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Reset your life

levels.io

67 pointsmsvan50 comments

First and foremost: this was posted on Monday the 22nd of April, 2013.

Secondly, the guy writing this is extremely privileged yet implying he somehow had a hard time and had to "escape" the system. If anything, his life was getting monotonous and he did indeed reset it, but not completely. He still had his massive bank account when he left for Thailand, so in the end it was just moving without having to transport all the belongings (as he got rid of everything).

>> "the guy writing this is extremely privileged"

>> "He still had his massive bank account when he left for Thailand"

Source?

"I’m a privileged white male European with income and savings."

"In an emergency I have a creditcard to fall back on while most people in this world do not."

"I have funds to survive and that’s a huge privilege."

http://levels.io/the-100-thing-challenge/

Honestly, none of those things say "huge bank account".

Are "extremely privileged" people not allowed to "escape"?

Why wouldn't they be? I am saying this is not an escape or a reset but simply moving from one country to another for an assigned time span.

He is looking at events from the inside, and writing how it is. You are looking at events from the outside, and writing that.

If he had a massive bank account, it's unlikely he would have focused so much on the 3000 bucks he needed to make that transition. In any case, the interesting thing here is why he moved, not how.

I don't think it had to do anything with needing that money but rather with continuing his life style (he does the whole 100 belongings thing), getting rid of his workstation and other stuff he wouldn't need / be capable of taking with him. After that, it immediately says that he used the money to buy a MacBook (side note: must be pretty beefed if it was the total 3K). Nowhere is stated that the 3K was a necessity to make the transition.

I agree with your last point but have to add that the "how" part is complimentary to the "why" and both will give you a better understanding of the situation, goal and motivation.

It's Eat, Pray, Love for the tech crowd.

I've seen a lot of these articles. It reminds me very much of 4HWW. They're all written like the author is overcoming some major hurdle and achieving some sort of enlightment, but in fact they're basically just going on vacation after becoming hugely successful.

You've got to cope with the burden of success somehow, right? :)

Panic[1] and/or generalized anxiety disorder[2] can happen to anyone at any time. Privilege has little to do with it. Any kind of stressful situation can trigger it in susceptible individuals.

[1] http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/panic-attacks/DS00338 [2] http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/generalized-anxiety-disorde...

And 6 cups of real coffee per day may not help that much, along with the alcohol at the weekends. I find anxiety levels rise with caffeine to the extent that I avoid tea or coffee after about 3pm.

Good luck to the chap anyway.

Linked from this post was: http://levels.io/the-100-thing-challenge/

<quote>

I am well aware of some of the hypocrisy of the minimalist lifestyle.

I’m a privileged white male European with income and savings. That’s an easy position to be in to get rid of all your stuff. I have the luxury of being able to buy the food I need from the 7 Eleven around the corner or walking into a restaurant to have someone make me food, whereas most people in the world need to stock up large volumes of food to be able to afford eating at all. In an emergency I have a creditcard to fall back on while most people in this world do not. There’s a reason you see homeless people in America hoarding stuff, it’s because that’s all they have and they need it to survive.

I have funds to survive and that’s a huge privilege. I am well aware of this. Nonetheless, I still feel this lifestyle is better than the endless consumerism we suffer from in the West where buying and hoarding stuff (that doesn’t actually make you happy) has now become the de facto standard.

</quote>

Is that not enough self-flagellation for you?

It sounds like (or at least the title suggests that) the author would advocate this extreme approach to others? Perhaps I can advocate another approach:

If you're feeling signs of depression or panic attacks, seek out the help of a mental health professional.

There are real neurological and physical implications to the symptoms the author describes. Picking up and moving won't be an option to all, and may not work even for those who do have the option.

As Batman said, "face your fears"

I second this.

I know a very good mental health professional, a trained psychologist with a Ph.D. She says (and I'm paraphrasing) that 99% of people's problems can be treated by getting away from sources of stress, and exercising. These things work much better than most forms of therapy, and most of her sessions involve convincing clients to do these simple, effective things.

So if you're having problems, going to Thailand is excellent medicine, if you can afford it.

Sounds like a safer conclusion for a mental health professional to come to than a layman, given proper data. That is, I trust your friend's opinion on this topic more than yours or mine, but in more advanced cases I'm sure she'd prefer to see the patient than they skip her counsel.

The technical community has a higher than normal prevalence of mental illness. We need to learn to put more stock in real, educated, professional advice on these topics than blog and forum-based accounts of self-prescribed solutions.

> The technical community has a higher than normal prevalence of mental illness.

What makes you say this?

> We need to learn to put more stock in real, educated, professional advice on these topics than blog and forum-based accounts of self-prescribed solutions.

