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At 35 I decided to fuck the "normal life" and just go RVing with my wife. We saw the country (US). Fast forward 7 years and we are now building our own house pa

At 35 I decided to fuck the "normal life" and just go RVing with my wife. We saw the country (US). Fast forward 7 years and we are now building our own house paycheck to paycheck. It's a beautiful property. I know there are people on here that have much, much more and could afford to buy an already existing house. But my dreams are to have a different kind of life, so in that sense I am definitely living that. Yes there are mornings I wish I can wake up and NOT want to install my own well pump, install mini splits in 105 degree weather, install siding, dig foundations, run 40 80-pound bags of cement in a mixer, 2 at a time. etc etc etc... But my alternative life would have been spending the last 7 years playing new versions of Call of Duty and kinda pissing time away.

nnoitra 4y ago
are you happy?
- iasay 4y ago
  Definitely subjective. Sounds like hell to me. But i respect anyone with enough energy to actually do something.
- IncRnd 4y ago
  Not the OP, but I did something very similar with my wife and daughter a few years ago. Each day was more enjoyable than the last, especially with the RV. That was the most enjoyable time, and that enjoyment came from just existing and taking things as they come. There was never any monotony.
- mattgreenrocks 4y ago
  I'd replace happy with content there. Happiness comes and goes. Contentment runs a bit deeper and gets at it what this article talks about.
foobiekr 4y ago
two of my uncles did this - plumbers until 50, then RV life for 20 years, then built houses. as a kid they were my heroes. older, I am not so sure it worked out, but they had a good time for a while.
- frereubu 4y ago
  What part(s) of it don't you think worked out with the benefit of hindsight?
  - foobiekr 4y ago
    Once they aged out of the RV lifestyle, they found themselves kind of rootless and wanting a permanent place that they had kind of grown into. It’s honestly hard to say. I don’t think they would go back and change it, but it has its downsides. Especially for my aunts because they will outlive their husbands and find themselves needing to build a social network. I mean also true for the husbands, but they will not outlive.
    - frereubu 4y ago
      Thanks. I often wonder about this. My mother is in her nineties and refuses to move to be closer to me and my family because she has a supportive community around her (including people decades younger than her). It makes my life more difficult as I have to drop everything and drive if there's a medical scare, which there have been a few of in the last few years, but I completely get how the community structure around her in many ways makes her day-to-day life easier and more fulfilling.
rdudek 4y ago
Is it really pissing time away if you're enjoying your time spent playing video games? While it's great that you found an opportunity to go RVing with your wife. Because such a feat is not really possible for everyone to do, less people do it so less congestion and you can make it enjoyable. Imagine if 100 million people in the US decided to all at once go RVing around the country. All the areas would be full of RVs and I bet it would not be as enjoyable anymore.
- izzydata 4y ago
  "Is it really pissing time away if you're enjoying your time spent playing video games?" It depends on if you ever think you will regret it or not. I thought the same thing 10 years ago when I was spending years playing games and having fun. Now it feels like I wasted a colossal amount of time no matter how much fun it was at the time. I'd never made that choice knowing what I know now.
  - orobinson 4y ago
    Interesting. I was very into PC gaming in my teens and look back on that time quite fondly. Certainly not with any regret or a feeling that I wasted my time.
    - whiplash451 4y ago
      Same here. If you're saying "that time I spend gaming was wasted time", you'd better have a really good story about what you would have done instead, excluding any kind of hindsight magic.
      - april_22 4y ago
        I don't think there's anything bad with gaming in your free time - at any age. In the end, why shouldn't one just enjoy whatever life's possibilities are? It's obviously important to keep all other areas of life under control, but what's bad about enjoying doing something - even if it's not productive - especially when you're young. This is quite philosphical, but I've found the idea of optimistic nihilism very helpful for having an overall more relaxed view on life https://you.com/search?q=optimistic+nihilism https://you.com/search?q=optimistic+nihilism
caymanjim 4y ago
I live my life in a similar way, at least at times. I decided decades ago that I didn't want to work five days a week taking two vacations a year for 20-30 years and then retire comfortably. Every few years, I take a lot of time off. Months, sometimes over a year. If I plan well, I have money saved and I travel. Every time I do this, it sets me back financially; sometimes I'm completely broke before I start working again. I'd be well-served to balance it a little better, and only blow half my savings before going back to the grind. It's not easy for me to find that balance, and sometimes it's a real struggle. I have a knack for poor timing (left a job right before the 2001 dotcom crash, left a job right before the 2008 recession, and left my latest job just now, when there appears to be a recession looming). I'm about to set off on a months-long RV trip, and for once I expect to have a decent amount of savings left at the end, and plan on buying a house some time next year. While I like my itinerant lifestyle, it's time to secure a base of operations, too. Something modest, so that it won't prevent me from doing another trip like this in a few years. It's not for everyone; I get that. I don't think it's a better lifestyle than working hard and retiring in comfort. It's better for me, though. You're only your current age once. If you wait until you're old, you won't have the same experiences. I'm not willing to deny myself these moments along the way in return for a potential future payoff. So many people die before they get to enjoy the fruits of their labor. It's possible to work full-time and simultaneously live a fulfilling life; I see plenty of people do it. I don't know where they get the energy, though; all I can manage while working is TV, video games, and infrequent weekend activities. Most of the time I feel like all I do is work. Big breaks are what keep me sane.
