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

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

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

Some humans like living like this.

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

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

What song ?

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

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

until like, a year ago

and now it's everything

this place is designed to kill us

and make us think it's our fault”

yeah it's that one :)

Linking to search engine results page is almost never helpful.

And almost always pedantic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is that for American retirement ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here comes an inverse take.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is exactly what it feels like.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps another way to phrase a similar thought.

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

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

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

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

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

What about the outdoors?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's the exact opposite of what he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

> But how do you make money?

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

> And how did you get started?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For sure!

How to? Starting your own business is not easy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Find a remote job (take a pay cut if needed), move to a cheaper country if money is a concern. Work 3-4 hours on a beach. Totally realistic as long as you’re good at what you do and manage to get things done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

External things have limited relevance to the internal condition.

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

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

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

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

One of the lines that proceeds that is:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In any case, I appreciate the explanation.

That verse is worthless for atheists, but the first sentence is actually usable. How we experience life, how we feel is strongly influenced by the labels we attach to our experiences. Maybe meditation can help you, no god needed. Check out "The mind illuminated", this book gets recommended in pretty much every thread on hn about meditation and for good reasons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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