Yes. See also any thread about food.

>> The technical community has a higher than normal prevalence of mental illness.

> What makes you say this?

http://www.tablexi.com/blog/2013/04/developers-and-depressio...

>> We need to learn to put more stock in real, educated, professional advice on these topics than blog and forum-based accounts of self-prescribed solutions.

> Yes. See also any thread about food.

Food? Food sources? Cooking? Farming? What are you talking about?

> I know of no formal study, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the rates of bipolar and depression amongst software developers are double that of the general population.

So, you're just guessing about rates of mental illness among the technical community?

> Food?

Yes, food. The threads are full of weird anecdote and semi-mystical bollocks.

If someone wants to see a professional, she definitely wouldn't discourage them, but she also would rate highly most individual's attempts to fix their own problems using simple means.

Advanced cases are rare, and if you've lived your life up to now without any major mental health problems, chances are your recent problems aren't major either. So by all means, take a vacation and see how you feel afterwards. If you're still feeling shitty, set up an appointment.

Shaking things up can be cathartic and sometimes the exactly right thing to do. More frequently, I've found, changing one's life in smaller degrees can have a profound effect on mood and well being: exercising more, eating healthier, getting more sleep, meditating, consuming less media, keeping a clean living space. It's worth checking the low-hanging fruit -- small things can make a big difference.

I've been thinking about 'big changes' in my life and in that of my families. I too am privileged to a degree. Reading your comment though has made me think and I'd like to thank you for that. Its easier to think of doing one big step, but really you're right - I need to stop thinking that I'm too busy to meditate or do yoga and I just need to do it. I've already stopped consuming too much media but every single of your points are valid in terms of what I need to do. Thank you.

I had a panic attack recently. Let me tell you, it is worst feeling in the world. The urge to reset your life after such a event is almost natural. It's like, If I don't change right now, I would not be able to live any longer.

I started changing little things. I started sleeping more.

I made it a point to do a 6 Km walk everyday.

I cut down on alcohol.

I stopped seeing people whom I had wanted to avoid for a long time but was not doing so out of social pressures.

I started seeing my parents more often.

I also signed up for an online meditation course.

I started working less ( Looking back, this maybe was the most effective thing)

It takes days to overcome a full fledged panic attack. For days you would dread that you might get another panic attack when you're least expecting it. Like when you're in office or when you are driving or when you're shopping.

I have changed my lifestyle and I can tell you I am quite happy after I did so.

I hope OP also experienced something similar.

Not to play armchair psychologist but the whole minimalist thing strikes me as a way to put unnecessary extra stress on yourself. Having nothing means having no excuse not to constantly work, and you shouldn't constantly work. You should fucking relax every now and then, drink a few beers and watch something mindless on your obscenely large flatscreen.

Having shit is a way to make your life be about more than just what your early-20s self told you was necessary to consider yourself a success. If you think life is only worth living if you follow [insert well known person]'s biography to a T then your bound to have incidents that make you want to do crazy things like "reset" your privileged life.

* the preceding is not a judgment on the author's decisions, which are his own, but rather a commentary on the "minimalist" movement.

OK, but you don't need things in order to relax. In fact, many of the best ways to relax don't need things (or at least, very many things). I think that's the point.

Rather than owning an obscenely large flatscreen (and stand to put it on, and couch to sit on while watching it, and apartment to put it in, and cable/Roku/DVD/(insert content device)) you could...

Go for a walk

Go for a walk in nature, now it's a hike!

Go to a museum

Play frisbee (borrow if necessary)

Ride a bike (rent if necessary)

Find some music to listen to

You can do all of those things while also owning stuff. Owning stuff just makes it easier to relax. Instead of planning to relax... you just walk into a room with distractions available.

Having distractions readily available is benefitial to your mental health. Sometimes you have to not over-analyze your every action. Have an office which is empty, that's what I have, for when you need complete concentration. Stop making early-20s dreams your entire existence.

Right. But what about distractions that you never use but still end up having to maintain (which involves over-analyzing and mental costs)?

Minimalism is about making that same decision. It's about eliminating those things from your life that don't bring more fun to you than their maintenance costs. Stuff that is making it harder, not easier, for you to relax. What qualifies as minimalist living is an inherently personal decision. For some, everything can fit in a backpack. For others, even a mansion may be minimal.

Owning "only 100 things" isn't the definition of minimalism. Only an example. Like "delicious", "minimalism" is a subjective concept.

Exactly. Find new parts of town, meet people, meditate or even have that beer in a bar!

