“What else can I be,” returned the uncle, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you?
If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”
Dickens had this attitude’s number long ago. Do not mistake the writhing in your guts for “an undigested bit of beef”. It’s a more important signal.
https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laur...
I think while you don't have "FU money" it's important for money to be the main focus of your life. You don't have freedom if you don't have a lot of money and you can't be 100% happy without freedom, at least in my experience, though I know opinions vary here.
It helps a lot that I work remotely in IT and live in Poland which is a very cheap country and I'm very low maintenance (for example my ideal vacations is biking and playing D&D on the internet which is all I did in 2019 ;) ). I have 0 interest in cars and drive 1997 Fiat Punto in which a replacement engine costs less than my daily salary :) I know because we've burned it once by accident :)
I don't think money have to be the main focus, as long a your have a sustainable plan with big margin of safety. I could live for 10 years out of my savings easily, that's enough freedom for me if the alternative is delaying the freedom till I'm old. It would probably be a little different with kids, but we don't want to have kids with my wife, so that's not an issue.
I am actually thinking of moving to Poland if this guy keeps paying me, but I probably should go after I got 2 clients minimum.
The thing is that not everyone can or will achieve that. If we know that, what's the main drive for others to do that? We don't live in a system where this is possible, I'm glad you've achieved it but preaching this "money should be the main focus of your life until you have FU money" will just make a lot of people frustrated and unfulfilled.
So why should that be the main goal of anyone's life when there is so much more to life than that? Are we all slaves to money then? Are our lives only meant to be lived after we are free from the shackles of money?
I really don't like that perspective.
How much would you need to work if you bought a small-ish house, lived on a very strict budget, and generally kept expenditure to a minimum? There are places in the US where you can buy a house on a bit of land for just over $100k (ex: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/904-Grant-St-Tupelo-MS-38...). What could you do with half an acre of land, a paid off house, and minimal day-to-day obligations? Imagine: work for an hour or two per day so that you have money to buy food, pay power/electric, etc., then idk... read? write that book you've always thought about writing? get in shape? start a garden? go fishing? There are so many possibilities.
I recognize that moving across the country, having the money to pay off a $120k house, etc. is an enormous privilege for some people and I'm certainly not asserting that it's an opportunity that anyone could take advantage of. Only pointing out that the bar for FU money might be lower than you might think.
Currently I just can't wait to reach that state. Sometimes I'm counting days even. I could never be happy/relaxed as long as I am forced to work, or forced to work under someone.
With regular work, I think I am saving around 70% of my total compensation, but I am also finding ways to do side-hustles. Hopefully I can hit something that will help me reach passive income or otherwise I will be dependant on my career compensation. So as long as I haven't achieved that state I will keep trying and spend most of my time trying to reach this state.
Keep in mind that the lifestyle changes you make now pay off more than double, by helping you save faster, by having those savings accumulate interest/earn you money, and by reducing the amount of money you need to sustain retirement indefinitely.
Finally, make compounding growth your friend, not your enemy. Kill debt ASAP, and start socking away as much of your money as you can in a growth-bearing account. If you can reliably save 50% of your income in an account that beats inflation by 4%, you can support your lifestyle indefinitely on growth after 17 years.
I like feel they're actually under-inflated (at least for comparing high paid workers in both places) because of equity.
The company I work at has rallied many times over 100% since I joined a bit over a year ago. I could sell my equity and "semi-retire" 30+ years early, working when/if I feel like it and not eat really into my savings
It wasn't some grand plan to join a company that would do well during a pandemic, but I did intentionally choose a public company since saying in the tech sector has exploded would be an understatement, and I wanted equity in that.
I'm guessing a lot of people who joined FAANG companies in the last few years are all probably sitting on enough to start thinking about that.
There are those who feel this is a bubble and not sustainable... maybe? But the way I see it is, even if this is the bubble before the next dot com era-style bust, it's better to have a position in it provided by my work and cashing out along the way, than not and end up losing my job anyways.
[1]https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-incom...
In any case, it doesn't require winning the startup lottery or having a $400K salary at Google.
ADDED: ~$2m + paid-off house is the sort of range people (typically engineers, non-software) I've had discussions about "targets" with have in mind.
In the US the OP would be in the top 3% of earners, top 4% in the UK. Even if you are in the top few percent you still have to spend most of your life working to be 'free' for a bit at the end of it.
Of course if you are inside the top 1% you could probably get away with a 10-15 year sentence. Where the average wage is generally life with a few years of poverty like freedom at the end.
