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You are not 'behind'

zackkanter.com

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Re: You are not 'behind'

#161

Post by varjag »

Bootvis wrote: post #141
closeparen wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, plenty of people have government pensions. It's just that when city & state governments made those promises, they were lying. It is the will of the people of Illinois, for example, not to pay retired government workers what they're owed, and we'll see that enacted shortly. Social Security will similarly implode when the total needs of Boomers surpass the total income-producing capability of Millenials in the next…

Or you know you could setup a pension system where this hardly happens if at all by ringfencing the funds, allowing limited risk exposure and making sure the plans are well-funded. Countries in Western Europe indeed have managed to do this.

Modern Western European pension systems are largely post-WW2 so haven't been around that long. Sure based on performance so far, there are fair reasons to think you'll be able to extract a liveable pension in say 2050, but it's not really guaranteed.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#162

Post by varjag »

cryptonerd2212 wrote: post #132
ruleabidinguser wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one really wants to work

I enjoy work. I love having a task to put my mind to and solving problems. What I don't like is the routine, having to be at work at 8:00 AM M-F or otherwise losing my livelihood. It's the requirement and forced interaction that bothers me.

So you don't really like to work either.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#163

Post by Jedi72 »

inimino wrote: post #155
enraged_camel wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I want "fuck you money" so that work becomes optional. I want to work on what I want, not what someone else wants. I want to work because I want to, not because I have to. Retirement isn't good enough. By the time you retire you are in your 60s, which is too late for me.

Or you could waste a decade chasing fuck-you money, not get it, and be left in the same financial position but ten years older. The default outcome for startup founders is not "filthy rich" but rather "older and poorer".

I have a failed startup in my past too and when it failed some people tried to tell me I deserved the extra debt I now carried because I decided to take on so much risk. I never saw it that way - for me, I was trying to escape prison. Escaping the rat race while young enough to enjoy it is not some luxury like a Tesla or a second home I want to posses, its my life! It's like being in jail, every day I feel like I'm being enslaved - after all if I stop doing what other people tell me (my job), eventually burly men with guns (cops) will come round and just take it anyway. From this point of view there isn't much difference between being well off & employed and being poor & employed.

If you try to break out and get thrown in solitary then sure, I guess you're worse off, but either way you're still trapped. What's really funny is that when your attempt fails it's the other prisoners who want to cut you down for trying & want to see you punished the most.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#164

Post by hughstephens »

nexus2045 wrote: post #138

This feeling of behindness for me comes in the form of thinking that I have squandered my potential compared to someone my age who didn't mess up. I should have graduated in 2011, and could've been saving up significantly as a senior/staff/etc engineer at a BigCorp in Seattle/SF making a nice low 6 figure comp and be on my way to buying property with my SO. But instead I graduated 3 years late, worked at a string of…

suggestion: surround yourself with people who constantly challenge you to do better. Everyone has times that they feel are "lost" but the time you need to remind yourself of is the moment that you realised you weren't doing what you wanted to be doing, or that something needed to change.

It wasn't until I started to spend time with people who I knew would ask hard questions and challenge me to keep going that I started to actually get shit done. Happy to chat if that'd help, but don't worry about time – my experience is that failed startups mean someone has a far broader level of experience than even they think they have.

And I'm one of those 27yo's who many people think have "made it" but still have the same sense of crippling "should I have done that differently" / "I squandered my youth" fear. It never goes away.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#165

Post by Aeolun »

tastyface wrote: post #44
jblow wrote: post #23

The article as a whole is nonsensical. It is a little bit correct when it says that regret is not a useful reaction to a past you're unhappy with, but even that by itself is misleading. Regret is a useful emotion that helps you shape future actions. What is not useful is paralyzing regret, or any flavor of regret that keeps you wallowing in the past. When he says "you are not behind", that is mostly wrong. If you're…

Oh man, I wish I knew how to better deal with that paralyzing regret . I'm turning 29 in a few months, and I've been spending the last ~5 years almost entirely trying (and usually failing) to work on major personal projects, solo. Sometimes I tally up all the months where I effectively did nothing and gape in horror. Usually I'm fine, but on some days, after seeing all the 25-year-old creators peddling their incredib…

You are still one year ahead of me. Turning 30 in a few months and all the work over all this time has little to show for it.