I think there's a certain freedom from not having too much as well. I barely have anything, moving around plenty and it's already far too much.

and who are you to say that all of these things are "better" than watching a season of dr.who on your comfy couch? why is outside by default better than inside?

I live exactly once, so if i want to do what pleases me i should not be driven by some weird white man's guilt problem (aka minimalist movement). people from poorer places would laugh their asses off about this movement.

>> and who are you to say that all of these things are "better" than watching a season of dr.who on your comfy couch? why is outside by default better than inside?

That's a fair point. I don't intend to be prescriptive, I don't really care what anyone else does, and for some people TV may be the best way to relax.

But in my opinion watching TV isn't the best way of relaxing, it's just the easiest. There are lots of things that are more enriching, more healthy, more memorable and generally more fun, but they all take more effort. It could well be different for other people, but I would guess that it's not.

They say nobody's dying words were ever "I wish I would have worked more." Similarly, I doubt anyone's dying words were ever "I wish I had spent more time watching TV."

Uprooting your life and doing a "reset" as described will make you feel good for a while.

Unfortunately, "wherever you go there you are." You can't outrun yourself, and thinking a reset like this is anything more than a temporary band-aid is misguided.

Shaking things up and changing your life drastically is fun and exciting......... for a while. Then you have to learn to build a life that you find sustainable, whatever it is, or else you will always be running. This is sometimes called the "distance cure".

Again, doing this feels great. For a while. I did it myself. But you should learn to distrust that good feeling, to examine it and find out why it's happening. A note of warning though, you probably won't like what you find. It's really easy to fool yourself into thinking that you are effecting change when really you are doing anything but. We are being lied to, by ourselves.

As someone considering changing my life drastically, I would appreciate if you could elaborate on this post.

Week one: "Great, my life is changing! It's a fresh new start!"

Week two: "It's nice making new friends every place I go!"

Week six: "I kinda miss hacking, having my place, a stable life and my usual clique of friends. But not too much. Moving is cool but where am I really going? And for what?"

Week ten: "Actually, I'm just doing what I was doing before but in another part of the world. And I realize I'm not even building something that's gonna last because I know I'm just gonna move out whenever I feel like it."

"Life is like the best video game ever, it has amazing graphics, infinite amounts of levels, a huge map and this ridiculous great freedom. I just needed to pick up the controller."

not sure this would go down as well for someone without a well established developer's expertise/experience. i can imagine landing at a foreign destination, after my life-reset and then asking '...now what?'

True.. If someone who wasn't already an established freelancer / contractor in the IT field tried to do what he did, they'd certainly have a hard go of it. And, if they wanted to mirror the author's "reset", they would certainly have to think longer term than most people seem to be capable of; 2+ years minimum of pushing yourself to learn, gain experience in the field, and build a network of contacts.

Probably hardship is the exact thing that he wants to experience.

They say that if you make over 35,000 a year you're in the top 1% of the WORLD.

How we look at the the ultra rich with their 4 mansions and Lamborghini's is how the average world citizen looks at people like this guy.

Alright to this guy had an anxiety attack, and decided to reset his life : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6580196

He went to Thailand and explained the process : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540030

Then made a post of about how explaining his process has affected his blogs' stats : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6577524

Hopefully another epiphany in Thailand, another reset, another relocation, another blog post, another HN hit...?

break;

Why Thailand, though? I mean, Europe itself is more diverse than the US, for example, you could've moved anywhere within the continent and still have a massive change. Prague, Madrid, London, Berlin, Warsaw, Zagreb (new EU member, Croatia) all very different - why Bangkok? Could've moved to Australia even :-D

Thailand is cheap and safe. They have good infrastructures (internet, hospitals, transportation...). It's hot all year long. There are many expats and tourists so it's easy to find similarly minded people.

Also there are tons of affordable sex workers. Prostitution is not frown upon there as it is in the West. I don't know if it was a motivation for this guy, but it certainly something that attracts many men.

That could be said for some of the major cities in Europe, as well (including the prostitution, which is not illegal in Europe, just brothels are)...

Of course, Europe has good infrastructures. But Thailand is much cheaper than Europe (almost an order of magnitude cheaper for food and lodging).

An other thing that makes Thailand appealing is that there are many expats or long term tourists slacking/working there, so you wouldn't feel out of place living there with no well-defined purpose. I don't think you could get the same kind of vibe in Europe.

As far as prostitution goes, Thailand is VERY different from Europe and the US.

Last time I saw 'this post' was 643 days ago, and my observations then[1] still seem to be holding true now :)

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3470328

Not that it's a bad thing! I'd just love to see a follow up from one of these.

So your observation was "Unknown or expired link" ??

Whoops, link fixed to the permalink.

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