Ask HN: Has anyone here ever tried throwing everything away?

By throwing everything away I mean to shut off a bunch of doors/paths in your life - leave your job, move into a new home, do a bunch of radical changes.

This is a personal question hence the small tag. I don't want to post this on reddit or another forum, because too many responses would end up memes or be plain commonly said advice devoid of sincerity. Maybe here they won't be, idk.

For anyone here who has struggled for years to improve their life but hasn't been able to do it. Or hasn't been able to accept that he has. Have you tried to just say fuck it ? Did it work out if you did?

For years every 2-3 months I'd wreck myself emotionally and contemplate starting over and that desire would always get subdued by common sense that nothing would really change or that I'd throw away the good I've built for myself. And plenty of other good reasons that have stopped me.

But my mind just conjures rational sounding reasons for anything that my emotions dictate. The moment I am disappointed and angry at the present it is willing to tell me that betting everything on the future is all that is left. The moment I feel fear in the uncertainty of that future it begins to play a tune so dissonant to the previous one. I guess all people are like that?

If there are people in the comments, who have felt something similar, I want to hear what have you done. If you've managed to "fix" the things you felt needed fixing or resolving. Or if things might have changed for the better, but you still have that unending feeling inside you that it isn't right yet. Or if everything has crumbled apart in the end.

This may be the generic reddit advice you're avoiding, but you should try therapy.

Lots of people think they should make some dramatic change in their life, especially irreversible, and usually that's not healthy. I think a lot of people dream of something big and dramatic, because the idea is cathartic, but I don't think most people find that reality matches this idea.

I like the saying "nothing ever changes if nothing ever changes" for moments like "when will I finally be in shape" because obviously it'll never happen if I don't start working out. Similarly, until you address what gives you these feelings, nothing will change about having them. You'll probably have them still after you close those doors.

If you said that you've always wanted to start a business, but you were scared, that's one thing. If you said that you wanted to move to Colorado because you've always wanted to live in the mountains, that'd be cool. But there's nothing you seem to be emotionally running towards, you just seem to be focused on what you're going away from, or the act of change which is the sign that there isn't a "destination" that will make you feel content. Again, therapy my friend.

Stuff: toss it if you don't have a clear, exact reason to keep it. It's nice to have things, and if you have room for them and it doesn't cost much keep them, but otherwise it's _just_ reacquisition cost if you need it (I know that is a meaningful cost sometimes, but also sometimes it's cheaper to ditch things)

People: they come and go, and often dropping them is not great but ok. Don't feel beholden to an acquaintance just because. The real ones though, and you know who they are, never let go of them. you only get a few of those people in life, don't waste them.

Job: if you're in this headspace, it's a commodity, you need to live but don't let it own you. use the toothbrush rule: don't throw out your old one until you have a new one, because it sure feels dumb to fish your old one out of the trash when you got busy and didn't make it to the store. But don't be afraid to throw out the toothbrush for one that's not worn out.

For everything in general: find what the actual issue is. That's a simple to say but massively hard thing to do. But, blowing up your life is something that shouldn't happen every 2-3 months or years, and the urge to do that is a sign of deeper problems that's mere change won't help.

You must go some place rather than leave one behind. Not that there really is a point as you will always find a way to be you. If you are going to look for yourself outside yourself it's going to be a long journey. I'm not saying it wont be interesting... what was the meaning of life again?

Though I haven't thrown literally everything away, I've thrown lots of things away and have made significant changes to my life on more than one occasion. In fact, I'm in the middle of planning some more big changes for the remainder of this year.

I can't make recommendations because I don't know enough about you, but I've always found benefit from making big life changes in the long term. More than once, I've left my job to live on savings and do some things that I want to do. There's a level of stupidity in blowing through savings that way, but I also had more valuable life experiences during that those times than I did playing the rat race. I always ended up back on my two feet, even though I occasionally used the help of others.

Other changes I've made include moving to a different country, tossing nearly everything I owned except that which held intimate value, and lived in small spaces with friends in order to afford getting a new education. Even when I kind of screwed up, I learned a lot about myself, had some great experiences, and just used persistence to end up in a better place. I'm glad I have enough crazy in me to do these kinds of things and not end up living a life completely devoid of fulfillment. I'm even grateful for the times I ended up working menial jobs. At least I was finally alive again in some sense and gained new perspective.

This is one of those situations where you probably already know the answer and just need confirmation. Do something radical and new. That feeling you get every few months will remain mysterious unless you actually respect it via action. If things don't work out, you'll find your way back.