It’s a short piece, but it resonates with me, specifically this part:
> I’m earning the most money I’ve ever made and yet I’m the least fulfilled I’ve ever been.
I’m making the most I’ve ever made and I’ve never been less happy and more depressed. I despise being a cog in a huge corporate machine, it’s like the job was designed to be as unappealing as possible.
At the same time I can’t get over the fact that I have it better than the vast majority of humanity. I feel guilty hating my job, I won’t complain to people IRL because how could I? I have it made by all accounts. This guilt completely consumes me and adds a special level of self hatred, if I’m not happy with this, maybe I never will be?
Unlike the author though I can’t just quit, so endure it I must.
Bluntly, every person I know who's expressed these kinds of sentiments is guilty of the same mistake: externalizing their happiness.
They inevitably move, only to find the new place they're in sucks, just in different ways.
Or they find another job, but just discover more things they hate there.
Or they find a new partner, only to discover a new set of annoyances.
The same psychology leads people to think they'll be happy if they finally get that new car, or that new house, or that new TV.
All of it comes from the same place: assuming that happiness is something you can find by simply changing your circumstances.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are absolutely good reasons to want to change those circumstances! But it's critical to understand that oftentimes there is no one change of circumstances, one decision, one thing that will result in happiness.
I know it's a cliche, but I think I'm old enough now to confidently say that, yes: Happiness really does start from within.
I’m earning the most money I’ve ever made and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been even. It doesn't mean everything in my life is perfect, far from it, but that money is a huge help.
Doubling my salary and being paid what I am worth by doing what I wanted to do brought me a peace of mind I never had in the last five years (since I immigrated to a new country). I do not have to worry about so many things anymore, it's truly amazing and liberating. I can focus on what truly matters. I can take risks. I can plan for the future without having to go to the depression realm of looking for a better paying job.
Did I hate the jobs I did before? Some of them, but the money aspect stressed me a thousand times more than the work itself. When you don't like your job and do not have the money, you have to worry about both. When it's only your job, you know what to focus on and if you have enough savings, you can be bold and take risks.
A few years ago, I read this NYT article titled "Your Job Will Never Love You Back" [1] and that tagline is stuck in my head since then. Your work doesn't define you and even your dream work will have boring parts.
I'd suggest to go to therapy to focus and work on yourself. Better days are yet to come!
My approach to that problem is to oscillate between large companies where the pay is extra good and you get to see huge things but the work as a cog is not very appealing, and smaller companies / startups where work is fun and personal growth is noticeable even though it pays less. I think it also accelerates professional growth.
If you think you feel bad being a cog and making a lot of, money, imagine how much it sucks being a cog and making much less in the service sector. Go to a Chipotle..there is a near 100% likelihood that the people preparing your food hate their jobs way more than you hate yours.
Planning an exit, if you truly want to leave, is possible and takes time (years). You don’t have to keep on but just know the time horizon is long and you need a solid plan.
I think there’s a huge difference in the value we feel ourselves contributing based on our own interests and what our company does.
I am working in the world of peer reviewed research now, and I think that’s one of the best places I can contribute to. I’m proud every day to start working because I know I’m helping, even in a small way, the many researchers around the world moving human knowledge forward.
I used to work in avionics development, mostly for defense purposes. Some people would hate it. I liked it for awhile, and then I reached the end of learning new things there. I left shortly after that to start my own company, the peer review research-focused one.
I never want to work for ad tech. That’s not the right answer for everyone, but I’d I was working in ad tech, I’d probably feel similar to you.
What do you work on, and how does that sync with your world view?
Remember that there are a range of options between highly-paid cog and financially-independent early retiree: jobs that pay less or jobs with higher uncertainty that care more fulfilling than the huge corporate machine. You could potentially find a better situation without quitting altogether.
Q for all who are expressing this. A lot of job descriptions today emphasize a passion for "making impact". What is lost on most of us is impact by numbers rather than impact by percentages. Eg being part of a 1000 person <insert branded platform team> your one line fix is experienced by a billion users for a minute a year. Billion sounds sexy doesn't it? Impact by numbers.
How does one frame the other way. Ie I don't care if only a 1000 users experience it, but I'd rather be part of a 10 person team pushing out while features used by 1000 users for hours each day.
I dunno if such roles exist and pay reasonably enough and are sustainable? And how does one politely disregard other kinds of impact in favor of this?
>I’m making the most I’ve ever made and I’ve never been less happy and more depressed.
Maybe this is something related to older generations, but I for one have never been happier. Of course my life isn't perfect, but I would never in a million years go back to my childhood/teens/yearly 20s. I have so much more freedom to express my self, to move in the world, to see and experience things and just in general do whatever I want. I never had the capital necessary or capability to do any of these things when I was a kid.
>I despise being a cog in a huge corporate machine, it’s like the job was designed to be as unappealing as possible.
Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but I think this is part of the "dream job" myth i.e. "if you work a job you love you don't need to work a day in your lift". This is pretty much garbage advice and only works for few rare people. I accidentally fell into my niche. I don't think I would have ever applied for position such as mine, but as new graduate I got an offer that was too good to pass by (however I expected to work here for couple years, gain some money, and then move to a bigger city and find job in my actual field), but when I started I just decided that I was going to be the best in my team/department. I took couple hours every day from work time to study and I became a professional. I wouldn't say I love my job, but I'm good at it and that makes my proud which in turn gives me joy. I've been doing pretty much same thing for almost a decade now and I've never been happier.
> I despise being a cog in a huge corporate machine, it’s like the job was designed to be as unappealing as possible.
How much of your unhappiness is your job, or more so a function of having a continually growing list of responsibilities that can become to feel suffocating (e.g., marriage, kids, managing people at work, etc).
Because it can be a taboo subject, I’ve seen people misattribute their unhappiness to a single thing when it’s really a culmination of many things … and their isn’t a way to “fix” the unhappiness (you can’t “un-have” a kid)
A quick comment: it doesn’t make sense to compare your life and level of happiness with other people. Why not to compare with ancient doom and gloom times? What would it change to realize that you are better off than 100% of roman empire citizens? Why does it even matter? This sounds like a very weak argument meant to give you an alibi against another part of you that is unhappy, but - it just doesn’t.
Generally speaking, most people are at the point where "this is the most they've ever made". Inflation and the passing of time in a given career will do that.
You being unhappy in your life does not mean that there is anything wrong with the world. Looking to pin the blame on society at large and other people's choices is a convenient escape from looking at yourself and your own fears, disappointments, choices made, etc.
I grew up in a rural place, no mountains but we substituted beaches, marshes, and ocean. When I go back to visit I can't believe how beautiful it is. But, I prefer to live in the city where I can walk to coffee, pizza, chinese, mexican, etc. I never visit city parks, the grass and trees don't speak to me at all of nature and as an engineer I see beauty in architecture and construction and (after studying economics) the dynamism of human striving.
It's fine to decide to drop out of the hurly-burly, but don't call your fellow city dwellers rats, they're people making a go of it. The carbon footprint of the average New Yorker is among the smallest in the world, that's what population density gets you, and rural areas? they're filled with human suffering, don't kid yourself.
> Looking to pin the blame on society at large and other people's choices is a convenient escape
Could you point to exactly where you think the author did that? I didn't see it.
At most there was, "Every storefront specifically engineered to attract me inside with gimics like flashing lights." Which may be true of London, though I can't say personally.
> don't call your fellow city dwellers rats
"The rat race" is a well-known, long-standing metaphor. "The term is commonly associated with an exhausting, repetitive lifestyle that leaves no time for relaxation or enjoyment." "The earliest known occurrence is 1934." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_race
>Looking to pin the blame on society at large and other people's choices is a convenient escape
In reality it's the opposite. Coming to terms with the fact that the world is screwed up rather than you is a much scarier prospect given the implications.
If you blame yourself you can hit the gym, lawyer up, buy some meditation apps, everyone will applaud you on your great self-help journey etc. Of course a student of economics would love this story, it's very profitable!
I am in my mid 20s. I have about $200k saved and I think about quitting everyday, even though it would probably be disastrous for my career.
I look up and I see colleagues in their 40s-50s. 20-30 years of experience in the industry, with the performance of their RSUs they probably easily have $2m+ net worth. I really don't understand why they don't quit.
Just a naive example: Buy a cheap house ($250k) and live off of $40k/year for the next 40 years ($1.6m). You can always freelance or do extra work on the side if you want to splurge on a vacation or major purchase.
And I "enjoy" my job. It is comfy and interesting most days. But it is just such a massive time sink, after accounting for the chores of life and the "ramp up" and "ramp down" time before work, it honestly feels like I have maybe 2-3 hours a day on the weekdays of time that I can honestly say is my own. I can't imagine doing this tradeoff for another 15 years, but we'll see.
Props to the OP for having the courage to do this. I hope I can muster up some of the same courage soon.
Inflation is a bitch, and the current status quo cost of living will be exponentially more in the future. What I thought was an unfathomable amount of money in the 90's ($100k / yr, and $1m net worth) is not good now in 2020's. Healthcare in the 90's was $500 / yr and is $1.5k / mo with $5k deductible. Property taxes, utilities, continue to increase. Basic child daycare is $2k / mo after tax.
$300k / yr is the new $100k / yr, and I'd hate to project what it'll be 20 years from now ($2m / yr?)
In my mid 20’s I had an order of magnitude less savings and quit my job to backpack Europe. My career wasn’t remotely impacted in the process and I genuinely think this is one of the best decisions I ever made.
The 4 hour work week has a far better treatise on this than I could ever write and I highly recommend reading it. You’re incredibly resilient in your 20’s. I’d rather be coming out of prison as a 20 something than be a millionaire in retirement.
As a late 20s, recently laid off, I'm wondering why you think it would be disastrous for your career? I'm not necessarily disagreeing, I've been in a very similar headspace before, but now that it's actually happened - without my choice - it feels a lot less bad than I expected.
Maybe I'm in denial, but I'm not super worried about getting another job right now. I'm enjoying the time off and reevaluating my priorities. There's even a work-related benefit: the extra time / lack of stress has allowed me to read up on tools etc that I haven't been using (although lately I've been tuning out of career stuff entirely).
I'm a senior eng at FAANG nearing my 40s, so according to your napkin math I should be a millionaire.
Of course is not that simple. I won't bore you with my life history, but I spent most of my career living paycheck to paycheck, and only got a high paying job recently. With the double wammy of moving to the US and stock plummeting, my life savings are paltry. I'm still renting and I project it'll take me 2-3 years to save for a down payment.
In fact I'm confident that if you graduated 3 years ago and have been working in tech in the US, you'll likely have more wealth than me.
> I look up and I see colleagues in their 40s-50s. 20-30 years of experience in the industry, with the performance of their RSUs they probably easily have $2m+ net worth. I really don't understand why they don't quit.
I was/am that person. I actually did quit and retire for a while. But then I went back. Mostly out of guilt. I felt guilty not working and building up my kid's trust fund during my peak earning years. It felt like I was betraying my family by not continuing to bring in income while I could.
- a lot of the people who are in their 40-50s today never saw the packages we are seeing today (well, until two years ago)
- some of them carry a family with kids. You will only understand the math behind it until you’re in it.
- life does not work like an xls spreadsheet. It’s not like you « decide » to live of $40k/year. You meet people, things happen and the next thing you know, your « basic » needs require 50% of a significant salary.
- people need a purpose in life. I have seen plenty of people with FU money keep going with their job if they like it. Not everyone dreams of creating a company or living in the countryside.