If I do not retire early and continue on this path, I would probably reach $3.5mil by age 50.
Americans have notoriously poor investment/saving habits, which obscures the fact that it is remarkably easy to accumulate liquid wealth in the US if you are a diligent saver. The median US household has enough investable income, after all ordinary life expenses, to accumulate a couple million dollars over a typical career. High earners can easily save 10x that amount.
The other key thing is investing in the stock market, specifically index funds which have a historical real return rate of 7%. Folks who invested since 2008 got way higher returns from a phenomenal bull run, but let's assume a more "conservative" 7% return.
Save 100k a year with 7% returns for 15 years and you have 2.5mil.
The flaw in that modeling is that your earnings typically peak later in your career, so OP may have made a lot of their money in the last few years from being a high level employee making 500k+ a year.
Well there's your problem. Extremely few well paying (say $150k+) jobs and crazy taxes don't exactly encourage wealth accumulation.
Try Bay Area - with tech salaries there and stocks growth being what they were this past decade, the real question is how is it not possible (if only you wanted) to have made $2M+ working for a FAANG for a decade there.
Or at least go for Switzerland, although market is much smaller there, beware. But I know multiple multimillionares in person who made it all on Google Zurich payroll.
Most of that 2.5 million probably came from either interest or capital gains (which compounds). I've only been saving for a bit less than a decade and my increase in net worth for the last few years was greater than my total salary (before tax) the same year. [My salary is extremely low compared to Bay Area.] I save 40% of my after tax income.
That's why, just check how tech is pay in USA http://levels.fyi
You may feel very differently when you are looking back on your life near the end of it.
I think what they're saying is that it's important to focus on money early on if it's achievable for you to reach this level of independent wealth in a reasonable time frame.
The amount of money one 'needs' depends on a lot of things, like cost of living in the area you happen to be in. While US$ 2.5M may not seem like a lot in the US, one can live like a king in may other areas.
One doesn't even need to live in one particular place: people cruise around the world, often spending less than US$ 40K per year in total expenses if you don't get too fancy:
* https://www.instagram.com/sailinguma/
* https://www.youtube.com/sailinguma
Your nest egg would allow for several decades at that burn rate.
Unless you want to live an extravagant lifestyle (nothing wrong with that) $2.5 million is more than enough to retire in all but the most expensive US cities. And let's remember this is liquid, so real estate doesn't really count in that. One or two properties you're not living in could easily float that extravagant lifestyle for years.
Being financially free can certainly help with #2 but I don't think it inherently addresses the others.
I am unfortunately one of them, intellectually, I've conclude the same for myself many times over, and have been unable to change my view on this, as much as I'd love to find peace in my sitaution and enjoy life (tm).
What's hard about it is that it's probably impossible for most people to achieve this kind of wealth, after all, in the current socioeconomic situation, you can't be rich in any traditional sense of the word, without someone else being relatively less well off.
Until we have robots doing our work, and almost-infinite access to resources through no or little work of our own, the traditional definitions are valid.
I was with you up until here.
The total amount of wealth in the world is constantly growing, and you can positively influence it's creation, by introducing new efficiencies or new goods and services that didn't exist before.
In many ways, the wealth of the average person living today is much greater than kings and emperors living centuries ago.
Even if that were true, all of your gain in wealth doesn't have to come out of a single individual's pocket. If you make something (e.g. an app) for which a lot of people pay a very small amount, presumably because they get some value in return, it seems a fair deal and leaves everyone else very marginally poorer, and not unfairly. If you consider the value they have gained from using your product as a form of wealth, then no one is poorer at all because you have created wealth.
Glad that we agree, that's what I believe too and that's why I strongly hate capitalism.
You aren't free at all unless you have enough capital to stop being forced to take any job offer just to survive.
In the meantime, most people tend to agree with me that at least to a degree more money = more happiness, it's the reason that capitalism works afterall, and it raises the standard of living - or choice of not working - for all of us over time
Why are you reacting so heavily on a quite balanced comment?
"The Bible is meant to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable"
-Martin Marty
I can share from my own experience (and from talking with the friends I've made along the way) dedicating your time and resources to charity volunteering is a fulfilling force, but never ultimately so. It doesn't stop whatever is really gnawing on your soul about direction in life. Those things have to be understood and addressed directly.
Are you displeased of not having passions because you think it would be a nice, healthy thing to have? Or is it because you have the impression that people that are passionate about something have an easier time monetizing it, and your ventures are failing because of it?
