Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by vlunkr 1684 days ago
I think this attitude, which is becoming increasingly prevalent on the internet, is probably causing tons of unnecessary unhappiness.

How many periods in history have there been where the average person was comfortable taking a pay cut? Even if there was such a period, it would have been true only for a privileged subset of the population.
2 comments
volkk 1684 days ago
also hindsight is always 20/20, but if you don't seek to be happier now and this looming economic depression that might happen doesn't happen for another 10-15 years, then you've just spent that much time being unhappy. but on the other hand, if you quit your job now and it happens a month from now then you'd be kicking yourself hard.

so the only solution is to just make a damn decision, and have a plan for either scenario. trying to time unforeseen black swan events, or economic factors seem to be a losing game. if it wasn't, we'd all be billionaires.

link
pdimitar 1683 days ago
You all somehow always make happiness about "just be happy, man". No offense to you or the other commenters, I simply can't take people like that seriously, hard as I try.

If the advice is more nuanced and has more details, then I absolutely can respect it and engage with it in an interesting discussion. But when it's framed as "live in the moment" then I can only roll my eyes.

link
volkk 1683 days ago
i don't think i wrote anywhere "just go be happy?" are you responding to the right person?

i was just surmising based on extremely limited information that OP would be much less miserable if they weren't at their job, and then provided a scenario where if they try to time the market they might spend years more being miserable vs doing something sooner and dealing with the hopefully planned for consequences if the market were to crash. that's about it.

link
pdimitar 1683 days ago
I'm indeed overreacting. My apologies.
link
volkk 1682 days ago
no worries
link
pdimitar 1684 days ago
And I think your attitude generalizes too much and glosses over way too many things.

We should operate with what can we do realistically . Not what can we do hypothetically.

Hypothetically I can stop working now and have money for 3 months ahead. Realistically, I won't be able to pay rent afterwards, or even have food on the table. So I seriously disagree with your stance -- but I don't expect you to change it.

Modern times are a hamster wheel grind. At one point you just get too tired and die, and then the system yells: "NEXT!"

That's the reality in most of the world. Likely not where you live though.

link