Simple answer – lifestyle creep. Over the years as you get older and keep moving up in your career you get accustomed to increasingly finer things in life. It's perfectly normal to drive a beater in your 20s, but you don't want to take your kids to soccer practice in one. It's normal to couch surf with friends when traveling in your 20s, but not when you are on a family vacation to Disneyland. Add in a hundred more of these and suddenly that $40K/yr that seemed like a king's ransom a couple decades ago isn't quite enough to make ends meet.
My family has no willingness to live in a LCOL location, or I probably would do that!
But I’ll note that $40k/year isn’t nearly enough to live on for people in their 50s unless you’re unusually healthy or someone is subsidizing your healthcare. Healthcare gets much, much more expensive with age.
My employer spends $20k towards my family’s overall healthcare consumption, and we still spend $10k out of pocket.
Regarding taking a break: what have you got to lose?
No programmer I know whose resume says “I took a year or two off to travel the world” has had any trouble getting a new job when they come back. Hiring managers will be jealous, perhaps, but not upset by your choices.
It's not going to be disastrous for your career. It will have an impact, but one you can recover from -- if you're lucky, even fully recover.
I quit at 33, didn't work for 3 years, had the best time of my life.
Then I got a fun, flexible job that paid below market, but more than paid the bills, and didn't take up all my time and still allowed me to do what I wanted with a decent-sized chunk of every day.
After a couple of years of that, I ended up with an adult job, and my hours are no longer flexible, but it is fully remote and pays about market for a HCOL area, while I can live anywhere I want in the USA.
> I look up and I see colleagues in their 40s-50s. 20-30 years of experience in the industry, with the performance of their RSUs they probably easily have $2m+ net worth. I really don't understand why they don't quit.
I'm at the very young end of that range. My answer is, when you have a couple of young kids and you live through the past year of inflation and stock/real estate devaluation, you scale up the retirement number by a pretty large multiplier to feel safe. My early retirement target is now around 10M (HCOL, want optionality to send kids to private school, got accustomed to nice things) and I'm not there yet.
Fortunately the trajectory is looking good, so I'm starting to ratchet down the time and effort I spend on work. As I do so, the stress is starting to melt away and I find myself able to better tolerate and sometimes even enjoy my job now. I don't need the job so I can take a risk here or there, drop a few balls on the floor, take some random days off to spend with the kids or get through some yardwork, etc.
I don't want to live in self inflected poverty in Tulsa, and I enjoy my work enough that I'd rather find something else to work on that I find interesting.
I took 18 months off of work to travel when I was 25/26 (2018-19) and had a job within 2 weeks of starting to look again. If there’s any line of work where it wouldn’t be disastrous it’s probably being a software engineer.
If you have kids and quit while your family is used to the standard of living there is a good chance a divorce is in the cards.
You will then owe 20% (pretax, 30% post tax) of your "imputed" salary for the kid, as well as possible alimony. If you don't come up with 20% of your generous salary you git tossed in a cage, even if the kid only needs a tiny fraction of that for a decent life. For many it's impossible to step down their career without being tossed into prison, as the judge uses "imputed income" to calculate what you owe based on what you can potentially earn. That is if say you go from engineer to carpenter, you may now owe over 100% of your salary for support.
The thing is, there is a selection bias at play here.
The ones who really succeed in "quitting the rat race" don't show up because they have next to no interest in discussing this with you, or anyone else online.
I don't mean the silence from HNW individuals, I mean the real quitters, who are sitting round a version of Thoreau's Walden pond NOT WRITING ABOUT IT
The "FIRE" community are the front edge. Once they get there, they stop obsessively telling people how they did it.
The best choice I made was closing out my socials. I do wonder why I keep HN open (as I am sure, do many people who choose to read what I write here) and I suspect it's also going away, when I turn off, tune out, and drop off.
My superannuation (pension in UK speak) is vesting out inside 6 months. It's not HNW. I won't be in lambos. It is more than enough for me and my partner, to be quiet, and sufficiently comfortable in our declining years.
If I misjudged the market I'll either go back to work, or not. "it depends". It might be in this field, it might be in another. A surprising number of older (and not so old) retirees work because they want to (I know many work because they have no choice)
"The truth is: nothing I’ve done or experienced in this place has given me any experience comparable to walking along the ridge between two mountains. Nothing has made me feel alive like getting in to freezing cold water despite my body screaming at me not to. Nothing has made me feel anything like that feeling when you summit a mountain after 2 hours of solid climbing in the rain, and the clouds part to reveal the most spectacular and breathtaking view you’ve ever seen."
This is the tricky part. If you're in the rat race, the feelings you get in the mountains are way more intense.
If mountains become your life, it won't be long until they become the norm, making you flee back to some urban jungle.
> If mountains become your life, it won't be long until they become the norm, making you flee back to some urban jungle.
That's a really bold claim. I fail to see any evidence of it.
Anecdotally, it's not true at all. A huge portion of my city dweller friends are miserable and constantly talk about quitting their jobs or moving. I cannot think of a single friend in the mountains who is as miserable. None of them want to move to a big city removed from nature.
Some outdoors professionals might summit the same mountain 100+ times a year. Their breath is not taken each time. Watching them, it's more like the mountain is their office. An office with plenty of nature & exercise, but the magic is largely gone.
Living in a rural area and visiting cities beats living in a city and viting the mountains for me. Visiting cities is super simple, and time of the year or weather basically doesn't matter. But for the mountains you need to be there to be ready for the best weather and conditions.
So, it's great the author has recognized they are unhappy, but "heading to the mountains because I had good experiences there" seems like terrible decision making.
The "happiness trifecta" still seems to be a sense of purpose, autonomy, and expertise. Money just helps remove stressors.
I'd like to see more stories of people working to open a path in a system where it didn't exist before. Like, "how I carved out a new position at this huge company that gave be a better sense of why I do what I do". Everyone tends to think they need to go to a small place to have a big impact, but I think you can bend the world wherever you are a bit if you know how to define the targets, and get there slowly, one day at a time.
Big career changes are sometimes worth it, though I wouldn't follow this guy's lead. I found this experience from a woodworker who left architecture much more interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQoqGPnRLbU
I posted this late last night (BST) and I’m shocked to wake and see it was so heavily read and discussed. Thank you everyone!
The post received some justifiable criticism for making it sound like I’m about to disappear in to the mountains to live like a hermit in a poorly thought out, idealistic middle finger to society.
In reality the change I’m making is to move to a much smaller place where I still have people and the urban environment around me, but with a much healthier balance of the things I value: family, nature, and quiet. Importantly, I’ll be a 15 minute walk from the seaside and a short drive away from the mountains - so I’ll be able to escape to them as often as I want.
I also want to find or create more meaningful work, even though this means my income may be lower.
I don’t have FU money from working at a FAANG company, so my personal runway is ~6 months. I won’t be taking significant time off.
The most ironic thing is that change isn’t immediate. It’s going to be six weeks before my obligations here expire and until then, life continues as it has done previously. As I write this comment I’m standing in a packed train on the way in to the city, but today with a little smile on my face.
Funny, I was this guy 23 years ago working in London for Credit Suisse. It’s clear in investment banks that you can just keep doing that forever and get paid what most would consider a lot for doing routine stuff. What bugged me is that I’d stopped growing and wasn’t challenged. I quit and joined a fast growing dot com in 2000, met my wife, moved to the states and we’ve had one hell of an adventure since then. Sometimes you just need to pick a different path outside the current comfort zone, and that comes with risk, but the rewards can be amazing.
I’m pretty sure the romanticizing of the idea of “quitting the rat race” is one of the largest motivators to play the game.
If you want to quit the rat race you’re going to have to sacrifice a lot, unless you checks notes “[work] at a top tier investment bank as a software engineer”.
Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good, yeah. If you can manage to work four days a week, or live halfway up a mountain in a weird semi-commune sharehouse and work from home, that's not perfect, but maybe it's a lot better than working 60 hour weeks for 20 years then retiring.
This is a thoughtful comment compared to the debates raging above. It makes you think we've fallen (yet again) into the trap of the utopia, the paradise ideal, namely freedom not to do this (where this is software engineering instead of something else, or living in an urban setting instead of a rural one; both sets of ideals described above).
Or work part time at a chill company, 3 days a week and still make 2-3 times the min wage of your country (easily doable in tech).
You're still in the race, but instead of burning everything to get in front and "win" (win what ?) you're just taking a stroll at the back, enjoying the view while chatting with your friends
I'm like please put me in the race track and give me $100k reward because my slow life makes me and family hungry .. yet still forced to race in a terrible track.
What I don't like about the discourse on the "rat race" online is that people only discuss two extremes: either you work a high paid, highly stressing job that you hate, or you retire. I feel dumb saying this, but there are many combinations of salary, stress and meaning (to choose three axis) as companies out there.
If instead of "rat race vs not" we frame it as a tradeoff between possibly conflicting attributes, which may vary person to person and at different points in life, I think we'd have a more fruitful conversation.
This post really ruffled some feathers on here, talking about how he can't find happiness out there, you can't find happiness externally, it's all internal, he can only do this because he makes money, etc.
It's amazing how many people simply want to tear others down, I think, deep down, many wish they could do the same as this man.
100%. The guy is leaving something behind that doesn't fulfil him in pursuit of something that does, and what do the best minds of HN have to offer? "Well actually"
When I told my family and friends my plan to leave my great FAANG job to retire early very few of the responses were positive. It was really disheartening after working so hard for so many years towards that goal.
This is a good article. I will be honest, the Twitter link felt like a very ironic finish to the article, so much so that I chuckled. Some rat races may indeed continue, though maybe it is not all or nothing.
We may see an interesting few years for tech going forward. The path for software engineers the last 10 years was to move into the biggest company you could… and then stay there.
A college grad who joined FB in 2012 would have made more money at FB than any other likely alternative including founding their own firm. The same was true for at least a dozen large firms. These big firms came with the added benefit that one didn’t have to worry that your 12 hour days of toil would lead to a layoff at the end.
I had the same thought about the twitter link. I also find that many people decide to disconnect from the "rat race" and explore the mountains and be one with the earth...often after you're already set up from your racing days that you can afford to adventure off like that.
I'm old enough where I've been through these pits of despair. Unlike this chap, in didn't have the FU money to just walk away.
At some point I realized that without this massive dehumanizing system to fire me regular income, the alternative is that we are out in the wild fighting for survival every minute, not knowing where my next meal is coming from.
What our system gives us seems decidedly better but man, it can be mentally tough to keep trucking along.
I believe Mr. Barry is simply doing what very few of us are brave enough to do: To think for himself!
We are social animals, and many of our goals are the defaults set for us by our social cohort. Very seldom do we take the time to think deeply about what we really enjoy, much less have the courage to act on what we might think in a way that would mark us as different. After all, any rejection of the defaults is a subversive threat to undermine the entire system!
Good for you, Mr. Barry. I for one am very excited to hear more from you in the future!
It's a rat race if you never enjoyed software engineering and computer science from the start, and joined due to the growing SWE hype in the 2010s.
Most people in the world have to work 40+ hours a week, and on weekends. It's kinda crazy to not take your career choice in perspective, which is relatively cushy, good perks, good pay, often wfh or decent offices, and call it a rat race because... you think you deserve to earn even more money and get more recognition? Okay, don't we all...
I still love programming but often feel burnt out at my SWE job. Things like:
- coworkers
- working culture
- autonomy
- sense of ownership
- sense of impact
- how much you actually get to code
- whether the coding you're doing is interesting
can make you hate your job even if you still like programming itself.
I love writing code and solving problems with it. Even if this job didn't pay well and didn't come with all the amazing benefits, I would still do it.
