I recently experienced months of sleeping problems. Where I wouldn't sleep for days. Or would sleep a few hours. I would be exhausted and my head would hit the pillow and BAM adrenaline and I can hear my heart pounding and I'm awake. It got so bad I would go into the basement and destroy a wall that I kept repairing. I would cry in frustration. I started to have suicidal thoughts. It was harming my marriage and made me a crappy father.

I've seen a psychologist before for other things but there's just something about me that makes me stubborn. I should have seen one again but I never got around to it. I kept self-justifying that "new idea X" would be what fixes the problem.

I think the issue was subconscious because if you asked, I couldn't tell you what was bothering me. But I think it might be about being this pillar of my family, the sole breadwinner, and had a toddler and a baby and a mortgage and a new remote job all within 2 years. Everything piles on and there's a ton of good reasons to feel anxiety.

Anyways, you know what ended up changing everything and making me sleep like a baby? World of Warcraft Classic. I used to never find time for gaming. Or games would never keep my attention. I would always wander off to the huge list of things I need to be doing to be a good worker, dad, housekeeper, husband. But I got into WoW for chuckles and got hooked on having 3 hours a night to just do stupid pointless stuff in a fantasy world. And now falling asleep feels so different. My brain is relaxed, replaying some of the moments from the video game in my daydreaming imagination. And before I know it, I wake up rested and energized and actually looking forward to experiencing the next day.

Not for anything because my situation is completely different. But I went through a difficult period too. And I actually realised I had stopped doing any kind of recreation at all.

It sounds crazy but learning how to do nothing again is really hard. I couldn't actually game at all. I tried but I felt like I was doing a shift. So I started with driving and listening to soccer on the radio (something I hadn't been actively interested in for decades)...it is totally pointless. And now, finally, I have started to game occasionally too.

No, it still isn't quite the same as when I was a kid. I can still remember playing Dungeon Keeper and Theme Hospital/Park when they first came out (I even remember purchasing DK)...nothing can compare. And I can't play FPS anymore. But yes, it is very easy to forget about recreation and even feel guilty for doing it...but it is valuable.

Exercise can be very effective too. I have tried meditation repeatedly (srs, like six or seven periods over about a decade) it just doesn't work for me. But exercise is a way to stay active and bring down your everyday level of anxiety (although I have never got to the point where meditation becomes bearable).

Reading can also be very effective if you are already feeling anxious (although I understand it isn't for everyone). But reading with purpose can be self-defeating. Worrying about remembering or all the other stuff that goes along with reading job-related stuff can be really troublesome.

Hopefully, this will all help someone though. I wish someone told me ten years ago that it was okay to do something that had no meaning or point. Christopher Robin was right.

BTW, when I had a bad anxiety problem, what really worked for me is walking. Really long walks, two hours minimum just wandering around the city. Three or four hours were better. The shitty feeling really subsided. I've taken up audiobooks, which incidentally jacked up my books-read numbers a lot (household chores are also much more engaging for the brain now).

Dunno about exercise, as I couldn't do intensive exercise then, and light didn't work as well, even if prolonged.

-----------------------

I'll also back the others on the topic of meditation in that it should show at least some result. I suspect, though, that you might've tried meditation with some spiritual flavor or something oriented purely towards the awareness and self-control aspect. Personally I've come to meditation from the body angle instead, and that's when it clicked for me. I detailed the workings here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20960513

One point of meditation is that you aren't really ‘doing nothing’: the brain still needs to be occupied at first—but the attention is redirected from whatever it's hung up on at the moment, to breathing deeply and listening to the body, and the guide's voice also helps. This breaks the loop of anxiety and physical tenseness, which then lets you set the mind loose. Frankly this sounds like it should work for your exact case.

I believe you tried meditation but I don’t buy the “it doesn’t work for me”

That’s like saying exercise doesn’t work for you.

Maybe you are going too hard too fast and getting injured or any number of things that make it difficult.

But meditation works, even if it’s (like exercise) a difficult habit to pick up.

No. Meditation does not "work for everyone" no matter how hard you no-true-scotsman it and I'm sick and tired of reading this.

Source: Dad was massively into all that woo, spent my whole teens trying, even spent a week at an ashram in India. No, meditation is not for everyone.

IMO ‘woo’ and ‘ashram’ is exactly the wrong way to go about mediation, for westerners. I'm automatically revolted by most kinds of spiritual stuff, but people I respect kept saying meditation helps to control the brain's attempts to wind itself up with drama. So finally I found the app ‘Headspace’ where a guy mumbles into my ear, with zero spiritual load and no cheesy music. What it does for me is I relax muscles including those I don't even feel otherwise, and which are all constantly tense due to bad posture. Only then, the mind calms down―tenseness and anxiety are normally in a feedback loop, and I have to break it. Can't relax as deep and fast without the mumble―takes three times as long and still not the same.

Also I don't think that in the teens you feel your bodily and mental states as acutely, at least I didn't until almost thirty―because in youth you're more active and feel alright most of the time. Took me several years of paying attention to my body and mood (before taking up meditation), to learn to recognize when I'm getting worked up for no reason. So yeah, in this sense it's probably not for everyone.

I forget what they're called, but the Headspace things where someone talks about a sleepy village or laundromat they're wandering through are incredible. They create this strong sense of nostalgia and comfiness for some long lost childhood memories I don't think actually exist.

Ooh, I should look into that, as an aficionado of induced senses and cozy mental states (without drugs or voodoo).

Apparently they also have ‘sleep music’ and soundscapes with names that sound rather newagey and are probably of the sort that never attracted me. Now, oldschool dub music, of the 70s' kind—that worked wonderfully both at home and for subway dozing. Dub is so completely non-aggressive and non-busy that I don't get such warm feeling from anything else. I remember lying in bed and suddenly wondering why my thoughts follow a weird rhythm—turned out it was the bass in a track that got mixed in the fading awareness.

Bill Laswell's mixes are my favorite: https://billlaswell.bandcamp.com/album/trojan-dub-massive-vo...

30 minutes of cardio everyday isn’t for everyone. But anyone who does it will have adaptations as a result.

All 30 minutes of attempted meditation per day does for me is dramatically increases my desire to punch someone. If that counts as an adaptation then sure.

I can recommend you to start with 5 minutes (set a timer), increase to 10. After some practice you can omit the timer, but it really helps you getting started.

Meditation is different because it requires sitting still and doing nothing for a period of time. I have probably gone months without doing this to any degree. I don't sleep without listening to something. I can rarely sit down and just watch TV. Etc.

I am fairly sure the issue isn't medical: I can code, drive, and read for hours at a time without losing focus. But meditation is still torture (as is having to sit down and watch TV). I have tried several times, I have done it every day for up to two or three weeks (willpower is not really an issue) but every time, after a while, I ended up feeling more trepidation and anxiety about doing it.

In addition though, I think there are good reasons to prefer exercise in certain cases (YMMV, and this is just my experience):

Stressing your cardiovascular system mimics the physical effect of a panic attack. And part of the reason that panic attacks occur is because something is wrong with the link between the physical and mental parts of the system. You can't solve it with looking at one side alone but it is useful to experience the physical sensation of panic without the mental side (hopefully, it can set things off). I don't meditation is as effective on the physical side, it may be effective on the mental side but not for me.

This is not going to be relevant for 95% of people. But it has been my experience of it. I also think it is pretty unwise to say it should work for everyone. If you get the impression that should work for everyone, and then you try and it doesn't work...you feel terrible (if you have a disorder, it is worse...you might feel shame). Unf, in my experience, this is fairly common within psychology too which has endless "universal"-sounding solutions with weak effect. It just isn't that simple. Try stuff. See what works.

Again, hopefully this will help someone. The number of times that I have tried meditation should suggest that I was convinced, past the point of logic, that I was the issue...not meditation...unsurprisingly, that belief elicited little progress. It makes more sense to just do what works.

I am not saying meditation works for everyone. However, I would suggest that if you decide to give meditation another shot, try to approach it differently. You say that "it requires sitting still and doing nothing for a period of time" - I don't understand it that way, at least if we talk about mindfulness meditation. I am no expert but I would say the point is non-judgemental observation of what occurs in your mind. If what occurs in your mind is anxiety or restlessness, try to observe it without trying to control it or escape it and see what happens. You might be surprised. If you do not approach it with some preconceptions of what it "should" do and just try to accept what comes, it might make you feel better - it seems like a paradox but human psyche sometime works in surprising ways. BTW, that is also why methods like paradoxical intention (Viktor Frankl) work - when you feel anxiety attack coming, you don't try to calm yourself down. You try to be even more anxious... and surprisingly, anxiety subsides.

With all due respect your exact same line of reasoning would work for exercising.

Why would it be unwise to think it works for everyone? Does doing sit-ups make everyone’s core stronger? Does doing squats make everyone’s legs stronger?

I have no idea what you were doing when you were meditating, but having anxiety about it is certainly not proof that it doesn’t work.

Maybe you didn’t have good guidance? Maybe you were having some benefit you didn’t notice or measure?

Preferring exercise over meditation doesn’t really make any sense? Exercise and meditation do not serve the same purpose. It would be best to do both with a good plan, it’s essentially impossible to do zero of either of them.

If someone told me exercise didn’t work for them, I’d simply say the same as I would to you, you must be doing it wrong (for your situation), or it is working, and it’s not at a fast enough pace for your liking.

What I would guess is going on would be loosely similar to someone who starts to exercise and does it with bad form and not enough conditioning for the exercises they try. So they get hurt or too sore and just think it won’t work.

The scientific research supporting exercise is vastly stronger than the scientific research supporting meditation. The proven benefits of exercise are in order of magnitude different than the benefits of meditation.

I had 3 weeks during this summer when I was with my 5yo at my parents house. My parents took care of their grandchild and he was happy to just spend time with them. I didn't have to cook, take care of groceries or do any house chores that normally fill my day up. I could just work, so I did, for 10-12h a day (usually it's about 7h).

I had trouble with sleeping basically from the day one. I was constantly thinking about one more optimisation or bug fix I can apply to make the feature I'm working on better. I lost interest in my normal evening activities (movies, books, games). I had been looking forward to spending these 3 summer weeks at my parents' for a few months before, but I made it quite stressful, by my own wish.

I learnt that taking care of the kids and doing the house chores is something I really need to keep myself sane. Doing it I often wait for the evening, when I can just chill out - but it's hard to relax if you don't do anything else than hitting keyboard for the whole day.

what i sense here, and i felt that too, is needing an excuse to relax. like being able to tell my boss: i'd love to work more but i have to take care of the kids. once you realize what is going on you can work with that more constructively, at which point you'll be able to relax without needing an activity that you didn't choose yourself. you can and should of course continue these chores, but those too you'll be able to do with more deliberation and awareness of what benefits they give you.

There's something deeper here that runs counter to the generally accepted idea that lights from screens at night disrupts the body's circadian rhythm and keeps us awake. Anecdotally I know that I can go from "can't sleep; thinking about everything I have to do tomorrow" to asleep in 10 mins opening my phone and browsing reddit - in dark mode no less, makes me feel better about doing it - and reading mindlessly. Emphasis on mindlessly.

It's important to separate the effects of the light from the screen, and the information the mind is getting through the screen.

