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Quitting the rat race

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Re: Quitting the rat race

#211

Post by mancerayder »

betocmn wrote: post #181
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Happiness really does start from within. 100% - and for some people to excel in connecting with themselves, they need a calmer environment - or just more simplicity. But his sentiment reminded me right away of the book "The Quest of the Simple Life" by William James Dawson.

>> Happiness really does start from within. >100% - and for some people to excel in connecting with themselves, they need a calmer environment - or just more simplicity.

Now let's go full-circle for a moment: sometimes the job, or circumstances, stand in the way of this ability to find inner peace, or sometimes just think. Even standing apart in a vacation for a few weeks gives you the ability to snap out of it. It's true in my experience that sometimes, the job needs to change.

The attitude expressed in one of the top comments above around happiness being within and not connected to changed circumstances is narrow, I've had this debate with friends who are high-achieving types. They argue that one should adapt and make the best of it, and often it's you and not the job. They also drink a lot.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#212

Post by gymbeaux »

codeOnMaster wrote: post #196
gymbeaux wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spend most of your life at work (at least in the US). 24 hours in a day. 8 of them spent working. 1 hour for lunch. ~2 hours getting ready for work/sleep each day. 8 hours for sleep... that leaves you with ~5 hours per day, but you also have to do chores around the house, maybe pickup/dropoff kiddos, commute (if you don't work from home), and cook dinner and clean up afterwards. If you have 2 hours a day to yours…

What do you mean by “fucked”? If you don’t enjoy your job, you’re fucked? Seems like you’re saying you’re fucked unless you work less hours.

Yeah, you're fucked unless you work fewer hours. By "fucked" I mean "doomed to a relatively-miserable existence". I don't care if you have a FETISH for writing code, you do not want to do it ~40 hours/week.

We need a four-day (32-hour) workweek. Give me a 20% pay cut, I don't care. Most of us here make well over $100k/year. What we need is TIME.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#213

Post by wreath »

gymbeaux wrote: post #164
sudoit wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in my case. I quit my first software job because it made me feel so meaningless and depressed. I was immediately happier. I quit my second job because they overworked me. Same result. I have less money now, but I don’t care. I’m much happier being where I am now. People underestimate just how much work life affects your entire life.

You spend most of your life at work (at least in the US). 24 hours in a day. 8 of them spent working. 1 hour for lunch. ~2 hours getting ready for work/sleep each day. 8 hours for sleep... that leaves you with ~5 hours per day, but you also have to do chores around the house, maybe pickup/dropoff kiddos, commute (if you don't work from home), and cook dinner and clean up afterwards. If you have 2 hours a day to yours…

> You spend most of your life at work (at least in the US)

Where else in the world people dont spens most of their lives at work?

Re: Quitting the rat race

#214

Post by gymbeaux »

scruple wrote: post #206
gymbeaux wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spend most of your life at work (at least in the US). 24 hours in a day. 8 of them spent working. 1 hour for lunch. ~2 hours getting ready for work/sleep each day. 8 hours for sleep... that leaves you with ~5 hours per day, but you also have to do chores around the house, maybe pickup/dropoff kiddos, commute (if you don't work from home), and cook dinner and clean up afterwards. If you have 2 hours a day to yours…

Even if you do manage to find 2 hours to yourself, it's typically at the end of the day and you're utterly, completely exhausted. I've found that, with young kids in the mix, the best thing I can do with my hour-ish at the end of a long day is read, or draw, or just spend some quiet time with my spouse. Anything else requires mental energy that I simply don't have. Even the video games that I play at the end of the a…

I don't even have a wife and kids yet, but I already find many of the video games I enjoyed as a teenager to be too demanding. Fallout New Vegas was an awesome game, and I remember spending virtually my entire summer vacation one year playing through Fallout 3. I gave New Vegas another go recently and it just feels like work. It sucks. Like I just want to get through the game so it will be done.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#215

Post by siftrics »

piecerough wrote: post #15

"The truth is: nothing I’ve done or experienced in this place has given me any experience comparable to walking along the ridge between two mountains. Nothing has made me feel alive like getting in to freezing cold water despite my body screaming at me not to. Nothing has made me feel anything like that feeling when you summit a mountain after 2 hours of solid climbing in the rain, and the clouds part to reveal the m…

> If mountains become your life, it won't be long until they become the norm, making you flee back to some urban jungle.

