25 ms·

Well, having already made enough money to always be able to just say "you know what, I'm out" whenever you feel like it is necessary to be happy in any situatio

• pyb 5y ago
  You make a good point. Are people successful because they are happy, or vice versa?
  • suction 5y ago
    Secure situations make successful people. Children raised in well-off households with no financial worries do better in school and later in their careers, on average. Sure, you get the rich kid wasting their life on parties or drugs, or the poor kid beating the odds by hard work and determination, but those are outliers. That's why there are so many of these characters in literature, movies, and TV - they're not the norm.
    • mensetmanusman 5y ago
      My personality is like the happy math guy above; I grew up in poverty, but I had a ton of loving security from both parents centered around love and commitment. We used to have to collect change at McDonald’s for lunch. Eventually I graduated from MIT. I understand it is not the norm… :)
    • ajuc 5y ago
      The mechanism is: - a rich kid wastes 3 years on drugs and partying, gets caught once or twice, gets bailed by parents, moves on to do something productive - a poor kid wastes 1 year on drugs and partying, gets caught once, it snowballs from there, recovery is very hard if at all possible
  • snek_case 5y ago
    I think you're asking the right question. Very unpopular opinion, but I think some of it comes down to genetics. I know a guy who is just always happy, no matter what. I've just never seen him feeling down. He grew up in a somewhat challenging situation but it doesn't seem to matter. I really think some of it is just the way he's wired. He has a lot of energy, is physically active everyday and doesn't fall asleep easily. This dude has the personality of a friendly dog (in a good way). He's a very reliable friend and I would trust him with my life. The complete answer is probably that it goes both ways. People have a natural tendency to be more anxious or more energetic or happy or sad, a baseline if you will. If you take care of your body, it helps. If you're exposed to stressful situations, especially in childhood, that can become a risk factor later. But, IMO, there's definitely people out there who are genetically lucky in this area, and others less so. I'm going to note that just suggesting that there's a genetic component is controversial because it goes against the modern day idea that "you can do anything if you just try hard enough" a little bit. The fact is though, we're all genetically unique. I think it's a good idea to acknowledge that we all start in a different place. That doesn't mean you can't work on yourself. Even short people can run a marathon and develop a lot more endurance if they train as opposed to playing videogames all day. It also comes down to knowing your strengths and weaknesses. I feel like I have a natural tendency to feel more down and tired than others. I've developed healthy coping strategies and structured my life in a way that I can minimize stress. Being aware of my own limitations makes me better able to cope with them. Pretending that I'm one of those always happy people would not.
    • borroka 5y ago
      All behavioral and "personality" traits are partly heritable and most (all?) of them are due to many genes of small effects. This is a very general and solid result of behavioral genetics, <<the modern idea that "you can do anything if you just try hard enough">> is made with people who have no clue about the realities of life and speak because they can. It has the same intellectual value as "love will find you." Although personalities tend to be sticky throughout life, that some people can substantially change their personalities is also quite obvious to anyone with (figuratively) open eyes.
  • spookthesunset 5y ago
    What is “be successful” other than being content with your life? Dudes who make bank almost always have to work really hard to get there. Or at least make a lot of sacrifices (for example trade most of your social life / relationships / etc for work). Personally I just want to make enough to enable me to buy shit for my hobbies and personal projects. I’d like to do that while maintaining the ability to take lots of time off. I’d trade hobby money for time off. I’d trade a lot for time off…
    • mrtranscendence 5y ago
      > I’d trade a lot for time off… I've said it before and I'll say it again: the moment my company comes to me and says "would you be interested in taking a 50% pay cut to work 20 hours a week?" I'm taking it. Even though I'd get the short end of the deal by doing more than 50% of what I'm doing now.
• nextaccountic 5y ago
  I think that's the best argument for UBI. If people aren't constantly worried about being homeless and not having food, they are happier, healthier, more productive and live more fulfilling lives.
  • pydry 5y ago
    Unfortunately policy is formed from a balance of competing powers, not as a result of an idea for doing what is best for people. I think it's a mistake to think that captains of industry want productivity above all else. They'll happily sacrifice productivity for certainty and compliance.
    • Kye 5y ago
      Only having people working for them who want to work for them seems like an easy way to be sure of certainty and compliance.
      • gkop 5y ago
        That doesn’t ring true in my decade of management. Some people are just incapable of doing a bad job, and others just incapable of doing a good job. Whether or not they want to work for you.