Also, are you sharing this to get some thoughts on the matter? Or to get views for the post and potentially get people to subscribe to your newsletter?
The fact that it's even a question is a big hint of what's wrong with chasing business above everything: you might not even know which of your interactions are genuine anymore. Genuine interactions are a human need, and they are fully incompatible with ulterior motives.
1. Try and make 'the optimal thing'. Something easy to create, and so lucrative that I won't have to make anything else again
2. flail like the author describes
3. decide that no amount of money is worth feeling this way (or otherwise burnout via your method of choice)
4. make nothing for a while (~6 months for me)
5. start missing some aspects of what you used to do
6. gradually start making those things again, with the goal being to make those things.
Hopefully step 7 is profit, time will tell. If it's not, I'm ok with that too :)
It's certainly not where the people who want to found a "startup" in the PG sense of the word, or be the CEO of a massive company, are. And (also paradoxically) I think most of them are probably in the same place the author is. Even if they have hobbies and passions, their #1 passion is probably "making more money."
But pursuing it might distract you from that fact.
For a while.
I feel like meaning is vastly oversold. People didn't have any meaning beyond "survive and make children" for millennia and they did fine. The whole search for meaning I feel has sprung up only among the people who have too much free time ;) I found that I became much happier when I explicitly rejected it, absurdism-style, and then at least partially internalized the notion... it doesn't quite get you back to the natural lack of concern that you have when you are young and don't think of life as finite, but it's the step in the right direction.
It appears to me people have repeatedly searched for a higher purpose that goes beyond their material situation. Hell its even true with those disconnected native tribes in south America drinking ayahuasca and achieving a higher spiritual purpose. It seems to be built into us to want to transcend our material desires once a certain level of sustenance is reached.
Personally, having been a money driven individual earlier in my life (with a high paying job in finance), I quickly realized beyond sustenance for basic needs, money meant little. The reason for this “enlightenment” for me was a serious health problem that made me reevaluate my finite life.
So I would wholeheartedly agree with the original post that money cannot buy your life meaning.
That's a deeply impoverished and modern view of both the past and children.
Wealth is a means, and can be a good thing in the right context, or a bad thing in the wrong one. We know that wealth beyond a certain amount is not associated with increased happiness, and is as often as not associated with decreased happiness.
I can attest to that.
I've been giving at least 10% of my income to charities for about a decade (a pledge I signed along with thousands of other people at https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ ).
From this perspective, you're still earning a lot, it's just that you choose to give a fraction of it away. It's not the same as earning less. Plus, giving to research-proven interventions that help others feels like the most meaningful thing I do with my life.
Go try something new. If it clicks, great. If it doesn't, I'm sure there is something else you'll find, too. Just get out of your comfort zone.
I’d also posit the OP intuitively understands this and is why they’re looking to “fix” it, why they think this is a problem because it feels like it should be one. And I personally agree, there’s no added meaning to life if you’re only looking to be better than those around you. One day I imagine you’ll realize there’s no winning or losing, there’s just life. It goes on.
I think mindfulness can address a lot of the concerns here.
To the author, please keep it up. You remind me a little of me at 25 yet much more articulate and aware. Keep asking the questions, keep paying attention to your feelings, keep on trudging the path. And therapy could really help! Good luck.
> “Oh umm…that’s great Pam. But that’s a lot of work, and no money? Like…is it really worth it? Imagine if you turned it into some type of education business. What’s the market like for that? You could charge at least $300 per student.”
I find the above comment particularly interesting. Working at a youth charity and starting an education business for privileged kids seems like two very different activities to me, with very different rewards and challenges.
The problem with this hobby, and I suspect this is what the author may be sensing, is that the motivation is extrinsic. The rewards come from outside himself. He is forever reliant on an external force for his own satisfaction.
I think the best fit for this guy would be a hobby that is, like his current hobby, based around the mastery of a skill -- something he can practice and see himself getting better at -- but which doesn't require an external rewards system.
The good news is that almost any creative hobby can satisfy these requirements. As for which one to pick? I've found that looking back to one's childhood can be immensely helpful. What amazed you as a kid? What's something you really tried to be good at, but you couldn't quite make it work? It doesn't have to feel like passion yet. It just needs to be a seed. A tiny hint at an activity you might find satisfying eventually. If you give yourself enough time and room to play with that thing, you may get to experience that passion taking hold.
