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>> There were two big problems. One is that you feel disconnected from society. This is hard to explain but being outside of normal social structures you lose a sense of context and meaning to your actions. Second is that when you don't have any social or financial pressures it's hard to avoid the path of least resistance. It's very easy to fall into bad habits, just watching youtube, reading reddit, bad diet, etc.
This strikes me as an extraordinary failure of imagination. There are other communities that have nothing to do with money, and other activities that have nothing to do with work, or sitting at home on the internet. > I'm living in my van currently and once I finish pay off my debts, I'll have few expenses. I spend my time rock climbing and volunteering, and both these have communities around them that I'm deeply connected with. My goals these days are around rock climbing, guitar, and helping underprivileged people in my community gain more agency over their lives. I'm in better shape and eat better than most of my friends who work more than I do. > Sure, doing nothing isn't very enjoyable. So maybe when you quit your job, don't do nothing. If you're up for it, I'd very much like to hear more about the concrete steps you took to get where you are. Or some blog posts (haven't checked the link on your profile yet, so maybe they're already there?). But what I can say is that your suggestion is just really fucking difficult to put into practice. For me, at least. While I've got a bunch of issues going on that legitimately do make all of this difficult, a more general problem is that I've found it so much easier to go and live in a van than I've found it to shed the behaviors that have defined me for almost a decade. There's progress: I'm at least noticing how much of what I do day to day just doesn't make sense anymore, but actually changing my behavior as a result of these observations has proven much more difficult than I expected. |
Getting into rock climbing has been huge for me. It's given me long-term goals, a community, fitness, and challenges to overcome that I care about.
I've also done a good job of removing addictions from my life. I don't have a Facebook account, and largely haven't gotten involved in most social media. In a sense, my biggest failure is that I'm here: detaching myself from social media has proven to be the biggest challenge in removing wastes of time from my life. There's some payoff here, but compared to the time I put into it, it's not a net gain.
I've also invested a lot of time in developing fewer, but deeper relationships. My friends now are people who show up for me and I show up for them and we're honest with each other (brutally so, in some cases). This is why a lot of my posts on HN get downvoted; I've come to believe that attempts to soften negative feedback just cause it to not be heard--it's kinder to be a bit harsh than to understate problems.
Volunteering has been a big thing for me, although I'm less involved right now (focusing on adjusting to some big life changes I've made). Helping other people has given me a big sense of community and purpose.