- _8j50 4y ago
  Good for you for chasing your dream
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  Do people who do this have kids?
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    Did the kids — nest is empty — time to switch gears on life and live the way I have wanted to for a long time (second best time to plant a tree and all that, you know).
whiplash451 4y ago
Kudos for living this kind of life. Inspiring for all of us.
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
You are just living your own meme. You got into RVing when the whole meme was taking off, #Vanlife! You were told you want a different kind of life. All the people not living your "different life" are working at the jobs you left and are supplying you with the things you need to live a "different life". And you all talk about "wasting life" like at the end when you die you get to do something with it all with all the time you did not waste. You are still pissing time away, all you did was give your self meaning and that makes it feel like you are not. “True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.” ― Seneca
- nnoitra 4y ago
  Why so jealous though.
  - s5300 4y ago
    Probably has something to do with how much time he’s spent “following the DAO”
    - JKCalhoun 4y ago
      Certainly not the response I expected from someone following the Tao.
      - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        Why?
        FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        No answer, of course.
nnoitra 4y ago
tomcam 4y ago
Fantastic, and congratulations! We did roughly what you’re doing but backwards, and still had a lot of fun doing it. However, I’m deeply envious that you can just drill a well. I live in Seattle, where drilling the well requires that you blow the mayor, bribe an inspector or two, buy what they call “mitigating” land someplace else in the state, and sacrifice a goat. And after you found a suitable plot for the well, a $1 million drill has to be towed onto the property to make sure ground is preserved. Where are you living this beautiful life of you’re?
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  Drilling a well in the city of Seattle ? Why would anyone ever do that?
  - tomcam 4y ago
    Technically rural Redmond, a neighboring city. I bought some of the vanishing farmland.
    - ip26 4y ago
      Give it a year or two, you’ll be surrounded by apartments and then hookup will be easy
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  Not sure you can technically blow this mayor but I digress
  - tomcam 4y ago
    I may have indulged in a wee bit of hyperbole
- poulsbohemian 4y ago
  Head east. Or west. There are lots of wonderful places outside the I-5 corridor where I would argue our quality of life is at least on par. Different, and perhaps with fewer economic opportunities, but nonetheless a very high quality of life.
tima101 4y ago
Similar story here. We traveled with my wife for 3.5 years. Then we built homestead on 30 acres of forest land in rural WA. Now I am 36 and we bought land in HI to build our second homestead. And it is from scratch again! Most of our income comes from freelance gigs. The last time I visited big city was over 10 years ago. No regrets here. I think the best framework is to not compare yourself to others. And fear of change is a normal, ordinary feeling. Comparing to others makes no sense, just try to do things that YOU will not regret and things that make you happy in long term.
- foobarian 4y ago
  How does raising kids work in this kind of regimen? How do you ensure they have a big social pool available to build peer relationships?
  - tima101 4y ago
    No kids for now but we are making plans. My wife is younger than me and we are planning to have kids in the next 1-2 years. Before we have kids we will decide and settle in one place. We will probably keep our second homestead since we are emotionally attached to it.
  - Cyberdogs7 4y ago
    Home schooling was a requirement for us. Having a social pool has never been a problem, as our kids learn to make friends really quickly and continue to keep in contact via g-chat and email once we part ways. Living like this, you tend to find lots of others in a similar lifestyle, so the kids are all very well adapted.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Yes, but we are comparing ourselves to you right now and feeling the wanderlust.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Love to hear any thoughts you have on homesteading in Washington state. Specifically, areas you think are good. For some reason I am attracted to the south-eastern area that is drier. Forests say "fire" to me (and I also love the sun too much to be "enclosed" by a forest). North and/or high altitudes say "cold" to me.
saiya-jin 4y ago
2 words for the path in the middle (sort of, at least for me) - adrenaline sports. I don't say which exactly should work for likes of others, that's kind of unique to each of us. For me its climbing, paragliding, skiing/ski touring, a bit of alpinism. Plus diving when near corals, also serious hiking. Apart from making me properly happy (and some of those are easily post-work ones if you don't have kids, like climbing or paraglide depending on your place), they keep me amazingly fit, which is source of long lasting content from oneself. Vacations spent backpacking in crazy exotics (mostly south east asia) help too. I can do boring and uninspiring software dev office job that pays the bills and some more (seldom intertwined with nice creative part when actually solving interesting problems, rather than drowning in processes and politics). It doesn't dent the content/happiness part a slightest bit. Also numerous side effects - one starts eating healthier. Any kind of gaming addiction I had before was cured too, now its just waste of life that repulses me (not making critique - if that's your real kick I guess go for it, but I can't anymore). There is one slight problem with this, although it otherwise worked me 100% for past 10 years - if you get kids and are not utter sellfish a-hole, you will lose most of this, at least for some (long) time. Positive side is, one day you will be one hell of inspiration for them. Other source of issues is accident - time off everything, for longer, can be depressive. Talking as proud parent of two small kiddos who exhausted me during WFH to max, and who after 4 month recovery of messed up wrist broke his foot in kindergarten and is on crutches at least for next 6 weeks of amazing summer. I think right now the lowest point in my whole life so far due to all above. But that means it will only go up, eventually. Life is funny.
