Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
231–240 of 265 posts
Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
#232Coming a bit late to the party, so you may never see this, but I wrote a post about a similar situation I was in years ago:
How to survive a job you absolutely hate : https://www.pythonforengineers.com/survive-job-you-absolutel...
Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
#233> But doing that would ruin any chances I ever had of being able to retire early.
> I would love to be able to retire and get into meditation / travelling the world / learning about things for fun.
I lost some of the best years of my life because of thinking among the same lines. What I had failed to consider:
- The more you make, the more you want, you never have "enough"
- Whatever you save, keeps losing its value, sometimes rapidly, and there are no bullet-proof investments
- An injury or sickness can suddenly make your long-term plans impossible
- Being miserable/depressed deteriorates your health and shortens your lifespan
- You change as you get older, the stuff that excites you right now may not be as exciting to the future you
My advice would be - don't waste your life chasing an arbitrary financial goal. You'll either burn out, or keep pushing it forever forward, or be too old and miserable to be happy when you get there.
Consider that you'll never again be as young as healthy as you are right now.
Better find yourself a job which you'd be happy doing even if you could never retire, and build some happy / healthy / harmonious lifestyle around it.
Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
#234There's no meaning to be found in jobs. It's just something you tolerate (and, if you're lucky, sometimes enjoy) in exchange for money. With that mindset, I've found jobs are much easier to bear. Also, with every passing year, as my savings grow and you're closer to early retirement (you ARE saving a lot every year, right?), I find the job gets easier to tolerate.
Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess that’s what’s subconsciously been my plan for the last while. It’s just that on the rare occasions I’m with extended family and I’m reminded of what’s truly important in life, it brings my unhappiness to the fore again, and I resolve to try and do something about it.
Depression after returning to work from a holiday is very common. That should be a clue that we're doing something wrong as a society.
What is wrong is that people have unrealistic expectations towards their jobs (and, more general, their lives). These expectations are making them unhappy and depressed.
Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
#236Yes, it's tough! And yes, London is cold. The rest of the country is not like that. However, you're not really trapped yet. Reading between the lines you don't yet have children, and a huge mortgage and school fees geared to your banking salary. Which is where I was post GFC in 2009/2010. In that situation, with banks and HFs firing and nobody hiring at the salary you need to meet obligation, you are in a tricky spot…
Yes, this point is lost on a lot of people here. Even if a bank gave me a huge mortgage for an ‘adequate’ house, what if I get fired? Or what if I go insane and can not keep working? It’s not easy to find another job at the same pay level. And I’m very mindful of the global financial situation we’re in now, after Covid - rising inflation, almost every asset class already overpriced... it’s not sustainable. If they ra…
Colin Lancaster's Fed Up has a lot to say on the "new normal" in the global financial system: permanent low rates, the impossibility of unwinding QE etc [1]
[1] https://etrading.wordpress.com/2021/06/09/colin-lancasters-f...
Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
#237hey,
this reminds me of the speech Rasmus Lerdorf - the creator of PHP *) - delivered to the 25th birthday of the language ...
* https://youtu.be/wCZ5TJCBWMg
you don't have to watch the whole speech, but during the last 5 minutes he says:
"work on things that matter (to you)"
imho. don't fall for the "money-trap", life is what happens between the (un)planned progress of your career ... and happiness has no price-tag attached to it!!
just my 0.02€
*) yes, the silly little language, which powers around 50% of the web ;)
Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not an either/or. Having a good nest egg gives you the option of working less or working on something more fulfilling (that still generates income)
That is true. But following some 'masterplan' that involves "Get a PhD, get a crappy bonus-oriented job that you hate in a place that you hate, quit everything to retire" is just another variation on the other general flows ("go to school, get a job, find love, get kids, get a house, get the kids to go to school, become a grandparent"). None of those are going to suddenly 'buy' you happiness. It also doesn't mean goi…
> If you are following some common flow and it turns out you're not happy doing that
You assume people are actually capable of being happy. I find it highly questionable.
Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's definitely an argument for making hay while the sun shines. Forgot that phrase, but that's exactly what I'm getting at. Also, make that hay in the morning. Because of compounding interest/returns, dollars (or pounds) that you save in your 20s are far, FAR more valuable than dollars you save in your 30s which are more valuable than dollars you save in your 40s. The advice you sometimes hear to go traveling a…
It's a real shame that spending your youth fixated on money and a nebulous future retirement doesn't have a price tag attached to it. You can calculate the opportunity cost of a dollar spent vs a dollar invested, but you cannot so easily calculate the cost of squandering a chance to have a memorable experience while you're still young and unencumbered. Balance.
> you cannot so easily calculate the cost of squandering a chance to have a memorable experience while you're still young and unencumbered.
Do people who do the whole "frontload a big hedonistic experience before you start working/living as an adult" actually end up with memorable experiences that often?
Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
#240> But doing that would ruin any chances I ever had of being able to retire early. > I would love to be able to retire and get into meditation / travelling the world / learning about things for fun. I lost some of the best years of my life because of thinking among the same lines. What I had failed to consider: - The more you make, the more you want, you never have "enough" - Whatever you save, keeps losing its value,…
> Better find yourself a job which you'd be happy doing even if you could never retire, and build some happy / healthy / harmonious lifestyle around it.
How many people have such jobs though? For example, I wonder how many people stay in their jobs past retirement age (and not because they need the money)? I suspect it's a tiny fraction.