I think a lot of software engineers need to hang out with more people who are less well off than them. Befriend the grocery store clerk, talk to the mechanic fixing your car. If you're in a bubble of wealthy people, it gets really hard to appreciate the benefits that you have simply because you stop seeing them as benefits and see them instead as the status quo.
> If this resonated with you - reach out to me on Twitter
It resonated with me, right up until the "on Twitter" part.
A few weeks shy of 20 years ago, I was a fed-up high school student and made probably the best decision of my life so far. I loaded my stuff in to the back of a beat-up Nissan 720, drove it over to the high school to return their books and sign a few papers to drop out, continued driving a few hours down the road to Georgia where I unloaded stuff in to storage the next day, then started walking the Appalachian Trail...
Just a few minutes ago, I got off the phone with a friend from 500-odd miles in to that walk; he recited a line from Thoreau about most men leading a life of quiet desperation.
My friend had to cut our call short, as a childhood friend of his was on another line, presumably with news about their recent stage-4 cancer diagnosis. We're talking about a canoe trip, and I very much hope we actually make it happen. But, in the meantime, I have an infinite list of bugs to work on.
Author here. You'll notice I didn't ask the reader to "follow me on twitter".
I had ~30 people reach out to me in DMs on twitter.
Some were people who feel in a similar position but don't know what to do. Others were people who have been where I am and offered advice.
Twitter is just a tool to connect with people outside of the immediate circle I have around me, I don't think there's any problem with using it as such.
Watching the linked video made me realise how out of step I feel with the rat race now that I work from home 100%. No more stressful commutes, no more suit and ties. I might step into a giant shopping centre once every 3 months, if that. I don’t see adverts anywhere except on my phone when I’m scrolling.
I think I’m lucky because I get to live in a very walkable suburb in Melbourne AU. Feels less like a race, and more like a stroll. Instead of quitting and moving to the mountains, maybe just move to a place that’s a bit more liveable and work a job that’s a bit more flexible.
I’m with you. I don’t even live in a super walkable urban core or anything, just a suburb. I realized I don’t hate the rat race, I just hate being in an office.
This seems to be a common phenomena. One thing that recently stood out as to why is the flow state famous by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
In short, you might experience flow outside of your day-to-day life (i.e. work). It becomes such an addicting feeling that you try to revolve your entire life around that new sensation.
It's funny, because much of the time it happens when people do something a bit difficult and outside of their current skillset. For software types it tends to always be something with nature or woodworking.
Try seeing how fulfilled you are making the least money you’ve ever made! Maybe very fulfilled, maybe not at all.
If you don’t like what you are doing, do something else. I don’t know if it’s worth trying to project your personal dissatisfaction into some broad diagnosis of social ills. Many of the alternatives to the rat race are pretty dismal.
I might be a bit harsh, but this is a typical western le bon sauvage misunderstanding about what goes on in the wilderness. I also grew up in the mountains (of Eastern Europe), and I equally despise the eye-rolling fakery and the hustle and bustle of modern day Los Angeles. I love camping, and I surf, and kayak, scuba dive, offroad, and explore. But I don't make the category mistake of thinking the former is somehow better than the latter. I love the outdoors, but more importantly: I respect it.
In LA, I have the luxury of clean water, sewage, medicine, a decent cocktail, and, like OP, make a decent living. It's easy to decry modern society because you're not "happy" but, imo, that says more about you than it does about what you do.
Don't think the mountains, or the oceans, or the deserts are an idyllic virginal untouched Eden. You're going to end up getting yourself killed like the Into the Wild guy.
The same is true in London. You travel forty minutes away from where this guy works to rural areas (i.e. still in the "affluent" South-East of the UK), you will meet young people who have no qualifications, they can't leave their parent's house because property is too expensive, they live somewhere with no job market beyond working in a pub, no entertainment, there usually isn't even a supermarket...think about people living in Tower Hamlets, this is in the City, highest GDP per capita area in Europe, now imagine you earn £9/hour...how do you have kids when a 1-bed flat costs £1.2m? You aren't "racing" for anything, you are getting run over. You only get to quit the rat race once you have won, not because you have discovered some alternate way of living.
99% of people in the UK would take years of their life for the opportunity (even in other cities in the UK). Not for happiness, for the fast cars, nothing like that...to eat, to not worry, to have children, to live somewhere safe. Again, being in the race is a privilege, most people aren't racing, there is no sport...they are getting run over.
I love being in the wilderness. I love the quiet, the beauty of nature, the fresh air, the opportunity to stretch my legs and challenge my body.
And I love the city. I love good food and municipal garbage collection and plowed roads and the company of friends and family within easy reach.
I've often thought about buying a property closer to the Canadian Rockies (I'm close, but not as closed as I'd like), and then I remember that I'd have to maintain my own septic system, and invest in equipment to clear my own roads, and, and, and... and then I realize maybe my life ain't so bad after all. :)
As someone who has a farm an hour from anywhere, I can attest it’s … interesting and dangerous.
Imagine breaking a leg on a massive property, no roads to where you are, no cell service. What do you do? If you want to live, you crawl. If you’re strong enough, have enough will, and are lucky — you make it. Else, the coyotes eat you. Hell they might eat you anyway.
Addendum: just last week I was surrounded by the local pack of wild dogs. They were hungry and I saw one circle behind me. I drew my sidearm and yelled and they ran off. The point being, I had no help. None. If they were hungry enough, it would be me or them.
I think the key here that people often desire and even fantasize about that which they don't have. A little bit of the grass is greener syndrome here as well.
The lesson I think to learn is to be true to yourself and try and be objective when assessing life. I grew up in extremely rural, a very nature heavy childhood and there are parts of it I believe are fantastic. Meanwhile as I grew older, I found there were things denser populated urban centers could offer me. Every now and then I look back nostalically about how simple life was but there were a lot of tradeoffs in that context I wouldn't just get rid of now.
For me the compromise is to find a moderately densely populated area with access to densely populated resources. I have most all the access to nature quiet and sanity where I live, meanwhile within a 15 minute drive I can do most everything one has access to in say LA or NYC as far as things I care about and am interested in.
As with many things in life, I don't think the extremes are where happiness tends to lie, it's some compromise or mixture in between.
You're absolutely correct in what you enjoy on a camping adventure is a different world than if you lived as full time mountain man. That being said, just because you move into the mountains doesn't make technology disappear. You don't need to live like the pioneers. Solar panels, windmills, generators, satellite internet, SOS beacons, filtration systems, pumps, heat exchangers, motor vehicles (pressing home made veggie oil and running diesel motors off that is not impossible) are all technologies to make it fairly comparable to city life.
With an investment into some technologies, you could live fairly nice. Dropping everything with no investment and just living off the land is a fairytale dream.
When I wrote this, I had no idea it was going to receive so much attention. It was immediately after a call with my boss where I committed to leaving.
I have learned a valuable lesson: how important it is to be crystal clear with the words you choose and the message you convey.
Reading my post now, I agree it sounds like I'm naively planning on going to live in the mountains where I'll immediately die in a storm or get eaten by a bear. I also wrote "I'm the least fulfilled I've ever been". I should have written "this is the least fulfilling work I've ever done".
I am leaving an unfulfilling job, and an unfulfilling place, to move to a smaller settlement where I am a short walk from the seaside and a short drive from the mountains. I'll have a way higher quality of life, being able to do the things I love (hiking in the mountains and other general outdoor pursuits) at the cost of losing a significant amount of income.
This is a trade I'm willing to make, and it reverses the decisions I've made over the last few years. This is an important learning I hoped to share with others who may be in a similar predicament.
I don't have FU money, I still want to work as a software engineer and will have to very soon. The difference is that I will not trade quality of life for money, and I will try to find or create work on the terms that maximise happiness for me. These terms are different for everybody, so my solution is unique to me.
The TL;DR of my original post is "don't optimise for income over quality of life".
imo a good balance is having the ability to float in between those two worlds. Frequent trips into nature and time amongst modern comforts to recharge and rest.
> Don't think the mountains, or the oceans, or the deserts are an idyllic virginal untouched Eden. You're going to end up getting yourself killed like the Into the Wild guy.
I don't think they're mutually exclusive. One can think of wild places as paradise while taking the necessary precautionary measures to survive there. I've camped next to a lake with hippos in it that passed a few meters from me as they strode past at sunset. A cape buffalo has done the same thing. I know what these creatures are, I know to anticipate disaster. And yet these places are still the closest thing to paradise I've ever known.
Endurance test: If this guy gets into an accident in the mountains, will he call the civilization and its machines to bail him out, and give him medical attention?
I do my adventures without medical insurance, looking up nearby clinics, and there is no embassy to turn to and no emergency contact. I try to be careful, but if there was an accident I’d accept this is the end of the journey.
Kudos! May I suggest ikiagi, the overlap between what you are good at (vocation), what you love (passion), what makes adequate money (profession), and what the world needs (mission). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai. The Japanese call it "the reason for getting out of bed in the morning." Best of luck with your continued search for balance in life.
Been there, done that. "The rat race" is a very reductionist and naive take. What I found out is, wherever you go, there you are. You must really be at peace with yourself for a change in environment to bring you lasting peace.
Mountains, beaches, deserts, forests are all amazing. But you do get used to them and then miss the cool city life and convenience. But wherever you go, you bring your problems with you.
The drugs, alcohol,etc... in that video are solutions for the rat's unhappiness. It isn't the race that is the problem, it is the person.
There is wisdom in balance. Make a lot of money with the least amount of work-time and spend that money by traveling or living somewhere nice. Doing fun things. But none of that will solve the sickness of the human soul.
There's some truth to this, but environment does make a difference. The problem with this advice is that it seems to imply that moving doesn't make a difference - when the reality is that some people are just better suited to different environments. A nature lover is just going to be happier living somewhere blessed with beautiful nature than in NYC. The challenge of course is distinguishing which problems are external vs internal, and sometimes you need to make the external change to discern the difference.
His job sounded like a hamster wheel but otherwise, well, it’s amazing how different I am from the author. I view everything about the inner city completely opposite. That’s where the people are, things to do, engagement, social life, the action. He even got to ride a subway. I’m very jealous of what he tossed aside. Meanwhile, it’s not that I don’t like nature but I go crazy stuck without people.
I grew up in the suburbs, in a lower-middle class neighborhood. We were always out in the woods near our house. The children of the neighborhood would work on the horse ranch next to us. Every weekend was all day rugby games in a massive field we had near us. It was great. We weren’t wealthy, but had an amazing childhood.
Having lived in multiple major cities — they aren’t ideal. Particularly, for children.
With the advent of starlink and wireless networks I think increasingly (I hope) children will be brought up with space. I know with remote work I moved and built a homestead, we are nearly breaking even while supplying all our food. I know me and my family are happier with the space, being outside, etc.
Less pollution, less noise, better air, better food, and generally safer.
Me me me me.
Virtue signal, virtue signal, virtue signal.
I don't understand these pieces ... like, quit your job. I don't give a shit that you make a lot of money at a bank and you aren't fulfilled, what did you think was going to happen?
These self-indulgent "I'm not happy with my high paying job" posts are getting pretty repetative and tedious. Most people don't actually work to get "fulfilled". I guess this must resonate as freedom-porn.
"In the past century, the American conception of work has shifted from jobs to careers to callings—from necessity to status to meaning. In an agrarian or early-manufacturing economy, where tens of millions of people perform similar routinized tasks, there are no delusions about the higher purpose of, say, planting corn or screwing bolts: It’s just a job."