I've experimented a bit with blue blocker glasses, and I think they do help a little (perhaps placebo effect is playing a role, but whatever works). But, as you suggest, it is far more important for me to avoid thought provoking material on the screen before bed, than to avoid the screen wholesale.

In the past I read something interesting about falling asleep. We all know how smoking, looking at a screen, eating sugar, etc... are all pretty bad to fall asleep, but actually what's helping the most isn't not doing theses things, it's the routine that you have before sleeping. Someone that does theses things every night, will have a much harder time to go to sleep if he doesn't do theses. Ideally it would be to just suck it up until you build an healthier routine I guess, but if your sleep is fine, why bother really? Just keep the routine that works for you.

I like this idea a lot. I don't really struggle with sleep, I don't get enough, but it's because I'm desperate to enjoy the free time I'm left with after work and responsibilities and ended up getting to bed late.

> accepted idea that lights from screens at night disrupts the body's circadian rhythm and keeps us awake.

Seems like it's true, 'cause after couple of months living with "Night mode" on all my devices I sleep just fine. Also stopped to read/watch anything without good light.

Glad you found a solution.

A very dear friend committed suicide after a few weeks of sleeplessness. I can't say it was the sole cause, but I don't believe he would have done that had he been sleeping more.

Lack of sleep is dangerous to the human brain. Anyone that experiences this should seek help immediately.

My solution to a racing mind: solitaire. I play for 10 minutes and I'm totally groggy and fall asleep very quickly.

Which surely says a lot of the game... ;)

I'm so glad you have found a calming outlet. I personally find mind-numbingly boring games like color matching or just silly dress-up competition phone games really calming.

However, I would still strongly suggest seeing a therapist, or exploring online therapy tools. Escaping with video games is great supplement to a stress-management , and for short term comforts but a strong support system(recognizing and acknowledging stressors, discussing solutions with your partner and family, having an outlet to vent with a professional, and emotional tools for overall resilience improvement) should be your overall goal(and everyones goal).

Here are some resources I've identified for my affinity network at my work, but I think really should be around spread for everyone.

Mental Health is super important. "We all experience different levels of mental health throughout our lives. In fact, half of us will deal with some type of mental health challenge over the course of our lifetime." https://www.eachmindmatters.org/mental-health/

Consider taking mental health breaks and investing time into self-care, because your family and community cares about your well-being too and your contributions are going to be much greater with improved mental health: https://www.workplacestrategiesformentalhealth.com/newslette...

Explore utilizing mental health apps, like a cognitive behavior diary, meditation, or mood tracker to identify and improved harmful thinking patterns: https://adaa.org/finding-help/mobile-apps https://www.workplacestrategiesformentalhealth.com/employee-...

Learn about the signs for suicide risk (it is Suicide Awareness Week! And Tuesday was world suicide prevention awareness day) https://www.suicideispreventable.org/

Quirk is no longer free :(

What's Quirk? I don't see it mentioned in the previous comment or in the links (maybe it was edited).

It's a CBT journal phone app that debuted here a few months ago.

For others reading this thread with sleep struggles, I highly recommend the book "The Sleep Book" by Meadows.

It solved my insomnia where nothing (black out curtains, eye masks, ear plugs, sleeping pills, room temperature, CBT, etc) did.

It's based on the premise that anxious thoughts about falling asleep make our brain scared of danger and our brain doesn't want to fall asleep when we could be in danger. So it has techniques for allowing those anxious thoughts to relax, and then your brain feels it's safe, and then you fall asleep.

Maybe thats why babies fall sleep easily when you hold/cuddle them... their brain sub-consciously may be telling them its safe.

You'd be surprised how often I can't sleep, get up, play some World of Warships (usually 1-2 matches) and then go to sleep within 20 minutes...

There's probably something about a context switch to something that isn't work at play... I may work with a friend to put together a small psychology experiment (he works at a medical school and has access to MRI machines).

Post results on HN or whatever niche blog that'll blow up in six months:)

I feel the exact same with DoTA 2. Makes me relaxed and helps me sleep. Especially the part with "replaying some of the moments from the video game in my daydreaming imagination". Resonates a lot.

You must be getting much less frustrating team mates than me haha :)

Every time I hit the Play button for ranked I feel such anxiety with Dota2. Normally I just play in the arcade, like 12v12 or some tower defense instead.

Something that worked for me was playing a TV show that I've watched to death (Archer, Community, Rick and Morty.) on my phone. Listening to a story that I already know occupies my brain just enough to let go of my own worries, and since I know the end of them all, I don't have the need to sit up and wonder what's going to happen next.

Kind of the opposite of what they recommend (completely silent and dark room) for so-called "sleep hygiene", which, when I practiced it, only served to keep me awake longer.

This is great! I wasn‘t sure if I should try it again after getting hooked in my teens. But now I think I will just sell it as a mental health exercise to myself :D

But jokes aside, good to hear you‘re feeling better. I can definitely see how going about the kind of low-effort but very satisfying and immersive activity that is WoW could be helpful for people having problems handling their stress levels.

All the best to you and your family!

Thanks! My wife hypothesizes that it's the act of getting my attention fixed to something dumb enough that my brain can "wind down" before bed. (not that WoW is dumb. But I spend my time fishing and taking photos)

Taking photos (with analog film actually) was a sort of an emotional outlet for me. It also made my wife say, either you quit doing that or we divorce. And I thought to myself, is this... a normal way to argue? I figured, no probably not. Slowly I started questioning more things. Many months of pain and suffering and finally we are divorced and I'm so relieved. What helps me sleep now is podcasts and making sure I've had at least some exercise during the day, like biking to work or long walks with the dog. The physical activity is especially important if I have a lot of troubles to worry about.

Good for you, that sounds like a pretty unreasonable ultimatum to give someone.

Like anything, it depends how much of an all-consuming obsession it was, and if it was the straw that broke the camel's back on top of other marital troubles.

Of course. I'm not trying to present a case here - I'm just describing what happened inside me.

i believe there is only one way to keep a marriage alive: you need to have a common goal, and wanting to work together to achieve that goal. while working on that goal you'll be able to compromise on other things. you can demonstrate for example how photography gives you the energy needed for that goal, or you find that photography gets on the way of your common goal and you'll reduce it or stop.

without a common goal you have no reason to compromise on anything and as a result every partner will just maximize for their own benefit.

I do the same, when it ramps up like that, I either do an audio book, or read a real book. It's just enough focus for me that my mind doesn't go wild but it's not stimulating enough to keep me awake as I slow down. (Stimulating as in a fast paced movie or video game). I just think about the story, and drift off as I slow down.

It's a major life win for me.

Glad you finally found a good solution, but I have to say that this is really worded like a bad old TV advertisement for WoW. :)

I can also whole-heartedly recommend the Nintendo Switch for busy people: The instant suspend/resume of any game mean that you can quite easily continue where you left off in seconds. It's hard to find time to game when we get older.

Another option for us phone-always-in-reach types is the idle/incremental games. (Not a plug, I just happen to be trying out Antimatter Dimensions for now.)

The usual setup has you co a bunch of clicking and watching whatever numbers grow, and soon enough tools to autoclick become available. I open it occasionally, see what's happened in the meantime, do a few actions, "Clear All" to empty the app list and away I go until hours/days later and I happen to think of it in slower moments.

No actual goal, just 'bigger'. Sometimes there's wired in challenges or harder achievements, sometimes not.

Often enough, I clear data and start from scratch if I feel like it.

Very calm, but feels like a game anyway.

I always clear my mind one way or others before go to bed otherwise I will fall asleep at 4am or later. For me, they key point is to make me think about thing that I don't really know, or happens slowly and has mini pauses. For example watching/hearing a professional DotA 2 match, or snooker match.

I am also struggling with sleep. Applying for jobs and starting a blood pressure medication flipped on my insomnia. It's been nearly a month of waking up three or four hours before I want to and it's driving me crazy. Does anyone have any tips for falling back to sleep?

It's the opposite for me. I recently took up gaming again and I'm finally into it as well. However, the anticipation and excitement is making it hard for me to go to bed/sleep.

Back in the day, when a buddy was into Warcraft he could fall asleep anytime he wanted during the day. “I have five minutes before the next meeting. Zzzzzz...” Not sure it was just three hours at night, though.

Kinda similar how where I am, draftee privates can sleep standing up, and sometimes with open eyes.

I think that in the coming years, science will show that play is an essential part of human well-being.

If I don't game for at least an hour every night there might not be any time for fun in the day due to life commitments and how "serious" things seem to be.

That's interesting because, after quitting WoW back in 2012 or so, a couple of years I started playing vanilla on a private server and now it's my go-to "down time" thing again. I'm currently kind of sad because my server shut down when Classic released (and I don't want to sign up to Classic for other reasons) and I'm missing my game. :/

That's psychologically fascinating, it's like your subconscious needed the escapism. You just needed something that wasn't day to day life for just a few hours a day. There's something in that, for sure.

I'm having the same feelings. I want also to try to have side hustles or play games, but I'm really too tired on evenings..I already wake up daily at 5.30/6, going to bed on 22

Freeciv has gotten me through many bouts of mental and physical health

Taking time for yourself is very important as a parent. Good for you!

A few months ago I read that the best way to relax for a programmer type of brain is actually video games.

That made me go out and buy an Xbox so I could play Doom and other mindless games to wind down.

Man, Doom 2016 is an astonishingly good video game. It's rare to find games that so thoroughly accomplish exactly what they set out to do. I finally got around to playing through it about a month ago and I'm very excited for Doom Eternal in November.

Second on gaming. I would add running/working out to the list too!

Checkout Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia, or CBT-I

Self hypnosis with video games?

I'm shocked at how many people seem to be doing OK or have minor complaints.

For me, I've realized that if I have to do anything for 40+ hours a week on a schedule, after a couple of weeks, I'd prefer being dead.

I could be a professional ice cream taste tester or race car driver, and after about 3 weeks of showing up at a fixed time and putting in 8 hours, I'd still be ready to off myself again.

When I have week-long breaks from work (like holidays mixed with PTO), I regain the will to live and there's so much I want to do, and I'm so sad about how much time I've wasted. I start projects, I start forming relationships, I feel happiness. Then I go back to work, and the suicidal tendencies are way stronger than before I left.

The best way for me to survive seems to never allow myself time off of work, because I dare not remind myself of what a free life would be like, or I might not be able to endure my current circumstances for another day.

I just don't understand how people function as workers in society. I hope I can retire before this kills me.

The way you feel is normal. Please don't try to beat yourself into something you're not, or worse, feel guilty for not being able to. There's a line from a song I like that goes "This place is designed to kill us and make us think it's our fault."

Remember that the 40 hour work week was considered a victory for unions. Not as an "I should feel grateful that I have this", but as a sign that progress is possible, and class struggle is real.

Humans were not meant to live like this. "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

Some humans like living like this.

They lack all imagination so they have nothing better to do anyway. They have no charisma or empathy so work is only the place for them to hang out with people. They hate people who thrive outside of work so they want everyone's life to be consumed by it.

|There's a line from a song I like that goes "This place is designed to kill us and make us think it's our fault."

What song ?