        • Kye 5y ago
          A decade of management under a system where people have to work whatever job is available to them just to survive. That's a huge, screaming confounding variable. If the people you've managed have a meaningful choice in where to work, then they aren't the primary target of UBI.
          • lazide 5y ago
            Considering we’ve never (to my knowledge) had a system where People didn’t have to work to survive at some level - how would anyone know? Even idle noblity had expectations (military service, patrons of arts and society, etc).
• throwaway874653 5y ago
  This is exactly what i feel but did not thought about until i read the post. Is there a name for this pheneomeon. Dejavu is kind of tangential to this.
  • pksebben 5y ago
    ennui, perhaps?
• scotty79 5y ago
  Maybe growing up with this kind of money has that effect, but not acquiring it midlife. I got the money to get out and that's exactly what I did. I got out of everything. I'm not any more open than I was and I'm not happier. I just feel more secure and comfortable.
  • wtetzner 5y ago
    They mentioned they were happier having enough money to get out, but not actually getting out. Maybe that’s the difference? Just knowing it’s an option?
    • jon-wood 5y ago
      It definitely makes a difference knowing you have the option, the startup I worked for exited last year leaving me with a significant but not life changing windfall from cashing out my options. I'm still in the same job, but now working for a big corporate, and some days I absolutely hate it, but I at least know that I'm here by choice rather than necessity. Should it become too much I've got enough money in the bank to just rage quit and walk away without needing to immediately find another job.
• nicoburns 5y ago
  I know plenty of people who will say "you know what, I'm out" despite living paycheck to paycheck, or maybe having 1 or 2 months living expenses saved up. They're just open to the risk of going with the flow, and confident they'll find something to keep them going. They tend to be a lot happier than those I know who are focussed on money and career. This doesn't work if you're literally struggling to make ends meet to the point that you're actually not making ends meet. But you certainly don't need anything near "never have to work again" levels of wealth to have this freedom.
  • suction 5y ago
    I reckon they're not 50 or older, though.
  • drra 5y ago
    It works if you don't have many responsibilities. I recently lost my only source of income and that became crippling to my overall performance when it comes to side projects that could eventually replace that source. It was really surprising since I expected to head full forward with my projects. It used to be the case when I was a student capable of living on a shoestring budget.
    • lowercased 5y ago
      > It works if you don't have many responsibilities. Yep. Single person with minimal responsibilities has more freedom/flexibility than someone with a family (for example) - kids/spouse mean your time is not just your own, and your decisions have direct (often immediate) impacts on those around you.
    • xwdv 5y ago
      Throw a wife and two kids into that mix and let’s see what happens to your side projects.
      • datavirtue 5y ago
        Yeah, it goes from 16 hours a day to MAYBE 16 hours a week.
• nicbou 5y ago
  I can confirm. Stepping off the treadmill - or just slowing it down - gives you so much more space to be curious. It's not just a matter of precariousness. You just have a lot more time and energy for these things. You can always sleep a bit longer, or delay work to follow an impulse with your full energy. There's always time for projects, even if they're not part of some hustle. It's an incredible privilege. Forget about the American dream. The Victorian dream is where it's at. I want to spend my days being a gentleman scientist and a student of the arts. I want my best work to follow my morning tea in the garden, and I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it.
  • suction 5y ago
    Ironically, the rise of the US as an economic power probably was what ended the Victorian dream of noble men doing nothing but looking for ever more refined expressions of art and culture. Huysmans wrote about it in his still very relevant novel "À rebours".
  • zrail 5y ago
    > I want to spend my days being a gentleman scientist and a student of the arts. I want my best work to follow my morning tea in the garden, and I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it. Atop a healthy and happy family, this is all I want from life. I would be honored to apply for membership at your Society if and when you ever start it.
    • arbuge 5y ago
      > I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it. >> I would be honored to apply for membership at your Society if and when you ever start it. I'd argue this already exists. We're on it right now...
      • IggleSniggle 5y ago
        Yup, this is exactly what brings me to HN day after day.
      • 5y ago
• muzani 5y ago
  This might also be why religious people are so optimistic. I mean actual religious people who welcome poverty and their own death, as opposed to those using it to socially/politically get ahead.
