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Ask HN: Are you ok?

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661–670 of 898 posts

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#661
I'm okay. Just got surgery on my eyes to correct my strabismus. I'm taking a week off of work.

I taking my last OMSCS class, but the pressure is on to pass. Overall, life is okay. Could be worse but I'm fine.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#662
post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you can't really choose. As someone with a spouse and kids and possibly other people depending on you (aka your income), the pressure to acquire a monthly payment is astounding. There really is no simple or quick way out of this rat race.

I'm trying so hard to get out. I'm single with no plan to have dependents, and a debt-free homeowner. I'm not in a relationship for obvious reasons, but if I was, I guess I'd be limited to FIRE people who don't want children, which isn't a very big pool. According to the calculators, I still have to put in at least another 10 years and save aggressively before I can quit. I don't think I'm gonna last that long, and i…

Is that for American retirement ?

I absolutely love a tiny island town called Bocas Del Torro, Panama , you can buy a decent house for 50-150K, they use the US dollar, their is a large active expat community. If you're ok with learning Spanish, I'd get the f out before you completely die.

My current plan is to hold this job for as long as I can, then I'm done ( I'm 40 for reference ) - Im going to live as long as the money lasts, have a good time of freedom, then it's goodbye.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#663

I'm shocked at how many people seem to be doing OK or have minor complaints. For me, I've realized that if I have to do anything for 40+ hours a week on a schedule, after a couple of weeks, I'd prefer being dead. I could be a professional ice cream taste tester or race car driver, and after about 3 weeks of showing up at a fixed time and putting in 8 hours, I'd still be ready to off myself again. When I have week-lon…

I felt like I should make a throwaway for this...

I'm the same. I'm in a loop where I hold a job for a few months (IT support, recently, contract work, so that they're okay with me leaving), 10 months or so at the most, and then quit so I have my spare time (and energy) back. The last two times, I went overseas with no plan past the first few days. The key thing about after-work and weekend hours is they aren't as useful for getting things done as weekday hours, because you're tired from work.

I just quit a pretty relaxed IT job to move from Australia to Scotland and live in a hostel.

I'm working on a really exciting coding project now, which I've had the idea for for about a year, but never had the time and energy for before. However, I will soon run out of money, and will need a job.

My plan was to do this for a short time, then apply for development jobs once I got a few things finished for my portfolio of work. But - and maybe this is one of the reasons I've held myself back for so long already - I've realized recently I'm too scared. I'm too scared of going back to 9 to 5, even if I'm out of IT and into development. I'm too scared of having someone else in control of how I spend my time. I'm scared of no longer having the chance to become someone exceptional, someone accomplished, someone unique. I'm scared of deciding on a life and then feeling stuck with it.

I'm considering trying something crazy and risky like acting, and coding on the side, or freelance, if I can manage that.

I am reminded of this passage from from A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick:

" The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn’t hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it.

That life had been one without excitement, with no adventure. It had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all.

In this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing."

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#664
Don't know. I moved to Europe a month ago, leaving friends family and girlfriend behind, only to find out that the company might be facing a tough time ahead - CTO has left, primary revenue sources are expected to take a downfall and investor confidence is low.

I was actually hoping to do some sort of part-time Data Science/ML Masters along with my work, but looks like I'll have to get back on the interview grind pretty soon. Not looking forward to getting back on the Interview grind - take home assignments which last a week or so, or intense algorithms training. Next company will definitely be a stable/big tech one. But for that, I'll need to leetcode like crazy.

Unsure of my future.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you feel is normal. Please don't try to beat yourself into something you're not, or worse, feel guilty for not being able to. There's a line from a song I like that goes "This place is designed to kill us and make us think it's our fault." Remember that the 40 hour work week was considered a victory for unions. Not as an "I should feel grateful that I have this", but as a sign that progress is possible, and c…

|There's a line from a song I like that goes "This place is designed to kill us and make us think it's our fault." What song ?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22This+place+is+designed+to+kill+...

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#666
I was skimming thought each top level comment looking for just one person doing well and was most surprised not to find a single one :O I almost feel out of place saying this now, but surely we need balance? I feel great! I'm doing what I love (for 13 years), what feels like it was meant for me (VFX), have got a partner (for 7 years) that I love and have nothing but hopes (wealth), dreams (AGI) and confidence for the future. Am I alone?

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How on Earth do people afford a house (I mean, $300,000 is more than 3× my expected salary, and where I am, that barely gets you a townhome)? Most young people in the world can't afford a house. They rent apartments or stay with parents until their jobs pay more and they accumulate savings in the meantime - or, alternatively, they shacked themselves with decades of debt and get a mortgage (not everyone is mentally…

An apartment with roommates can be a real joy if it’s in the right time of your life. Don’t rush the seasons of your life. Why worry about kids when you’re not even in a serious relationship? It’s life, not the cursus honorum.

If the houses are 300k in their area, I'm guessing getting roommates is entirely optional. For me the first time living alone in a studio apt was bliss.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#668
post #53

I am 'OK' in the sense that I like all of my colleagues and really do enjoy my work as a technical product manager. What's not 'OK' is that a snake-oil salesman/professional bullshitter who calls himself an 'Agile Consultant' has embedded himself in the organization. He's an all-talk arrogant blowhard with a savior complex centered around rescuing us from 'Waterfall'. What's not 'OK' in my personal life: I've been ha…

Dating in SF is indeed brutal. I am a gay woman here and have the same challenge. Actually the hardest part is other peoples' flakiness and unwillingness to commit to things. And I'm not even talking long term relationship-level commitment, just, will we see each other again next week?-level commitment.

Anyway - keep working on yourself and what you have control over. With love, it all sucks and hurts until it doesn't.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the sidebar at /r/marriedredpill/. I think you would benefit from reading No More Mr Nice Guy, and When I Say No, I Feel Guilty. Don't be turned off by the red pill language.

On the subreddit now as I type this. Man you have hit the nail on the head though with the one line. I feel so guilty when I disagree and she doesn't see my point. Its like I want her to say okay I see your point but we never seem to get there unless it is her point of view. I want to stand up for what I believe in (for the record it is things like how to save money, stuff I can pull numbers for). I come from a famil…

Please watch out about red-pill forums. Standing up for yourself is good, being able to communicate and be assertive is good, but the underlying ideas of the red-pill community is to build relationships on games and dishonesty, with a nice base of sexism.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the whole section is that it's more important to build a legacy of being a good person than to be wealthy. One of the lines that proceeds that is: >27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]? Humans should be smart enough to figure out how not to starve and and not to freeze to death without working themselves to death preparing for a future that may not even come. We should care…

Oh ok, that makes sense. I know that's one way to view the problem, but I guess it carries more weight as being the correct view due to the divine origin of the advice? Maybe the bible is right here, but another way to view that parable might be that the rich person was planning for his safety, which is wise. And by dying, he has transferred the safety that he was building for himself to his legacy, which can continu…

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