Not sure if citruscomputing is referring to this, but Death/Bad Girl from Thank You by Black Dresses has that lyric. It’s towards the end:

“i didn't even know what i was going thru

until like, a year ago

and now it's everything

this place is designed to kill us

and make us think it's our fault”

yeah it's that one :)

Linking to search engine results page is almost never helpful.

And almost always pedantic.

I also get the "waking up" feeling whenever I take more than a few days off, and going back to work feels like a death sentence (not in the judge-pounding-the-gavel sense, more in the it's-later-than-you-think sense).

I don't feel suicidal, but I do feel desperate to waste less of my priceless time on piling up the money so that I can survive and support a family in a society that seems engineered to trap me in this half-living state. Maybe I'm just weak, for not being willing to throw it all away and go live in a barrel up in the mountains.

> Maybe I'm just weak, for not being willing to throw it all away and go live in a barrel up in the mountains.

It's unclear to me if this is a weakness or a strength. I don't know which way is up.

Are you a stronger person if you're willing to say fuck it and go do your own thing and not be concerned with things like health care and financial stability?

Or are you a stronger person by steadfastly holding your station at work, because you just barely have enough grit to tough it out?

I can't shake the feeling that making peace with this half-living state as a daily existence is either the greatest achievement or the biggest mistake. So I remain anxious about it and pretend I haven't committed either way, although my resume would show you that I've clearly opted for permanent half-living through continuous employment.

Maybe it's too much to think about and I should go back to fantasizing about a life worth living while another work day ticks by...

> I can't shake the feeling that making peace with this half-living state as a daily existence is either the greatest achievement or the biggest mistake.

This really concisely sums up a feeling I haven’t been able to put my finger on for the longest time, thank you.

The problem is you can't really choose. As someone with a spouse and kids and possibly other people depending on you (aka your income), the pressure to acquire a monthly payment is astounding. There really is no simple or quick way out of this rat race.

I'm trying so hard to get out. I'm single with no plan to have dependents, and a debt-free homeowner. I'm not in a relationship for obvious reasons, but if I was, I guess I'd be limited to FIRE people who don't want children, which isn't a very big pool.

According to the calculators, I still have to put in at least another 10 years and save aggressively before I can quit.

I don't think I'm gonna last that long, and if I do, I don't know if there'll be any of me left to enjoy it.

Is that for American retirement ?

I absolutely love a tiny island town called Bocas Del Torro, Panama , you can buy a decent house for 50-150K, they use the US dollar, their is a large active expat community. If you're ok with learning Spanish, I'd get the f out before you completely die.

My current plan is to hold this job for as long as I can, then I'm done ( I'm 40 for reference ) - Im going to live as long as the money lasts, have a good time of freedom, then it's goodbye.

Yeah it is, based on age and savings and one of those FIRE calculators, and predicted spending based on what I know like house maintenance, food, clothes, etc.

My Spanish is no bueno, but if my job was "learn Spanish", I don't think it'd be a huge problem.

Wouldn't you have to worry about political instability down in Panama? How would health care work? Can I return to the US if I leave? Do I have to give up US citizenship? Would Panama be ok with me working remotely?

There's gotta be some catch besides the choice of language.

The catch is spotty internet, spotty electricity, no running water ( running water on the main island everywhere else is rainwater collection ), and shitty doctors.

Healthcare is cash only, if you had a serious problem I would recommend going back to the US.

If you spend over 50K for a house you get dual citizenship, you don't give up your US citizenship ( I personally wouldn't move anywhere where you have to give up US citizenship ) , you still pay taxes on any money earned in the US.

It's not a perfect solution at all, you just have to figure out what you value the most.

I will say, I spent 6 months down there, and coming back was hell. Why do we live this way ? The natives their fish out of the ocean for their food, they don't have alarm clocks, they don't have _any_ paperwork, and there some of the happiest people I've ever met. I'd trade my material shit for their freedom most days.

As someone who is not depended on by anyone, I still have to acquire a monthly payment. I don't have a way out of the rat race either.

To be fair, there are plenty of destitute people with dependants. Yours can probably stand to lower their material standards

I can relate here, not sure if this is a reality for you but one thing that's helped me in this regard is negotiating 25hr/wk arrangements (accepting the pay cut). More flexibility, and if you're willing to burn the midnight oil once in a while you can bump your pay with a second (hopefully temporary!) gig.

How does that work in practice? What do you do? I can do just about any tech job, but every employer I've ever had is only interested in more than full time.

Maybe I've been unintentionally signalling that I'm capable of doing more and that's why I keep finding myself in this situation?

I'd be much happier if I had half the salary and somehow was able to work 2x12hr days instead of 5x8hr days, but I have no idea how to find employers that would agree with that. If you could get two people like me to do 2x12 at increased productivity during work hours with half the cost, you'd be coming out ahead, and you'd have more knowledge on tap in the organization.

Wish I had better suggestions, but for me it's been a word-of-mouth thing. Started with one person wanting to take me on but he "couldn't afford full-time pay"; he knew someone else who also needed help "here and there" so he helped me setup the initial arrangement to "make me whole", so to speak. A lot of luck and help to get it started.

In practice, it's fairly easy to keep all parties happy, though inevitably there will be stretches where one client really wants my time at the expense of my other projects. That's a fine line, but I haven't run into issues with it yet. I'm sure someday I'll over-commit myself and pay for it. Thus far the key has been responsiveness and "general availability", being open about when/how I can give them more focused attention for various projects. If I tell client A I have a big deadline coming up for client B or vice-versa, they're usually pretty understanding.

Best suggestion I could offer would be to talk to your friends/network and see if anyone "needs help here and there", to see if that opens a conversation towards an independent contractor arrangement.

I actually wrote a post about this just now, perhaps it can show you some possibilities! https://medium.com/@marcospgp/how-i-code-for-4-hours-a-day-a...

Have you considered remote work? Sounds like it would be right up your alley. (Good) remote companies work based on results, not "butts in seats," so you're free to work in whatever way works best for you. Of course, you still have to be productive.

I do remote now, but I don't think much of anything is based on "results". We still have mandatory morning meetings, many meetings through the week, lots of questions to be answered, bugs to be fixed, new features to be written, etc. Maybe I should stop working for startups?

If I had a clear goal of "get this done for the week" and that was it, why wouldn't I just do it as quickly as possible and then not do anything else? I just assumed this whole system of meetings/checkins/standups/code-reviews/slack-channels/etc was set up to avoid people doing that.

If anything, I feel more pressure to be readily available when I'm remote.

I agree. When you’re remote you want to show you are available to others. However you are allowed to take a day and do things you need to do, just keep your average hour session up and sleep well

How do you get health insurance in that situation, our of curiosity? All the employer-sponsored plans that I am familiar with require a minimum 30 hours / wk commitment.

Being an independent contractor is awesome (it's what I did for 100% of my income from 2004 until just a couple of months ago) but the health insurance situation and fear ended up killing it.

You can get health insurance without being employed! Or check out the “healthcare cost-sharing” groups like Sedera - it’s great for freelancers.

I felt like I should make a throwaway for this...

I'm the same. I'm in a loop where I hold a job for a few months (IT support, recently, contract work, so that they're okay with me leaving), 10 months or so at the most, and then quit so I have my spare time (and energy) back. The last two times, I went overseas with no plan past the first few days. The key thing about after-work and weekend hours is they aren't as useful for getting things done as weekday hours, because you're tired from work.

I just quit a pretty relaxed IT job to move from Australia to Scotland and live in a hostel.

I'm working on a really exciting coding project now, which I've had the idea for for about a year, but never had the time and energy for before. However, I will soon run out of money, and will need a job.

My plan was to do this for a short time, then apply for development jobs once I got a few things finished for my portfolio of work. But - and maybe this is one of the reasons I've held myself back for so long already - I've realized recently I'm too scared. I'm too scared of going back to 9 to 5, even if I'm out of IT and into development. I'm too scared of having someone else in control of how I spend my time. I'm scared of no longer having the chance to become someone exceptional, someone accomplished, someone unique. I'm scared of deciding on a life and then feeling stuck with it.

I'm considering trying something crazy and risky like acting, and coding on the side, or freelance, if I can manage that.

I am reminded of this passage from from A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick:

" The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn’t hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it.

That life had been one without excitement, with no adventure. It had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all.

In this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing."

A lot of my friends think this way but have changed their mindsets after getting stable jobs. One thing to note is that being exceptional and having a conventional life aren’t mutually exclusive. I used to think that I should always be moving from one startup to another in hopes of striking it rich. That is until I realized that a high paying software job might bring me more fulfillment than trying to start my own thing. I got tired of making things that didn’t pan out and wanted to be a part of something bigger, like a billion dollar company that’s been in business for more than 2 years total.

In making the switch I’ve learned that in my rebellion to live like everyone else in my field, living life the way I thought I wanted, I was ignoring the draw of happy normalcy I longed for in the present. I began to feel like I was chasing old goals to somehow please my former self and was guilting myself into thinking that any new goals that were compromises. I eventually got over it when I felt comfortable letting myself be happy in the present and less afraid of being able to reassess and change opinions I convinced myself were strong enough to hold me throughout my entire life.

Are you not saving at all and only working when you need money?

If you become unable to work, aren't you concerned that you'll become homeless or starve?

I feel the same as you but I think most people - including me - only justify working because it pays for what we want to do in life. The problem is not having enough time to do what we want in life, and negotiating less hours for less pay leaves us with less pay to do the things we want with the time we gain. It's a very fine line and it leaves everyone unfulfilled most of the time depending on your expectations. One approach is to try and find fulfillment in life with the time and money you have, and optimize for that.

Here comes an inverse take.

I used to believe what you believe... Before I started working. I couldn't imagine getting up before 9 every day and go to work, get home around 5, and repeat that every day.

Now that I've actually started working, I've completely changed. I took a week off to play Classic, but I was tearing my eyes out after three days, bored out of my mind. Now I feel like I can never see myself retiring without going completely insane.

I'm blown away by that. How did you make the transition? I didn't know anyone transitioned from how I think about life to how you now think about it.

I've got "love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life" filed somewhere between "atheism is just a phase" and "you'll want kids some day".

I'm starting to think I've missed some key developmental step.

Please understand that I am saying this in a compassionate, not a judgmental way. I think the key developmental step is to be able to get over yourself. I think this is a fundamental part in becoming a mature person. Many of us are forced through this step against our will and maybe without realizing it. Either through our job, or significant other, or kids, or some other experience that just overwhelms you. Apparently you are a tougher nut to crack than most people. It's not easy because it's like part of you has to die and it doesn't go quietly.

But on the other side, where it becomes easy to start thinking about others first, everything starts to fall into place. We were made to be like this. A human child tends to be self-focused. A human adult must be much more selfless. And I don't think we can really be happy until we achieve this state. When you can find joy in satisfying others, you have access to a bottomless well of happiness. (Then it turns out satisfying others is pretty hard even when you are really trying)

It's funny because this is something religion usually stresses as well, so if you've avoided that you really might be missing out.

Thank you. You shouldn't be downvoted for saying this. I feel like you're saying what everyone else around me is thinking, but nobody has ever actually said.

I don't even know why you'd have to preface it by saying you mean to be compassionate. If your belief is the common one, why isn't that something people talk about? Is it that taboo? Shouldn't this death of self be celebrated if it's how were made to be?

