever, but to see what life was like without the obligation to work for an open ended amount of time. I did whatever the hell I wanted at any moment. Which was euphoric, but it's really really hard to accomplish larger efforts or really meaningful things with that attitude, because those things necessarily come with struggle. With no obligation, you don't need a tolerance to pain. You just quit building your side project when it gets frustrating. I only had staying power doing the things I enjoyed the process of.
After 2.5y (the last 1.5y spent doing 20h/wk contract work, and trying to build a startup) I crashed and burned hard psychologically. Freedom means nothing to me intrinsically, I need a reason to appreciate the freedom or make productive use of it. The appreciation wore off, mountains wore off, I don't actually want to code on my own time. Everyone else in life is busy doing meaningful things to them. I broke down and got a job again, but with a much different relationship with work.
I agree that the too much freedom can be disorienting. If you don't mind me asking, how did you end up deciding that getting a job again was the right move? How did that compare to keeping doing 20hr/wk contract work and then spending the rest of your time doing non-coding/non-startup stuff if that's what was burning you out?
Contract work for me was boring toil that the companies I worked for couldn't convince someone to join full time to do.
Perhaps it's my personality, but no amount of non-professional endeavors/hobbies make up for an empty professional life. I equally burned out of 20h/week + startups because they were unfulfilling.
Who's going to tell him that ALL the water on Earth has been recycled many, many times.
As a professor once said: "All the air you're breathing and all the water you're drinking was the same stuff the dinosaurs consumed and shit into."
I guess if he wanted to avoid recycled water he could collect and purify water from animal aerobic respiration or hydrocarbon combustion. Even then the oxygen and hydrogen could have been used before.
That makes the post ring rather hollow to me. It sounds like they want to monetize their experience of quitting and rejoining nature. Which basically reads like another version of selling the secrets to a 5 hour work week kind of deal.
I don't really understand the problem or the solution. Is this sustainable? Will the begin to feel unfulfilled in the mountains? What is fulfillment? Could a steady cadence of vacations to the mountains have bridged the gap? Does it require such an 'all or nothing' solution?
It's true by definition. One experience is not like the other.
The tone hints at what OP prefers but it's rather easy to come up with a statement pointing in the other direction. "Nothing has made me feel anything like that feeling when you get out of a nice warm bath, dress up nicely, walk to your favourite local restaurant with your mates and get a your favourite meal with a nice glass of wine." Or whatever tickles your fancy.
> The best part about those things is that there is no booking system. There is no door security choosing who gets in because there is no door. It’s all there, ready to be experienced, and free.
There are many other free things out there. Starving in the African heat. Freezing under shelling somewhere in Ukraine. Dying of incurable disease.
At the same time, there are many things ready to be experienced that are not free but, I'm sure, OP can easily afford. A nice meal in a good restaurant, a movie, a coffee with a friend, a book, comfort of his home, a trip to wherever his childhood was.
I suspect, even his quitting is not entirely free. It probably comes from his privilege to be able to not work for a while and be able to afford all the gear he needs for mountaineering. It's not a critique of his choice. I'm glad he has the option to choose and doubly so that he's happy with the choice he made. I'm critical though of OP implying that that option is the best. That it's obviously betters, and free on top of everything, but somehow overlooked buy everyone.
I understand how big city can be overwhelming. Referring to it as "Rat Race" is a little dramatic, I'd say. The toon paints a bleak picture that reflect only one side of the modern city life. Retreating to mountains is only one way to deal with it, too. And it's on the more severe side of possible solutions spectrum.
I recently also submitted my own resignation, except I've figured out that my current savings could last me around 3-5 years, so my plan so far is to take one year off work for personal projects, books and other ways of upskilling myself, as well as handling various larger events, such as moving to the city from the countryside (healthcare or even getting to the store is problematic otherwise), as well as just hang out with friends occasionally and visit some museums.
Though maybe my plans are too much work and too little play.
> I don't have FU money, I still want to work as a software engineer and will have to very soon. The difference is that I will not trade quality of life for money, and I will try to find or create work on the terms that maximise happiness for me. These terms are different for everybody, so my solution is unique to me.
I'm inclined to agree, though of course having adequate savings and planning ahead both feel like pre-requisites to me. Best of luck!
