Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Freelancing and Lifestyle Design

bucketlistjournal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 30 posts

Re: Freelancing and Lifestyle Design

#21

Post by chasing »

budowski wrote: post #18
chasing wrote: post #14

I've been freelancing since 1997. It has its perks, for sure, but it's not simply "become a freelancer, work two hours a day, fulfill all your dreams!" That's as much of a stereotype as "become a freelancer, work in your underwear, never take a shower!" Making a good income as a freelancer requires work. And clients. And paying attention to clients' needs. And spending much more time organizing your financial and bus…

I have actually written about the pros and cons of freelancing in a previous post, showing that it's not all rosy: bucketlistjournal.com/post/46601822485/pros-and-cons-of-freelancing (and P.S. - I personally did not relocate, so my living expenses are still high)

You seem like a good guy and I agree that balancing work and lifestyle is crucially important -- especially in an industry like ours that tends to like to grind people into the ground with mirages of fame and fortune. [Edit: Mixed metaphor. Sorry.]

But. You come off as someone who has just barely started thinking about these issues. You're being wildly overly simplistic about how freelancing works in real life. And using the skydiving billboard as a trigger makes it sound like "living your dreams" means doing extreme sports and hanging out on the beach. Which is fine, but kind of shallow and definitely not the end-all be-all of a well-lived life.

Re: Freelancing and Lifestyle Design

#22

Post by vinceguidry »

_yb wrote: post #6
vinceguidry wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets better when you look at his "about" page. All his startups failed, yet he still thinks he has something interesting enough to say that he needs a blog to put all this amazing content he's going to write in the future. Most people start with freelancing then move on to start ups when they get sick of playing client roulette. He went the other way around. There's probably an interesting story there, something w…

hearing from someone who made a lot of mistakes can be more insightful than someone who won the jackpot on their first try

Sure. But he's not talking about his failures or sharing the insights he learned. Just promising the same pot of gold Tim did and glossing over the obstacles that most of us found insurmountable.

Re: Freelancing and Lifestyle Design

#23

Post by vinceguidry »

budowski wrote: post #16
gdonelli wrote: post #9

I think he forgot to mention that you need to try the freelancing route when you have saved some $$$ buffer, for me it was about a year worth of free falling. It is going to be bumpy and you need to have the peace of mind to focus on the present. Moving to a foreign country to save money could be a good idea, but only if you would like to live abroad. If you do it only for the money your life will be miserable. Also…

I completely agree. I'll address specifically this issue in one of my future posts (on how to get started).

"Don't wait 40 years to book a skydiving lesson. Wait until you've managed to save a $20K rainy day fund."

Re: Freelancing and Lifestyle Design

#24

Post by vinceguidry »

michaelpinto wrote: post #13

This is such depressing reading — it's all about "me" and doesn't give a damn for anybody else. I guess on a spiritual level this is why I hated the 4 Hour Work Week cult: It was all a sort of cult of being self centered. And on the flip side I think this is why I admire Bill Gates: Because he's taken the money he has and is actually trying to improve the world. There needs to be a bit more of that in the tech indust…

I don't understand this. When you work in technology, the very work you do is a contribution to the world. It's not like finance where 90% of the money is in scamming the less-savvy by trading on the big name of the company you work for to inflate the price of crap.

Even if it's just making websites, you're increasing the size of the pie, not just trying to take other's slices. So why place this heavy moral burden on success?

Bill Gates is certainly an admirable figure, but really in spite of his philanthropy and not because of it IMO. He advanced the state of the art and made markets where none before existed. The "developers first" culture he created made it possible for regular people to make real livings in software, bringing tech out of the nerd boondocks.