Also, I think it's not a coincidence that my views on this definitely have not changed since I was a kid that hated school. I also rejected religion as a kid, and have continued to do so as an adult. Seems like you've got me figured out so far.

> It's not easy because it's like part of you has to die and it doesn't go quietly.

That is exactly what it feels like.

> But on the other side, where it becomes easy to start thinking about others first, everything starts to fall into place.

This is where you lost me. From my perspective, I would be a better person without the work obligation. I don't really know what I'd do without the obligation to work, but it would probably be more philanthropic than whatever my employer has me doing. Maybe I'd work on free software or anti-censorship? Or maybe I'd find joy in helping the disadvantaged in my local community? Or maybe I'd find virtue in starting a family? I have no idea, but I won't find out unless I luck into a few million bucks, because I can barely function while I'm employed. I can assure you I'd be a greater asset to society if I was unemployed than building commercial software.

> And I don't think we can really be happy until we achieve this state. When you can find joy in satisfying others, you have access to a bottomless well of happiness.

I don't understand. Are you saying that I should accept some greater wisdom that giving my employer my best waking hours is helping the company, and that is somehow greater than helping myself? If that were the path to fulfillment in life, I should be taking a pay cut and working longer hours, which is quite the opposite of what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to hoard as much as possible because I know society won't support me later if I become unable to support myself. Which incidentally, is also what I believe my employer is doing for himself.

I suspect society only works because your view is widespread, but I still can't understand it.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I didn't mean that becoming selfless should make you more dedicated to your job. It might do that, depending on your job. But the main thing is that you can start to enjoy everything more, particularly whatever it is you really should be doing.

If you are in a place where you decide you should really be working, then you can work and not feel miserable about it. If you are in a place where you can live a fuller life without working a regular job, then you should do that instead. There's nothing wrong with helping people out at work, while getting money so that you can help yourself and your loved ones out at home. And you can enjoy both parts. As long as you aren't doing something you'd consider evil at your job. Then the same selflessness might help you to either quit or make change inside the company, without having so much fear about what will happen to you.

If you are so miserable while doing any kind of thing in a set way over any length of time, then you may find a soul-crushing moment where you have achieved permanent financial independence, are living your dream, and find this feeling overtaking you again. But this time there is no hope of an eventual way out.

Ok, that makes sense, but you make it sound like I know what I should be doing.

It's impossible to know what I should be doing in any kind of optimal way without knowing when I'm going to die.

If I'm going to die next year, I'd be pretty upset that I didn't quit my job today.

If I'm going to die far in the future, then I'm going to die homeless if I quit my job today, because I don't think I'd be ever be able to force myself to go back. I sometimes wonder what percentage of homeless people started off like me, where they couldn't take it anymore so they quit and then the money runs out.

> If you are so miserable while doing any kind of thing in a set way over any length of time, then you may find a soul-crushing moment where you have achieved permanent financial independence, are living your dream, and find this feeling overtaking you again. But this time there is no hope of an eventual way out.

I don't even think I'd be upset if this is what happens. At least I'd learn something about myself. I really have no idea who I am, and I've never had the chance to explore who I'd be without work for more than a couple of weeks at a time. Based on the few limited breaks I've had over the years, I suspect I'd be a very different person than I am today.

I honestly feel the same way as you, but inexplicably without the suicidal ideation. I'm not happy, per se, but I feel I've hit a spot different from either yours or who you're replying to. I agree with everything you've said, but my emotional self just goes on for whatever reason. I wish I had some actual advice or something, but all I can really say is, I'm an example that shows, at least in some people, "situation" and "how the situation changes my emotional state" are partially orthogonal.

That's a useful data point. It's hard to get a sense of these things when nobody ever wants to talk about them.

Perhaps another way to phrase a similar thought.

You’re probably right, ones life, and the world for that matter, could be different in ways that would be better. And this fact certainly deserves some amount of mourning. Especially things that seems to be just within reach.

But then again, if we take that thought to it’s extreme there’s no end to it, how different can we which for before being unreasonable? My goto example being that I wasn’t born with wings, and yes sometimes this fact saddens me, but overall not to an extent that it takes away my happiness for everything in my life I’m thankful of. Flying would be nice, but so is spending an evening dining with family, and this I can do (a fact I’m grateful of, not everyone is so lucky).

Perhaps it would be better to be born in another era, say a thousand years from now? A million? And yet, this place and time is probably so much better than many others I could have been born in. Would I be happier if I didn’t need oxygen? Eternal life? Perhaps. But why bother thinking about it The die has been cast, the rules of the game has been selected, I might as well enjoy it while playing.

I don't think the answer is subservience to an employer or sticking with the rat-race or religion, but it might be that an OP up-chain implied that once you have children, being at their service is a very pure, simplifying experience. If you're battling reality now, children won't be a solution because they also up the difficulty level a huge amount, but reading them a book is priceless, seeing them smile is priceless, going for a walk together is priceless. They make simple things brilliant.

It gives you an easier purpose than "maybe I'll work on anti-censorship stuff". Do you have niblings you can spend time with? Being an uncle/aunt or an equivalent to friends' children can be great too. Once upon a time, I considered myself definitely not the baby type, but now I have three kids and enjoy hanging out with my nephew, etc.

What about the outdoors?

Your "get over yourself" and "mature person" bits fill me with frustration and anger. I'm sorry for that, but it's there.

Being selfless is great. Hating the grind of a 40 hour / week job, versus "accepting" it has nothing to do with selflessness.

I didn't say being more selfless meant becoming a slave to your employer. I clarified in another post that becoming more selfless can actually help you to leave a toxic environment too. Or maybe you might realize that you were part of the reason it was so toxic, and you take that with you wherever you go. In that case running doesn't help. I don't know what OPs situation is or what yours is. Once you let go of yourself a bit, and readjust your mindset and priorities accordingly, based on whoever you are and whatever situation you are in, then it will likely become more clear what you should do. And it will be easier, and even enjoyable, to do what you should do.

I don't think we were designed to be miserable, so if we are stuck in misery isn't it logical to think we might be pursuing joy in the wrong things?

> But on the other side, where it becomes easy to start thinking about others first, everything starts to fall into place. We were made to be like this. A human child tends to be self-focused. A human adult must be much more selfless. And I don't think we can really be happy until we achieve this state. When you can find joy in satisfying others, you have access to a bottomless well of happiness. (Then it turns out satisfying others is pretty hard even when you are really trying)

I think you're right, but what does work have to do with any of that? Maybe some jobs are about helping people, but most aren't really.

If anything a job makes it harder for most people to be selfless because they don't have the time.

The people you are helping is your family (via your income from the job).

My plan is to not have any family because of this employment problem. It'd be neat to have kids I guess, but however good it is cannot possibly be worth an extra 20 years of employment.

I have no idea what Classic is, but maybe it's not the thing you'd want to do so much of. That doesn't mean there isn't anything, or any combination of things, that you could do.

World of Warcraft Classic. It's MMORPG videogame from Blizzard.

Ah, jeez. Yeah, it seems fairly obvious that spending that much time in front of a screen isn't the path to happiness. If that's what he did with his time off no wonder he was unhappy with it.

I need to at least do something physical to be happy.

That's the exact opposite of what he said.

"I took a week off to play Classic, but I was tearing my eyes out after three days, bored out of my mind."

Start your own business, work fewer hours, and take the cut in pay. That's what I did, and I have no regrets. It's the best decision I ever made.

In my experience this is pretty bad advice for a lot of people. Starting a business is 1) almost always more time consuming and stress-inducing than working a normal job, 2) tends to end up being 20% the stuff you enjoy doing and 80% the stuff you don't, and 3) has an incredibly high chance of being really bad for you financially.

A potentially better solution several of my friends have pursued to good effect is to get the hell out of the 9-5 world and work a non-office job. Bartending is an example, another friend is now a baker, a third does event planning. Etc.

It isn't necessarily more stressful and time-consuming.

The point isn't to "start a business", it's to carefully engineer a viable business - which means doing solid research on customer numbers and income/profit estimates, creating a system for acquiring customers, and so on.

Basically an adult plan. Not am impulse or hobby business.

And that includes setting work limits for yourself, so you don't become the cliched 80-hr a week self-employed robot.

2) is certainly true. But it's true for any job. It's very rare for work to be wholly positive, no matter what you do.

The most basic difference is that you have an internal locus of control. This immediately removes a lot of stress, because you're no longer responsible for cleaning up other people's mistakes, or pandering to unrealistic whims.

You're still vulnerable to macro-economics, although that's true of any job. But you can also improvise and pivot your way out of difficulties - which is much harder when you're being managed from above.

In theory, that's true but I think you're making it sound a lot easier than it actually is. I don't know a single owner of a profitable business with employees that works less than a $250k/yr FAANG engineer. I sure as hell didn't any of the times I've run businesses. In general, you end up trading one set of issues for another - typical employee frustrations for typical business owner frustrations (closing new clients, dealing with employees, fighting competitors, keeping clients happy, managing all the overhead operations that come with business ownership, etc.)

It's possible to run a low-stress lifestyle business, but I would say it's not the norm and tends to be fragile unless we're talking something like lone wolf 1099 contractor self-employed without significant family obligations.

You don't have to take on employees. My one person business has been far more stable than my previous employment. I can lose a customer and still pay the bills, that wasn't the case when my only customer was my employer.

I agree with your original point, it isn't for everybody and it sounds like it wasn't for you. But I know many people who have managed to fit their business around their life rather than their life around their business.

Sounds like Office Space. ICYMI, the main character quits his job at a tech company and works outside doing construction.

I stalked you a little based on that comment, and I can't figure out what it is you really do.

You must be living a good life if you've got time to maintain a toy programming language (https://github.com/kerkeslager/fur), and you must be able to pick your work carefully if you're so passionate about GPL, which I can respect.

But how do you make money? And how did you get started? I'd be concerned about losing health insurance or draining savings while losing the opportunity cost of employment. How sure were you that your plan would work before you took the leap?

I don't think I'm really ready to give you the keys to life or anything. I'm happy with where I'm at, but it's certainly not perfect and it wouldn't work for everyone. I'll answer your questions, though.

> But how do you make money?

I do web development, mostly. I mostly ensure that I have work by undercharging for my services ($80/hour, which is pretty competitive for a Python developer with 10+ years of experience, 6ish of them in Python). I have low expenses because I live without some comforts (I live in a shared rental). I drive a 1996 Toyota Tacoma with 248K miles on it. I rock climb. It's not an extraordinary life, but it's mine and I like it.

> And how did you get started?

Parted ways on fairly good terms with my last salary job, without any real plan.

> I'd be concerned about losing health insurance or draining savings while losing the opportunity cost of employment.

Not to nitpick semantics, but you're currently paying the "opportunity costs" of employment. The opportunity costs of employment are what you lose by being employed, not the other way around.

Health insurance is literally my biggest expense, more than rent, and I'm a healthy 32 year old guy. The US is not a good place to be a human with a fallible body. What can I say, it's a risk. Plan for health insurance in your savings. Ultimately, not being in the US is probably the best idea--we're the only first world country with a third world healthcare system.

> How sure were you that your plan would work before you took the leap?

Not sure at all. It hasn't always "worked", either, I worked at a coffee shop and drove recycling to the dump for some local businesses, did landscaping, pet watching. I've never starved, never had to borrow money from friends or family. But I'm still not sure.