- unemphysbro 4y ago
  Are you me? I've been slowly getting into alpinism in the Sierras and looking into getting my p2 cert. (I'd love to combine the two...imagine climbing in the palisades then paragliding or base jumping off ) I regrettably spent my 20s in academia and now I'm in tech and actually afford these hobbies. I'd love to have kids but I'm pushing it off because as you mentioned, it seems selfish. I'm thinking about a SEA climbing holiday during the winter. I'm eyeing Vietnam. Do you have any favorite locale?
  - 4y ago
foobarian 4y ago
I'd love to read the exit interview of your kids when they get to 30. Did anyone else go through this with their parents? Would you/are you changing anything as a result?
- fullshark 4y ago
  There’s a documentary called Surfwise about the adult children of a couple who lived in an RV and traveled from beach to beach surfing waves and not doing much in terms of education. They were various degrees of maladjusted if I remember correctly.
  - foobarian 4y ago
    Right, the Paskowitz family. I thought the father was an especial hypocrite having grown up in a well off family and having attended Stanford.
ok_coo 4y ago
It's a funny thing. I thought that I would have regrets playing World of Warcraft for years of my life, but looking back, I really enjoyed my time playing it even when it felt a little monotonous. I played from 2005-2007 pretty hardcore. No regrets. I think you would have enjoyed either path you took. I've second-guessed some of my past choices and I'm not sure I would be happier than I am now, or a better person.
- kvark 4y ago
  I believe it’s the story games that fit under “living” definition of the article - you merge the story experience into your life, making it richer. But online/MOBAs are more of a waste, at least for me.
sizzle 4y ago
Kinda impossible to do this with kids on the way, please blog your journey I will live vicariously through you. Also will donate coffee money often.
- prawn 4y ago
  Actually, one period that suits a flexible lifestyle is from around 1yo until formal schooling starts. Could start earlier if you weren't fussy about consistent doctor/program/country for checkups and immunisations. Generally, flights are cheaper before they 2yo. Food is cheaper for small kids. Accommodation is easier. Go now! We did a trip to Europe and Morocco with our first child before he was 1. When our third was about the same age, we gutted/converted a bus and drove around the US for 2-3 months. Both of us have had fairly normal jobs throughout, and the three kids have had a pretty typical educational pathway (bit of childcare, kindergarten, school). It gets harder the deeper into school they go IMO.
  - sizzle 4y ago
    Super cool, I bet they really enjoyed the adventure. Hats off to you for taking the road less traveled.
  - wildmanx 4y ago
  - RileyJames 4y ago
    Nice! I’m going to live by this wisdom. I’ve done plenty of solo/partner travel in the past, but with a kid on the way, I thought those days might be over. But you’re saying I have 5 precious years left. I will spend them wisely. Thank you!
    - prawn 4y ago
      You have more than five years, but realistically five years of being able to do long trips without fretting about school hassles. How you survive long trips with a young kid is a different thing! At the early ages, you are travelling largely for yourselves, and the children are challenging baggage. Can be helpful to time trips when you're paying out most for childcare ($100+/day where we are) rather than public kindergarten/school which are cheaper. From 3-4+ they'll have fond memories of your adventures so the balance shifts to the holiday serving all of you. We have 4-9yo and are about to do a 2-3 month trip. This will be the first major trip where all three of them will have a decent idea of where we are, what we're doing, and the memories of each place. You have to make the travel happen though otherwise the routine of schooling and work will have its way!
ramraj07 4y ago
It is interesting how much everyone thinks these are the only two alternatives though. You can live an extremely fulfilling life out of the most boring Phoenix suburb, and you could (probably very easily) live a life with no meaning out of the most rustic cabin you can imagine.
incompatible 4y ago
I think you are supposed to be writing philosophy, not wasting time building a house that will be destroyed some day (footnote 16).
assignmenthelp0 4y ago
[flagged]
xialvjun 4y ago
Marx has said: "Creative labor has become the primary need of life". I don't know if it's the original words, I translated it from Chinese. You think spending 7 years to build your own house is better than to play video games. But what if to create a video game? Creating a video game is too hard? How about to just write game reviews and walkthroughs in detail and combine them into a book. It's not that you think building a house is more meaningful than playing video games. It's that you want to create, but your job didn't give you a chance to create or what you create doesn't belong to you.
hexo 4y ago
what is RVing?
- jschulenklopper 4y ago
  Traveling and living in a recreational vehicle (RV). Often a motorhome or camper, sometimes a boat.
ricardobayes 4y ago
I don't subscribe to the idea of being always productive either. Humans need 'play time', whether that's a video game, bingo, or playing the lottery. I saw people in my circle ignore this and pretty much all of them became depressed.

