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Building a vision of life without work (2015)

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Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#401

Post by tomp »

jbmny wrote: post #205
bumby wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> she does not feel any sort of progress or growth on any level. I think the flip side of this is that many people are so focused on progress and looking forward to the next goal line that they become unable to appreciate the moment and, ironically, happiness is always one more goal away. Recently, I’ve been reading books on Buddhism (specifically how it differs from many Western value systems) and it sheds some ligh…

Any particular books you'd recommend?

The way of Zen by Alan Watts.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#402

Post by dorchadas »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #397
dorchadas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the biggest reason I'll likely stay a teacher. I get plenty of 'me' days and, in a low CoL area, a decent enough salary. Sure, I'll likely never retire early (which was a goal of mine for a long time) and there are downsides, but it's better than how I see myself handling the alternative.

I've got a lot of family in the education space. They get paid shit money but having a solid two months off every year is pretty appealing.

Yep, exactly. I counted it up one time and I get 75 days off, not counting weekends. Plus 10 sick days and 2 personal days. It's really hard to beat that. And, being in one of the better paid districts in a low CoL area, well it isn't really all that bad (the culture around education is awful, but that's partially the result of admin and I think it can be changed slowly but surely).

Find something I can do remotely part-time throughout the year and I'd honestly be set. Plus student loan forgiveness means I might actually get to own a house by the time I'm 35ish.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#403

Post by munificent »

el_benhameen wrote: post #378
munificent wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's important to understand that "what makes you happy" is much more contextual than we realize. If you're sitting outside in the freezing cold, you might think that what makes you happy is "wearing big heavy coats and drinking cocoa". That's true right now because you're fucking cold. But get out of the cold and your happiness goals may change. Often, happiness is simply "what addresses the imbalances in my…

I’ve always felt pretty in touch with what I want and why, but I’d never thought about it like this. Thanks for the interesting thought.

I think our culture teaches us the wrong mental model for happiness. We think of it like wealth: a quantity to try to maximize. If 1 happiness is good, then 2 is better, 10 is really good, and 100000 is amazing.

But that's not how our emotions work at all. Thanks to the hedonic treadmill, it's not possible to experience long-term joy over any consistent period. Active joyful enthusiasm is by nature an ephemeral experience.

Instead of happiness, what we want long term is something more akin to peace, satisfaction, or tranquility. A sense that all is right with where we are in the world.

And the model for that is much more like hunger and satiety. No one thinks that if eating one steak is good then eating a hundred steaks is great and a million is amazing. Hunger exists to address an imbalance. The goal of it is to get you back to a comfortable neutral point where you are satieted but not unpleasantly stuffed.

Unhappiness works in a similar fashion. It tells us something is off balance in our emotional life. So when you find yourself craving some experience or activity and thinking "this will make me happy", it means "this will fix a thing making me unhappy". It doesn't mean that scaling that craving up will make you extra super happy.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#404

Post by geekster777 »

monktastic1 wrote: post #176
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Previously my underlying approach to life looked like: "I will do X which will enable me to do Y so that I can finally do Z." I now approach my days with "What will make me happy?" Great insight that is worth repeating. One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how much they reinforce the idea that retirement is a prerequisite for achieving happiness. This leads a lot of FIRE-minded people to double down…

> One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how much they reinforce the idea that retirement is a prerequisite for achieving happiness. This leads a lot of FIRE-minded people to double down on jobs they hate that consume too much of their time and energy, only because they think it will better enable them to be happy later. On the FIRE subreddit, anyway, they're very clear that: 1. It's the FI part that rea…

This may be stated often, but it's still easy to get too caught up in the optimization game of FI. I appreciate every time someone reiterates the value in the journey, even when its expressed as a concern for FI.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#405

Post by nabbed »

oftenwrong wrote: post #220
nabbed wrote: post #171

After growing tired of modern software development practices a few years ago, I just quit my job. I had no plan on going back to work (although I did after 18 months), and I had no plan on what I was going to do other than improve my math skills (which I did to some small degree) and learn to touch type (which I did not do). What I really learned is that my digestion problems and benign heart rhythm issues got a lot…