Your boss could lay you off tomorrow. Tomorrow's Friday, that's when they lay people off. There's certainly a risk in branching off on your own, but don't underestimate the risk of doing the same thing you've always done.

Probably you'll be okay no matter what choice you make, even if it's a mistake. It's just your finances. Your finances matter, but there are more important things.

EDIT: I'm passionate about the GPL, but can't really afford to be Richard Stallman about it. The reason I license my free software under the GPL is that I want it to push humanity forward, not get locked off in private codebases. But that's what I do on my free time, not what I do for work. I'd love to get paid to write GPL code and maybe some day I will, but most of the code I write is closed source for companies. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite--I like to think it makes me pragmatic.

Thank you. That's eye opening. This thread is making me realize how much the US health care system really is impacting my life choices.

> It's not an extraordinary life, but it's mine and I like it.

From where I'm sitting it seems pretty extraordinary :)

> This thread is making me realize how much the US health care system really is impacting my life choices.

Have you considered going to London/Toronto/Vancouver? There's lots of business potential in all three places, healthcare included in taxes (though not immediately--I'm not an expert but I know from friends there's definitely a waiting period in Canada and probably in the UK). You could work a salary job for a year or two to build up contacts and then branch out on your own.

The weather is simply too cold for me in those places. I need more sun, even NY is a bit rough for me. But if healthcare is a big concern it might work for you. I know people who have worked in and loved all three.

> From where I'm sitting it seems pretty extraordinary :)

Haha, well, thanks. I guess what I'm trying to say is, there isn't a script you have to follow. The typical 9-5 American dream sounds like it's a bad script for you, but what I've done might not be any better. Try stuff out, don't live in fear of mistakes, find out what works for you.

> ($80/hour, which is pretty competitive for a Python developer with 10+ years of experience, 6ish of them in Python)

I have this kind of experience, but the most I can make is $50/hour. How do you find high value clients?

I don't know if I have a real strategy here. I just give my rate early in the process and don't make it sound like it's negotiable. Some people don't call me back, and I suspect my rate is why. I do offer a lower rate to nonprofits. I've gotten one client through Craigslist (oddly) but despite ads on a bunch of websites, the rest of my work has come through referrals.

I suspect the biggest thing is just being in a good location. I live 90 minutes from NYC and can get there easily. The majority of my clients are in NYC and I think it would be hard to get the same rate in any but a few other cities (SF, Seattle maybe?).

There are some intangibles here. I interview well. I have code samples that I think are good--I don't have a lot to compare them to, but maybe they stand out compared to other devs. I do one stack (Python/Django/React) which is in high demand. I've been told I'm easy to work with and my clients have always been willing to give me recommendations (the recommendations are confidential, but I imagine they're positive because I keep getting work based on them). My experience is with some big name (top 50) companies. There are a lot of things in my situation that might be different from yours.

In general "finding high value clients" sounds a lot like advertising, and I don't really believe in advertising. I think advertising is a distraction from providing value, and believe that if I provide value to my clients the results will speak for themselves.

I wonder: how do you know you can only make $50/hour? If you just started telling people your rate was $80 from the get-go what would shake out?

how long did it take before you got enough work through referrals? and how much does your location matter to find clients? i am unable to find any local clients but i also can't easily move to anywhere else because i have a family with school-age kids which you don't move on a whim. people keep recommending upwork and similar places, but the quality of the offers there is not good either, and i end up competing with cheap labor. all the advice i find online is about how to get better leads, but not about how to get leads in the first place.

> how long did it take before you got enough work through referrals?

First referral was 3 months in. Work before that was from a friend of a friend, and someone I met in my coworking space.

People don't generally go through the effort of finding new freelance developers unless they have at least a month of work for them to do, so I'm not constantly scrambling to look for work.

> and how much does your location matter to find clients?

I think I could find clients almost anywhere, but I think they wouldn't pay as much elsewhere. NYC has a high concentration of high-revenue companies.

That said, I've only really worked from NYC and near NYC, so I don't really have any basis for comparison.

> i am unable to find any local clients but i also can't easily move to anywhere else because i have a family with school-age kids which you don't move on a whim. people keep recommending upwork and similar places, but the quality of the offers there is not good either, and i end up competing with cheap labor. all the advice i find online is about how to get better leads, but not about how to get leads in the first place.

My experience is limited here because my life situation is very different, but here are some ideas.

1. I don't live in NYC, I live 90 minutes outside it. This means I can travel, but in practice I don't do it frequently. So if you could travel a few times a year, you might get a lot of the benefits of living in NYC or SF without actually living there.

2. Upwork didn't even let me create a profile. Maybe think about people who you've worked with in the past (at previous employers or who left your company) and see if they or their companies are looking for any freelance work?

3. Obviously your risk tolerance is a lot lower than mine due to your family, so you might try doing stuff part-time. First step would be to make sure you have proper boundaries with your current job so you're not working overtime (which I'd say you should do regardless of any of my other advice anyway). And then look for small contracts, which can build a freelance portfolio and potentially get you more work.

nr 1. is a good point. i am actually doing that, and most of my current leads come from that.

nr 2. is something i heard frequently, but always leaves me at a loss. i just don't have enough past contacts to get anything out of that. it requires me to keep in touch with friends and colleagues remotely, which is something i find very hard to do.

for nr 3. i'd take a part-time remote job in a heartbeat, if i could find one. all jobs i have seen so far are full-time and not a good fit.

i forgot to mention, pretty much all work i got in the past few years was referrals. there just weren't enough of them. which means my referral network is not strong enough and i see no way to make it larger other than getting work elsewhere.

I've given this some thought, as I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself. I think I'm going to try this after my current startup sells or fails.

What I think I would do is reach out to anyone I know and let them know that I'm open for business and looking for clients. All of my employment jobs have worked that way, so I think it's probably a good first step for consulting too.

After that, I'd probably contact companies with job listings and offer to help them as needed with an hourly rate. They can always keep my number in their contact list in case they get into a bad spot and have trouble finding devs later. I know there's good job boards on SO, AngelList, and the monthly HN thread. I've been at plenty of companies where we wish we had an extra dev to get us out of a bind or pick up some extra work without committing to a full time hire, so I assume most small companies would be happy to be introduced to me, in case I'm needed later.

Then there's upwork, toptal, and a few others. Those sites really sketch me out because it seems like a race to the bottom, and it seems like it'd be harder to build relationships with clients when you're one of thousands that they picked from for this particular task. After all, they can just dump you and get another from the same web interface. Maybe I'm wrong about this and should give them a try.

This thread has really made me do some hard thinking about what I want in life, and I think I could put in another year or two and become semi-retired, take some time off, and then try to do a little consulting work and see how it goes. I've been paralyzed by fear to try, because I'm not sure if I'd be able to go back to employment if I fail. But after reading all these replies, that seems like a level of risk I should be willing to accept.

I also secretly hope (though I have no idea if it's true) that if I had a few months off work, I'd start building something so interesting than YC would want me. I don't actually know if I'm capable of that, because I've never had the time to experiment and find out, but that seems like a worthwhile attempt just to know what my actual capabilities are when unconstrained by work.

Also, I know this thread is getting old now, but I'd just like to say (in case anyone checks back) that I appreciate the replies here so much. I've never had so many people understand how I feel before. And reading all of the different life experiences that people have shared makes me realize that there is hope for me to do something else, and that I might not be trapped here until I'm dead, which is how it seemed before I started talking about this.

This chap (patio11 on hn) has a lot to say about it - https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ - and there are other good blog posts by him.

I'd love to hear more about this. Have you considered writing a blog post about this and sharing it here? Or if you happen to know of any good resources you can share, I'd appreciate those too.

The reason I ask is that I imagine a small or solo startup that's not focusing on massive growth but is optimizing for quality of life has a different set of challenges than the more traditional startups that people on HN are used to.

I haven't written a blog post, because I don't feel like I have all the answers by any means. I'm sure there are better ways to do almost everything I've done. I haven't always been successful. Maybe in a few years if I have more stuff worked out I'll write a blog post about it.

> The reason I ask is that I imagine a small or solo startup that's not focusing on massive growth but is optimizing for quality of life has a different set of challenges than the more traditional startups that people on HN are used to.

For sure!

How to? Starting your own business is not easy.

I used Zen Business to handle the legal stuff. Beyond that, my business is basically do what I did for a salary job (Python/Django), but fewer hours per week, and getting paid hourly without benefits. That wouldn't work for every career, but in my situation it actually was pretty easy.

Taxes are definitely not easy, but having a separate business bank account has made them a lot easier.

Working for someone else for 50 years is harder after its all said and done I suspect

One thing that stuck out to me was you mentioned needing 10 more years of work to reach your early retirement goals. That sounds like a really long time to me, considering how negative your experience is with working.

If you get your savings rate up to 75-80%, it shouldn't take you more than a few years to earn your freedom for life, even if it's a fairly modest existence.

For what it's worth, that's my plan. Save another 2-3 years then retire to live frugally (in US or abroad) on about $20-24k a year, 3-3.5% withdrawal rate.

Having to hang in there for 2-3 years can be rough at times, but 10 years would be crushing.

A subreddit for people who feel similar: reddit.com/r/antiwork.

Wow, as advertised, there's 43k people who feel just like me.

I agree with almost everything I'm seeing there, but it seems more about highlighting the problems than finding solutions.

yeah, unfortunately it's mostly just people venting. every once in a while they talk about solutions. it's mostly just FIRE, living very cheaply (like in a van), negotiating reduced hours, etc.

I agree wholeheartedly. I've tried again and again to do a full time job and I just can't handle how soul sucking it is. I'm 30 and in my life I've had a total of less than a year of full time employment.

It's not a terrible life, but I do worry about the future a lot, especially when I meet my old college friends and realise what the 100k+ salary gets you. I wish I could do the same but I cannot.

I feel you. I wrote this post just now and it couldn't be more relevant: How I code for 4 hours a day and make more than my peers https://medium.com/@marcospgp/how-i-code-for-4-hours-a-day-a...

If you can, consider consulting. You have much more control of when you work, with whom, and on what. Not perfect, but for sure better. Please give it a go if you can.

I did that and relocated from SF to a cheaper part of the country. How does working on a beach help?

I'm expected to be online during core work hours and available for calls (in a quiet location with good internet).

I feel like I've optimized working as much as humanly possible and I'm still going insane. My job pays well, has good benefits, has good coworkers, my opinion is valued, my work is appreciated, my boss is fine, I learn new things every day, I now do 12-8 instead of 9-5 by switching time zones, and I make sure to be done with work when the office is done with work. I keep telling myself all these objectively good things, but I feel like I'm wasting every day for a paycheck. I store it all away and invest it, as if there's going to be a future, but I'm fully expecting this to kill me long before I'd have enough funds to quit.

I must be doing something wrong though, because if everyone felt like I do, society shouldn't be able to function.

Working on a beach is optional if it's not your thing. I only mentioned it because it would probably feel less like work to me. The point is you choose where and when you want to work.

About being online - I worked remotely for a year with a 10 hour time difference. Talked to my boss on Skype once a week to discuss progress. The rest was up to me. Most of communication was done via ticket comments. Sometimes I skipped a day or even two, but I knew that afterwards I'd have to work extra to make progress.