Ah yes.. the trope of overpaid (with respect to history) millennial writing about their transcendence from this absurd thing called 'work'.
Not judging harshly because I did nearly the same as the author years ago! Only I found a pot of emptiness at the end of the rainbow. I hope he reallyREALLY likes mountains ;)
After getting up to FANNG-esque levels and seeing the “mountain top”, I’m done too. I’m not sure when or why decide to climb the latter but upon reflection, it just seems so empty. I’m planning on a career change within the next 5 years. Unshackling from the golden handcuffs takes time, especially with a family.
I’m not sure what recycled water was meant in the article? Does he mean grey water? Apparently that is used only a little bit in London and in specific places, not in households unless a system has been installed.
I guess if he wanted to avoid recycled water he could collect and purify water from animal aerobic respiration or hydrocarbon combustion. Even then the oxygen and hydrogen could have been used before.
"If this resonated with you, message me on Twitter"
That makes the post ring rather hollow to me. It sounds like they want to monetize their experience of quitting and rejoining nature. Which basically reads like another version of selling the secrets to a 5 hour work week kind of deal.
I see software engineers lament about a lack of fulfillment in their career (heck, I'm one of them). The author doesn't have fulfillment and decides that they should quit their job and move closer to nature to be fulfilled.
I don't really understand the problem or the solution. Is this sustainable? Will the begin to feel unfulfilled in the mountains? What is fulfillment? Could a steady cadence of vacations to the mountains have bridged the gap? Does it require such an 'all or nothing' solution?
He's also dissing engineering as a rat race, as if we're all idiots and morons for adhering to some 9-5 job, and he, a software engineer at a "top bank" can see the light while all of us are just plebs. Yea, you're not Tyler Durden...
> The truth is: nothing I’ve done or experienced in this place has given me any experience comparable to walking along the ridge between two mountains. Nothing has made me feel alive like getting in to freezing cold water despite my body screaming at me not to. Nothing has made me feel anything like that feeling when you summit a mountain after 2 hours of solid climbing in the rain, and the clouds part to reveal the most spectacular and breathtaking view you’ve ever seen.
It's true by definition. One experience is not like the other.
The tone hints at what OP prefers but it's rather easy to come up with a statement pointing in the other direction. "Nothing has made me feel anything like that feeling when you get out of a nice warm bath, dress up nicely, walk to your favourite local restaurant with your mates and get a your favourite meal with a nice glass of wine." Or whatever tickles your fancy.
> The best part about those things is that there is no booking system. There is no door security choosing who gets in because there is no door. It’s all there, ready to be experienced, and free.
There are many other free things out there. Starving in the African heat. Freezing under shelling somewhere in Ukraine. Dying of incurable disease.
At the same time, there are many things ready to be experienced that are not free but, I'm sure, OP can easily afford. A nice meal in a good restaurant, a movie, a coffee with a friend, a book, comfort of his home, a trip to wherever his childhood was.
I suspect, even his quitting is not entirely free. It probably comes from his privilege to be able to not work for a while and be able to afford all the gear he needs for mountaineering. It's not a critique of his choice. I'm glad he has the option to choose and doubly so that he's happy with the choice he made. I'm critical though of OP implying that that option is the best. That it's obviously betters, and free on top of everything, but somehow overlooked buy everyone.
I understand how big city can be overwhelming. Referring to it as "Rat Race" is a little dramatic, I'd say. The toon paints a bleak picture that reflect only one side of the modern city life. Retreating to mountains is only one way to deal with it, too. And it's on the more severe side of possible solutions spectrum.
I'm terrified of retirement because then I would be "free to do all the stuff nobody else wants to do" around the house. From the rat race to the rat trap.
What I feel is perhaps missing here is some sort of a plan, so the author can either generate enough income or control the spending well enough not to become homeless. It's nice to (hopefully) have savings for these sorts of situations, but for many out there the end result of something like that would be eventual financial peril.
I recently also submitted my own resignation, except I've figured out that my current savings could last me around 3-5 years, so my plan so far is to take one year off work for personal projects, books and other ways of upskilling myself, as well as handling various larger events, such as moving to the city from the countryside (healthcare or even getting to the store is problematic otherwise), as well as just hang out with friends occasionally and visit some museums.
Though maybe my plans are too much work and too little play.
>I’m excruciatingly lucky to have been in the right place at the right time
This article is just another reminder that techbros making bank can afford the luxury to save-up a few years, and spend years contemplating their self-realization. I'm glad the author was able to finance their perspective-changing journey, but reading this is less of a lesson, and more of reading that someone won the lottery.
You can only leave the rat race if you can afford to... The rest of the earth can't do this and the author is writing from a place of great (earned) privilege. Must be nice.
The rat race and BS jobs' are not that bad. You get paid good money to not have to expend much effort .many people would love such a privilege. Look how many applicants white collar companies get. Low paid jobs are just as tedious or worse, but obviously lower pay...having to death with 'Karen' customers and such. There are many stories of people on reddit (such as investing and 'FIRE' subs) and here doing their '4 & 10' and having a large nest egg to show for it,
I've mentioned before, how I had to have done [to|for] me, that which I could not do for myself.
I was told "Go away, old man. No one wants you.", in, pretty much, those words.
Hurt like hell, but after I got over my sniffles, I learned to "lean into" my exile.
I just released a new kernel for the app I'm working on. I budgeted two months for it, but got it done -at much higher functionality than planned- in five weeks.
The difference in my development velocity and product Quality is nothing short of astounding.
Interesting question. At my old job a lot of people would let vacation days accumulate and since only a few days would carry over to the next year, lots of people "had" to "think of" a vacation towards the end of the year.
This was always insane to me, I always had my vacations and visits to family planned out well in advance, I never had anything left over.
If you're well-off, have no dependents, and can also work remotely, why not enjoy the mountains, the nature, the beauty of the great outside? Do yourself a favour.
I did this during covid. I really enjoyed it. But it does get lonely, not that many young people, and the city I lived near was just not that bustling. You quickly eat your way through all the restaurants in town and there's just not that much culture.
It was a great covid experience, but it's not quite something I want to repeat soon.
Hey, if being in nature makes you happy good for you but your outlook on the rest is kind of crap.
Me, best time in my life, commuting in Tokyo to my jobs working on a project I loved with people I loved. All the ads on the trains were eye candy to me. I didn't buy anything that I remember but I did find out about museums, concerts, and other events around town as well as various obscure services which I never used but was amused to read about.
Drinking with my buddies, including work buddies about once a week was great. Clubbing, going to restaurants, and going to events of the kind that generally only happen in giant cities was lovely.
I like the occasional trip to nature but as for me I'll pick the city and the public transportation. I love it!
>Hey, if being in nature makes you happy good for you but your outlook on the rest is kind of crap.
It reads like you are stating a fact, but really, it is a matter of opinion. Perhaps, you can just say what you like without invalidating what others prefer.
> Around the 30 second mark is a scene where the protaganist rat is waiting for a train to arrive at a packed platform
I was visiting London and took the train in the morning to the airport (this is a really bad idea), and saw that exact thing play out. Some girl was smushed into the crowd in train by someone outside so she could make the train, like a cartoon character.
Definitely convinced me I couldn't do a 9-5 after that
Having "quit the rat race" last year, spending much time in the mountains just like the author, and now finding myself back in the corporate world again, I do have one piece of advice.
Do not let your job become a part of your identity.
I work just as hard at my new job as I did at my last one, but in my mind, they're just a client I'm choosing to offer services to at this time. I've made many good friends through work over the years, but now my loyalty to my friends is independent of my loyalty to the companies for which we work. I used to use the demonym of my place of work to tell people about myself; now I describe myself by my hobbies, my beliefs, and my aspirations.
Did that solve everything? Of course not. Late-stage capitalism is still riddled with bullshit. But I do sleep better at night.
> Do not let your job become a part of your identity.
I disagree. People should strive for a fulfilling job that allows them to express their identity. Just try not to be so picky that you end up with so few options.
"I'm quitting! But I'm not telling you anything about how I plan to pay for life."
The message mostly resonates with me, right up until they leave out the most crucial part of the post. How do you escape the rat race, and still pay for things like health care, food, rent, etc.
Even if you're making $100k+ a year, those costs aren't insignificant. No how do you handle them making $0k a year?
> "I'm quitting! But I'm not telling you anything about how I plan to pay for life."
I quit the rat race in my late 30's. I saved and lived a frugal life while earning a great FAANG salary during a time of economic growth. I used my savings to buy income producing rental properties and aggressively payoff mortgages. I now do woodworking most days and love it. The pay is low, but at least the hours are long.
I used to work on some of the most popular applications in the world. I would see my work in keynotes and read about my work here on HN, but none of that compared to making an urn for my cousin when my uncle passed away. Or selling a few items at a winter market at my kid's elementary school.
I temporarily "quit the rat race" years ago with savings from a tech job which paid decently but not today's crazy salaries. Travelled all around N America coast to coast and back, worked a couple of ski seasons etc. How I did it was eat cheap but healthy food, while travelling had no rent costs. Had a 17-yr-old fuel efficient Japanese car, sometimes slept in it, camped for free in national forests, stayed at hostels. (this was well before AirBNB) . The way I saved up enough was always having fairly frugal habits, never bought fancy clothes or gadgets etc. It was a lot of fun. Wouldn't have wanted to do it for ever. It gets transient and less fulfilling after a while. Met many wonderful people, but, they move on. Its not like having a set of local friends and family. I'd argue that in today's tech industry it should be possible for most people to do what I did (before they have a family). Only caveat might be that rents have increased in last 20 yrs a lot... but then.. so have salaries in tech. I think its good to see it as a temporary adventure. In the long run this caused lost earnings, set my career back a little for a while, but with tech having such wonderful opportunities, this doesn't matter now, cos after that, worked normal jobs again for years, and repaired the "financial damage". I guess a lot of people with my skills are richer now, but, does it matter? Seems worth it for the experiences. I must say, it is indeed a privileged thing to be able to do. It largely depends on being born with the type of brain/intelligence that lets you work as a coder. Couldn't have done that so easily otherwise. That said... I met many people travelling who funded their travels by all sorts of means. One guy worked 80-hr weeks at a supermarket for months to fund a big trip. Others did all sorts of things. One girl worked at a strip club. I remember a lively debate in a youth hostel common room about whether such "selling your soul" was worth it for all the adventures she used the money for. ;). One caveat - of course healthcare is a cost issue. In my case I had health coverage of a sort by various means. This has surely gone up in cost since.
Retire on a boat for like $3-4k/m and live pretty well, see the world. That's still a lot tho and your money will run out in a few years, unless you figure out a way to make $50-60k/yr on a boat (so you have some cushion, because you won't be employed all the time in this scenario).
Couples routinely live like this for $2k/m, so it is possible.
'The mountains' are wonderful while you still have a pile of cash to pay 'friendly locals' to help support your dream, but eventually you will get older, and it will run out...
For a great example of an utterly different way of life, I recommend checking out the TV reality series "Port Protection" where they document the lives of people living a modern-day subsistence lifestyle in a small community on an island in Alaska. The only access is by boat or float-plane.
By any definition these people are not rich but they are definitely happier than most city-dwellers IMO. I think there are 6 series now.
Happiness, it's what you don't have - that's the oldest hustle in the world.
I was just cursing a pile of sticks that were too damp to light and I was being deprived of the bonfire I had assembled and was preparing to light, and I was laughing because in the words of Buckaroo Banzai, "wherever you go, there you are." I've achieved a kind of temporary exit for as long as my means permit, and I can say that the real that the rat race conceals is not for everyone.