This article is just another reminder that techbros making bank can afford the luxury to save-up a few years, and spend years contemplating their self-realization. I'm glad the author was able to finance their perspective-changing journey, but reading this is less of a lesson, and more of reading that someone won the lottery.
You can only leave the rat race if you can afford to... The rest of the earth can't do this and the author is writing from a place of great (earned) privilege. Must be nice.
As though the person saying it wish they were a technologist, so they could earn more.
I was told "Go away, old man. No one wants you.", in, pretty much, those words.
Hurt like hell, but after I got over my sniffles, I learned to "lean into" my exile.
I just released a new kernel for the app I'm working on. I budgeted two months for it, but got it done -at much higher functionality than planned- in five weeks.
The difference in my development velocity and product Quality is nothing short of astounding.
This was always insane to me, I always had my vacations and visits to family planned out well in advance, I never had anything left over.
Maybe it means something, maybe not.
It was a great covid experience, but it's not quite something I want to repeat soon.
Me, best time in my life, commuting in Tokyo to my jobs working on a project I loved with people I loved. All the ads on the trains were eye candy to me. I didn't buy anything that I remember but I did find out about museums, concerts, and other events around town as well as various obscure services which I never used but was amused to read about.
Drinking with my buddies, including work buddies about once a week was great. Clubbing, going to restaurants, and going to events of the kind that generally only happen in giant cities was lovely.
I like the occasional trip to nature but as for me I'll pick the city and the public transportation. I love it!
In so many words he said cities suck, nature rocks.
Vs me, who said both nature and cities rock, and that the attitude that one sucks is a poor attitude
He calls himself, and by implication those around him, rats in the rat race. Whether you agree with him or not, the clear implication is a negative one.
It reads like you are stating a fact, but really, it is a matter of opinion. Perhaps, you can just say what you like without invalidating what others prefer.
I think their opinion of that the city sucks is wrong, full stop, and that a change in attitude would see all the great things a city provides that nature does not so that then you can appreciate both.
To me, enjoying the good parts of both the city and nature is a better POV than shitting one one of them.
Let's put it another way. If someone says the France sucks, Germany rules. And someone replies "The France doesn't suck, here's a few reasons why". Why do you feel the need to jump in and defend the POV that "France sucks"?
I also listed spending time with people as a plus to the city. It's interesting that you left that out. I'd guess if the author had a job they loved with people they loved their attitude about everything else would change. The fact they're in a job they hate arguably taints everything else about their life. Commuting of course sucks if it's to a place you don't want to go in the first place. To me, commuting by public transport rocks because I got, on average, 50+ minutes of walking (25 each way) for free (added to the 20 minutes of standing on the train)
Because you're forcing your opinions on them. You literally said their opinion is wrong.
Saying France doesn't suck because they have good croissants is pointless for a person that doesn't like croissants.
You can't force yourself to like something just because "it would be a better POV".
Facts on the other hand can be right or wrong as they can be independently verified.
There is no way to prove "great" things cities can provide. Different people value different things.
I actually don't dislike cities and I didn't generalise that they are terrible.
London is one of the busiest and largest mega cities on the planet. It's incomparable to a city of ~400k people where you can walk in 45 minutes from the city centre to the boundary where the urban environment becomes a more natural environment.
The mega city is not for me, and I regret sacrificing quality of life for income. This decision is about rebalancing those two.
I was visiting London and took the train in the morning to the airport (this is a really bad idea), and saw that exact thing play out. Some girl was smushed into the crowd in train by someone outside so she could make the train, like a cartoon character.
Definitely convinced me I couldn't do a 9-5 after that
Do not let your job become a part of your identity.
I work just as hard at my new job as I did at my last one, but in my mind, they're just a client I'm choosing to offer services to at this time. I've made many good friends through work over the years, but now my loyalty to my friends is independent of my loyalty to the companies for which we work. I used to use the demonym of my place of work to tell people about myself; now I describe myself by my hobbies, my beliefs, and my aspirations.
Did that solve everything? Of course not. Late-stage capitalism is still riddled with bullshit. But I do sleep better at night.
I disagree. People should strive for a fulfilling job that allows them to express their identity. Just try not to be so picky that you end up with so few options.
"I'm quitting! But I'm not telling you anything about how I plan to pay for life."