nnoitra 4y ago

are you happy?

iasay 4y ago
Definitely subjective. Sounds like hell to me. But i respect anyone with enough energy to actually do something.
IncRnd 4y ago
Not the OP, but I did something very similar with my wife and daughter a few years ago. Each day was more enjoyable than the last, especially with the RV. That was the most enjoyable time, and that enjoyment came from just existing and taking things as they come. There was never any monotony.
mattgreenrocks 4y ago
I'd replace happy with content there. Happiness comes and goes. Contentment runs a bit deeper and gets at it what this article talks about.

foobiekr 4y ago

two of my uncles did this - plumbers until 50, then RV life for 20 years, then built houses. as a kid they were my heroes. older, I am not so sure it worked out, but they had a good time for a while.

frereubu 4y ago
What part(s) of it don't you think worked out with the benefit of hindsight?
- foobiekr 4y ago
  Once they aged out of the RV lifestyle, they found themselves kind of rootless and wanting a permanent place that they had kind of grown into. It’s honestly hard to say. I don’t think they would go back and change it, but it has its downsides. Especially for my aunts because they will outlive their husbands and find themselves needing to build a social network. I mean also true for the husbands, but they will not outlive.
  - frereubu 4y ago
    Thanks. I often wonder about this. My mother is in her nineties and refuses to move to be closer to me and my family because she has a supportive community around her (including people decades younger than her). It makes my life more difficult as I have to drop everything and drive if there's a medical scare, which there have been a few of in the last few years, but I completely get how the community structure around her in many ways makes her day-to-day life easier and more fulfilling.