My trip up the hedonic treadmill was such that I even wrote professionally about the sort of things one might buy in the hopes of finding a there there, pitching stories about exotic experiences one could have for the price of a vacation. There isn't a there there. There is no yacht long enough, club exclusive enough, view stunning enough, or achievement great enough that it makes you any different from the person standing on the subway platform. You will be the same person. I guarantee that if you flame out of your job, cash in your savings and manage to summit Everest, the first thing you will do when you get to the top is check your phone. The things that seemed so important were only symbolic. Pursuit of symbols specificially disqualifies us from attaining the meaning they represent. Maybe the humility is worth it, as yeah, the things I achieved were symbols that don't mean the same things now that I have them, but that's the treadmill, the pursuit of symbols and representations - affect.
I can say with some confidence that you only actually have what is yours to share, not all of it is good, and meaning only exists in the moment of sharing it. I can also say that unhappy people are not lonely, as their misery and self involvement keeps them from noticing it. I think to really understand what it means to be lonely, you need to find some happiness first, then when you move to share it with someone who isn't there, that's the feeling. That absence of no one in particular, but with the sense of having lost someone close. It is truly a rarefied experience I am glad to have been able to appreciate, but it's not a solution to anything. If you want to exit the rat race, try camping first, maybe a longish canoe trip, or read some good literary fiction. Ultimately, it's just you.
This is all to say, we invent the conditions we impose on our choosing happiness. They are symbolic and representations, they are not the real, and the real is not far or exotic. It's perhaps easier to believe we are unfufilled by our successes, and that there is another life out there if we just leave all this behind, as it puts off recognizing that we're probably just idiots in profoundly difficult ways.
First, this comes off to me as a very privileged take.
Second, I do feel the pain of corporate life, and I switched to working for a non-profit because of it. Leaving the city… nah. Just moved to the perimeter and now I can drive 10 minutes to downtown or 20 to the mountains. Why get a septic tank, a well, my own water treatment, and all this other stuff if I need not do so?
Everyone access happiness through the world (work, money, people, events, trips, etc). What happens to everyone is this: whatever things that give access to your happiness, cease to be be that conduit to happiness after sometime; so, you end up chasing new things in the world, these new things provide that new conduit to happiness. Rinse and repeat.
I resonate with this as I type this from NYC, a city significantly more nature-starved than London. I was pretty impressed with the parks and greenery in London. My friend there bought a unit in the first floor of a townhouse with a backyard in a peaceful but convenient neighborhood. Such an apartment would cost at least double in NYC and those sort of places are rare.
I'm definitely not a rural person, but I do think that living in nature has a strong correlation to happiness. I don't think the average person in a concrete jungle like NYC is happier than in a random village in the Amazon jungle or the Swiss alps. I don't regret my time I lived in NYC though other than that I stayed too long. It's fun for a time in one's life while one is young, but it's not a forever place for most people.
Most jobs suck. "Find your passion" is bullshit career advice because a job by definition means selling your freedom (if the job was so much fun they wouldn't need to pay you because people would do it for free). Unfortunately the reality is that we must make money to afford a modern lifestyle, and thus if you want financial freedom you will probably need to get a job (yes you can create your own business, but until that takes off you need to pay the bills somehow).
I quit the rat race and left NYC to travel the world. After 1.5 years of traveling I started to run amount of money and I reluctantly decided to start working again - this time remotely. But to my surprise I found that I actually enjoyed the new job and had missed having that sense of responsibility (or maybe I liked finally seeing my bank account balance go up and was trying to rationalize it, who knows). But eventually the job started to suck as I realized it was a deadend job and felt like I wasn't respected. I was miserable and performing the job was a chore, but I stayed because I didn't have the courage to quit a job that paid so well for so little work - the same position I was in in NYC before my world travel.
Finally that contract ended, and I was again free from work obligations. This time I set my goal to create my own tech projects with the hope of eventually monetizing them and living off of that. Finally I enjoyed programming again because I was building whatever I wanted.
A job fell in my lap with another startup, and I initially didn't want to take it because my focus was on my own work. But in the end I decided to give it a chance as I figured it could be a valuable experience, and I can always quit if I don't like it. The job turned out to be awesome. Awesome people, interesting problems, and I get a front row seat at an early stage startup. The downside of course is that I have not been able to put as much time on my personal projects as I'd like, but I am still working on it on the side, and we'll see if I can manage them both.
Leaving the rat race to travel the world led to some amazing experiences with high highs and low lows. I went from being sick of software engineering to wanting to build my own tech startups - which is my main work goal now. It took me traveling so much I got bored of it until I got inspired to want to build tech things again to solve my own problems. But maybe you'll leave forever and prefer being a park ranger in the words - who knows. We're all different.
In any case I think people should do whatever the hell they want, as no money is worth wasting one's life in misery. Worst case scenario you don't like living in the nature and can return to London to work at another bank with a renewed sense of gratefulness. Of course most likely you probably won't ever return to the same exact old life. Maybe you'll work remotely for a startup from the woods, or become a writer, or go completely offline and just live a simpler life. Who knows. It doesn't matter as long as you're doing you.
Either way best of luck on your journey, from one rat rat escapee to the next.
The mountain stuff and diving into ice water doesn’t resonate with me at all, but the burnout at the industry generally does. I’m glad you’ve found something to make you happy.
Thank you for this!! I finally have one link to send to all those who asked me "why", instead of getting lost in incomprehensible [to them] explanations ...
IME long breaks do very little to help with burnout like this.
All you're doing is giving yourself a brief reprieve from an environment that drains your energy. You'll build up a bit of the energy over the break, but as soon as you come back you'll start getting drained again, possibly even worse than before because of the contrast of having to be back in that environment.
Breaks are important but if your environment is fundamentally draining you day after day, they're not going to move that needle.
I grew up in a rural area in the US. I love nature and the outdoors. I also love programming.
But, rural living is vastly less sustainable on a per capita basis than city living. The elegiac tone of a rural paradise lost is a familiar one throughout the past few centuries. It’s an aspect of “blood-and-soil” nationalism (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_soil) and Boomer-era environmentalism and of Tolkien (so, I guess that’s in order of most to least problematic). It is easy to feel the longing, but it’s also worth some critical thinking.
I’ve got a place in the country that I go when I need to get away from the city (and, yes, putting a lot of time and effort into making it sustainable…). I find myself doing a lot of programming there. And then I go back to the city to talk to people about the code, and find out what they’ve been coding.
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
BizarreByte|3 years ago
> I’m earning the most money I’ve ever made and yet I’m the least fulfilled I’ve ever been.
I’m making the most I’ve ever made and I’ve never been less happy and more depressed. I despise being a cog in a huge corporate machine, it’s like the job was designed to be as unappealing as possible.
At the same time I can’t get over the fact that I have it better than the vast majority of humanity. I feel guilty hating my job, I won’t complain to people IRL because how could I? I have it made by all accounts. This guilt completely consumes me and adds a special level of self hatred, if I’m not happy with this, maybe I never will be?
Unlike the author though I can’t just quit, so endure it I must.
BaseballPhysics|3 years ago
They inevitably move, only to find the new place they're in sucks, just in different ways.
Or they find another job, but just discover more things they hate there.
Or they find a new partner, only to discover a new set of annoyances.
The same psychology leads people to think they'll be happy if they finally get that new car, or that new house, or that new TV.
All of it comes from the same place: assuming that happiness is something you can find by simply changing your circumstances.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are absolutely good reasons to want to change those circumstances! But it's critical to understand that oftentimes there is no one change of circumstances, one decision, one thing that will result in happiness.
I know it's a cliche, but I think I'm old enough now to confidently say that, yes: Happiness really does start from within.
nicolas_|3 years ago
Doubling my salary and being paid what I am worth by doing what I wanted to do brought me a peace of mind I never had in the last five years (since I immigrated to a new country). I do not have to worry about so many things anymore, it's truly amazing and liberating. I can focus on what truly matters. I can take risks. I can plan for the future without having to go to the depression realm of looking for a better paying job.
Did I hate the jobs I did before? Some of them, but the money aspect stressed me a thousand times more than the work itself. When you don't like your job and do not have the money, you have to worry about both. When it's only your job, you know what to focus on and if you have enough savings, you can be bold and take risks.
A few years ago, I read this NYT article titled "Your Job Will Never Love You Back" [1] and that tagline is stuck in my head since then. Your work doesn't define you and even your dream work will have boring parts.
I'd suggest to go to therapy to focus and work on yourself. Better days are yet to come!
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/business/your-job-will-ne...
nine_k|3 years ago
paulpauper|3 years ago
halfmatthalfcat|3 years ago
karmelapple|3 years ago
I think there’s a huge difference in the value we feel ourselves contributing based on our own interests and what our company does.
I am working in the world of peer reviewed research now, and I think that’s one of the best places I can contribute to. I’m proud every day to start working because I know I’m helping, even in a small way, the many researchers around the world moving human knowledge forward.
I used to work in avionics development, mostly for defense purposes. Some people would hate it. I liked it for awhile, and then I reached the end of learning new things there. I left shortly after that to start my own company, the peer review research-focused one.
I never want to work for ad tech. That’s not the right answer for everyone, but I’d I was working in ad tech, I’d probably feel similar to you.
What do you work on, and how does that sync with your world view?
divbzero|3 years ago
flashgordon|3 years ago
How does one frame the other way. Ie I don't care if only a 1000 users experience it, but I'd rather be part of a 10 person team pushing out while features used by 1000 users for hours each day.
I dunno if such roles exist and pay reasonably enough and are sustainable? And how does one politely disregard other kinds of impact in favor of this?
nextlevelwizard|3 years ago
Maybe this is something related to older generations, but I for one have never been happier. Of course my life isn't perfect, but I would never in a million years go back to my childhood/teens/yearly 20s. I have so much more freedom to express my self, to move in the world, to see and experience things and just in general do whatever I want. I never had the capital necessary or capability to do any of these things when I was a kid.
>I despise being a cog in a huge corporate machine, it’s like the job was designed to be as unappealing as possible.
Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but I think this is part of the "dream job" myth i.e. "if you work a job you love you don't need to work a day in your lift". This is pretty much garbage advice and only works for few rare people. I accidentally fell into my niche. I don't think I would have ever applied for position such as mine, but as new graduate I got an offer that was too good to pass by (however I expected to work here for couple years, gain some money, and then move to a bigger city and find job in my actual field), but when I started I just decided that I was going to be the best in my team/department. I took couple hours every day from work time to study and I became a professional. I wouldn't say I love my job, but I'm good at it and that makes my proud which in turn gives me joy. I've been doing pretty much same thing for almost a decade now and I've never been happier.
tiffanyh|3 years ago
How much of your unhappiness is your job, or more so a function of having a continually growing list of responsibilities that can become to feel suffocating (e.g., marriage, kids, managing people at work, etc).
Because it can be a taboo subject, I’ve seen people misattribute their unhappiness to a single thing when it’s really a culmination of many things … and their isn’t a way to “fix” the unhappiness (you can’t “un-have” a kid)
vernon99|3 years ago
The ONLY thing that is real is how YOU feel.
88913527|3 years ago
biinui|3 years ago
fsckboy|3 years ago
I grew up in a rural place, no mountains but we substituted beaches, marshes, and ocean. When I go back to visit I can't believe how beautiful it is. But, I prefer to live in the city where I can walk to coffee, pizza, chinese, mexican, etc. I never visit city parks, the grass and trees don't speak to me at all of nature and as an engineer I see beauty in architecture and construction and (after studying economics) the dynamism of human striving.