>After growing tired of modern software development practices I'm curious to know what practices pushed you over the edge. I sometimes struggle to keep emotional distance from work, especially when I feel that others are making our collective effort less effective. I have to remind myself sometimes that I don't actually need to care. At the same time, I wonder if I would be happier starting my own thing, and calling…

In recent years, and at multiple companies, I find there are simply far too many things that require at least some of my attention going on at the same time. Collaboration tools like Slack seem to encourage an interrupt-driven environment. Even when things happen serially, they happen at a mad rush (in the name of velocity). I have little time to reflect or gain perspective.

Combine that with the fact the software has way more moving parts and integration points than it used to. Not only has velocity ramped up, but so has the number of possible interactions you need to consider. Improved testing techniques (unit tests, automated pre-commit tests, and integration tests) mitigate this quite a bit, but it doesn't fully compensate, especially since some of the "velocity" infrastructure itself is quite complex and can sometimes make a simple thing very difficult: I often find myself trying to work around flaky infrastructure.

Most of my coworkers seem unfazed, so I think I just have the wrong constitution. I think also most companies really have no choice anymore but to operate in this manner.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#406

Post by kebman »

LesZedCB wrote: post #286
kebman wrote: post #46

"What will you do with your time?" How many of you really have a problem answering that? Am I the only lucky one who's got a gazillion projects I want to finish all at once???

if you got more than four paragraphs down you would read > If you are one of these people, congratulations. You’ve already got the answers you need. Although you may be retiring FROM something, you’re also very clear on what you’re retiring TO. You can stop reading right now.

Got stuff to do, so naturally I stopped reading a lot sooner.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#407

Post by dqpb »

granshaw wrote: post #374
dqpb wrote: post #236

There is a third option besides working for somebody else and not working at all - that is, working for yourself.

Hard to make a standard living selling things. Unless you’re talking about selling services, but then you’re again trading your time for money

Entrepreneurship

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#408

Post by heliodor »

mitjak wrote: post #231
michalf6 wrote: post #59

Society which values work will outcompete the one which does not. You and people around you aren't the only ones on this planet, there are highly motivated people elsewhere who will gladly put in effort to take your place.

why should we compete? what does "victory" amount to? i'd gladly give up winning in favour of some form of survival guarantee and freedom to choose work rather than require it for survival.

You're thinking of this from the wrong point of view. This is about evolution and dominance. A culture in which work is highly valued (even so far as at the expense of the individual) will expand and squeeze out other cultures. The same way a successful gene will reproduce and take over.

Two excellent books that delve into this area are "Stumbling on Happiness" and "Sapiens".

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#409

Post by ta988 »

low_common wrote: post #139
zoba wrote: post #67

I was 2nd employee at a unicorn startup and have been on a work-hiatus for almost a year. Now, I live amongst Amish people in the country. My biggest insight has been a mindset change. Previously my underlying approach to life looked like: "I will do X which will enable me to do Y so that I can finally do Z." I now approach my days with "What will make me happy?" This is an experiment I'm performing. A structured lif…

How do you "live amongst the Amish"? Sounds like you're contributing to their community in some ways ie. dam building. Did you buy any land from them or a home? Just renting? I always assumed that they're an insular community. Want to get down there sometime and try the food. PA Dutch food looks so good.

They are not that much insular and are, at least to outsiders, really nice people.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#410

Post by WA »

Frost1x wrote: post #395
WA wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are so many things I'd love to do Like what?

I used to exercise 1-2 hours a day, everyday (I was in great shape), that's gone completely. I'd love to go hiking regularly, that rarely occurs now. I used to spend a decent amount of time doing amature photography, I don't anymore. There's a significant amount of home improvement I'm perfectly capable of doing, in fact, even enjoy aspects of, yet I have to pay others to do it from lack of time. I love gardening but…

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Insightful and I hope you get to achieve a few things in the future :)
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