rdudek 4y ago

Is it really pissing time away if you're enjoying your time spent playing video games? While it's great that you found an opportunity to go RVing with your wife. Because such a feat is not really possible for everyone to do, less people do it so less congestion and you can make it enjoyable. Imagine if 100 million people in the US decided to all at once go RVing around the country. All the areas would be full of RVs and I bet it would not be as enjoyable anymore.

izzydata 4y ago
"Is it really pissing time away if you're enjoying your time spent playing video games?" It depends on if you ever think you will regret it or not. I thought the same thing 10 years ago when I was spending years playing games and having fun. Now it feels like I wasted a colossal amount of time no matter how much fun it was at the time. I'd never made that choice knowing what I know now.
- orobinson 4y ago
  Interesting. I was very into PC gaming in my teens and look back on that time quite fondly. Certainly not with any regret or a feeling that I wasted my time.
  - whiplash451 4y ago
    Same here. If you're saying "that time I spend gaming was wasted time", you'd better have a really good story about what you would have done instead, excluding any kind of hindsight magic.
    - april_22 4y ago
      I don't think there's anything bad with gaming in your free time - at any age. In the end, why shouldn't one just enjoy whatever life's possibilities are? It's obviously important to keep all other areas of life under control, but what's bad about enjoying doing something - even if it's not productive - especially when you're young. This is quite philosphical, but I've found the idea of optimistic nihilism very helpful for having an overall more relaxed view on life https://you.com/search?q=optimistic+nihilism https://you.com/search?q=optimistic+nihilism

caymanjim 4y ago

I live my life in a similar way, at least at times. I decided decades ago that I didn't want to work five days a week taking two vacations a year for 20-30 years and then retire comfortably. Every few years, I take a lot of time off. Months, sometimes over a year. If I plan well, I have money saved and I travel. Every time I do this, it sets me back financially; sometimes I'm completely broke before I start working again. I'd be well-served to balance it a little better, and only blow half my savings before going back to the grind. It's not easy for me to find that balance, and sometimes it's a real struggle. I have a knack for poor timing (left a job right before the 2001 dotcom crash, left a job right before the 2008 recession, and left my latest job just now, when there appears to be a recession looming). I'm about to set off on a months-long RV trip, and for once I expect to have a decent amount of savings left at the end, and plan on buying a house some time next year. While I like my itinerant lifestyle, it's time to secure a base of operations, too. Something modest, so that it won't prevent me from doing another trip like this in a few years. It's not for everyone; I get that. I don't think it's a better lifestyle than working hard and retiring in comfort. It's better for me, though. You're only your current age once. If you wait until you're old, you won't have the same experiences. I'm not willing to deny myself these moments along the way in return for a potential future payoff. So many people die before they get to enjoy the fruits of their labor. It's possible to work full-time and simultaneously live a fulfilling life; I see plenty of people do it. I don't know where they get the energy, though; all I can manage while working is TV, video games, and infrequent weekend activities. Most of the time I feel like all I do is work. Big breaks are what keep me sane.

_8j50 4y ago
Good for you for chasing your dream
paulryanrogers 4y ago
Do people who do this have kids?
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Did the kids — nest is empty — time to switch gears on life and live the way I have wanted to for a long time (second best time to plant a tree and all that, you know).

whiplash451 4y ago

Kudos for living this kind of life. Inspiring for all of us.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

You are just living your own meme. You got into RVing when the whole meme was taking off, #Vanlife! You were told you want a different kind of life. All the people not living your "different life" are working at the jobs you left and are supplying you with the things you need to live a "different life". And you all talk about "wasting life" like at the end when you die you get to do something with it all with all the time you did not waste. You are still pissing time away, all you did was give your self meaning and that makes it feel like you are not. “True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.” ― Seneca

nnoitra 4y ago
Why so jealous though.
- s5300 4y ago
  Probably has something to do with how much time he’s spent “following the DAO”
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    Certainly not the response I expected from someone following the Tao.
    - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
      Why?
      - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        No answer, of course.

nnoitra 4y ago

tomcam 4y ago

Fantastic, and congratulations! We did roughly what you’re doing but backwards, and still had a lot of fun doing it. However, I’m deeply envious that you can just drill a well. I live in Seattle, where drilling the well requires that you blow the mayor, bribe an inspector or two, buy what they call “mitigating” land someplace else in the state, and sacrifice a goat. And after you found a suitable plot for the well, a $1 million drill has to be towed onto the property to make sure ground is preserved. Where are you living this beautiful life of you’re?

