I am rich and have no idea what to do • Hacker News Board

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#961

Post by JumpinJack_Cash » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 12:47 PM UTC

101008 wrote: post #130

j4coh wrote: post #3

Same situation, I truly empathise because it really does seem to take a lot of purpose out of everything. What I’ve found is that you need to replace money/salary/financial success optimisation (assuming you spent a lot of your life and energy to this point focused on these, much like I did) with something else totally unconnected with being measured in that way. For me, I am focused on proving myself as a guitarist…

This is my dream. Having enough money to be able to dedicate to things I like, trying to be good at something without worrying about money, or time, or being tired after work. Open a bookshop, being a rare book dealer, open a small museum about an author, research on a particular topic and write books... That would be the ultimate dream, though I am sure I won't ever be near to fulfill it.

> > Having enough money to be able to dedicate to things I like

Money doesn't buy time, whatever you like you'd be better off starting now then at some point in the future when you think you have enough money because you make the fallacious equation "enough money = enough time" but that is wrong because mental and physical acuity diminishes with time so a minute in your 20s is worth more than a minute in your 30s and much more than a minute in your 60s etc...also odds of mental/physical illnesses increase, life gets in the way in modalities that you don't expect yet, inflation, collapse of society...in one word entropy.

Money cannot beat entropy or slow it down

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#962

Post by JumpinJack_Cash » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 12:58 PM UTC

mrandish wrote: post #522

j4coh wrote: post #3

Same situation, I truly empathise because it really does seem to take a lot of purpose out of everything. What I’ve found is that you need to replace money/salary/financial success optimisation (assuming you spent a lot of your life and energy to this point focused on these, much like I did) with something else totally unconnected with being measured in that way. For me, I am focused on proving myself as a guitarist…

> One big piece of advice I have is to try to avoid letting others in your social network know exactly how successful you’ve been. Having lived through this arc myself, this is excellent advice. While the most enlightened/mature people have no problem just being happy for you, this still leaves a lot people for who a significant disparity in wealth/success becomes a problem. It ends up impacting the nature of your re…

Or alternatively it can be the start of a feud/rivalry with the "envious" , and I mean not at the political level but at the human to human level.

Might seem counterproductive or even "toxic" but it's sure better than the nihlism that the author is expressing.

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#963

Post by yellow_lead » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 2:28 PM UTC

highspeedbus wrote: post #859

Go read a book, contribute to linux kernel, eat a cheeseburger, get in a nice hotel, watch movies, learn to cook, drive though the country, befriend locals, start a wine collection, earn a master's degree, publish papers.. The author seems to put great value on doing grandiose things, so those suggestions may seem frivolous. It's a respectable goal to pursue huge achievements in professional life, but please be aware…

> earn a master's degree

Nah, better to self-study Physics on YouTube in Hawaii

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#964

Post by brap » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 2:49 PM UTC

marhee wrote: post #667

I believe one of the founders of Booking.com has had some similar experience (source: "De Machine", the book about Booking.com) and after 4 years of travelings & yoga etc. he sneaked back in into the company. Most of his coworkers do not know he's a founder. He's been fixing Perl bugs, writing scripts and coding some features at least for some years (maybe he's moved on already, don't know, the book is a couple of ye…

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has recently rejoined the company as IC. 1:1s with his manager must be awkward.

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#965

Post by brap » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 2:54 PM UTC

FL33TW00D wrote: post #805

Everyone calling Loom a glorified screen recorder... there was a $975M dollar bill on the floor and no one else picked it up. The technology was simple, but it solved a real problem for people. Solving well defined engineering tasks is vastly easier than solving a real problem.

Nobody said he wasn’t talented or hardworking, surely he is, extremely. It’s almost always a prerequisite for this sort of success.

But for every successful founder, there are thousands of founders who are more talented and more hardworking and ended up failing. There are so many factors at play and most of them are unknown or beyond your control.

What I’m saying is that this guy needs to learn humility and gratitude. This article reeks of Main Character Syndrome. Once he learns that his path to find happiness is going to be much easier (and I genuinely wish that for him).

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#966

Post by ctenb » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 5:43 PM UTC

brap wrote: post #964

marhee wrote: post #667

I believe one of the founders of Booking.com has had some similar experience (source: "De Machine", the book about Booking.com) and after 4 years of travelings & yoga etc. he sneaked back in into the company. Most of his coworkers do not know he's a founder. He's been fixing Perl bugs, writing scripts and coding some features at least for some years (maybe he's moved on already, don't know, the book is a couple of ye…

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has recently rejoined the company as IC. 1:1s with his manager must be awkward.

What is IC?

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#967

Post by edfletcher_t137 » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 7:04 PM UTC

Adults of all stripes - and of all socioeconomic backgrounds - manage to pull themselves out of funks all the time without needing to write woe-is-me blog posts about it.

That our wealth-worship culture has gone so far and gotten so bad that we're supposed to give any fucks about this "zeroth-world struggle" is absolutely asinine.

We are truly on The Worst Timeline, without doubt.

(It shouldn't surprise anyone that OP "larped as Elon" and "had a brief stint at DOGE"...)

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#968

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 7:06 PM UTC

edfletcher_t137 wrote: post #967

Adults of all stripes - and of all socioeconomic backgrounds - manage to pull themselves out of funks all the time without needing to write woe-is-me blog posts about it. That our wealth-worship culture has gone so far and gotten so bad that we're supposed to give any fucks about this "zeroth-world struggle" is absolutely asinine. We are truly on The Worst Timeline, without doubt. (It shouldn't surprise anyone that O…

I don’t think anyone has to care, it’s just interesting.

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#969

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 8:01 PM UTC

torginus wrote: post #820

akamaka wrote: post #145

> I should work for Elon and Vivek at DOGE and help America get off its current crash to defaulting on its own debt I’ve got an idea: take some good economics courses so that you learn how government spending actually works.

I don't fucking understand these people. They built a startup of questionable value which can be replicated with open source software, which is debatable if it even solves real world problem, somehow got a huge payday from freely printed VC money, and now they made it their life's calling to fire a bunch of people who don't make that money even it they worked for 10k years, but their livelihoods depend on getting pai…

Isn’t it convenient how the last people to be hurt by austerity are the ones arguing for it? Crazy how that works, not predictable in any way.

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#970

Post by federalauth » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 8:37 PM UTC

If OP is reading the comments, I’d highly recommend developing a meditation practice. As you’ve already experienced, the quality of one’s experience of life is determined by one’s mind, regardless of possessions, achievements, etc. And meditation is the best way to “train” the mind.