It's fine to decide to drop out of the hurly-burly, but don't call your fellow city dwellers rats, they're people making a go of it. The carbon footprint of the average New Yorker is among the smallest in the world, that's what population density gets you, and rural areas? they're filled with human suffering, don't kid yourself.
lapcat|3 years ago
Could you point to exactly where you think the author did that? I didn't see it.
At most there was, "Every storefront specifically engineered to attract me inside with gimics like flashing lights." Which may be true of London, though I can't say personally.
> don't call your fellow city dwellers rats
"The rat race" is a well-known, long-standing metaphor. "The term is commonly associated with an exhausting, repetitive lifestyle that leaves no time for relaxation or enjoyment." "The earliest known occurrence is 1934." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_race
Barrin92|3 years ago
In reality it's the opposite. Coming to terms with the fact that the world is screwed up rather than you is a much scarier prospect given the implications.
If you blame yourself you can hit the gym, lawyer up, buy some meditation apps, everyone will applaud you on your great self-help journey etc. Of course a student of economics would love this story, it's very profitable!
rafaelero|3 years ago
Right? London is a great city. If you can't enjoy it, maybe it's just not for you. Try a different one.
Loocid|3 years ago
Where does that come from? I struggle to see how any person living in the first world could be amongst those with the smallest carbon footprint.
dinobones|3 years ago
I look up and I see colleagues in their 40s-50s. 20-30 years of experience in the industry, with the performance of their RSUs they probably easily have $2m+ net worth. I really don't understand why they don't quit.
Just a naive example: Buy a cheap house ($250k) and live off of $40k/year for the next 40 years ($1.6m). You can always freelance or do extra work on the side if you want to splurge on a vacation or major purchase.
And I "enjoy" my job. It is comfy and interesting most days. But it is just such a massive time sink, after accounting for the chores of life and the "ramp up" and "ramp down" time before work, it honestly feels like I have maybe 2-3 hours a day on the weekdays of time that I can honestly say is my own. I can't imagine doing this tradeoff for another 15 years, but we'll see.
Props to the OP for having the courage to do this. I hope I can muster up some of the same courage soon.
jyu|3 years ago
$300k / yr is the new $100k / yr, and I'd hate to project what it'll be 20 years from now ($2m / yr?)
serjester|3 years ago
The 4 hour work week has a far better treatise on this than I could ever write and I highly recommend reading it. You’re incredibly resilient in your 20’s. I’d rather be coming out of prison as a 20 something than be a millionaire in retirement.
turkeygizzard|3 years ago
Maybe I'm in denial, but I'm not super worried about getting another job right now. I'm enjoying the time off and reevaluating my priorities. There's even a work-related benefit: the extra time / lack of stress has allowed me to read up on tools etc that I haven't been using (although lately I've been tuning out of career stuff entirely).
angarg12|3 years ago
Of course is not that simple. I won't bore you with my life history, but I spent most of my career living paycheck to paycheck, and only got a high paying job recently. With the double wammy of moving to the US and stock plummeting, my life savings are paltry. I'm still renting and I project it'll take me 2-3 years to save for a down payment.
In fact I'm confident that if you graduated 3 years ago and have been working in tech in the US, you'll likely have more wealth than me.
jedberg|3 years ago
I was/am that person. I actually did quit and retire for a while. But then I went back. Mostly out of guilt. I felt guilty not working and building up my kid's trust fund during my peak earning years. It felt like I was betraying my family by not continuing to bring in income while I could.
whiplash451|3 years ago
- a lot of the people who are in their 40-50s today never saw the packages we are seeing today (well, until two years ago)
- some of them carry a family with kids. You will only understand the math behind it until you’re in it.
- life does not work like an xls spreadsheet. It’s not like you « decide » to live of $40k/year. You meet people, things happen and the next thing you know, your « basic » needs require 50% of a significant salary.
- people need a purpose in life. I have seen plenty of people with FU money keep going with their job if they like it. Not everyone dreams of creating a company or living in the countryside.
paxys|3 years ago
mercutio2|3 years ago
But I’ll note that $40k/year isn’t nearly enough to live on for people in their 50s unless you’re unusually healthy or someone is subsidizing your healthcare. Healthcare gets much, much more expensive with age.
My employer spends $20k towards my family’s overall healthcare consumption, and we still spend $10k out of pocket.
Regarding taking a break: what have you got to lose?
No programmer I know whose resume says “I took a year or two off to travel the world” has had any trouble getting a new job when they come back. Hiring managers will be jealous, perhaps, but not upset by your choices.
eddsh1994|3 years ago
It really wouldn't. I had to take a year off waiting for a work visa, it was great and I got my highest paying job role straight after.
boring_twenties|3 years ago
I quit at 33, didn't work for 3 years, had the best time of my life.
Then I got a fun, flexible job that paid below market, but more than paid the bills, and didn't take up all my time and still allowed me to do what I wanted with a decent-sized chunk of every day.
After a couple of years of that, I ended up with an adult job, and my hours are no longer flexible, but it is fully remote and pays about market for a HCOL area, while I can live anywhere I want in the USA.
qwerpy|3 years ago
I'm at the very young end of that range. My answer is, when you have a couple of young kids and you live through the past year of inflation and stock/real estate devaluation, you scale up the retirement number by a pretty large multiplier to feel safe. My early retirement target is now around 10M (HCOL, want optionality to send kids to private school, got accustomed to nice things) and I'm not there yet.
Fortunately the trajectory is looking good, so I'm starting to ratchet down the time and effort I spend on work. As I do so, the stress is starting to melt away and I find myself able to better tolerate and sometimes even enjoy my job now. I don't need the job so I can take a risk here or there, drop a few balls on the floor, take some random days off to spend with the kids or get through some yardwork, etc.
threadweaver34|3 years ago
I don't want to live in self inflected poverty in Tulsa, and I enjoy my work enough that I'd rather find something else to work on that I find interesting.
Good luck keeping up a resume for freelancing.
Also, I have nothing better to do than work.
alexgrover|3 years ago
LoveMortuus|3 years ago
Not because I didn't save more, but because I wasn't able to save more. I do look brightly towards the future and hope I'll turn for the better.
notch656c|3 years ago
You will then owe 20% (pretax, 30% post tax) of your "imputed" salary for the kid, as well as possible alimony. If you don't come up with 20% of your generous salary you git tossed in a cage, even if the kid only needs a tiny fraction of that for a decent life. For many it's impossible to step down their career without being tossed into prison, as the judge uses "imputed income" to calculate what you owe based on what you can potentially earn. That is if say you go from engineer to carpenter, you may now owe over 100% of your salary for support.
ggm|3 years ago
The ones who really succeed in "quitting the rat race" don't show up because they have next to no interest in discussing this with you, or anyone else online.
I don't mean the silence from HNW individuals, I mean the real quitters, who are sitting round a version of Thoreau's Walden pond NOT WRITING ABOUT IT
The "FIRE" community are the front edge. Once they get there, they stop obsessively telling people how they did it.
The best choice I made was closing out my socials. I do wonder why I keep HN open (as I am sure, do many people who choose to read what I write here) and I suspect it's also going away, when I turn off, tune out, and drop off.
My superannuation (pension in UK speak) is vesting out inside 6 months. It's not HNW. I won't be in lambos. It is more than enough for me and my partner, to be quiet, and sufficiently comfortable in our declining years.
If I misjudged the market I'll either go back to work, or not. "it depends". It might be in this field, it might be in another. A surprising number of older (and not so old) retirees work because they want to (I know many work because they have no choice)
piecerough|3 years ago
This is the tricky part. If you're in the rat race, the feelings you get in the mountains are way more intense.
If mountains become your life, it won't be long until they become the norm, making you flee back to some urban jungle.
It's the contrast in your life that matter.
ghshephard|3 years ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/06/happiest-...
siftrics|3 years ago
That's a really bold claim. I fail to see any evidence of it.
Anecdotally, it's not true at all. A huge portion of my city dweller friends are miserable and constantly talk about quitting their jobs or moving. I cannot think of a single friend in the mountains who is as miserable. None of them want to move to a big city removed from nature.
ip26|3 years ago
qkls|3 years ago
mr_tristan|3 years ago
The "happiness trifecta" still seems to be a sense of purpose, autonomy, and expertise. Money just helps remove stressors.
I'd like to see more stories of people working to open a path in a system where it didn't exist before. Like, "how I carved out a new position at this huge company that gave be a better sense of why I do what I do". Everyone tends to think they need to go to a small place to have a big impact, but I think you can bend the world wherever you are a bit if you know how to define the targets, and get there slowly, one day at a time.
Big career changes are sometimes worth it, though I wouldn't follow this guy's lead. I found this experience from a woodworker who left architecture much more interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQoqGPnRLbU
seanbarry|3 years ago
I posted this late last night (BST) and I’m shocked to wake and see it was so heavily read and discussed. Thank you everyone!
The post received some justifiable criticism for making it sound like I’m about to disappear in to the mountains to live like a hermit in a poorly thought out, idealistic middle finger to society.
In reality the change I’m making is to move to a much smaller place where I still have people and the urban environment around me, but with a much healthier balance of the things I value: family, nature, and quiet. Importantly, I’ll be a 15 minute walk from the seaside and a short drive away from the mountains - so I’ll be able to escape to them as often as I want.
I also want to find or create more meaningful work, even though this means my income may be lower.
I don’t have FU money from working at a FAANG company, so my personal runway is ~6 months. I won’t be taking significant time off.
The most ironic thing is that change isn’t immediate. It’s going to be six weeks before my obligations here expire and until then, life continues as it has done previously. As I write this comment I’m standing in a packed train on the way in to the city, but today with a little smile on my face.
mclightning|3 years ago
nunez|3 years ago
simonebrunozzi|3 years ago
My only humble suggestion is to write a journal of your experience being "off the rat race". And maybe share some of it.
Good luck.
mmaunder|3 years ago
antihero|3 years ago
namuol|3 years ago
If you want to quit the rat race you’re going to have to sacrifice a lot, unless you checks notes “[work] at a top tier investment bank as a software engineer”.
strken|3 years ago
mancerayder|3 years ago
lm28469|3 years ago
You're still in the race, but instead of burning everything to get in front and "win" (win what ?) you're just taking a stroll at the back, enjoying the view while chatting with your friends
Existenceblinks|3 years ago
angarg12|3 years ago
If instead of "rat race vs not" we frame it as a tradeoff between possibly conflicting attributes, which may vary person to person and at different points in life, I think we'd have a more fruitful conversation.
juve1996|3 years ago
It's amazing how many people simply want to tear others down, I think, deep down, many wish they could do the same as this man.
throwaway_au_1|3 years ago
bradly|3 years ago
tysam_and|3 years ago
We wish the author well in his endeavors.
lumost|3 years ago
A college grad who joined FB in 2012 would have made more money at FB than any other likely alternative including founding their own firm. The same was true for at least a dozen large firms. These big firms came with the added benefit that one didn’t have to worry that your 12 hour days of toil would lead to a layoff at the end.
henshao|3 years ago
But yes, good for him. I also like the mountains.
Yhippa|3 years ago
At some point I realized that without this massive dehumanizing system to fire me regular income, the alternative is that we are out in the wild fighting for survival every minute, not knowing where my next meal is coming from.
What our system gives us seems decidedly better but man, it can be mentally tough to keep trucking along.
riemannzeta|3 years ago
We are social animals, and many of our goals are the defaults set for us by our social cohort. Very seldom do we take the time to think deeply about what we really enjoy, much less have the courage to act on what we might think in a way that would mark us as different. After all, any rejection of the defaults is a subversive threat to undermine the entire system!