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
Drilling a well in the city of Seattle ? Why would anyone ever do that?
- tomcam 4y ago
  Technically rural Redmond, a neighboring city. I bought some of the vanishing farmland.
  - ip26 4y ago
    Give it a year or two, you’ll be surrounded by apartments and then hookup will be easy
selimthegrim 4y ago
Not sure you can technically blow this mayor but I digress
- tomcam 4y ago
  I may have indulged in a wee bit of hyperbole
poulsbohemian 4y ago
Head east. Or west. There are lots of wonderful places outside the I-5 corridor where I would argue our quality of life is at least on par. Different, and perhaps with fewer economic opportunities, but nonetheless a very high quality of life.

tima101 4y ago

Similar story here. We traveled with my wife for 3.5 years. Then we built homestead on 30 acres of forest land in rural WA. Now I am 36 and we bought land in HI to build our second homestead. And it is from scratch again! Most of our income comes from freelance gigs. The last time I visited big city was over 10 years ago. No regrets here. I think the best framework is to not compare yourself to others. And fear of change is a normal, ordinary feeling. Comparing to others makes no sense, just try to do things that YOU will not regret and things that make you happy in long term.

foobarian 4y ago
How does raising kids work in this kind of regimen? How do you ensure they have a big social pool available to build peer relationships?
- tima101 4y ago
  No kids for now but we are making plans. My wife is younger than me and we are planning to have kids in the next 1-2 years. Before we have kids we will decide and settle in one place. We will probably keep our second homestead since we are emotionally attached to it.
- Cyberdogs7 4y ago
  Home schooling was a requirement for us. Having a social pool has never been a problem, as our kids learn to make friends really quickly and continue to keep in contact via g-chat and email once we part ways. Living like this, you tend to find lots of others in a similar lifestyle, so the kids are all very well adapted.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
Yes, but we are comparing ourselves to you right now and feeling the wanderlust.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
Love to hear any thoughts you have on homesteading in Washington state. Specifically, areas you think are good. For some reason I am attracted to the south-eastern area that is drier. Forests say "fire" to me (and I also love the sun too much to be "enclosed" by a forest). North and/or high altitudes say "cold" to me.

saiya-jin 4y ago

2 words for the path in the middle (sort of, at least for me) - adrenaline sports. I don't say which exactly should work for likes of others, that's kind of unique to each of us. For me its climbing, paragliding, skiing/ski touring, a bit of alpinism. Plus diving when near corals, also serious hiking. Apart from making me properly happy (and some of those are easily post-work ones if you don't have kids, like climbing or paraglide depending on your place), they keep me amazingly fit, which is source of long lasting content from oneself. Vacations spent backpacking in crazy exotics (mostly south east asia) help too. I can do boring and uninspiring software dev office job that pays the bills and some more (seldom intertwined with nice creative part when actually solving interesting problems, rather than drowning in processes and politics). It doesn't dent the content/happiness part a slightest bit. Also numerous side effects - one starts eating healthier. Any kind of gaming addiction I had before was cured too, now its just waste of life that repulses me (not making critique - if that's your real kick I guess go for it, but I can't anymore). There is one slight problem with this, although it otherwise worked me 100% for past 10 years - if you get kids and are not utter sellfish a-hole, you will lose most of this, at least for some (long) time. Positive side is, one day you will be one hell of inspiration for them. Other source of issues is accident - time off everything, for longer, can be depressive. Talking as proud parent of two small kiddos who exhausted me during WFH to max, and who after 4 month recovery of messed up wrist broke his foot in kindergarten and is on crutches at least for next 6 weeks of amazing summer. I think right now the lowest point in my whole life so far due to all above. But that means it will only go up, eventually. Life is funny.

unemphysbro 4y ago
Are you me? I've been slowly getting into alpinism in the Sierras and looking into getting my p2 cert. (I'd love to combine the two...imagine climbing in the palisades then paragliding or base jumping off ) I regrettably spent my 20s in academia and now I'm in tech and actually afford these hobbies. I'd love to have kids but I'm pushing it off because as you mentioned, it seems selfish. I'm thinking about a SEA climbing holiday during the winter. I'm eyeing Vietnam. Do you have any favorite locale?
- 4y ago

foobarian 4y ago

I'd love to read the exit interview of your kids when they get to 30. Did anyone else go through this with their parents? Would you/are you changing anything as a result?