• bko 5y ago
  > Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. This is bleak way of looking at things. There's one thing to have f-u money but there's another base level of security that lets you leave a job or group and move on without too much disruption. Marriage helps there too. I'm nowhere near "secure for life" money, but if I was truly unhappy with my job I'd leave and find something else in a month or two. Around a quarter of people who left their jobs in the US don't have a new role lined up and turnover otherwise is pretty high telling me people do have a choice. [0] > When I was in the comfortable situation, I was carefree and open to pursue ideas and projects brought to me which I knew were stupid and prone to fail. My colleagues loved it, of course. I've found the reverse. When I was most carefree and comfortable as a child and young adult, I didn't pursue ideas or projects. I didn't do much of anything. I watched TV and hung out with friends. I went through the motions at work. Only later when I had actual responsibilities and had a partner did I get ambitious and pursued more ambitious projects. "Worrying" about making it is what gets me up in the morning and keeps me motivated and feel like I have a purpose [0] https://time.com/charter/6138353/new-rules-of-quitting/ https://time.com/charter/6138353/new-rules-of-quitting/
  • mrtranscendence 5y ago
    > Marriage helps there too. Yeah. My “wife” (girlfriend of 22 years) was recently able to say F-U to her old hated job and start part-time growing a private therapy clientele because my pay has gone up so much in the past four years or so. Having a support structure really helps. > I've found the reverse. Agreed. When I had nothing external motivating me I became largely idle, despite my best intentions. I joke about early retirement but I’m not sure it would be good for me.
  • slothtrop 5y ago
    You're touching on something here. I think real insecurity can be a motivating, albeit stressful, factor particularly in young adulthood (you have lots to gain and less to lose for taking risks) but once you've really experienced it it stays with you. That can lead to conservative, safe choices to avoid unknowns. For those like this it's easy to see why they project that a promise of security would enable them to behave differently, even if it may be irrational. What stands out searching my memories at that young age is there was little cognizance or care about national/international issues, let alone survival. There was nothing particularly special about what I did with my time (some of it was creative, mostly not), but I was de-facto optimistic about my future. I may have had immediate concerns and worries (I was often lonely too), but they passed. Until they didn't. And I became sufficiently aware for social anxiety and fear of failure to take hold, alongside bad coping habits. Today I have stability, but learned conservative behavior. I have to be conscious about trying to shake things up now and then.
• lukas099 5y ago
  So I assume you are now saving and investing as aggressively as you can to reenter that situation?
• slothtrop 5y ago
  Interesting that you're suggesting you were given stupid/risky projects at work. For most of us, it's the boring stuff across the board. At any rate, did those realistically pose a risk for your future employment, or is it a symptom of feeling more conservative following financial insecurity (I've felt this myself)? I have a bit of time I could reserve personal projects, as a means to bridge myself to more interesting things, but I usually don't bother with much. This becomes a source of pressure on myself. I see it as my only viable option for deviating from things as they are. I have to fight through fatigue and search through crumbs for sparks of interest.
• adnmcq999 5y ago
  ^ Words that would likely not be written by a genius
• morokhovets 5y ago
  > There's nothing else to it. Your response seems too generalized as if it relates to everyone. Let me disagree. I myself can be considered that kind of genius OP is talking about, at least in my earlier days. First 15 years of my career I've never had any (ANY) savings, and most of the time had some amount of debt. But I always felt simple enough to walk away from any situation I don't want to be in and was ready to live in any condition. But I always loved my job, always was super-curious and eager to learn, and employers were always looking for me not the other way around. I can say that OP is right, at least for some subset of people.
  • suction 5y ago
    Sorry but I don't think a real genius would call himself one.
• PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. This is the myth that keeps people trapped in bad jobs, but it’s not true. Yes, most of us have to continue working. But no, that doesn’t mean your job must be miserable and you must be surrounded by miserable people. Look around. Try something different. There are a lot of good jobs and teams out there. Too many people in tech approach their careers as a simple compensation maximization problem and disregard everything else. They end up in companies that are happy to pay them 10-100% more but then demand they work 20-200% harder and deal with bad behavior and unrealistic expectations because the company knows they’re not going to leave behind that sweet total compensation to go somewhere less stressful. You can have good pay and good working conditions, but you have to work to find it and keep it. The big company recruiters desperate to give you high total comp just to get you in the door (often to replace employees who turned over) aren’t necessarily the path to finding that optimal point, though. I’ve taken a few salary down-steps in my career that felt scary at the time but ended up being well worth it for the increased quality of life.
  • suction 5y ago
    Too simplistic. Some people are trapped - the availability of even just one alternative job with chance of improvement is not a given. It's question of age(ism), ableness to move to another city / country, and luck. Or put differently, we're not all around 30 anymore, live in the bay area, and might have family matters, e.hg. a wife that doesn't want to quit a job she loves so you can maybe improve your happiness by 10%. Also, companies change over time. A great place can become hell with just one bad superior getting hired and poisoning everything.
