The issue is that there's no way I'll get as much money as what I'm earning now... and I know building the business will require insurmountable efforts.
So I'm reduced to keep working in IT, wait until my good luck ends and hopefully be able to retire around 45
regardless of whether or not you believe it's just "making that choice," completely discrediting somebody's claim the effort is insurmountable _to them_ makes you a breaker of Rule 1
That said I do bet that if you try to do your thing and it really doesn’t work out you probably can go back to software afterwards if you’re open to the risk of burning through your savings in the process.
Just one example.
Morality may not be objective, but it surely isn’t just personal either. That’s what makes it a nuanced discussion, and not just a choice one makes.
By deciding you want to do that in the future but first you need to save, are you deprioritizing it, or prioritizing it indirectly?
What if it wasn't meant to be taken literally
The extremely trusted is the hard part.
Your paying a local charity usually does much more to the community than even running a gym.
If you run a store or a cafe by just paying locals to work in it, using a part of your high wages, it's pretty helpful. But see the charity above; maybe it's better to support e.g. educators.
In general, your community is never better off if you suddenly become poorer.
Or a charity yes (unless of course it's sth like a SPA for dogs)
Maybe it's just the "midlife crisis"
The first 25 years to improve yourself
The second 25 years to improve your family
The third 25 years to improve your community
The final 25 years to improve everyone
It sounds like you're just reaching the third stage of life :-)
Ridiculously smart move. Congratulations.
Instead of anchoring myself to what Brazilian companies pay for developers, I focused on getting a remote job at a US company. One that would anchor themselves among their peers around SV, LA, NY. Now I earn about 12x more than when I started as a junior when I started 5 years ago. I earn about 3x more than if I was lucky to get the best paying job for my experience level here in my city.
This 3x salary increase is very related to knowing that this privileged world existed, which is mainly HN’s fault in my case.
Bear in mind that I am not earning close to USD200k (but six digits). I learned around here that FAANG salaries exists, but then I decided that those are not for me. But that’s a conscious decision. A much better position of not even knowing this exists.