The message mostly resonates with me, right up until they leave out the most crucial part of the post. How do you escape the rat race, and still pay for things like health care, food, rent, etc.
Even if you're making $100k+ a year, those costs aren't insignificant. No how do you handle them making $0k a year?
It's strange to me how often I'll read a post like this that conveniently leaves out the crucial detail. Leaves a suspicious feeling in me that they have some nest egg or something they're not telling us about.
???
Things like that. Do what you can not to get badly sick or injured, because medical bills can quickly burn through your savings.
On average, health insurance doesn't seem optional.
:-/
Edit: to the user, paid for via taxes/etc.
I quit the rat race in my late 30's. I saved and lived a frugal life while earning a great FAANG salary during a time of economic growth. I used my savings to buy income producing rental properties and aggressively payoff mortgages. I now do woodworking most days and love it. The pay is low, but at least the hours are long.
I used to work on some of the most popular applications in the world. I would see my work in keynotes and read about my work here on HN, but none of that compared to making an urn for my cousin when my uncle passed away. Or selling a few items at a winter market at my kid's elementary school.
- There is a rule of thumb that you need 20-25x your annual expenses in networth. So if you spend $8k a month, you can retire at a net worth of just between 2 and 2.5 million.
- Whenever I refinanced I always round down to the nearest loan term. A lot of people refinance and start their 30 year mortgage clock over. My goal was to have no debt.
- Because I was saving towards a multiple of my monthly expenses I did some extra things to lower those expenses before quitting like getting solar so I don't have an electric bill and getting a $5k used electric car so eliminate fuel costs.
- If your net worth is in equities you can take ~$80k in capital gains tax free each year. This puts your $80k withdraw closer to $100k in an equivalent salary.
Do you have any more details anywhere (blog, etc.)? I'd love to read about it.
Just as the OP here frustrated me by not explaining their process, others like you really help and make me happy to read about how they do/did it.
It inspires me to make changes in my own life to live more conservatively financially. I already make an effort to do so but its nice to be reminded that there is more you can do. Solar + Electric car should be next on my list.
Do you have a recommendation for a good used electric car?
Couples routinely live like this for $2k/m, so it is possible.
Please see this comment where I've hopefully answered your questions: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=34426360&goto=item%3Fi...
'The mountains' are wonderful while you still have a pile of cash to pay 'friendly locals' to help support your dream, but eventually you will get older, and it will run out...
By any definition these people are not rich but they are definitely happier than most city-dwellers IMO. I think there are 6 series now.
Society won't let you unless you go full drifter and only certain people have a personality for it.
I was just cursing a pile of sticks that were too damp to light and I was being deprived of the bonfire I had assembled and was preparing to light, and I was laughing because in the words of Buckaroo Banzai, "wherever you go, there you are." I've achieved a kind of temporary exit for as long as my means permit, and I can say that the real that the rat race conceals is not for everyone.
My trip up the hedonic treadmill was such that I even wrote professionally about the sort of things one might buy in the hopes of finding a there there, pitching stories about exotic experiences one could have for the price of a vacation. There isn't a there there. There is no yacht long enough, club exclusive enough, view stunning enough, or achievement great enough that it makes you any different from the person standing on the subway platform. You will be the same person. I guarantee that if you flame out of your job, cash in your savings and manage to summit Everest, the first thing you will do when you get to the top is check your phone. The things that seemed so important were only symbolic. Pursuit of symbols specificially disqualifies us from attaining the meaning they represent. Maybe the humility is worth it, as yeah, the things I achieved were symbols that don't mean the same things now that I have them, but that's the treadmill, the pursuit of symbols and representations - affect.
I can say with some confidence that you only actually have what is yours to share, not all of it is good, and meaning only exists in the moment of sharing it. I can also say that unhappy people are not lonely, as their misery and self involvement keeps them from noticing it. I think to really understand what it means to be lonely, you need to find some happiness first, then when you move to share it with someone who isn't there, that's the feeling. That absence of no one in particular, but with the sense of having lost someone close. It is truly a rarefied experience I am glad to have been able to appreciate, but it's not a solution to anything. If you want to exit the rat race, try camping first, maybe a longish canoe trip, or read some good literary fiction. Ultimately, it's just you.