I don't know if you're doing something wrong, or maybe it's just your personality, but when I did what I loved, it didn't feel like work at all. That was at a small startup where I was the first engineer, and I worked alongside CEO, CTO, and later a couple more guys, building something really interesting. If I felt how you feel, that's the only way I would work. The salary was a third of what I can make now at any big corp in California, but unless you really need the money (kids, mortgage, old age and no savings, etc), then you really don't need much to be happy.

> Talked to my boss on Skype once a week to discuss progress. The rest was up to me. Most of communication was done via ticket comments.

Wait, is this common? I'm constantly answering questions and helping my team along as people get stuck all day. If I had the kind of an arrangement you're describing, I'd just get all my work done for the week in a day, and I wouldn't have a problem. Was there anything preventing you from doing that?

Maybe I'm doing remote wrong? I can choose "where" as long as it's quiet and has good internet, but I can't choose the "when" at all.

I have a phd in deep learning, so I do R&D type of work, where I mostly read papers, build models, run experiments, and occasionally write emails to others who work on similar problems.

I actually didn't like to be so disconnected from the group. I like face to face brainstorming sessions, and I couldn't really have that there.

Sounds like you might be more of a lynchpin to the team than the other commenter (which isn't a negative to them). You could try being less available, say no more often, etc. But some people just can't get away from it.

Here's a forbes article[0] about this phenomenon. Top performers get rewarded with more work in organizations generally speaking. The next job I have I am going to attempt to appear less competent as I have found that getting a 5% raise rather than 3% isn't really worth all the extra hours and weekends.

[0]https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2018/01/25/the-curse-of...

External things have limited relevance to the internal condition.

"Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need." - Matthew 6:33

I don't believe in any gods, and I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean.

Is that advice actionable for you in some way? What do you take it to mean as it relates to modern employment?

The point of the whole section is that it's more important to build a legacy of being a good person than to be wealthy.

One of the lines that proceeds that is:

>27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

Humans should be smart enough to figure out how not to starve and and not to freeze to death without working themselves to death preparing for a future that may not even come. We should care about each other enough to admit that those outcomes are not necessary and be willing to give and accept support form others from time to time.

Gospel of Thomas has a similar parable > , "There was a rich person who had a great deal of money. He said, 'I shall invest my money so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouses with produce, that I may lack nothing.' These were the things he was thinking in his heart, but that very night he died.'

Ie, don't make yourself miserable for material possessions out of fear that if you lack them for a period you will never be ok ever again. You'll lack them when you're dead too. Stress yourself out too much about those things and you'll probably just die early without even attempting the things you wanted to do. At least attempt to improve the world in some way if you think you have the means and desire to do so. And even if you risk your material possessions to do so, it probably isn't the end of the world.

Oh ok, that makes sense. I know that's one way to view the problem, but I guess it carries more weight as being the correct view due to the divine origin of the advice?

Maybe the bible is right here, but another way to view that parable might be that the rich person was planning for his safety, which is wise. And by dying, he has transferred the safety that he was building for himself to his legacy, which can continue without him. I think most people in our society would describe that rich person as being prudent, not foolish. We call that "estate planning" today and it's recommended that everyone does it.

There's a lot of other guidance that I consider very wrong in the same bible though, so its authority doesn't help me much in deciding if it's correct about how to view life. It also seems like this advice might have been more applicable before the invention of medicine.

In any case, I appreciate the explanation.

> I must be doing something wrong though, because if everyone felt like I do, society shouldn't be able to function.

No you're not doing anything wrong. You're not the problem, the society is.

Also I have to say that I feel exactly like you on everything you said on this thread.

Can't help noticing that you don't mention your own perception of purpose of the work in that list. Which is pretty obvious from the overall description anyway.

Sounds like you could use some rotation of occupations until you find anything that's of interest to you. Intrinsic interest trumps external motivation every time, just ask a procrastinator.

Personally I stumbled upon work that interests me purely by chance, only because the web was taking off back then. I don't even need to know I'm serving the humanity or building the future, just give me some scripting to fiddle with and I'll fiddle it into perfect shape. Have no idea how I'd function otherwise—would probably rot my brains off and drink myself to death as a janitor or something.

In fact, I'm getting serious dread from the thought that I should be switching occupations for the reasons of both health and money, and because youngsters are mashing keyboards faster.

Most people think what they do at work is important for them on a personal level. This may not be an objectively correct belief (but then, how does one define what's objectively important for oneself?) but there is this sentiment of wanting to make society better, and at work you are in a kind of society.

You seem to be missing that social link with your coworkers.

(And yes, if you ask me, I'd say it's everybody else that is crazy here, not you. But people are not built to have a completely clear mind.)

As a newly-minted member of the "40 hour / week" working club I have to agree with you. It's not okay. I'm not okay. This lifestyle is bullshit.

I recently shuttered my successful IT contracting business of 15 years. The reasons aren't worth going in to in detail. The fucked US health insurance system, out-of-control medical expenses, the Trump administration, and minor pre-existing medical conditions scared me (my wife and I in our 40's... shit has gone wrong because we've, ya' know, lived...). I was worried that the "Repeal Obamacare" people would eventually leave family without health insurance. In that state, we'd be potentially one health issue away from bankruptcy and losing everything I've worked my whole life for.

A job opportunity came up w/ a Customer. Since all I've done for the last 20 years is "hired gun" contract IT work I have no resume to speak of. I'd never get in the front door of a hiring process for what I'm accustomed to making. I'm "just" a sysadmin (albeit one who does know how to code). I'm in my 40's. I'd be lucky to make half and I'll be damned if I'm going to make my wife work outside the home if she doesn't want to.

So, I took the 40 hour / week public sector job. I spending $15K less per year on health insurance premiums and I'm making about the same gross that I was w/ my business. I guess I should count myself lucky. I should be happy with it. I guess.

The hours are fucking excruciating. Fucking. Excruciating. I don't understand how other people do this. It's soul-sucking and ridiculous. 40 hours a week dedicated to one single thing, aside from sleep, is untenable.

I've religiously tracked 100% my time-- personal and work-- for the last 15 years. My per-night sleep is down to under 6 hours, previously at 7.5 - 8. My personal time (meals, time w/ family, recreation, exercise) is crazily lower now too. I feel physically worse. My weight is going up.

I knew the old gig was good (billing 4.5 hours / weekday, on average, to make what I wanted) but I had absolutely no idea this grind would be such a grind. It's absolutely terrible. I don't see my wife and daughter anymore. I hate the time commitment.

I'm working to find the next business. Maybe there will be some actual progress with health insurance or medical expense and I'll be able to work independently again w/o fear of losing our retirement savings when one of us has the eventual medical issue. We're kicking the savings for retirement up and I need to start doing some income investing (though, again, a fat lot of good that does me if I can't affordable and good health insurance). I need to get rid of this fucking albatross.

I know this is a throwaway for you (and it sort of is for me too), but I just wanted to reply to you and let you know that I'm cheering for you to find a way to make things work. If I ever solve this problem for myself, I'm going to shout the solution from the rooftops, in the hopes we can all learn to live as humans instead of drones.

I am doing ok. Thanks for asking. I am working in my first "hard tech" job after graduating from the help desk. I am also working in my first real job. I am in my late 40's. I am a Unix sysadmin for a fortune 10 company. I have some old debts that I am slowly paying off. They are from years of bad jobs and bad decisions. I am working on getting a better job, migrating into development. My first HN comment. I hope I don't get faded away lol.

I said Fortune 10 and now realize that the company is in the Fortune 200. Thanks for the encouragement nonetheless.

Unix system admin can be stressful especially if its a production environment. It's great to hear things are working out for ya and you're enjoying the new gig.

Sounds like great movement in the right direction, congrats!

Good luck, sounds like everything's falling into place!

Congratulations, and best of luck!

Not really.

My country is being ripped apart, everyone seems so hateful against the other, the government talks about record employment level and pay while people are using foodbanks and sleeping in the streets.

My own life is great by the standards that people usually use to measure success. But it feels so empty. I'd rather check out and go and live in a cave on a hill, but all the land and caves have been parcelled off and sold before I was even born.

So here I am, I continue to live, step over people on my way to work, where I sit and help contribute to climate change, feel the guilt of all of it and wanting to change it but without knowing how.

I can relate; I found myself in a fairly similar place mentally myself a half-year ago. The thing is, you're not alone and it's possible to start making steps towards trying to make a positive difference.

For the intersection of climate change and tech - check out Impact Makers [1] and their Slack community. Plenty of developers, designers, PMs, and data analysts working on various projects and companies across the spectrum of tackling climate change. I'd also recommend looking at and perhaps attending some effective altruism meetups in your city - it's a nice way to meet real people thinking about the same things with similar goals. Lastly I've found the 80,000 Hours website [2] to be a great resource for getting an idea of potential job paths, openings, and resources.

It hasn't been an instant fix but after setting some long-term goals in this space and starting to work towards them I've felt my mental health improve. I hope yours can too!

[1] - https://techimpactmakers.com/

[2] - https://80000hours.org/

I'd ask what third world country you live in, but it really sounds like America right now.

I’d bet good money parent was talking about the UK.

But yes, a lot of countries are like that at the moment.

Yes, I'm in the UK. And yes, it does appear to be worldwide.

It's like, what do you do after you realise The Hoax? : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2VIUcuF3KE

I watched it 12 years ago stoned/drunk in uni. Good question. Can't say it got any better

Does any country _not_ sound like that? I'd like to go there.

If that is the case, things seem pretty good here in the Netherlands.

I was certain it was the same as I live up to the point he talked about record employment levels...

Well, at least we get to know how people feel during major world changes.

Yes, it feels like Argentina to me. I'm in Argentina.

Wow really? That's fascinating. Can you tell us more?

I was thinking the UK due to Brexit and austerity under the Conservatives etc.

I was thinking the US because of the viscous atmosphere between democrats / conservatives.

It feels like we're sliding backwards in civil discourse and it's quite disappointing. We've lost all patience for our neighbor. It's all a black and white, right or wrong, "where do YOU stand?" environment.

That may be what its like in social media, but IRL really doesn't seem to care that much. At least in my cushy midwestern city.

I'm in the UK, but I don't doubt that the same feeling isn't felt in the US or in any other country

I'm fairly certain we're from two different countries, but you pretty much described my feelings to a T. I wonder if this is a normal pattern, or whether the world is going through some sort of slow breakdown with no recent historical precedent?

Information has never been this universal and dense before. A half century ago the only tragedy or suffering you were widely exposed to was that between the bounds of your daily commute and whatever the local news station decided to talk about for half an hour every day. And negativity from everywhere is leaky, and being exposed to a whole planet of it puts in scope the scale of everything broken in the world in a way that to 99.99% of individuals is untenable to even approach improving.

Theres a reason there is a correlation between intelligence and suicide rates or why if you have someone in your family with down syndrome they always seem happy. The wider your perception the more you realize how little you can actually do to influence it. The narrower the easier it is the less there is to worry about.

Nobody has the perfect answer to this problem of course, but one option I like is to budget time for it. Spend a few hours a week "trying to fix the world" and then resign the other 164 hours to trying to fix and improve yourself. If you have explicitly allocated time for something and budget for it its less invasive in the rest of your life. Hopefully. Doesn't work for everyone.