Re: Freelancing and Lifestyle Design

#25

Post by adriaanb »

chasing wrote: post #21
budowski wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have actually written about the pros and cons of freelancing in a previous post, showing that it's not all rosy: bucketlistjournal.com/post/46601822485/pros-and-cons-of-freelancing (and P.S. - I personally did not relocate, so my living expenses are still high)

You seem like a good guy and I agree that balancing work and lifestyle is crucially important -- especially in an industry like ours that tends to like to grind people into the ground with mirages of fame and fortune. [Edit: Mixed metaphor. Sorry.] But. You come off as someone who has just barely started thinking about these issues. You're being wildly overly simplistic about how freelancing works in real life. And u…

What kind of issues do you mean? I had some issues with clients not paying me, but that's learning...

Re: Freelancing and Lifestyle Design

#26

Post by rhizome »

rpeden wrote: post #12

I see some negative responses to this, and I understand what people are saying, i.e. that people here are already familiar with 4HWW concepts so this is nothing new. However, there are many people out there who are familiar with these concepts, and want to act on them, but keep putting it off. So seeing this kind of thing hit the HN front page once in a while, because reading it again rekindles the idea in the minds…

Several people apparently did have their interests piqued by the title before coming back here to say the post sucks. Is this a "silent majority" type argument? "No no no...the other people..."

Re: Freelancing and Lifestyle Design

#27

Post by rhizome »

chasing wrote: post #21
budowski wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have actually written about the pros and cons of freelancing in a previous post, showing that it's not all rosy: bucketlistjournal.com/post/46601822485/pros-and-cons-of-freelancing (and P.S. - I personally did not relocate, so my living expenses are still high)

You seem like a good guy and I agree that balancing work and lifestyle is crucially important -- especially in an industry like ours that tends to like to grind people into the ground with mirages of fame and fortune. [Edit: Mixed metaphor. Sorry.] But. You come off as someone who has just barely started thinking about these issues. You're being wildly overly simplistic about how freelancing works in real life. And u…

It makes sense if you take a step back and see this as a play for the ol' "blog to book deal" business model. Jumble up your thoughts and experiences, slice and dice them into a couple hundred posts and maybe it'll look like sales-in-waiting to some acquisitions editor.

Re: Freelancing and Lifestyle Design

#29

Post by pbreit »

chasing wrote: post #21
budowski wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have actually written about the pros and cons of freelancing in a previous post, showing that it's not all rosy: bucketlistjournal.com/post/46601822485/pros-and-cons-of-freelancing (and P.S. - I personally did not relocate, so my living expenses are still high)

You seem like a good guy and I agree that balancing work and lifestyle is crucially important -- especially in an industry like ours that tends to like to grind people into the ground with mirages of fame and fortune. [Edit: Mixed metaphor. Sorry.] But. You come off as someone who has just barely started thinking about these issues. You're being wildly overly simplistic about how freelancing works in real life. And u…

I didn't get that sense at all. What I took away from the post was a) in sad of packing your days with work now so you can do the things you want in 20-40 years, structure your life so you can do those things now and b) freelancing could be an option (but its not easy).

Re: Freelancing and Lifestyle Design

#30

Post by michaelpinto »

vinceguidry wrote: post #24
michaelpinto wrote: post #13

This is such depressing reading — it's all about "me" and doesn't give a damn for anybody else. I guess on a spiritual level this is why I hated the 4 Hour Work Week cult: It was all a sort of cult of being self centered. And on the flip side I think this is why I admire Bill Gates: Because he's taken the money he has and is actually trying to improve the world. There needs to be a bit more of that in the tech indust…

I don't understand this. When you work in technology, the very work you do is a contribution to the world. It's not like finance where 90% of the money is in scamming the less-savvy by trading on the big name of the company you work for to inflate the price of crap. Even if it's just making websites, you're increasing the size of the pie, not just trying to take other's slices. So why place this heavy moral burden on…

Software is just a tool and can be good or bad like any other tool: You can do something very positive like create a website that educates people on health issues and may save lives — but on the flip side maybe you're writing code to guide nuclear weapons.

But I'm not objecting to that: What I am objecting to is the sort of "me first" mindset that you see in that page. Granted I'm not saying that not everyone needs to be a saint, but you do need to be aware that there are other people out there.

Post reply on HN