That's a really bold claim. I fail to see any evidence of it.

Anecdotally, it's not true at all. A huge portion of my city dweller friends are miserable and constantly talk about quitting their jobs or moving. I cannot think of a single friend in the mountains who is as miserable. None of them want to move to a big city removed from nature.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#216

Post by ridgeguy »

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…

I agree, but there may be a single change of circumstances that will open a path to something new. For example, if OP can accumulate enough $ to leave their job with at least a reasonable level of financial security, they might find that in the absence of the job's mental and physical overhead, heretofore obscured options would appear.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#217

Post by [deleted] »

resonious wrote: post #166
ghshephard wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article suggests it is not the contrast, but the inherent positive impacts of being outdoors. Even people who do it as their day job are happier. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/06/happiest-...

Unfortunately I don't have any links right now but I also remember reading that primitive tribes are far more "happy" than the average modern city dweller. I'm pretty sure "happiness" was measured by average amount of time smiling each day - take from that what you will.

[deleted]

Re: Quitting the rat race

#218

Post by gymbeaux »

wreath wrote: post #213
gymbeaux wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spend most of your life at work (at least in the US). 24 hours in a day. 8 of them spent working. 1 hour for lunch. ~2 hours getting ready for work/sleep each day. 8 hours for sleep... that leaves you with ~5 hours per day, but you also have to do chores around the house, maybe pickup/dropoff kiddos, commute (if you don't work from home), and cook dinner and clean up afterwards. If you have 2 hours a day to yours…

> You spend most of your life at work (at least in the US) Where else in the world people dont spens most of their lives at work?

In MOST other first-world countries, the working class has the RIGHT to elect to work less than 40 hours/5 days per week (in exchange for a proportional reduction in salary). In some cases, you must be a parent to be eligible for this.. but yeah, in places like New Zealand and The Netherlands, if you don't want to work 5 days a week, you don't have to.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#219

Post by fckgnad »

fsckboy wrote: post #72
notch656c wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US you owe child support even if you're raped. So it's not necessarily even a decision.

[flagged]

The sad reality is that no one in this world is entitled to anything. Not even kids. Kids get what they get because of willful charity not entitlement. Some kids get more charity other kids get less, life is unfair.

This idea that all kids are fucking angels who deserve everything is absolutely insane. Realize Hitler was a kid once too.

My kids don't deserve shit. They get what they get because I'm instinctually obligated by natural selection to love them irrationally and provide charity to them so they maximize their chances of reproducing and spreading my genes.

Re: Quitting the rat race

#220

Post by fsckboy »

lapcat wrote: post #149
fsckboy wrote: post #35

You being unhappy in your life does not mean that there is anything wrong with the world. Looking to pin the blame on society at large and other people's choices is a convenient escape from looking at yourself and your own fears, disappointments, choices made, etc. I grew up in a rural place, no mountains but we substituted beaches, marshes, and ocean. When I go back to visit I can't believe how beautiful it is. But,…

> Looking to pin the blame on society at large and other people's choices is a convenient escape Could you point to exactly where you think the author did that? I didn't see it. At most there was, "Every storefront specifically engineered to attract me inside with gimics like flashing lights." Which may be true of London, though I can't say personally. > don't call your fellow city dwellers rats "The rat race" is a w…

> "The rat race" is a well-known, long-standing metaphor.

I know, that's my point, that's why the headline was all he needed, everything after that was belaboring the point. I watched the video and I read the rest because I imagined something new would be said, but nothing was.

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