Yes, I've been wondering this too - especially the economic part of it.

How is it that the same dynamic could be happening in so many countries that are ostensibly so different from each other?

I am inclined think that this is because of technological disruption, but how, exactly? Is this because of automation, globalization, or perhaps technology breaking governance systems somehow?

I think it's because we're sold on the idea of progress (technological and other types) as leading to improvements in our lives. But generally they aren't realised.

Automation, for example, was supposed to lead to easier lives with more free time for our own activities, but as I look around I see everyone being so so busy. As a society we are able to produce more and at a greater pace, but all the proceeds of that go up to the top and all of the rest of the people lose out from it.

Maybe a recent historical precedent that sort of matches is the late 1930's? That of course led to WWII. I wouldn't say it's as bad, but there's similarities.

> I'd rather check out and go and live in a cave on a hill, but all the land and caves have been parcelled off and sold before I was even born.

You and me both brother.

Sorry to hear that.

I often think about reconciliating tech with people. Going to help climate change related companies. Or solar powered (if that's of any help) ones.

Maybe even doing small apps for associations. At my last job, I saw how the used very limited tools and people have to work with paper listings the old way even though a simple bit of software logic could alleviate a good amount of stress. I think a lot of people are looking for that.

And just yesterday I ran into a german guy who made is own recruiting agency, his clients are helping optimizing energy consumption, plus they aim at open source too. Felt like a great idea to copy.

On the cave front, your best bet might be car dwelling on public land. I don't know the options in the UK, but there are opportunities in Australia and loads in the US. In the US you can go camp in the forest or desert away from the chaos and (generally) only have to move every 10-14 days. Depending on the vehicle you have, you can do this with minimal expense and as a full-time lifestyle decision or just when you need to clear your head for a weekend.

It's very liberating being out in a forest or desert, especially without phone signal. Fewer distractions, fewer possessions.

We don't really have the space nor the climate for that in the UK. Some people do it but it's out of desperation rather than anything else. You will get hounded by the authorities as well.

Feel ya man. You wrote exactly how I feel. If you're still in Yorkshire, try to get out on the moors, see the sun rise, look at the sheep. Walk through the forests. It helps me a bit!

I don't agree with your individualistic vision. This is the exact kind of mindset that brought us to where we are right now. I can tell you politics won't fix climate change, especially if people start to not care at all...

The whole point of having governments is to address issues that affect large groups of people. Personal crusades, based on distorted perception of issues due to anxiety issues, will never yield useful results.

I agree that governments should be addressing these issues, my initial post was mostly about how they are not doing that, and at the same time actively telling us that everything is great.

It's almost like their own measure of success isn't the happiness and wellbeing of their citizens.

Is this the UK by any chance?

I made it out a few times. After a break-in, I took off backpacking and lived off $20k NZD of savings for nearly a year:

https://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/

I attempted this a 2nd time in a car and it wasn't quite as good, but I'm still glad I did it:

https://khanism.org/perspective/a-tale-of-two-journeys/

If you're under 30, holiday work visas are great. Tons of countries have these agreements, they're cheap ($200 ~ $300) and let you live and work in another country for a year. The US has them with Australia, NZ, Ireland and a few non-English speaking countries too. IT work doesn't require certification like some professions (medical, legal) so it's easier for us to get work.

A lot of people are afraid to make these kinds of jumps. I will admit after that last 5 month drive and watching my bank account drain, I can understand the security of a job and I probably won't take off again (unless I can get into grad school to work on my PhD). It's much more difficult with family/kids, although two people I graduated with lived out of an RV for a while and even raised their kids for the first few years in RVs. One got off the road because he got cancer and needed to settle down to be close to a hospital for treatment. The other decided to home school in the RV.

> step over people on my way to work

This was one of the reasons for the 2nd journey, because that was life in Seattle.

I think overall this concept seems nice, the "R U OK?" but it fails to actually help people from the systemic problems of dissatisfaction with life. The best intentions cannot solve issues of loneliness or missing a life partner. They cannot correct a society which pushes young men and women to get STEM jobs and fancy careers instead of going into the fields they want (honestly I think men should be encouraged to go into art and education and more fulfilling work instead of women being encouraged into the same careers that leads men to be totally unhappy with our lives; but that's a whole different rabbit hole).

I'll end this rant by saying I've been lonely for quite some time, but still recently walked away from two potential relationships. One of them brought up really early she wanted a family and the other I had shared the fact that I didn't want kids. When I was younger I always assumed I'd have kids, because every girl I dated wanted them. Now that I'm almost 40; I just don't want to bring anyone else into this world to suffer and die.

I think these problems are big, really big, and this kind of website or concept isn't going to help people really get past the feeling of deep unsatisfactions with our lives. That takes a lot more work; and a way to build a better world.

I just want to make an aside point here, that for the vast majority of people on the planet, the idea that they would have 20k in savings to take a year off is just wishful thinking.

To be able to even get to the point of having 20k in savings, you must have an incredible safety net in terms of both society and family that allows that to happen. You are incredibly privileged to have been able to even save that kind of money, let alone take a year and live with it.

Not only is the 20k savings a barrier of entry for most people, but this type of advice comes with massive assumptions about one's own life.

Good luck doing this if you're in a committed relationship. Good luck doing this if you have kids, for example.

For anyone who's put down even basic roots, this is a difficult bit of advice, if not downright unhelpful.

I mentioned the two friends who had the RV life. I meant to add that it helped they had jobs which allowed for remote work. It is a big investment too, as you're essentially buying a house that will go down in value.

If you read my other comment, I mentioned people who did the same thing that were low income too. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but if you can get it to work with your current skills and situation it's possible. You don't need a lot of money, but you do need to adjust your priorities.

And of course if you have family, commitments, etc, there are other ways you can break free. Let's list some other ideas for people. This is just one thing that I did.

Fair enough. I just see posts like this often and, to me at least, they strike me as the "easy" answer. I don't have any good answer for if you are locked into a relationship, kids, etc... That's kinda the life you chose, and you gotta take the good with the bad. I guess?

Yeah those posts irk me too, but this one doesn't for two reasons.

1.) The general problems on this thread seem to be from professionals with good jobs, but feeling unfulfilled, depressed, lonely, ect. Thus it is a possibility for them.

2.) He opens with "this is why I did _____", and only talked about how it helped (and also hurt) HIM, not how EVERYONE should do this. Thanks for the post :)

It's harder in a relationship or with kids but not impossible. I travelled for a year with my now-wife and we've done 4-5 week trips since. Recently we took our three young kids (1-6yo) overseas, bought a bus and drove it around for three months. Not everyone can afford it but there are loads of people who can and just stick with the rat race grinding them into the dirt. "Maybe I'll live life when I retire."

Also, in terms of it being unhelpful, I think it's important to find a way to distill it to a scenario which isn't beyond your situation - get away for the week instead of a year, find joys in simple and cheap things, bushwalk with your kids, reduce to four days/week, etc. When someone gives their personal/general advice, it's your choice whether you find something of use there, right?

<quote>most people</quote> Yeah, but for a lot of people on HN, I think 20K in savings would be pretty standard.

Even considering the restrictions of relationship and kids: 30% of my office is still youg-ish, single with over $20k in savings (as far as I can guess).

Not all advice is for everyone, but I think a long, long vacation away from your current tech career, that has left you with some savings, might be a good fit for this forum.

I got the idea from a guy I met in a hostel in Australia who saved up $10k. He only did restaurant and fishing work in the US. He drank and traveled for a year until he ran out (occasionally taking up restaurant work under the table here and there).

I dated am American in Germany who lived off less than €400 a month (mostly from teaching English) for several years .. although that's kind a bad example because she lost her visa for not having enough work.

Sure my field makes it easier, but it's not necessary. I've met people who were not in high paying fields who could do the same (and honestly if I had been better with my money and lived like them, I could have made it 2 or 3 years on that much). It's really about your priorities.

I have done that twice, the second time was nearly five years in total and I worked part time to sustain myself while doing it. Working part time did allow me to cultivate a better balance of life, but it was predicated on living in developing countries while leveraging my first world name and face to earn comfortably above the local market values.

I really enjoyed the time I spent away, but I do have to acknowledge that the happiness wasn't through the things that bothered being solved, but only making it easier to ignore or distract myself from them. In the end I wasn't finding the meaning that I was looking for, and the draw of family ties and relationships brought me back home.

Yeah, wth is happening with Seattle? It's home to some of the richest people on earth, employment is high and business is booming. But every time I visit the city I always see at least two people on the street who appear to be overdosing. Fortunately EMS is well prepared for this kind of thing, but boy have things changed. It's really hard to watch and I wish I knew what I could do to help.

Thanks for asking. Not really, and it's 100% work-related. I dread coming in to work and it's given me awful anxiety that's turned into occasional passive suicidal ideation. Once I leave work, I feel like a totally different person and all the symptoms disappear.

My boss calls me stupid, incompetent, r*tarded, and "like you have part of your brain missing". He grills me on literally everything I do, like why I'm getting up from my desk or why I'm eating what I brought for lunch. He interrupts everything I say and puts me down in front of other people. He took away benefits he knew I enjoyed, like being able to take college courses for free in unrelated areas like music and ceramics, and he banned me alone from making conversation with my work friends, and moved my desk away from them to his office so he can watch everything I do. I'm underpaid ($40k/year) and therapy sessions are $150 each, so I don't have much saved up to just quit and search for new jobs full-time. He threatens to fire me almost every day. I'm not sure how I'll ever get out, this started about a year ago and I've been applying every day since but haven't found anything. It's hard for me to believe that another job won't be the same thing.

Sorry if that's oversharing, but working here is draining my soul.

edit: thanks for all the support everyone, it means a lot :)

You are working in a TOXIC environment and obviously it's taking its toll. You have to get out, or at least transfer to another team. You wrote that you went to HR and they didn't help with your boss, but perhaps they CAN help moving you to another team. And you wrote that you're applying for other jobs - it can take time, just don't give up!

> It's hard for me to believe that another job won't be the same thing It won't be the same thing, because your current boss won't be there! Sounds like he's abusing you, and most likely your next boss won't behave the same.

> It's hard for me to believe that another job won't be the same thing

Most people also are too lazy for this level of sadism. Even if your next boss is a bigger asshole (which sounds completely unbelievable), it'd be more profitable for them to let you work rather than waste all that energy abusing you.

Forgive if I missed something but where did the parent mention HR? I ask because I agree with your assesment about the environment they are in and my first thought was to ask "have you talked to anyone in HR?".

Otherwise totally agree, especially the part about not giving up!

My goodness! I'm positive the poster wrote something about talking to HR and they said others complained too but nothing ever changes. Did he edit his post, or am I hallucinating?

Not sure, that's why I asked. :-)

Maybe confused it with another post? I do that a lot around here... And there seems to be a lot of people today in similar situations.

Regardless, as others have mentioned, the environment they are dealing with is wrong and if HR isn't the solution perhaps legal action that others mentioned would be the way to go.

To the parent poster, I hope things get better soon for you. Stay strong and do your best to get out of there as soon as possible!

A little perspective. $40k/year is about what glassdoor suggests you should make as the manager of a 7-11. A little one.