Good for you, Mr. Barry. I for one am very excited to hear more from you in the future!
ablatt89|3 years ago
alecbz|3 years ago
TranquilMarmot|3 years ago
I think a lot of software engineers need to hang out with more people who are less well off than them. Befriend the grocery store clerk, talk to the mechanic fixing your car. If you're in a bubble of wealthy people, it gets really hard to appreciate the benefits that you have simply because you stop seeing them as benefits and see them instead as the status quo.
lapcat|3 years ago
Where did this come from? It wasn't in the linked article.
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
bacon_waffle|3 years ago
It resonated with me, right up until the "on Twitter" part.
A few weeks shy of 20 years ago, I was a fed-up high school student and made probably the best decision of my life so far. I loaded my stuff in to the back of a beat-up Nissan 720, drove it over to the high school to return their books and sign a few papers to drop out, continued driving a few hours down the road to Georgia where I unloaded stuff in to storage the next day, then started walking the Appalachian Trail...
Just a few minutes ago, I got off the phone with a friend from 500-odd miles in to that walk; he recited a line from Thoreau about most men leading a life of quiet desperation.
My friend had to cut our call short, as a childhood friend of his was on another line, presumably with news about their recent stage-4 cancer diagnosis. We're talking about a canoe trip, and I very much hope we actually make it happen. But, in the meantime, I have an infinite list of bugs to work on.
seanbarry|3 years ago
I had ~30 people reach out to me in DMs on twitter.
Some were people who feel in a similar position but don't know what to do. Others were people who have been where I am and offered advice.
Twitter is just a tool to connect with people outside of the immediate circle I have around me, I don't think there's any problem with using it as such.
Nevermark|3 years ago
I sacrificed a lot of value and security.
I have many more worries today, some more serious than any problem I had at that job.
But I feel enormous relief, I sleep better, and between the most extreme hurdles that come by, I am far far happier.
I don’t think there is any simple rule for when to change one’s outlook or change one’s scenery. Both are important tools!
mrmincent|3 years ago
I think I’m lucky because I get to live in a very walkable suburb in Melbourne AU. Feels less like a race, and more like a stroll. Instead of quitting and moving to the mountains, maybe just move to a place that’s a bit more liveable and work a job that’s a bit more flexible.
horns4lyfe|3 years ago
thenerdhead|3 years ago
In short, you might experience flow outside of your day-to-day life (i.e. work). It becomes such an addicting feeling that you try to revolve your entire life around that new sensation.
It's funny, because much of the time it happens when people do something a bit difficult and outside of their current skillset. For software types it tends to always be something with nature or woodworking.
huitzitziltzin|3 years ago
If you don’t like what you are doing, do something else. I don’t know if it’s worth trying to project your personal dissatisfaction into some broad diagnosis of social ills. Many of the alternatives to the rat race are pretty dismal.
dvt|3 years ago
In LA, I have the luxury of clean water, sewage, medicine, a decent cocktail, and, like OP, make a decent living. It's easy to decry modern society because you're not "happy" but, imo, that says more about you than it does about what you do.
Don't think the mountains, or the oceans, or the deserts are an idyllic virginal untouched Eden. You're going to end up getting yourself killed like the Into the Wild guy.
skippyboxedhero|3 years ago
99% of people in the UK would take years of their life for the opportunity (even in other cities in the UK). Not for happiness, for the fast cars, nothing like that...to eat, to not worry, to have children, to live somewhere safe. Again, being in the race is a privilege, most people aren't racing, there is no sport...they are getting run over.
BaseballPhysics|3 years ago
I love being in the wilderness. I love the quiet, the beauty of nature, the fresh air, the opportunity to stretch my legs and challenge my body.
And I love the city. I love good food and municipal garbage collection and plowed roads and the company of friends and family within easy reach.
I've often thought about buying a property closer to the Canadian Rockies (I'm close, but not as closed as I'd like), and then I remember that I'd have to maintain my own septic system, and invest in equipment to clear my own roads, and, and, and... and then I realize maybe my life ain't so bad after all. :)
lettergram|3 years ago
Imagine breaking a leg on a massive property, no roads to where you are, no cell service. What do you do? If you want to live, you crawl. If you’re strong enough, have enough will, and are lucky — you make it. Else, the coyotes eat you. Hell they might eat you anyway.
Addendum: just last week I was surrounded by the local pack of wild dogs. They were hungry and I saw one circle behind me. I drew my sidearm and yelled and they ran off. The point being, I had no help. None. If they were hungry enough, it would be me or them.
Frost1x|3 years ago
The lesson I think to learn is to be true to yourself and try and be objective when assessing life. I grew up in extremely rural, a very nature heavy childhood and there are parts of it I believe are fantastic. Meanwhile as I grew older, I found there were things denser populated urban centers could offer me. Every now and then I look back nostalically about how simple life was but there were a lot of tradeoffs in that context I wouldn't just get rid of now.
For me the compromise is to find a moderately densely populated area with access to densely populated resources. I have most all the access to nature quiet and sanity where I live, meanwhile within a 15 minute drive I can do most everything one has access to in say LA or NYC as far as things I care about and am interested in.
As with many things in life, I don't think the extremes are where happiness tends to lie, it's some compromise or mixture in between.
Ralo|3 years ago
With an investment into some technologies, you could live fairly nice. Dropping everything with no investment and just living off the land is a fairytale dream.
kashkhan|3 years ago
seanbarry|3 years ago
When I wrote this, I had no idea it was going to receive so much attention. It was immediately after a call with my boss where I committed to leaving.
I have learned a valuable lesson: how important it is to be crystal clear with the words you choose and the message you convey.
Reading my post now, I agree it sounds like I'm naively planning on going to live in the mountains where I'll immediately die in a storm or get eaten by a bear. I also wrote "I'm the least fulfilled I've ever been". I should have written "this is the least fulfilling work I've ever done".
I am leaving an unfulfilling job, and an unfulfilling place, to move to a smaller settlement where I am a short walk from the seaside and a short drive from the mountains. I'll have a way higher quality of life, being able to do the things I love (hiking in the mountains and other general outdoor pursuits) at the cost of losing a significant amount of income.
This is a trade I'm willing to make, and it reverses the decisions I've made over the last few years. This is an important learning I hoped to share with others who may be in a similar predicament.
I don't have FU money, I still want to work as a software engineer and will have to very soon. The difference is that I will not trade quality of life for money, and I will try to find or create work on the terms that maximise happiness for me. These terms are different for everybody, so my solution is unique to me.
The TL;DR of my original post is "don't optimise for income over quality of life".
fierro|3 years ago
zshrdlu|3 years ago
I don't think they're mutually exclusive. One can think of wild places as paradise while taking the necessary precautionary measures to survive there. I've camped next to a lake with hippos in it that passed a few meters from me as they strode past at sunset. A cape buffalo has done the same thing. I know what these creatures are, I know to anticipate disaster. And yet these places are still the closest thing to paradise I've ever known.
itisit|3 years ago
coldtea|3 years ago
csomar|3 years ago
I do my adventures without medical insurance, looking up nearby clinics, and there is no embassy to turn to and no emergency contact. I try to be careful, but if there was an accident I’d accept this is the end of the journey.
xnx|3 years ago
temende|3 years ago
SeattleAltruist|3 years ago
mupuff1234|3 years ago
https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/10/27/what-japan-makes-o...
badrabbit|3 years ago
Mountains, beaches, deserts, forests are all amazing. But you do get used to them and then miss the cool city life and convenience. But wherever you go, you bring your problems with you.
The drugs, alcohol,etc... in that video are solutions for the rat's unhappiness. It isn't the race that is the problem, it is the person.
There is wisdom in balance. Make a lot of money with the least amount of work-time and spend that money by traveling or living somewhere nice. Doing fun things. But none of that will solve the sickness of the human soul.
JSavageOne|3 years ago
ideamotor|3 years ago
lettergram|3 years ago
Having lived in multiple major cities — they aren’t ideal. Particularly, for children.
With the advent of starlink and wireless networks I think increasingly (I hope) children will be brought up with space. I know with remote work I moved and built a homestead, we are nearly breaking even while supplying all our food. I know me and my family are happier with the space, being outside, etc.
Less pollution, less noise, better air, better food, and generally safer.
syndacks|3 years ago
weakfortress|3 years ago
[deleted]
boh|3 years ago
disqard|3 years ago
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-w...
Excerpt:
"In the past century, the American conception of work has shifted from jobs to careers to callings—from necessity to status to meaning. In an agrarian or early-manufacturing economy, where tens of millions of people perform similar routinized tasks, there are no delusions about the higher purpose of, say, planting corn or screwing bolts: It’s just a job."
wnolens|3 years ago
Not judging harshly because I did nearly the same as the author years ago! Only I found a pot of emptiness at the end of the rainbow. I hope he really REALLY likes mountains ;)
temende|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
halfmatthalfcat|3 years ago
alexpotato|3 years ago
Who's going to tell him that ALL the water on Earth has been recycled many, many times.
As a professor once said: "All the air you're breathing and all the water you're drinking was the same stuff the dinosaurs consumed and shit into."
Pigalowda|3 years ago
I guess if he wanted to avoid recycled water he could collect and purify water from animal aerobic respiration or hydrocarbon combustion. Even then the oxygen and hydrogen could have been used before.
SyzygistSix|3 years ago
That makes the post ring rather hollow to me. It sounds like they want to monetize their experience of quitting and rejoining nature. Which basically reads like another version of selling the secrets to a 5 hour work week kind of deal.
seanbarry|3 years ago
Panini_Jones|3 years ago
I don't really understand the problem or the solution. Is this sustainable? Will the begin to feel unfulfilled in the mountains? What is fulfillment? Could a steady cadence of vacations to the mountains have bridged the gap? Does it require such an 'all or nothing' solution?
ablatt89|3 years ago
pointlessone|3 years ago
It's true by definition. One experience is not like the other.
The tone hints at what OP prefers but it's rather easy to come up with a statement pointing in the other direction. "Nothing has made me feel anything like that feeling when you get out of a nice warm bath, dress up nicely, walk to your favourite local restaurant with your mates and get a your favourite meal with a nice glass of wine." Or whatever tickles your fancy.
> The best part about those things is that there is no booking system. There is no door security choosing who gets in because there is no door. It’s all there, ready to be experienced, and free.
There are many other free things out there. Starving in the African heat. Freezing under shelling somewhere in Ukraine. Dying of incurable disease.
At the same time, there are many things ready to be experienced that are not free but, I'm sure, OP can easily afford. A nice meal in a good restaurant, a movie, a coffee with a friend, a book, comfort of his home, a trip to wherever his childhood was.
I suspect, even his quitting is not entirely free. It probably comes from his privilege to be able to not work for a while and be able to afford all the gear he needs for mountaineering. It's not a critique of his choice. I'm glad he has the option to choose and doubly so that he's happy with the choice he made. I'm critical though of OP implying that that option is the best. That it's obviously betters, and free on top of everything, but somehow overlooked buy everyone.
I understand how big city can be overwhelming. Referring to it as "Rat Race" is a little dramatic, I'd say. The toon paints a bleak picture that reflect only one side of the modern city life. Retreating to mountains is only one way to deal with it, too. And it's on the more severe side of possible solutions spectrum.
viktorcode|3 years ago
test6554|3 years ago
KronisLV|3 years ago
I recently also submitted my own resignation, except I've figured out that my current savings could last me around 3-5 years, so my plan so far is to take one year off work for personal projects, books and other ways of upskilling myself, as well as handling various larger events, such as moving to the city from the countryside (healthcare or even getting to the store is problematic otherwise), as well as just hang out with friends occasionally and visit some museums.
