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Don't Waste the Good Days

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Re: Don't Waste the Good Days

#201

Post by colecut »

MrGilbert wrote: post #173
ryandrake wrote: post #41

I feel like there is wisdom in "Make hay while the sun shines." When you're young and unencumbered by responsibility and family, when your cognitive abilities are at their peak, when your energy is endless, when your body is strong and healthy, when your knees work, and your fingers can type without arthritis: that's the optimal time to work and earn. Min-max that salary and stay healthy. Due to compounding interest,…

Yeah, but sometimes… Life hits hard and you‘ll miss out on these days. When I turned 22 in 2008, my mom surprised me with her having sarcoidosis, a disease which will turn functional cells into non-functional ones. Quite an issue when it starts in your lungs. A year later, my father surprised me with him having cancer. Long story short, they passed away in 2013 and 2017. I should also mention that I have four younger…

I'm 36, my 11 year old son's mom passed away from cancer last year, and 2 days later cancer was found in my fiancee. She passed away 3 months ago.

I now share custody of my son with his stepdad... There's not much "normal" about it, but it's the best thing I/we can do for him given the circumstances. Family is what you make it.

I would focus on enjoying life and doing what you feel is best with no regard for what seems normal.

Re: Don't Waste the Good Days

#202

Post by ipiz0618 »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #189
ipiz0618 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I have that 10 billion, I might want to extend my life just to enjoy it more, like all the rich people do. But right now? I don’t even need to think twice to accept that offer lol. My time isn’t that precious when 50% of it is spent working for food and shelter, and trying to stay fit so that I don’t stop being capable of working.

I'm curious if you have kids? This proposal could be thought of a couple ways. Maybe I prematurely age 20 years? That sounds pretty bad. I'm currently 42. That would make me effectively 62. With twin 3 year olds and a 6 year old. That doesn't sound fun. But what sounds even worse is they won't graduate from high school until I'm 77. Decent odds I would die before then. Even with 10 billion. Fuck that. The other inter…

No I don't have kids, which is why I'm able to imagine making that choice. I agree different people will have different choices, just that the parent might need to ask a different demographic.

Even with kids, parents that aren't well off often sacrifice their wellbeing for their family. For example, people that work two jobs for a total of 16-18 hours a day aren't rare where I live. They are aware this affects their health, shortens their life span and their time with kids, but they make the choice so that their family could survive.

Re: Don't Waste the Good Days

#203

Post by MrPatan »

nightowl_games wrote: post #51
ryandrake wrote: post #41

I feel like there is wisdom in "Make hay while the sun shines." When you're young and unencumbered by responsibility and family, when your cognitive abilities are at their peak, when your energy is endless, when your body is strong and healthy, when your knees work, and your fingers can type without arthritis: that's the optimal time to work and earn. Min-max that salary and stay healthy. Due to compounding interest,…

> I'd have played fewer video games, traveled less, and relaxed on the beach less. This seems totally opposite of what old people say on their death bed. You sound so obsessed with money here. My guess is your probably very wealthy relative to the average peer and your too naive to realize it. You have to keep telling yourself this philosophy to justify not wind surfing in Bali. You think your gonna wind surf when yo…

> This seems totally opposite of what old people say on their death bed

Maybe because nobody is around to listen to, or cares about, the old people saying in their death bed "maybe I should have worked harder"

Re: Don't Waste the Good Days

#204

Post by pzo »

devwastaken wrote: post #134
amznbyebyebye wrote: post #25

People look at me like I’m insane when I tell them I’m packing up and taking a year off. I’ve f’in had enough. And that’s me, the wife and our two kids- not quite school age. No I haven’t FIREd. No I’m probably passing up a raise and a promo (or maybe not). Super linear growth requires super linear decision making. You either follow the sheeple or decide enough is enough and make some drastic change. Im not getting t…

If you're U.S. based and plan to live in Penang, Malaysia, that is going to be quite rough if/when the children want an American education. Many would kill for u.s. citizenship because of quality of living, medical support, and a court system that is mostly workable if you have money. Of course, I'm assuming based on lack of information. I hope it works for you.

I been in penang few times and even recently lived for a year [spend first one year of pandemic there] There are many expats there and very easy to make friends with locals - most people speak English.

Quality of life per dollar is also much better. It's common to eat out 3 times per day outside - and don't havd to be rich or willing to burn lots of money - many locals eat outside because it's good and cheap - 2-3 dollars for good quality even vegan meal.

Quality of medicine is also good and much much much cheaper than usa - actually many Indonesian fly to penang to get better quality medical service.

Cost of living even with family it will be probsbly like 1/3 of typical expenses in western world.

If you can work remotely to us or eu company and stay on business visa (mtep) or malaysia my second home visa (now unfortunately out of reach for most of people) them that's the best of 2 world.

