Ask HN: What job did you leave IT for?

Others in my family do concrete, which is physically hard but they also seem to make good money. Again they own it themselves.

Hard to get jobs that compare to IT money though without being management, sinking time into school, or starting your own business.You'll probably have to try a few things out to figure out what you can actually do. I know that might be frustrating, but hang in there. You'll find something that works at some point.

If you have the ability to do so, maybe you could make some apps at home? You could pace yourself. You might have to change the way you work, using a lot of written organization, but it depends on how your mind works.

Are you talking about some other kind of soldering, such as for stained glass or plumbing? Stained glass with real lead and real glass is pretty rare these days, much more rare than high-quality woodwork, and mainly for hobbyists. Plumbing soldering is done with a blowtorch and isn't all that difficult, but worse, copper in plumbing is being replaced by plastic which doesn't use soldering, but rather press-fit connectors. So don't count on that as a long-lived profession either (the soldering part I mean; plumbing itself will be around as long as humans have biological bodies and need to use water for cooking, hand-washing, toilets, and bathing, it'll just be easier as new technologies replace legacy ones).

I think that's exactly what they are suggesting. Make art that will sell, not art that artists want to make. Methodically approach art to appeal to a specific niche (be it corporate clients, government orgs all the way down to stay at home moms and anime fans). You could argue that at that point it isn't really "art", but that's kind of the idea. Take art out of it and sell a product to appeal to a certain market.

E.g. can partner support you for a bit? Do you have children? Do you have total and permanent disability insurance or temporary sickness insurance. Assets? Own an expensive home and can downsize or move to cheaper city to access equity etc. Etc.

Based on this and a target income and number of work hours I'd look for jobs that don't require much mental agility.

It depends what is meant by no concentration but most jobs require some. However something with more carpe diem like waitor, cleaner, gardening etc where you d your days work and that's it. A small fuck up usually doesn't mess your backlog etc. In these jobs.

If financially able consider doing no work but plan daily activities to keep from stagnating. E.g. long walk and salsa class every day or whatever. Or learn Haskell for an hour a day but turn off if concentration becomes an issue.