Though maybe my plans are too much work and too little play.
seanbarry|3 years ago
footlose_3815|3 years ago
This article is just another reminder that techbros making bank can afford the luxury to save-up a few years, and spend years contemplating their self-realization. I'm glad the author was able to finance their perspective-changing journey, but reading this is less of a lesson, and more of reading that someone won the lottery.
You can only leave the rat race if you can afford to... The rest of the earth can't do this and the author is writing from a place of great (earned) privilege. Must be nice.
blahblah1234567|3 years ago
As though the person saying it wish they were a technologist, so they could earn more.
paulpauper|3 years ago
ChrisMarshallNY|3 years ago
I was told "Go away, old man. No one wants you.", in, pretty much, those words.
Hurt like hell, but after I got over my sniffles, I learned to "lean into" my exile.
I just released a new kernel for the app I'm working on. I budgeted two months for it, but got it done -at much higher functionality than planned- in five weeks.
The difference in my development velocity and product Quality is nothing short of astounding.
Minor49er|3 years ago
kaashif|3 years ago
This was always insane to me, I always had my vacations and visits to family planned out well in advance, I never had anything left over.
Maybe it means something, maybe not.
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
nine_k|3 years ago
jkelleyrtp|3 years ago
It was a great covid experience, but it's not quite something I want to repeat soon.
greggman3|3 years ago
Me, best time in my life, commuting in Tokyo to my jobs working on a project I loved with people I loved. All the ads on the trains were eye candy to me. I didn't buy anything that I remember but I did find out about museums, concerts, and other events around town as well as various obscure services which I never used but was amused to read about.
Drinking with my buddies, including work buddies about once a week was great. Clubbing, going to restaurants, and going to events of the kind that generally only happen in giant cities was lovely.
I like the occasional trip to nature but as for me I'll pick the city and the public transportation. I love it!
gauravphoenix|3 years ago
It reads like you are stating a fact, but really, it is a matter of opinion. Perhaps, you can just say what you like without invalidating what others prefer.
throwaway_au_1|3 years ago
yawnxyz|3 years ago
I was visiting London and took the train in the morning to the airport (this is a really bad idea), and saw that exact thing play out. Some girl was smushed into the crowd in train by someone outside so she could make the train, like a cartoon character.
Definitely convinced me I couldn't do a 9-5 after that
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
mooneater|3 years ago
garganzol|3 years ago
jehb|3 years ago
Do not let your job become a part of your identity.
I work just as hard at my new job as I did at my last one, but in my mind, they're just a client I'm choosing to offer services to at this time. I've made many good friends through work over the years, but now my loyalty to my friends is independent of my loyalty to the companies for which we work. I used to use the demonym of my place of work to tell people about myself; now I describe myself by my hobbies, my beliefs, and my aspirations.
Did that solve everything? Of course not. Late-stage capitalism is still riddled with bullshit. But I do sleep better at night.
rafaelero|3 years ago
I disagree. People should strive for a fulfilling job that allows them to express their identity. Just try not to be so picky that you end up with so few options.
8bitsrule|3 years ago
https://www.forbes.com/asap/2001/1203/096_print.html
nickd2001|3 years ago
rubicon33|3 years ago
"I'm quitting! But I'm not telling you anything about how I plan to pay for life."
The message mostly resonates with me, right up until they leave out the most crucial part of the post. How do you escape the rat race, and still pay for things like health care, food, rent, etc.
Even if you're making $100k+ a year, those costs aren't insignificant. No how do you handle them making $0k a year?
bradly|3 years ago
I quit the rat race in my late 30's. I saved and lived a frugal life while earning a great FAANG salary during a time of economic growth. I used my savings to buy income producing rental properties and aggressively payoff mortgages. I now do woodworking most days and love it. The pay is low, but at least the hours are long.
I used to work on some of the most popular applications in the world. I would see my work in keynotes and read about my work here on HN, but none of that compared to making an urn for my cousin when my uncle passed away. Or selling a few items at a winter market at my kid's elementary school.
nine_k|3 years ago
nickd2001|3 years ago
seanbarry|3 years ago
Please see this comment where I've hopefully answered your questions: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=34426360&goto=item%3Fi...
fullshark|3 years ago
roflyear|3 years ago
Couples routinely live like this for $2k/m, so it is possible.
jacknews|3 years ago
'The mountains' are wonderful while you still have a pile of cash to pay 'friendly locals' to help support your dream, but eventually you will get older, and it will run out...
throwaway4aday|3 years ago
lazyeye|3 years ago
By any definition these people are not rich but they are definitely happier than most city-dwellers IMO. I think there are 6 series now.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4838586/
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
siftrics|3 years ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A-rEb0KuopI
jaimex2|3 years ago
Society won't let you unless you go full drifter and only certain people have a personality for it.
motohagiography|3 years ago
I was just cursing a pile of sticks that were too damp to light and I was being deprived of the bonfire I had assembled and was preparing to light, and I was laughing because in the words of Buckaroo Banzai, "wherever you go, there you are." I've achieved a kind of temporary exit for as long as my means permit, and I can say that the real that the rat race conceals is not for everyone.
My trip up the hedonic treadmill was such that I even wrote professionally about the sort of things one might buy in the hopes of finding a there there, pitching stories about exotic experiences one could have for the price of a vacation. There isn't a there there. There is no yacht long enough, club exclusive enough, view stunning enough, or achievement great enough that it makes you any different from the person standing on the subway platform. You will be the same person. I guarantee that if you flame out of your job, cash in your savings and manage to summit Everest, the first thing you will do when you get to the top is check your phone. The things that seemed so important were only symbolic. Pursuit of symbols specificially disqualifies us from attaining the meaning they represent. Maybe the humility is worth it, as yeah, the things I achieved were symbols that don't mean the same things now that I have them, but that's the treadmill, the pursuit of symbols and representations - affect.
I can say with some confidence that you only actually have what is yours to share, not all of it is good, and meaning only exists in the moment of sharing it. I can also say that unhappy people are not lonely, as their misery and self involvement keeps them from noticing it. I think to really understand what it means to be lonely, you need to find some happiness first, then when you move to share it with someone who isn't there, that's the feeling. That absence of no one in particular, but with the sense of having lost someone close. It is truly a rarefied experience I am glad to have been able to appreciate, but it's not a solution to anything. If you want to exit the rat race, try camping first, maybe a longish canoe trip, or read some good literary fiction. Ultimately, it's just you.
This is all to say, we invent the conditions we impose on our choosing happiness. They are symbolic and representations, they are not the real, and the real is not far or exotic. It's perhaps easier to believe we are unfufilled by our successes, and that there is another life out there if we just leave all this behind, as it puts off recognizing that we're probably just idiots in profoundly difficult ways.
tinktank|3 years ago
BirAdam|3 years ago
Second, I do feel the pain of corporate life, and I switched to working for a non-profit because of it. Leaving the city… nah. Just moved to the perimeter and now I can drive 10 minutes to downtown or 20 to the mountains. Why get a septic tank, a well, my own water treatment, and all this other stuff if I need not do so?
raincom|3 years ago
friend_and_foe|3 years ago
dqpb|3 years ago
JSavageOne|3 years ago
I'm definitely not a rural person, but I do think that living in nature has a strong correlation to happiness. I don't think the average person in a concrete jungle like NYC is happier than in a random village in the Amazon jungle or the Swiss alps. I don't regret my time I lived in NYC though other than that I stayed too long. It's fun for a time in one's life while one is young, but it's not a forever place for most people.
Most jobs suck. "Find your passion" is bullshit career advice because a job by definition means selling your freedom (if the job was so much fun they wouldn't need to pay you because people would do it for free). Unfortunately the reality is that we must make money to afford a modern lifestyle, and thus if you want financial freedom you will probably need to get a job (yes you can create your own business, but until that takes off you need to pay the bills somehow).
I quit the rat race and left NYC to travel the world. After 1.5 years of traveling I started to run amount of money and I reluctantly decided to start working again - this time remotely. But to my surprise I found that I actually enjoyed the new job and had missed having that sense of responsibility (or maybe I liked finally seeing my bank account balance go up and was trying to rationalize it, who knows). But eventually the job started to suck as I realized it was a deadend job and felt like I wasn't respected. I was miserable and performing the job was a chore, but I stayed because I didn't have the courage to quit a job that paid so well for so little work - the same position I was in in NYC before my world travel.
Finally that contract ended, and I was again free from work obligations. This time I set my goal to create my own tech projects with the hope of eventually monetizing them and living off of that. Finally I enjoyed programming again because I was building whatever I wanted.
A job fell in my lap with another startup, and I initially didn't want to take it because my focus was on my own work. But in the end I decided to give it a chance as I figured it could be a valuable experience, and I can always quit if I don't like it. The job turned out to be awesome. Awesome people, interesting problems, and I get a front row seat at an early stage startup. The downside of course is that I have not been able to put as much time on my personal projects as I'd like, but I am still working on it on the side, and we'll see if I can manage them both.
Leaving the rat race to travel the world led to some amazing experiences with high highs and low lows. I went from being sick of software engineering to wanting to build my own tech startups - which is my main work goal now. It took me traveling so much I got bored of it until I got inspired to want to build tech things again to solve my own problems. But maybe you'll leave forever and prefer being a park ranger in the words - who knows. We're all different.
In any case I think people should do whatever the hell they want, as no money is worth wasting one's life in misery. Worst case scenario you don't like living in the nature and can return to London to work at another bank with a renewed sense of gratefulness. Of course most likely you probably won't ever return to the same exact old life. Maybe you'll work remotely for a startup from the woods, or become a writer, or go completely offline and just live a simpler life. Who knows. It doesn't matter as long as you're doing you.
Either way best of luck on your journey, from one rat rat escapee to the next.
throwaway378037|3 years ago
steele|3 years ago
outside1234|3 years ago
This is the exact realization I had that lead me to quit London as well.
d23|3 years ago
netfortius|3 years ago
shinycode|3 years ago
alecbz|3 years ago
All you're doing is giving yourself a brief reprieve from an environment that drains your energy. You'll build up a bit of the energy over the break, but as soon as you come back you'll start getting drained again, possibly even worse than before because of the contrast of having to be back in that environment.
Breaks are important but if your environment is fundamentally draining you day after day, they're not going to move that needle.
travisgriggs|3 years ago
seanbarry|3 years ago
It's one of the most beautiful places I've seen. If you have the opportunity to visit, I recommend it highly.
kovac|3 years ago
jonstewart|3 years ago
But, rural living is vastly less sustainable on a per capita basis than city living. The elegiac tone of a rural paradise lost is a familiar one throughout the past few centuries. It’s an aspect of “blood-and-soil” nationalism (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_soil) and Boomer-era environmentalism and of Tolkien (so, I guess that’s in order of most to least problematic). It is easy to feel the longing, but it’s also worth some critical thinking.
I’ve got a place in the country that I go when I need to get away from the city (and, yes, putting a lot of time and effort into making it sustainable…). I find myself doing a lot of programming there. And then I go back to the city to talk to people about the code, and find out what they’ve been coding.
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
mouzogu|3 years ago
i'm glad you were able to quit. i did see that video recently and found it a bit cliche but well made.
SnowHill9902|3 years ago
bix6|3 years ago
generated|3 years ago
-Kirsten Hacker
fdsfawfds|3 years ago
[deleted]
gonadsi|3 years ago
[deleted]
audiodude|3 years ago
amalgamated_inc|3 years ago