This is all to say, we invent the conditions we impose on our choosing happiness. They are symbolic and representations, they are not the real, and the real is not far or exotic. It's perhaps easier to believe we are unfufilled by our successes, and that there is another life out there if we just leave all this behind, as it puts off recognizing that we're probably just idiots in profoundly difficult ways.
Second, I do feel the pain of corporate life, and I switched to working for a non-profit because of it. Leaving the city… nah. Just moved to the perimeter and now I can drive 10 minutes to downtown or 20 to the mountains. Why get a septic tank, a well, my own water treatment, and all this other stuff if I need not do so?
I'm definitely not a rural person, but I do think that living in nature has a strong correlation to happiness. I don't think the average person in a concrete jungle like NYC is happier than in a random village in the Amazon jungle or the Swiss alps. I don't regret my time I lived in NYC though other than that I stayed too long. It's fun for a time in one's life while one is young, but it's not a forever place for most people.
Most jobs suck. "Find your passion" is bullshit career advice because a job by definition means selling your freedom (if the job was so much fun they wouldn't need to pay you because people would do it for free). Unfortunately the reality is that we must make money to afford a modern lifestyle, and thus if you want financial freedom you will probably need to get a job (yes you can create your own business, but until that takes off you need to pay the bills somehow).
I quit the rat race and left NYC to travel the world. After 1.5 years of traveling I started to run amount of money and I reluctantly decided to start working again - this time remotely. But to my surprise I found that I actually enjoyed the new job and had missed having that sense of responsibility (or maybe I liked finally seeing my bank account balance go up and was trying to rationalize it, who knows). But eventually the job started to suck as I realized it was a deadend job and felt like I wasn't respected. I was miserable and performing the job was a chore, but I stayed because I didn't have the courage to quit a job that paid so well for so little work - the same position I was in in NYC before my world travel.
Finally that contract ended, and I was again free from work obligations. This time I set my goal to create my own tech projects with the hope of eventually monetizing them and living off of that. Finally I enjoyed programming again because I was building whatever I wanted.
A job fell in my lap with another startup, and I initially didn't want to take it because my focus was on my own work. But in the end I decided to give it a chance as I figured it could be a valuable experience, and I can always quit if I don't like it. The job turned out to be awesome. Awesome people, interesting problems, and I get a front row seat at an early stage startup. The downside of course is that I have not been able to put as much time on my personal projects as I'd like, but I am still working on it on the side, and we'll see if I can manage them both.
Leaving the rat race to travel the world led to some amazing experiences with high highs and low lows. I went from being sick of software engineering to wanting to build my own tech startups - which is my main work goal now. It took me traveling so much I got bored of it until I got inspired to want to build tech things again to solve my own problems. But maybe you'll leave forever and prefer being a park ranger in the words - who knows. We're all different.
In any case I think people should do whatever the hell they want, as no money is worth wasting one's life in misery. Worst case scenario you don't like living in the nature and can return to London to work at another bank with a renewed sense of gratefulness. Of course most likely you probably won't ever return to the same exact old life. Maybe you'll work remotely for a startup from the woods, or become a writer, or go completely offline and just live a simpler life. Who knows. It doesn't matter as long as you're doing you.
Either way best of luck on your journey, from one rat rat escapee to the next.
This is the exact realization I had that lead me to quit London as well.
All you're doing is giving yourself a brief reprieve from an environment that drains your energy. You'll build up a bit of the energy over the break, but as soon as you come back you'll start getting drained again, possibly even worse than before because of the contrast of having to be back in that environment.
Breaks are important but if your environment is fundamentally draining you day after day, they're not going to move that needle.
It's one of the most beautiful places I've seen. If you have the opportunity to visit, I recommend it highly.
But, rural living is vastly less sustainable on a per capita basis than city living. The elegiac tone of a rural paradise lost is a familiar one throughout the past few centuries. It’s an aspect of “blood-and-soil” nationalism (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_soil) and Boomer-era environmentalism and of Tolkien (so, I guess that’s in order of most to least problematic). It is easy to feel the longing, but it’s also worth some critical thinking.
I’ve got a place in the country that I go when I need to get away from the city (and, yes, putting a lot of time and effort into making it sustainable…). I find myself doing a lot of programming there. And then I go back to the city to talk to people about the code, and find out what they’ve been coding.
i'm glad you were able to quit. i did see that video recently and found it a bit cliche but well made.
-Kirsten Hacker