(I'm modifying it for later update, to add a link to content on "if someone is bored" w/ my ideas on hobbies and other possibly worthwhile things to engross oneself, but in the meantime, that is: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581266.html )
- japanese animation
- programming blogs
- blogs about blogging
- blog about making money online
Impostor syndrome is likely grasping at wind. Nobody's going to tell you, you're in a valid life position. That validation is not graspable, because it's not coming.
Real life (interesting) cautionary tale if you need one:
Cool, were you born this way? Have you always had no interests? When did you first realize? Okay, I'm being sarcastic.
Problems like these might go away on their own. But if you want to actively solve them, you have to look inward, not ask the audience. I don't know what you like; I know what I like.
Consider therapy.
The reason I suggest therapy is that I'm sensing guilt. Guilt is a sometimes but not always indicator of repressed emotions. Repression is a possible explanation for a lack of interest in pleasurable pursuits. But I, the anonymous Internet stranger with fifteen minutes of mental bandwidth to offer, cannot possibly plumb deeper than that.
If he had a bajillion dollars, might he be doing other things? Sure. But that doesn't mean his only interest is money, it's uncertain whether he'd be doing a variation of the same things. Seems plausible he'd do a video about what it's like to be mega rich.
People who are only in it for money are often doing quite mundane things. Would I have stopped my paperroute if I had loads of money as a kid? Yes. Would I stop coding altogether? Probably not, I like it.
Until you have FU money it takes a change of attitude to forget money. The people you surround yourself are as well important. Just spend some time with some artists and you'll be more like them.
Parts of me feels the same since I moved to a big city where in order to own a house I need to pay mortgage until I'm 60 even if I'm in top ~3% of earners. I guess it's the stress, the uncertainty of our world, the competition, the ego.
Me, I enjoy accumulating knowledge. It gives me great joy to know things I didn't know before. I will keep doing this until I stop enjoying it. To each his own, and the freedom to choose is the best part of living in the US.
[1] https://simonsinek.com/find-your-why/
[2] https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_insp...
Starting your own thing is different than being in school or being an employee. If you were "gifted" with the blessing of being good at school life, not having a defined goal for you could be part of the issue. With school
The ability to focus is like a muscle or any other skill, you have to practice it.
Interesting read nonetheless.
Good self awareness on the part of the author. Next step is action. When you realize a deficiency in character (judging everything by monetary ROI), there's a concept of "Agere contra" meaning to act against. You choose to do something directly in contrast to the deficiency.
So in this case, I'd recommend definitely need to start helping people. For free. In as inefficient way as possible. Something like cutting your elderly neighbors lawn with scissors.
Taking a step back, this is the result of (1) insulation from real hardship, (2) capitalist/consumerist brainwashing esp. of the entrepreneurship-fetish of software startups.
I have some hobbies still like reading (non biz) and fitness but work dominates a lot of my time.
And note that with "grey areas", I mean things that would be repulsive to ordinary people, e.g. patent trolling (is it illegal? no! does it make lots of money? yes! is it unethical? what do you mean? :-)).
Some people do manage to “make it” in 2020 but it’s more dumb luck than anything. You can do everything right and fail miserably — this is the outcome for most people with your mindset who chase “get rich quick” schemes. Sounds like you’re having cyclical burnout from smashing your head against the wall because every market is crowded and you have no real way to set yourself apart — again, this is by design. Late stage capitalism and all.
But even if you do succeed, there’s a good chance you find yourself in your mid 30s with a lot of money but poor social skills and limited interests to draw upon. Women / men of this age tend to be attracted to people who are interesting rather than wealthy. If your only passion is how you make a living, that’s kinda dull. You’re 25 and probably have lots of friends now, but by 35 most of them will be married and doing their own thing and you may see them a couple times a year. If you’re boring and haven’t developed interests, you’re going to be lonely.
You can cultivate interests — just do things for the sake of doing them. Once lockdown is over, join a sports league or take dance classes. Do it just to meet people and you’ll eventually find something you like. Money comes and goes with economic cycles and I honestly don’t think the future is very bright economically for most people in the US. Find ways to cope with the existential dread now or you’re going to end up a lonely 35 year old with no friends and few prospects.
I seriously doubt this. Looking at myself I care a lot less about 'interesting' people than I did in my twenties. Maybe interesting is a euphemism for social capital, but social capital is greatly linked to wealth anyway.
Aren't more and more people starting to realize the endless push for side-hustles and youtube subscibers and making stuff just to sell isn't worth it/healthy? We need more balance
