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Comment by mr_luc | Hacker News Reader

I just read that, and laughed.

I live in South America, doing volunteer work nearly full-time, with a group of expat friends and a much larger extended family of local friends ... I come back to the states to work for 3 months out of the year.

(Yes -- I work only 1 week in 4. I do a lot of surfing down here. )

I don't want to sound smug, but I want to say that the malaise described is not inevitable. I got out when I was 23 or so, and I feel like I've managed to dodge a bullet. Starting my third year of my new life, and I can't imagine being any happier. And my imaginator is in working order.

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Mind if I ask what exactly you volunteer to do? I tired of my current life and have been wanting to go away, but have not thought of what to actually do if I do go away.

Heh.

Well.

I realize that I am going to immediately accrue a massively un-hackerly stigma by posting this, but what the heck, it's true:

I'm a missionary for a small and fairly unpopular religion.

The what to do part is the most personal part of escaping, and the part that determines if it'll be an episode or a part of your life going forward. So it shouldn't be surprising if there's very little transference between people. ;)

I guess I'd say the goal most people would like to set, regardless of how they will personally get there, is to dedicate themselves to improving lives. Yes? (We can even avoid Ayn Rand trolls by saying "lives", not "the lives of others")

How you'll go about doing it would be your thing. It's important that you be pretty darn convinced of the importance of doing whatever you escape to do.

I guess there are plenty of other reasons to escape. Ramen profitable, meet Plantain Profitable. I spent $7 for food this week, and I ate like a king (tilapia, fresh veggies, etc).

A startup that was really committed to being a cockroach could survive down here with an angel invester that worked at a meat packing plant.

> is to dedicate themselves to improving lives.

I believe improvement is something that is uniquely personal (e.g. to split hairs, the person is responsible for their own improvement and growth).

However, I believe adding value to the larger community by building something people want is along these lines, yes?

Where in South America are you?

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