I think that for this audience, the assumption of status quo bias is questionable. I am relatively sane, I think, and I could use more "stay the course, play the long game" advice than "blow up your life" advice. To paraphrase a review for a book I've forgotten the name of, "quitting is boring" (because it's too easy).
In praise of blowing up your life
281–290 of 352 posts
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#282I’ve mentioned the last year of my life on HN where my wife and I decided to get rid of everything we own that wouldn’t fit in four suitcases including our cars and we became “hybrid digital nomads”. We fly to different cities across the US and stay in midrange extended stay hotels and stay in our own “Condotel”[1] the other six months in Florida. What I haven’t talked about is what got us to this point. I grew up in…
Right, so the "secret" to blowing up your life is just to have massive savings, income and rental property, so that instead of owning your possessions, you can just rent them for 2x the cost of ownership while being a digital nomad. Got it. Just in case someone finds this "profound".
I actually agree with you:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36307059
But my former home is rented to our son at a discount to its market value to help him out and it offsets most of the holding cost. But I still lose money. That’s the only thing that the extra money is going to - offset the mortgage.
Honestly, my fixed costs are actually lower than they were before I started working for BigTech when I was working as a journeyman CRUD developer making less than a returning intern got at my current company.
I was making $120K when I had my house built in the burbs in 2016 and paid 3.5% down with an FHA mortgage. I was the only one on the mortgage.
If I had still been making that, I would have sold my house that doubled in value over the past six years and paid cash for my place in Florida.
My total expenses including mortgage and all utilities is less than $3000 where I live now. I was paying more for my mortgage, utilities, maintenance.
Even without that, my 1250 square foot condo I bought in 2022 was the same price I paid to have my 3200 square foot house built in 2016.
The amount we pay for Uber or SixT is about the same as we paid for one car note + maintenance on an older car + car insurance.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#283>
The neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga has suggested that “When you get up in the morning, you think about status. You think about where you are in relation to your peers.”
This is far off from my own experience. :-(
> Left to your own devices, with no task demanding your immediate concentration, you tend to spend a good deal of time thinking about other people—your judgments of them; their evaluations of you.
Honestly, in such situations I typically rather tend to think about mathematics or programming problems (or at least something somewhat similar to this).
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Yes, I am somewhat of the lone wolf archetype - which is in my opinion not uncommon among programmers.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, so the "secret" to blowing up your life is just to have massive savings, income and rental property, so that instead of owning your possessions, you can just rent them for 2x the cost of ownership while being a digital nomad. Got it. Just in case someone finds this "profound".
Not to mention a massive carbon footprint by the sounds of it
Yes, I’m sure the plane wouldn’t fly if I weren’t on it…
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#285This is the advice of someone who has lived the lifestyle for a short time and is on the honeymoon phase, which is when you're ready to tell everyone they're wasting their lifes if they don't do the same.
I'm 15+ years in and would be very wary of giving advice like this. It can work, and I wouldn't trade what I've lived for anything, but it can also be extremely taxing for your mental strength. I've read in the comments a quote to the effect of "freedom is very lonely" and it can't be more true. I've lived in many places and had all kinds of relationships and it's extremely hard to make anything last, for a myriad of reasons.
I think it takes a particular personality type to do this, for me I always had the urge and left very young. I still have all my friends and family back home and visit yearly which brings me great joy, though I seem to be unable to stay there for extended periods. On the other hand, I've finally found a place I love where I'm settling down, and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to choose where I want to be. So there are also great rewards for those who are committed.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I traveled around the world for over a year because I wanted to experience more cultures - I found the same problems of humanity basically everywhere just in different shades. Anyway, a hack for you - if you want immediate respect, gain some muscles. It's possible your current presence is non-threatening and people subconsciously undervalue you due to the first impression.
Do you recommended test for this purpose?
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. This brand of self-aggrandizing “I did it my way” advice adverts always exemplify a special brand of narcissism; the speaker is unaware that they aren’t the center of their own life. The truth is that “blowing up your life” isn’t usually good or laudable: if you regularly find yourself in situations where you think it’s best to hard reset you’re probably very confused about what you want and need and, ironica…
But also to the contrary this is the exact line of thinking that causes the large majority of people to sleep walk through life, as the author says. It is a hard truth of life that the large majority of people (80+% I would say) do not take any real risks in their entire long life. You can obviously over-do it, and yes it probably feels good to follow the herd and stay in the "okay" relationship and the "okay" job wi…
So what? Why take risks? Merely to say “look I took a risk and it paid off”? I get that risk-taking can result in wealth, fame, etc. but (and I think this is where opinions like OP’s break down for a lot of people) a lot of people struggle to get through the “sleepwalking” life - going to college, finding an apartment, getting your first car, etc. can be huge risks if you lack some generational wealth to back you up in case things go sideways. I mean, hell, most Americans have like $500 in their bank account. Going to the grocery store is a life-or-death (or eternal medically induced poverty) is right around the corner.
And I guess that leads me to what I really turn my nose up at OP’s line of reasoning. Sure, he can move to Thailand and become whatever kind of journo-grifter. I have a wife and kids! I can’t/don’t want to blow it up just to say “I took a risk” and leave them destitute. Which maybe that’s all to say there’s a big difference between gambling with someone else’s money and gambling with your own.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. This brand of self-aggrandizing “I did it my way” advice adverts always exemplify a special brand of narcissism; the speaker is unaware that they aren’t the center of their own life. The truth is that “blowing up your life” isn’t usually good or laudable: if you regularly find yourself in situations where you think it’s best to hard reset you’re probably very confused about what you want and need and, ironica…
"the speaker is unaware that they aren’t the center of their own life" What does this even mean? Of course you are the center of your own life. That's the human experience.
I disagree, and I want to try to say this in the least cringey and New Age-y way possible, bear with me. Your limited sensory experience indicates you are the “center of your life” - that you are some spirit in your head, inhabiting a body that bumps into other bodies, etc. When you grow up you gain an awareness of other people having this experience alongside you. Sometimes it’s possible to reorient your understanding of this experience away from “I” and towards “we” and to broaden the scope of what “your” life is about. This would mean things like considering your family or community the “center of your life” which I think is considerably better happiness wise than the naive egoism that we take as the (Very American) default setting for life.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#289Moved to a bigger/better city this year. Was a bit of a daunting task as some friends and family advised against it and I had just bought my apartment a year ago. But it ended up being the best thing I ever did, completely changed everything about my life and I'm loving everything. I didn't go as extreme as the author and just jump in without any research, but I feel the benefits were the same without many risks. My…
I've been contemplating doing this for a while now. I'm definitely ready to move on from my current city. But what holds me back is, frankly, that I'm scared of not having any friends. I don't want to have to rebuild my social circles. It takes a lot of effort just maintaining my current friendships (as we all get older, get busy, drift apart, etc.), but at least they're there already. How did you handle this?
I usually start in a new place with the expat groups in FB, Meetup, etc. Any desirable location you might be considering is nearly guaranteed to have them. Go to a few events and meet people, there's usually locals too. Another great option is group clases like crossfit, salsa dancing, etc.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to mention a massive carbon footprint by the sounds of it
Yes, I’m sure the plane wouldn’t fly if I weren’t on it…
On an individual-level then sure, but less people buying flight tickets will obviously lead to airlines eventually running less flights.