Re: Don't Waste the Good Days

#205

Post by georgeek »

ryandrake wrote: post #41

I feel like there is wisdom in "Make hay while the sun shines." When you're young and unencumbered by responsibility and family, when your cognitive abilities are at their peak, when your energy is endless, when your body is strong and healthy, when your knees work, and your fingers can type without arthritis: that's the optimal time to work and earn. Min-max that salary and stay healthy. Due to compounding interest,…

When your family and kids appear, work stops being a 0-sum game. Instead, you're constantly arbitraging between it and the rest of your life. The good news is that you can recognise and structure it as a positive or a negative sum game.

Re: Don't Waste the Good Days

#206

Post by maigret »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #104
gchamonlive wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can everybody earn a year off after working hard? No, because this is privilege. To be born in a rich country. To have family structure to study and go to college, to have a stable job and a successful career after graduation. To be lucky enough to choose a career that is in demand. Or to open a business that is successful. People underestimate A LOT how much of a role luck plays in successful careers. Sure hard work…

I think “privilege” is just the excuse used by people who aren’t willing to work hard, aren’t willing to put the extra time into learning a new skill, or aren’t willing to acknowledge that they didn’t get blessed genetically. It’s easier to create some label and blame everything on that. “Oh, I’m not rich at age 30. Must be privilege.” “Oh, I got passed over for that promotion. Must be their privilege”. People need t…

You should read Nassim Taleb, especially Fooled by Randomness

Re: Don't Waste the Good Days

#207

Post by staticassertion »

onion2k wrote: post #200
ryandrake wrote: post #41

I feel like there is wisdom in "Make hay while the sun shines." When you're young and unencumbered by responsibility and family, when your cognitive abilities are at their peak, when your energy is endless, when your body is strong and healthy, when your knees work, and your fingers can type without arthritis: that's the optimal time to work and earn. Min-max that salary and stay healthy. Due to compounding interest,…

Go windsurfing for a year in Ibiza after college, and you're adding 5 years to your working life--retiring at 62 instead of 57. You may have a grand plan to retire at 57, but what if you love the work you're doing then? What if you die at 56? What if your employer is ageist and fires you at 50? What if the economy collapses in 30 years time and wipes out your pension fund? What if your knees give out at 57 and you're…

What if you'd die wind surfing? What if you would have cured cancer if you'd only worked that one extra day? What if you would have met the love of your life on the train to work?

Asking a bunch of hypotheticals isn't a great way to make your point. Yes, as time goes on the chance of "bad things happens" increases. But we can also make a lot of assumptions. I don't plan to die at 57, I don't plan on being expendable at 50, I don't plan for economic collapse. They're all possible outcomes, but they're also not what I consider likely at all, or things I can reasonably prepare for.

Re: Don't Waste the Good Days

#208

Post by paulsutter »

“The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime”

Make those deeds count. Start that company. Take that year off to travel. Do the big memorable things, not the long tedious slog

You’ll still feel young when others are retiring

Re: Don't Waste the Good Days

#209

Post by buran77 »

randallsquared wrote: post #96
nightowl_games wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd have played fewer video games, traveled less, and relaxed on the beach less. This seems totally opposite of what old people say on their death bed. You sound so obsessed with money here. My guess is your probably very wealthy relative to the average peer and your too naive to realize it. You have to keep telling yourself this philosophy to justify not wind surfing in Bali. You think your gonna wind surf when yo…

Old people on their death bed are telling us what they want to do now, couched as what they would have wanted to do. But they made the decisions they did for reasons that seemed good at the time, and it might well be that they'd make the same ones. Wishing things were different is not the same as a plan to make them different. Or, as I've said about this before: why worry about what death-bed you wants? That person l…

I probably said this before. The deathbed perspective is an exercise of taking your entire life experiences and distilling them to get a concrete core as seen from the "final checkpoint". The key is knowing that there will be no future experiences to alter the result, and that makes the determination as final and as accurate as it can ever reasonably be. It's not a decision making tool, it can't be used to alter the future. It's a conclusion, a punchline.

But if you want to see what's important now that's a decision, a seed for your future, and it's open to change and evolution. This cannot be more different from a real deathbed perspective. So taking this decision by imagining one of infinite possibilities of your future up to your distant deathbed makes no sense. Even meeting your future self wouldn't give good insights on any "road not taken". An imagined, relatively random, and distant future outcome can't help you decide what's best in the present more than flipping a coin will.

The people drawing these conclusions may have no future but they do have the entire past. When you ask for a game review you're more likely to go for one coming from someone who's finished the game rather than someone who played the tutorial. That deathbed conclusion is meant to pass on what were the best and worst parts, not what should have been done differently because finishing the game means you know the outcome of exactly one of the possible move combinations. So if most old gamers say a particular mission deserves attention it's not a guarantee it does but it's a strong indication.

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