  • switchbak 5y ago
    Can't agree more. I've turned away from many a high paying gig (and even left a couple) for exactly this reason. With (much) more money comes much higher expectations. If they aren't reasonable, you're typically going to deal with a load of stress. This can also happen with lower paying gigs, so you still have to qualify your jobs appropriately, but prioritizing quality of life over raw compensation is a great trade in my book. With the high salaries of the current tech market, it's not actually that hard to make a very comfortable living while still staying sane/happy and avoiding burnout. The upside being that you can also take some time to learn new tech / get your head out of the weeds, and often make much more important and broad impacts. Like Kent Beck used to say: "program as if you had enough time".
• toto444 5y ago
  Your comment smells like resentment made into a social theory. > Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. Not being secure for life is what 99% of the world experience their entire life and out of these 99% a lof them are happy. I know in the Silicon Valley microcosm the perspective of being secure for life is something everyone is after but most people are happy to live paycheck to paycheck, save a bit of their revenue every month and enjoy their life.
  • seanp2k2 5y ago
    I’m not sure that “happy” is the right term for being content living paycheck to paycheck, and I’m even less sure that it’s necessary for so many to live like this in today’s bountiful world. Wealth is getting far too concentrated within a very small percentage of society.
• wing-_-nuts 5y ago
  This is why you take money off the table and put it into index funds.
• throw1234651234 5y ago
  It's more than that - it's also coming in to work and knowing you are better than 90% of the people there at a leisurely pace. There is a huge difference between coming in and working 16 hours just not to seem stupid and working 4 hours and being considered indispensable. Has NOTHING to do with some idealistic outlook perspective.
• kingkawn 5y ago
  The idea that this positive state of mind is resource dependent is itself a preemptive loss of that state of mind.
• jglmn 5y ago
  I'd flip the script. Start willing yourself to be super positive, interested and committed, and no matter what you'll get much better. More than that, you'll become better liked in the eyes of people who write the checks, and overall be considered more indispensable. That will parlay into additional opportunities, responsibilities and eventually pay. After that, leverage to either negotiate pay, or attract interest from other places. This is a move you can pull from almost any position. No need to score a stock windfall (though sorry to hear about your dramatic rise and fall)
  • EricE 5y ago
    Successful people make their own luck! You are so right - our attitudes have more to do with our own happiness than we often like to admit. Which is why I see the cesspool of negativity that often permeates the online world as being so pernicious. It's hard to not get caught up in it, even if you are aware it's there and inherently evil. I've dramatically cut back on the amount of time I spend online in general and I am noticeably better off for it!
  • dragonsky67 5y ago
    Is this the thing that I see in many Americans giving presentations? They are always uncomfortably excited and happy, regardless of what they are presenting. I get it, you're excited, but please accept that I'm here for the information, not your personal endorphin levels. /rant off.... Sorry just came out of a workshop where the presenter spent half the time trying to get a bunch of technical people excited rather than just presenting the information we came for. Very exhausting.
    • jglmn 5y ago
      There's a difference between putting on a show, and genuinely being into whatever it is you're doing. What you're responding to is the former. What I'm suggesting is the latter.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• ska 5y ago
  It sounds like you went through a path that helped you learn things about yourself, that's always a good thing. It probably a mistake to try and project this too broadly though. I'm sure there are lots of people who would respond similarly to the way that you did, but also lots that would not.
• nuancebydefault 5y ago
  I can testify this is not the case, at least in my experience. Being able to say "I'm out" does not guarantee happiness. Compare it to people saying "when I win the lottery, all my problems are fixed". Surely you have heard about studies that conclude quite the opposite. So what makes happy, instead? Being able to cooperate with, surprise people in positive ways, and getting appreciation from that. But this also means investment: being open to ideas of others, being creative and working hard. No pain, no gain...
  • Riseed 5y ago
    > Being able to say "I'm out" does not guarantee happiness. It doesn't seem to me that anyone was saying it was a guarantee. Rather, that being able to say "I'm out" is in something along the lines of the "necessary, but not sufficient" category.
  • borroka 5y ago
    I may be making a mundane observation here, but I've tried living with less money and more money, and more money makes me much happier. People who aren't happy with more money (and assuming there are no trade-offs with time spent at work or work-induced stress, say moving from 100k a year to 500k a year), are deserts of desire.