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Quitting the rat race

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Re: Quitting the rat race

#151

Post by haswell »

simplotek wrote: post #139
haswell wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age can have a lot to do with it, depending on your path through life. The adage is generally that wisdom comes with age, and there are some things in life that are difficult to internalize until you’ve gone though the experience. To me, it’s just another way of saying “the more life experience I gain…”.

> To me, it’s just another of saying “the more life experience I gain…”. I believe that if you never were in a position where your job was a soul-crushig source of misery and despair, you've been lucky to live a sheltered life. Most people don't have the privilege of picking and choosing outstanding jobs with decent work/life balance, nice colleagues, reasonable deadlines and considerate stakeholders. Most people hav…

Yes, everyone experiences life differently, and the sum total of those experiences covers a wide spectrum.

Personally, I’ve been on both sides of this conversation. Grew up dirt poor, started working as a teen to help my family make ends meet, and dreamed of a “better” life where the work I did mattered to me and the money I made would be sufficient to not constantly wonder where the next meal comes from. A constant source of that soul crushing misery and despair.

Later in life, I was fortunate enough to experience the lifestyle afforded by a Silicon Valley salary after working my ass off to get there, an “arrival” of sorts.

Younger me had no ability to comprehend how/why this high paying job would make me more deeply unhappy than I’d ever been in my life.

Life experience is contextual and relative, but important nonetheless.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#152

Post by tiffanyh »

BizarreByte wrote: post #8

It’s a short piece, but it resonates with me, specifically this part: > I’m earning the most money I’ve ever made and yet I’m the least fulfilled I’ve ever been. I’m making the most I’ve ever made and I’ve never been less happy and more depressed. I despise being a cog in a huge corporate machine, it’s like the job was designed to be as unappealing as possible. At the same time I can’t get over the fact that I have i…

> I despise being a cog in a huge corporate machine, it’s like the job was designed to be as unappealing as possible.

How much of your unhappiness is your job, or more so a function of having a continually growing list of responsibilities that can become to feel suffocating (e.g., marriage, kids, managing people at work, etc).

Because it can be a taboo subject, I’ve seen people misattribute their unhappiness to a single thing when it’s really a culmination of many things … and their isn’t a way to “fix” the unhappiness (you can’t “un-have” a kid)

Re: Quitting the rat race

#153

Post by fsckboy »

ryanmentor wrote: post #86
fsckboy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Bravely coming out against... rape victims?

>Bravely coming out against... rape victims?

your sarcasm is completely misplaced, 1) coming out against rape victims would actually be quite brave, you'd get downvoted to hell, but 2) I didn't do that. "Rape victims" who have children (women) don't pay child support, men do.

OP is against all child support, in which he's wrong, but with regard to rape, a child born from a rape is entitled to child support from which men? that part of his comment actually made no sense at all

Re: Quitting the rat race

#154

Post by mlyle »

ryanmentor wrote: post #86
fsckboy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Bravely coming out against... rape victims?

Holding up the ridiculous edge case that almost never happens and needs reform -- rape victims that end up as a non-custodial parent and thus owing child support -- to prevent an honest discussion of the whole issue (with more common injustices but also complexity and nuance) sucks. It doesn't help us move forward and improve the world.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#155

Post by blacksqr »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #67
BizarreByte wrote: post #8

It’s a short piece, but it resonates with me, specifically this part: > I’m earning the most money I’ve ever made and yet I’m the least fulfilled I’ve ever been. I’m making the most I’ve ever made and I’ve never been less happy and more depressed. I despise being a cog in a huge corporate machine, it’s like the job was designed to be as unappealing as possible. At the same time I can’t get over the fact that I have i…

Bluntly, every person I know who's expressed these kinds of sentiments is guilty of the same mistake: externalizing their happiness. They inevitably move, only to find the new place they're in sucks, just in different ways. Or they find another job, but just discover more things they hate there. Or they find a new partner, only to discover a new set of annoyances. The same psychology leads people to think they'll be…

> They inevitably move, only to find the new place they're in sucks, just in different ways.

