Reading this story, you're subjected to the winner's bias. There's another guy out there somewhere who also threw away his career, wife and home, but never replaced it all, never found whatever he assumed was out there, and never wrote a blog patting himself on the back and spewing life advice.
The point is that life compounds, and it can be nearly impossible to salvage a bad situation.
For example, it's a lot harder to save a bad marriage than it is to try again, and avoid your previous mistakes. Does this mean that you should never try? No, but you shouldn't stay in a bad situation over fear of blowing it up either.
If you try something, that's a chance at making something new work. If you stay in the same situation, it's harder to apply your learnings.
Alternatively, never blow up your life! Live near your family and lifelong friends, establish hardcore roots with your community, always be surrounded by love. A road less taken by the educated elites, but a happy and fulfilling road nonetheless. The Onion’s take: https://www.theonion.com/unambitious-loser-with-happy-fulfil...
This is a great path, but I think it's easy to overestimate how many people are able to take it happily.
It's making a lot of assumptions:
- You have a good relationship with your family
- You have good friends who also didn't move away
- You are genuinely happy with the work you get to do in a town with more limited career choices
- Your location (area and population density) plus salary can support your hobbies
Alternatively, never blow up your life! Live near your family and lifelong friends, establish hardcore roots with your community, always be surrounded by love. A road less taken by the educated elites, but a happy and fulfilling road nonetheless. The Onion’s take: https://www.theonion.com/unambitious-loser-with-happy-fulfil...
Interesting topic. When you are socially underdeveloped, the strange sheep, the sightly bullied, the not-taken seriously, well it’s not so bad to go twice around the globe a few years and come back. There’s debate. I’ve lost a lot of social fabric. I’m workaholic because I don’t have enough friends. But I’m millionaire, own my startup, own my house, and I can get advice on how to manage at work, get a psychologist, e…
Travelling will make you a broken soul? Then we must have been doing a very different kind of travelling around the world, for me it was the exact opposite. Literally the most enlighting experiences in my life, tons of personal growth.
And you meet tons of people even if you don't want to, do some cool extreme shit with them which can form bonds much stronger than years of just sitting next to each other in some cubicle/open space.
Alternatively, never blow up your life! Live near your family and lifelong friends, establish hardcore roots with your community, always be surrounded by love. A road less taken by the educated elites, but a happy and fulfilling road nonetheless. The Onion’s take: https://www.theonion.com/unambitious-loser-with-happy-fulfil...
Interesting topic. When you are socially underdeveloped, the strange sheep, the sightly bullied, the not-taken seriously, well it’s not so bad to go twice around the globe a few years and come back. There’s debate. I’ve lost a lot of social fabric. I’m workaholic because I don’t have enough friends. But I’m millionaire, own my startup, own my house, and I can get advice on how to manage at work, get a psychologist, e…
> it will make you a broken soul with broken social fabric, but with more experience.
I didn't expect this :( Why are you this way? Reading your comment until that point, I thought you'd figured life out.
I don't entirely disagree, but the first thing that this article brought to mind is the old cliche "wherever you go, there you are". I'm 34, lots of ex girlfriends and lots of past cities. There's a fine line between breaking out of the status quo hamster wheel and running away from your baggage. Moving cities, or relationships, or jobs isn't worth as much if you aren't simultaneously working on yourself
It sounds like this author believes in going really big. They didn't move cities, they moved continents. They didn't date and break up, they married and divorced. I think there is something to be said for getting some big experiences. Moving from Pittsburgh to Cleveland might be a waste of energy. Moving from Pittsburgh to Paris is a guaranteed adventure. I don't know if I agree or not, but it is interesting to think…
It’s interesting that a lot of people don’t like big changes, because I’m generally the exact opposite. If I haven’t had a big change in a few years, I start feeling really anxious—like I’m letting life pass me by. Most people crave constancy and routine; I seem to crave novelty and adventure.
To your example, I moved from North Carolina to Paris when I was 3, and ever since then have wanted to go more places. It’s a bit different when you have other people who depend on you though. We moved from the southeast to the Bay Area a while back, and the experienced rattled my wife a lot, as she had lived in the same small hometown for 30 years. I suppose it is her turn for now; with remote work we moved right back to her small hometown next to her parents while our children are young. But two years into this and I’m already itching to move to Norway or Tokyo...
I sense survivorship bias the size of the fucking mountain here.
I do agree, as I have experienced it too, that it is easy to get stuck in "content with life enough", but trying to change it by basically throwing the dice with chance of fucking it up immensely should be last resort reserved for when you have no idea what you even want to do in life.
It's perfectly possible to just look deep at what you want from life and come up with some plan to get there. There will be plenty hardships and learning opportunities in any such plan that's even slightly ambitious.
Alternatively, never blow up your life! Live near your family and lifelong friends, establish hardcore roots with your community, always be surrounded by love. A road less taken by the educated elites, but a happy and fulfilling road nonetheless. The Onion’s take: https://www.theonion.com/unambitious-loser-with-happy-fulfil...
This is a great path, but I think it's easy to overestimate how many people are able to take it happily. It's making a lot of assumptions: - You have a good relationship with your family - You have good friends who also didn't move away - You are genuinely happy with the work you get to do in a town with more limited career choices - Your location (area and population density) plus salary can support your hobbies
It's probably easier now than 10 years ago with remote work opportunities.
But yes, that is a lot of stars that need to align
Alternatively, never blow up your life! Live near your family and lifelong friends, establish hardcore roots with your community, always be surrounded by love. A road less taken by the educated elites, but a happy and fulfilling road nonetheless. The Onion’s take: https://www.theonion.com/unambitious-loser-with-happy-fulfil...
Interesting topic. When you are socially underdeveloped, the strange sheep, the sightly bullied, the not-taken seriously, well it’s not so bad to go twice around the globe a few years and come back. There’s debate. I’ve lost a lot of social fabric. I’m workaholic because I don’t have enough friends. But I’m millionaire, own my startup, own my house, and I can get advice on how to manage at work, get a psychologist, e…
> It’s not ideal, and ideally people would have recognized talent at home and/or just included me because I was a living person, but they didn’t seem to have this ethics.
What an egotistical thing to say. You're not entitled to have people waste time trying to "be friends with you" just because you're financially successful
> I’m workaholic because I don’t have enough friends.
You don't make friends and are workaholic because of it.
Alternatively, never blow up your life! Live near your family and lifelong friends, establish hardcore roots with your community, always be surrounded by love. A road less taken by the educated elites, but a happy and fulfilling road nonetheless. The Onion’s take: https://www.theonion.com/unambitious-loser-with-happy-fulfil...
Interesting topic. When you are socially underdeveloped, the strange sheep, the sightly bullied, the not-taken seriously, well it’s not so bad to go twice around the globe a few years and come back. There’s debate. I’ve lost a lot of social fabric. I’m workaholic because I don’t have enough friends. But I’m millionaire, own my startup, own my house, and I can get advice on how to manage at work, get a psychologist, e…
Completely agree with your perspective. Life is about making choices, and sometimes breaking out requires sacrificing certain aspects of our lives to gain momentum. When you dare to think and act differently, you become the odd one out, and your community may not accept you. But if you do break out and succeed, you reap the rewards you deserve, such as wealth and a home. However, it's often impossible to go back to the roots you left behind without even realizing it during the breakout. Personal growth happens along the way, even if others fail to see or understand it. Ultimately, it's crucial to trust your instincts and listen to your gut when deciding whether to break out or not. Thank you for this interesting discussion - inspiring.