It's a bit depressing how many currently billion dollar ideas I've had myself over that time too. Makes you feel that given different circumstances it could've been you.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#166

Post by pm »

jaggederest wrote: post #102
speeder wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you changed in your environment? (I ask because I had same experience, except now that I am diagnosed I am struggling to find what I am supposed to do... I am kinda spinning in place without going anywhere)

TL;DR - I found this book effective, you should read it instead of listening to me blather below: https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Charge-Adult-Russell-Barkley-e... --- The biggest things, broadly, are: Step 0: Get engaged medically - with diagnosis, collaboration, and medication. ADHD is not something you can manage on your own. It's literally "the disorder of not being able to fix the problems you can clearly see", so…

> Do not label the cats. They do not like it.

I feel this is the "take out all the brown M&Ms" moment in your reply. I did laugh a lot though - the timing was unexpected.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#167

Post by ztjio »

jaggederest wrote: post #102
speeder wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you changed in your environment? (I ask because I had same experience, except now that I am diagnosed I am struggling to find what I am supposed to do... I am kinda spinning in place without going anywhere)

TL;DR - I found this book effective, you should read it instead of listening to me blather below: https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Charge-Adult-Russell-Barkley-e... --- The biggest things, broadly, are: Step 0: Get engaged medically - with diagnosis, collaboration, and medication. ADHD is not something you can manage on your own. It's literally "the disorder of not being able to fix the problems you can clearly see", so…

I'd just like to point out, as a person who was not diagnosed with any particular kind of disorder (and boy, did my family try to make that happen when I wouldn't change my interests to meet their expectations,) that all of this advice is good advice for anyone. Everyone.

It may be more critical for someone with ADHD, but, even so, it's an outline of habits common to effective people. And frankly much of it is a great expression of what it means to be human (change your environment, delegate your efforts, planning and scheming, etc.)

Re: You are not 'behind'

#168

Post by woogiewonka »

songzme wrote: post #110

In April I left google to teach people how to code. I teach for free and I focus primarily on low income adults who are making less than 30k / year in the bay area. Throughout their lives, my students have felt that they were 'behind' and they are not good enough. This mindset creates adults with low self esteem, which then prevents them from learning. Many times, they nod their head in understanding when they really…

How does one join your program? :)

Re: You are not 'behind'

#169

Post by tigershark »

maccard wrote: post #156
tigershark wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean like in uk where you get 159.55£ per week after you worked for at least 35 years and you are at least 68 (if they don't postpone it again) ? I hope that I don't have to explain what kind of life you can do in London with that ridiculous amount.

640/month is probably more than a lot of working people have left over after they've paid rent/mortgage, childcare, commuting costs. Not that it's an exorbitant lifestyle, but it's "moderately" comfortable (assuming you own your own home and qwualofy for all the relevant support).

Even if you own your home you need to pay the service charge. In my house is ~1800/year = 150£/month. The council tax is pretty cheap for my house, it's only ~100£/month. Other bills let's say 100£/month. To eat at home, unless you want to eat sh#t, it's 400£/month. Total: ~750£ So if you don't do absolutely anything at all apart from surviving and eating at home you are already spending 110£ more than your pension. And this is if you already have an house. I would not call a final income of MINUS 110£ moderately comfortable.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#170

Post by smithsmith »

coldtea wrote: post #18
jondubois wrote: post #8

For the past 10 years, I only spent about 4 to 8 hours per week on entertainment - All the rest of my time was divided between work and sleep (I only sleep 5 hours per day on weekdays). Financially, I have nothing to show for it unfortunately so I really feel like I'm behind and that I've missed the boat on many things. What makes it particularly difficult is that I was working really hard the whole time - When I rea…

> What makes it particularly difficult is that I was working really hard the whole time If working hard made a difference by itself, tons of minimum wage workers will be rich by now... > In retrospect, being lazy isn't too bad. Money isn't everything, especially "success" in the BS way the US rat race defines it. You don't need millions, heck not even one million. 99% of the world, and most of the US live their liveσ…

In an economy where at the early 30's people are too afraid of being unemployed this is the stupid advice. Without financial independence everything is a luxury.
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