A recovering alcoholic friend of mine once told me this syndrome is well known in 12 step programs. They call it "doing a geographical."

Re: Quitting the rat race

#156

Post by fsckboy »

itisit wrote: post #92
fsckboy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did you need to watch the video to grasp the idea of what a rat-race is? The author thought you did, OP thought you needed "dropping out of the rat race" explained to you, meaning thta OP thought you never thought of it before.

The reader's ignorance isn't implied at all. If anything, that video is a concise, entertaining way to prime someone for the post's topic. This isn't some op-ed in the New York Times. With all due respect, maybe introspect your reaction.

you asked where I got it from, and I explained succinctly; I think my answer was adequate and is a perfectly valid criticism. That you had a different reaction does not require introspection, nor does it require me to be wrong. i hope you don't go online just looking for agreement all the time.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#157

Post by saurik »

dylan604 wrote: post #124
lapcat wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think I'm old enough now to confidently say that, yes: Happiness really does start from within. What does age have to do with it? You're one person. It's anecdotal data. I'm old enough now (5 years later) to confidently say that, yes: Quitting my last job really did make me happier.

It's one of those things like "time heals all wounds". Nobody likes to hear it when the wound is fresh, but it's absolutely true. When you're younger, FOMO is much stronger. As you get older, FOMO starts to get replaced with "who gives a...". With that in mind, age might matter

How old do I have to become for "time heals all wounds" to work? I am 41 now, which is seemingly old for this website, but figure it might take another decade or two for that one to make sense? (How old are you?) In my so-far-limited experience, it isn't time that heals wounds, but active shifts in perspective (which of course require some time to happen but it isn't like time is doing it: I have many "wounds" that hurt just as much now as they did 20 years ago, because I have not been able to obtain any kind of closure and the thing that happened didn't retroactively change or anything... at best I just try to ignore it, but that was my same strategy right after stuff happened ;P).

Re: Quitting the rat race

#158

Post by raincom »

Everyone access happiness through the world (work, money, people, events, trips, etc). What happens to everyone is this: whatever things that give access to your happiness, cease to be be that conduit to happiness after sometime; so, you end up chasing new things in the world, these new things provide that new conduit to happiness. Rinse and repeat.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#159

Post by Waterluvian »

coldtea wrote: post #118
Waterluvian wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not disagreeing. But someone once said it differently and it clicked for me: the wild is out to utilize you . We build cities in part to invert that status quo.

If so, then we've failed. Nothing is built to utilize you and make you into a cog, a sucker, and sees you like a wallet, more than the city..

Hm. Not in my experience. My curling club, robotics high school program, piano class, playgrounds and skating rinks and soccer fields for my kids. The incredible public schools. Leaving here would be dumb.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#160

Post by greggman3 »

Loocid wrote: post #137
greggman3 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have opinions. One is nature rules. The other is the city sucks. I think their opinion of that the city sucks is wrong, full stop, and that a change in attitude would see all the great things a city provides that nature does not so that then you can appreciate both. To me, enjoying the good parts of both the city and nature is a better POV than shitting one one of them.

Have you considered that they may not value the things the city is good for? For instance, I really don't care that much for any of the things you listed (museums, concerts, restaurants etc). I value what the mountains have to offer significantly higher.

Yes, I did consider that. That's exactly my point. He stated he hates (A) and likes (B). I suggested that hating (A) is a poor POV. It would be better to like both (A) and (B) even if you prefer (B).

Let's put it another way. If someone says the France sucks, Germany rules. And someone replies "The France doesn't suck, here's a few reasons why". Why do you feel the need to jump in and defend the POV that "France sucks"?

I also listed spending time with people as a plus to the city. It's interesting that you left that out. I'd guess if the author had a job they loved with people they loved their attitude about everything else would change. The fact they're in a job they hate arguably taints everything else about their life. Commuting of course sucks if it's to a place you don't want to go in the first place. To me, commuting by public transport rocks because I got, on average, 50+ minutes of walking (25 each way) for free (added to the 20 minutes of standing on the train)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPUlgSRn6e0

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