Comment by austenallred | Hacker News Reader

Comment by austenallred | Hacker News Reader

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You nailed it. I lived in a Honda Civic this summer as I was getting a startup off the ground (http://www.austenallred.com/founders-never-say-die/), and I had a half dozen people offer to let me stay at their place or crash on their couch rent-free.

I was certainly grateful for their hospitality, however self-sufficiency, even if it comes to the extent of living in a car and scalping soccer tickets for a living, feels completely different than being a welfare case. As a result, I wasn't living in a car for lack of other options, but rather out of belief that I could create something by sheer will-power, and that I was going to do that come hell or high water. My homelessness was a matter of seeking something greater than myself, not being lost to poverty.

Sure, it wasn't convenient to live in a car, and it made some parts of life a little more complex. But you can read some Thoreau, realize how free you really are, and work on what you love and believe in every minute of every day. That's powerful, whether it's a startup or getting back on your feet.

I respectfully disagree, but hear me out first. A man's boat capsizes in the middle of the ocean and he prays to God for help. A man in a canoe comes by and ask's him to jump on and he declines, saying that the lord God will save me, a man in a speedboat comes by and he declines again, saying that the lord God will save me, a cruise liner comes by and he declines again and straight after he drowns. When he gets to heaven he says, "what the hell God, i put my faith in you and prayed to you for help and you let me die." God says to him "I sent you help three times and you refused it."

Mitt Romney's father was on foodstamps, but used that help to catipult him. This is real life, you look for edges not to abuse them but to help them elevate you. You take financial aid to get a degree to elevate you. If you took fin aide just to game the system with no intention of actually studying and not paying off your loan, that is a different story. Do not confuse seeking out and taking advantage of help to progress with abusing help. People certainly do that but if you came from a disadvantaged background take any edge you get and use it to get you up that mountain.

This is a little different.

Self-confidence is important when you are trying to accomplish something big, and feeling like someone else is bailing you out undermines that.

Everybody is different, but some people need to know they can bounce back from the hardest circumstances and the only way to do that is to face them head on as they come.

Its good if you have that safety net of friends and family to help out. Not everybody has that, and there is never a guarantee that you always will. This is where one would find comfort in knowing that even then, they can survive.

If you can survive the worst, your personal definition of impossible is redefined.

I'll ask him what he thinks of this tomorrow night.

My buddy and I are interviewing him for our podcast, The Crazy Ones. So far in talking to him he sounds like a really nice, genuine guy.

Can you link to your podcast? I'd like to listen to it but googling the podcast name is not producing any good results.

From this language, it might not be released yet:

https://twitter.com/TrevMcKendrick/status/400348753670197248

This is the first I'm hearing about it, and I'm looking forward to it too. Trevor's blog is great.

Damn this makes me feel way better about not listening to all my friends that told me to sign up for food stamps while started my company. Too me I wasn't unemployed

On the other hand, you should never feel shame about applying for food stamps. Those programs exist for good reason, and if you were employed before you've probably paid your fair share into the social safety nets (in some states they break it down so you can see exactly how much you paid)

I would prefer government to spend money on feeding people, rather than killing them. For that reason, I don't think people should be ashamed of taking food stamps, they may be indirectly saving others by doing so, since money spent feeding them is money not spent on military.

The money comes from separate budget and you can bet that if they need to cut costs they'll cut social benefits before military spending (not that I opposed people using welfare, that's what it's for).

you can read some Thoreau, realize how free you really are

For me it's the opposite. Any time I'm set adrift, I feel trapped. Counter-intuitive, perhaps, but to me I feel like Jack of the Lantern, trapped in purgatory.

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