4 ms·

A long time ago, after getting burned (by bad people, not by work itself), and temporarily not being able to get interested in anything, I decided to live very

by neilv 2y ago

A long time ago, after getting burned (by bad people, not by work itself), and temporarily not being able to get interested in anything, I decided to live very frugally, and force myself to learn an area that I knew I would normally find very interesting. That worked, and I got my mojo back. I also became a bit of an expert in the niche I was learning. That helped get me work that was unusually challenging and rewarding. (I've since moved on to other areas, especially startup do-all-the-things roles.) Just an anecdote, maybe an edge case. I don't think it's a reliably repeatable formula. There was a lot of good and bad luck involved. And, under the particular circumstances, I had to be willing to give up almost everything else, and ended up giving up things I didn't even know I was giving up.

janderson215 2y ago
How important to you were some of those things you gave up prior to beginning this transformation?
- neilv 2y ago
  Very. Speaking to tech workers: if you have the means to take an employment gap with reasonable financial security, that's an entirely different thing than doing it without financial security. Without financial security, to get by, you might have to suffer all sorts of things no one should have to put up with. The hardest parts are probably not what you would've guessed. A penny-pinching lifestyle can also have effects on relationships. A "starving artist" or "poor student", who thinks differently, definitely has temporary appeal with many. But that's a lot less attractive to a partner's long-term thinking/feeling by late 20s, if they want to raise a middle class family, with good schools, safe housing, and comforts. My sense is that someone whose field seems to be "techbro", but who doesn't already show signs of financial comfort, is likely registering more as no-future, not like a "poor" med student (who will seem viable for raising a family, with just a well-defined period of hard work and non-affluence to get through first). If at all possible, endeavor to have a FAANG war chest, or to be born to wealthy parents, and your gap becomes much better.

by neilv 2y ago

janderson215 2y ago

How important to you were some of those things you gave up prior to beginning this transformation?

neilv 2y ago
Very. Speaking to tech workers: if you have the means to take an employment gap with reasonable financial security, that's an entirely different thing than doing it without financial security. Without financial security, to get by, you might have to suffer all sorts of things no one should have to put up with. The hardest parts are probably not what you would've guessed. A penny-pinching lifestyle can also have effects on relationships. A "starving artist" or "poor student", who thinks differently, definitely has temporary appeal with many. But that's a lot less attractive to a partner's long-term thinking/feeling by late 20s, if they want to raise a middle class family, with good schools, safe housing, and comforts. My sense is that someone whose field seems to be "techbro", but who doesn't already show signs of financial comfort, is likely registering more as no-future, not like a "poor" med student (who will seem viable for raising a family, with just a well-defined period of hard work and non-affluence to get through first). If at all possible, endeavor to have a FAANG war chest, or to be born to wealthy parents, and your gap becomes much better.