Don't be afraid of a temporary career change. I've done it twice to save myself from burnout. We get overly attached to a narrative about ourselves as developers and become convinced that we need an unbroken ladder of the latest gee-wiz frameworks and libraries to stay in the game. Outside of FAANG its mostly not true.

But first, start telling that bully no in the most non-confrontational way you can. Take the most unreasonable demand and politely say in response "no I don't think I'm going to do that". You actually have nothing to lose.

I work in FAANG in a senior/tech lead engineering role. I don’t think unbroken ladder of latest gee-whiz frameworks and libraries is even remotely accurate of what developers in these companies care about or need.

If anything, wanting to adopt the latest and “greatest” is usually a sign of an inexperienced engineer.

If you’re at FAANG, especially at a team that is optimizing for throughput or scale, you’ll care more about design trade offs and performance, availability, and resiliency concerns as opposed to the latest framework. If anything, something tried and true that’s been out a long while and vetted out is a lesser risk than something released in the past year or two. In other words, maturity is an important factor (the weight may depend given your other considerations).

Seconded. My FAANG team doesn't use frameworks that would be recognizable outside the company, only internal ones. My interview didn't involve any frameworks, only basic computer science, design, and problem-solving.

Definitely consider making a temporary jump into some undesirable but comparably compensating job while you keep up your job search. Just absolutely make sure to demonstrate through github or something that you are keeping your skills fresh.

I don't know much about your specific employment situation, but your boss is abusing you emotionally. What they're doing might possibly be illegal in some US states actually.

Make no mistake. The negative things that your boss is saying about you are almost certainly untrue.

Your boss has no right to say those things to you or to target you like that. In most situations, I would say talk to your boss's boss or HR, but it seems like the company you work for would really be of no help if they already let it get this bad.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any solid solutions. If I were you, I would look into unemployment compensation laws in your area and see if you could get unemployment benefits because you quit your job due to emotional distress.

If I were in your situation, I would quit the next time I walked into work.

I was in a similar situation. Here are my advice: 1. It's just him. Some people are just a-holes. You need to leave. Not all jobs are like that, not all bosses are like that. Abuse is abuse. 2. When I was in your situation, I focus all of my energy to learning a new skill. It's as if I used all that I hate about this job to motivate myself in learning something new. It worked.

Best of luck

Start interviewing, I know that this is very often thrown around here and in other communities but absolutely NONE of this behaviour should be acceptable in any kind of professional environment.

You know you are being severely underpaid (I'm assuming you are from the US even though I'm not) so finding a place paying the same or a little better just to get away from this fucking horrible situation is worth every single second of effort.

Thanks. I have a final interview next week at a somewhat boring company, but the pay would be nearly double and I think I'd be much much healthier, so I'll take that if I can get it.

Boring is good. You got enough "excitement" lately.

Hopefully you will find that the people at the "somewhat boring company" are more kind and supportive than what you've been dealing with.

Boring companies still have interesting problems for you to dig in on. As well as that, boring can often mean stability, which can be really good for your mental health.

The pay difference doesn't matter one bit. You need to get out of the current job.

If they offer anything over 40k take it! You might even want to consider explaining you want to get out of your current job, and are willing to take less pay. The risk is that it could sound like you don't think you are a good fit.

I hope the interview goes well! Good luck!

The way I see it, a bit of time in a slightly more boring workplace, especially with a better manager, could really help to find stability in your life and recover from all the verbal abuse.

I hope you find a job that isn't the same thing, they really do exist! Most of all, I hope it works out for you. Best of luck!

He is just trying to convince you that you're not worth the raise, and that you wouldn't get a better job somewhere else. He is wrong. Apply everywhere. If you don't have kids or a mortgage, just quit.

I was in a similar situation once. I got lucky because someone in our department, who was much stronger than I was, found a new job as a manager at a different company. Then a year later asked me to come work for him. That does not mean you have to wait to be lucky. Update your resume, don't try to wait until you have some new skill, just update it to wherever you are now, and start applying. Remember to ask for at least 80k.

That's work place bullying. Is there some sort of complaint you can make to someone or some external organisation? Start applying elsewhere but also start making a diary of the things he said to you and when - might be handy if you wanted to go the legal route.

Quit. Today. This guy is sick-- mentally and emotionally ill --and you need to cut him out of your life and never have anything to do with him again.

This is way more important than that paycheck.

You'll be fine, one way or another. This isn't really about your boss, it's about you and your self-respect and fear of change and stuff like that. (I'm not going to try to psychoanalyze you from across the internet but this much is clear from what you wrote.)

Also, fire your therapist, as you are clearly getting ripped off there.

Hi theanine. You are worth it to not experience any of that ever again. It will take a while, even after getting out of it, to get back to your real, healthy self. But you will. And after a good while, perhaps you will even look back on this and learn something, giving you even a few more facets.

You can get out of this and you will. Don't accept any mean thing your boss says about you. The opposite is true. If you feel like reaching out, you can find my contact details in my profile. No strings, and I'm not in a position to offer you a job, but if you feel like shooting the shit or having a banter.

Please take care of yourself.

I could only conceive this behaviour as rational (although still uncivilised) if he wants to fire you and cannot.

In my country this sort of thing is illegal (work harassment).

Listen to this person OP. If your boss really felt a tenth of the things he says about you, he'd fire you and forget about it. Knowing nothing else about you, his treatment alone says you're worth much more than $40k, and I'd bet the house your criminally abusive (seriously, talk to a lawyer, slurs like this aren't kosher even in the US) boss knows this.

I'm sure your HR department would also like to know they have a sadist working for them.

Buy an old-school audio recorder, with voice-activation. Record everything your boss says to you or about you. Save and back up any e-mails or written notes. Speak with your co-worker peers about the boss's behavior.

Take your documentation to your therapist. Or to an employment lawyer that offers free or affordable initial consultations.

Do not stop applying for jobs with different companies.

I wouldn't go to HR. They work for the company, not for you. If they were doing their jobs effectively, you would not be suffering this abuse in the first place.

> It's hard for me to believe that another job won't be the same thing.

Take a pay cut if you have to, just for a better work environment - even if you have to sell everything and move across the country. Ramen noodles and frozen vegetables are better than PTSD, and you'll find your way to a better paying job that better suits you.

And document these things that are happening. If your boss does any of this through email, save those emails.

> My boss calls me stupid, incompetent, r*tarded, and "like you have part of your brain missing". He grills me on literally everything I do, like why I'm getting up from my desk or why I'm eating what I brought for lunch.

yeah... that's not normal even a little bit. look for a new job. i have a hard time that any company that allows that kind of behavior is any better in any other department so get out ASAP!

Dude wtf, fuck that shit. I'd rather be unemployed than putting up with that shit

You would sooner find me living in a tent or teaching English for a pittance than putting up with this.

Holy crap you need to get out of there. I think literally any job can be better than that one. There is so much out there, just try hard and take the leap.

I hope you find something soon. Look outside your area for jobs that pay for relocation if you have been having trouble finding jobs in your area, or look for remote jobs. There are tons of remote jobs right now, it's a huge industry that a lot of people don't consider.

P.S. - GO TO HR, THEY CAN HELP. Your boss should be fired tomorrow for that bullshit.

This sounds like an awful place to work. Are you a software developer? There have to be a thousand better companies that would love to have you working with them.

Could you be persuaded into defending yourself every time he lashes out? That would fix both your psychology and hopefully his, too. You see, he is abusive because his life is miserable. Make it a hobby to give him a hard time by defending yourself and your work and the value you generate. Because if you don't value yourself, nobody has to.

I'm really sorry to hear how hard this is for you. It is not normal for a job to be like this, and you deserve better. Don't give up in your job search, and please take care of yourself. Even if you can find anything else to pay the bills to get away, your sanity is not worth it.

One thing you can consider (in the US): quit and file for unemployment benefits - it's a hostile work environment, so youre entitled to this. That would give you some cushion while searching for a new job.

Googled "can you quit and file for unemployment".

To qualify for unemployment, you must be out of work through no fault of your own. If you quit your job voluntarily, without good cause, you won't be eligible for unemployment benefits. However, if you are forced out and/or have good cause to quit, you may still be eligible for benefits, depending on the circumstances.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/unemployment-benefit...

I was fired and filed for unemployment and reported that it was a hostile environment. The benefits were quickly approved and no questions were asked beyond what the form asked for.

I can second this. If OP wrote what he wrote here in the unemployment application I'm nearly certain he would get it. Worst case he may have a wait a few weeks (8 where I live I believe) before the benefits kick in.

Is there anyone you can lean on financially or with a place to stay so that you can get yourself out of this extremely toxic situation? I can't imagine that another job would be anywhere near this level of stress. In the meantime I would suggest attending meetups and talking up how you are looking for new opportunities. I have found that applying online is far less effective in finding employment than just showing up and networking.

Lots of people already said it, but here it goes: Hang in there buddy, get out of that place. Seriously. Not every boss is like that. Trust us.

You're pretty clearly in an abuse situation. Important: the abuse is the reason you haven't found another job. Because 1) you can't put your best foot forward when you're under attack constantly, and 2) I'd wager you don't come off as really wanting the jobs you're applying for because as you said, you think they'll be like this one. None of this is a coincidence by the way; an abuser needs an otherwise rational and free-thinking adult to decide to stay there and take the abuse, despite the fact that it's abuse and said adult can easily tell it quite obviously sucks and is intolerable and they should leave immediately. How would one accomplish this feat of making someone think the exact opposite of what they know is right? By underhandedly making you believe that you're always wrong (or doubt that you're right), and that you're worthless and nobody else would want you, and that losing this job would be the worst thing in the world, and a variety of other things. Oh and that all jobs are like this. Yes I'm asking/accusing/wondering aloud whether that idea didn't somehow come from him too. Only because it so nicely dovetails with the goal of making you stay. Only you know the answer though, so consider where you got the idea. And by the way, let me reassure you, most jobs are NOT like this one. Most people are normal, kind, and supportive. The great irony is that the thing he threatens you with is precisely the BEST outcome - to leave this shit situation. In my state (yours may vary) if he fires you, or even if you quit, you can apply for unemployment, and there will be a phone hearing, at which you can make the case for managerial incompetence, i.e. that he not only fired you without cause, he also abused you, has a history of same (document it), endangered your health (stress, weight gain?) etc. such that you had to quit. It would be the truth.

Anyway, I repeat, the abuse is what's stopping you from getting another job. The longer you stay (and a year is already an eternity in this kind of situation) the worse it will get. You are in a FUCKING EMERGENCY. It's not "save up money until I can afford to quit," it's "quit now[0] because I can't afford NOT to quit." Worry later about paying rent. People break leases all the time without repercussions. Again your state landlord-tenant law may vary. Do you have any supportive family or friends you can stay with? You should let them know what happened, move in with them and start healing from this, and returning to normal. And actively challenging and verifying everything you "learned" at this job.

What I'm advising might be extreme. There will be problems to overcome if you do it. But at least you won't have to overcome them with that monkey on your back. I'll monitor this thread in case you want to talk.

[0] Edit: Or make him fire you.

Your situation is terrific. If flipping burgers can pay your living expenses, I would recommend to quit as soon as possible and search for a new job. Keep in mind that your life is more precious than everything else, especially a job.

I think you meant to say terrible rather than terrific.