[fakeempire]

erikb, I'm not writing this to be rude, but I am hoping it can change your perspective a little. Every sentence in your reply is so negative. You almost certainly won't get something you want if you think it's impossible. It means you wont bother trying. You have an excuse for everything. Its completely possible. I've worked for a large company for 2 years and made it happen. I know plenty of other people that do it as well.

The attitude in your comment was such a bummer I had to log in for the first time in years just to respond. Try to be more positive and go after what you want. Have a good rest of the weekend.

[anothergoogler]

I think parent is right to point out that remote/contract work is more tenuous than the alternative in most cases. I also found your comment aggressive and nasty... the irony of the "stop being negative" put-down.

[fakeempire]

Sorry it came off that way. I'll keep that in mind next time I comment.

[sverige]

Your comment above didn't come off as negative to me fwiw. I had the same reaction.

The error in thought is limiting his perspective to people he knows personally, which of course can make it seem unlikely or impossible. For example, I don't personally know anyone who lives and works in Silicon Valley and doesn't struggle to make a living, but I do understand that it would be possible for me to try to do so if that was my desire.

[njoro]

I think he is mostly correct though. "If you have a good resume and live 30 minutes outside even a small town, but you also have to drive everywhere" isn't really comparable to the "standard deal" in a city.

[erikb]

This is not negative, this is called objective. The bear eats fish. That is nice and relaxing for the bear, but really painful for the fish. And there is not much the fish can do about it. Will the positive thinking fish get better results? No. Has the bear an innate advantage in that exchange? Yep. Is it negative to say that the bear has innate advantage? Nope.

If you think that your success comes from happy thoughts I bet you are in a similar good situation as the bear.

E.g. compare a western european software manager to his developer comrades in eastern europe offices. Independent of his skill he can make $70-150k a year. Most of his programmers will be in other countries where even people 5x his skill and putting in 3x his hours will earn around $18k/year. (Example could be Munich vs Brno, 600 km apart)

Who do you think can achieve more with his happy thoughts?

I don't say "do something for the poor". I don't say "you are bad for having an advantage". What I want to make sure is that one knows about ones advantage and that others can't easily copy it. In fact ignoring that difference is quite assholey.