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After I got laid off, being unemployed was the best thing to happen to my mental health — I just backpacked everywhere for a few months, and built a lot of long
by yawnxyz 4y ago
After I got laid off, being unemployed was the best thing to happen to my mental health — I just backpacked everywhere for a few months, and built a lot of longer-term perspective on my life.
Getting away from the perpetual "oh god I don't have a stable income" fear, even after having worked in tech for many years and accruing plenty of savings, was the absolute hardest thing in my life (it's definitely privilege to have those savings, but I never FELT that privilege; I always felt one month away from falling off a financial cliff).
(I ended up jumping into bootstrapping products/dabbling in founding startups, then "leaving" tech into clinical work as a research software engineer).
- joshxyz 4y agoa road less traveled, but one that im grateful with. sure life will become unstable, but hell it comes with freedom to take a break and try other things.
- przefur 4y agoThere is a common saying in my social circle (europe, data engineering) - 'being fired is the best thing that can happen to you', the market is still hot, plenty of jobs available, you often end up with a severance package and ... you'll finally have time to backpack through the country. Having a month for yourself, just to chill, do hobbies, backpack, mountains sometimes is a blessing.
- FinalBriefing 4y agoThat's what I'm looking forward to, actually.