fullshark 4y ago
There’s a documentary called Surfwise about the adult children of a couple who lived in an RV and traveled from beach to beach surfing waves and not doing much in terms of education. They were various degrees of maladjusted if I remember correctly.
- foobarian 4y ago
  Right, the Paskowitz family. I thought the father was an especial hypocrite having grown up in a well off family and having attended Stanford.

ok_coo 4y ago

It's a funny thing. I thought that I would have regrets playing World of Warcraft for years of my life, but looking back, I really enjoyed my time playing it even when it felt a little monotonous. I played from 2005-2007 pretty hardcore. No regrets. I think you would have enjoyed either path you took. I've second-guessed some of my past choices and I'm not sure I would be happier than I am now, or a better person.

kvark 4y ago
I believe it’s the story games that fit under “living” definition of the article - you merge the story experience into your life, making it richer. But online/MOBAs are more of a waste, at least for me.

sizzle 4y ago

Kinda impossible to do this with kids on the way, please blog your journey I will live vicariously through you. Also will donate coffee money often.

prawn 4y ago
Actually, one period that suits a flexible lifestyle is from around 1yo until formal schooling starts. Could start earlier if you weren't fussy about consistent doctor/program/country for checkups and immunisations. Generally, flights are cheaper before they 2yo. Food is cheaper for small kids. Accommodation is easier. Go now! We did a trip to Europe and Morocco with our first child before he was 1. When our third was about the same age, we gutted/converted a bus and drove around the US for 2-3 months. Both of us have had fairly normal jobs throughout, and the three kids have had a pretty typical educational pathway (bit of childcare, kindergarten, school). It gets harder the deeper into school they go IMO.
- sizzle 4y ago
  Super cool, I bet they really enjoyed the adventure. Hats off to you for taking the road less traveled.
- wildmanx 4y ago
- RileyJames 4y ago
  Nice! I’m going to live by this wisdom. I’ve done plenty of solo/partner travel in the past, but with a kid on the way, I thought those days might be over. But you’re saying I have 5 precious years left. I will spend them wisely. Thank you!
  - prawn 4y ago
    You have more than five years, but realistically five years of being able to do long trips without fretting about school hassles. How you survive long trips with a young kid is a different thing! At the early ages, you are travelling largely for yourselves, and the children are challenging baggage. Can be helpful to time trips when you're paying out most for childcare ($100+/day where we are) rather than public kindergarten/school which are cheaper. From 3-4+ they'll have fond memories of your adventures so the balance shifts to the holiday serving all of you. We have 4-9yo and are about to do a 2-3 month trip. This will be the first major trip where all three of them will have a decent idea of where we are, what we're doing, and the memories of each place. You have to make the travel happen though otherwise the routine of schooling and work will have its way!

ramraj07 4y ago

It is interesting how much everyone thinks these are the only two alternatives though. You can live an extremely fulfilling life out of the most boring Phoenix suburb, and you could (probably very easily) live a life with no meaning out of the most rustic cabin you can imagine.

incompatible 4y ago

I think you are supposed to be writing philosophy, not wasting time building a house that will be destroyed some day (footnote 16).

assignmenthelp0 4y ago

[flagged]

xialvjun 4y ago

Marx has said: "Creative labor has become the primary need of life". I don't know if it's the original words, I translated it from Chinese. You think spending 7 years to build your own house is better than to play video games. But what if to create a video game? Creating a video game is too hard? How about to just write game reviews and walkthroughs in detail and combine them into a book. It's not that you think building a house is more meaningful than playing video games. It's that you want to create, but your job didn't give you a chance to create or what you create doesn't belong to you.

hexo 4y ago

what is RVing?

jschulenklopper 4y ago
Traveling and living in a recreational vehicle (RV). Often a motorhome or camper, sometimes a boat.

ricardobayes 4y ago

I don't subscribe to the idea of being always productive either. Humans need 'play time', whether that's a video game, bingo, or playing the lottery. I saw people in my circle ignore this and pretty much all of them became depressed.