The monotony of life

I beg to differ. The happiness of these 'civilized nations' is the happiness of cattle, who are always satisfied and compliant so long as they have fresh straw to sleep on and copious amounts of slop to consume. What matter to them if they are constantly exploited by the farmer for their flesh and milk? What matter if they have lost their freedom and the knowledge of how to live in the wild? If their children are taken from them and slaughtered, or dysgenically bred to make them weaker and easier to control? It is an easy life. A life of certainty and constant comfort, where everything is decided for you. This is what makes it so monotonous.
Thats one way to look at it.

What would be the alternative then? Genuine knowledge of the wild requires living in the wild (not just hunting sometimes or camping sometimes) and the astronomical death toll that involves.

I don't disagree that theres some human instinct that feels there is something missing, based on our nature which seems to have evolved (or been designed) for stone age living.

These things happen in degrees though. It already started happening the moment people lived in villages together and planted grains.

The only true alternative then would be stone age living and surrendering all of the technological advances that can only be possible in a society that has specialists (again, something that cannot be possible without the 'monotony of the modern world').

If that is your preference, you're in luck because there are still places in the world where people are living at the stone age level.

If you choose any other mode between that and the western modern world you are still arbitrarily choosing some other level of advancement where the individual experiences some element of 'control' from society.
 
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InsufferableCynic

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Maybe you're fine with holding creature comforts as the most anyone could ever hope for. I'm not. I believe that life has more to offer than than being coddled and cared for in exchange for being willingly exploited. I would MUCH rather live in a warzone with nothing, and be free, than be enslaved and indulge in meaningless pleasures. The pleasures that come from taking control of your own destiny are infinitely higher than anything the infantilized farm animal could ever hope for.

My point is, making some largely tangential argument about "freedoms" is meaningless if you already have everything you want.

Especially if that freedom is going to cost you everything you have.

"Give me liberty or give me death" is only a valid argument when under tyranny.

Mediocrity isn't enough to justify sacrificing everything we have for some potential better future, which will most likely end up worse anyway.

I'm just being practical. I understand this doesn't sit right with a lot of people, and I get that.

You're free to prefer living in a warzone if you want, but I promise you you'll change your tune after a few months. You'd give up your "freedom to fight" instantly for a working TV and the ability to sleep at night without fearing for your life constantly. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not judging you.

The biggest flaw with the Libertarian mindset is that they would rather live in filth than give up an ounce of freedom for something better.

It would be NICE to have more freedom in the west. I am annoyed that I can't own guns or buy fireworks. That sucks and I will fight against it. But I'm not going to pretend like living in a society with rules that restrict what I can do is actually all that bad when I am consistently fed, work semi-infrequently in a safe profession from home, and have a lot of leisure time where I do things that mean a lot to me. It's just a good value proposition compared to a warzone, freedom or no freedom.

I know the current popular opinion is to consider everyone else cattle and to opine how everything and everyone is stupid and pursues meaningless shit now. Hell, I have made that very argument. It sounds somewhat reasonable to call other people cattle, especially when there are people who commonly follow dumb trends or who do stupid things in order to be popular. But at anything other than a surface level, it's simply bad philosophy. I wish I realized that sooner.

Is society kind of mediocre in many ways and do we have somewhat limited freedoms? Absolutely. Is there any point doing anything about it? No way. Do we gain anything from doing anything about it? Absolutely not, but we're likely to lose everything in the process.

Western governments long ago realised that the best way to keep people compliant is to make their lives good enough to be worth keeping. That exists on a delicate balance. Shut down peoples livelyhoods in the name of a pandemic, and you'll get issues. Go too far the other way and let anyone and everyone get their hands on deadly weapons with no checks or balances, and you'll also get issues.
 
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Mediocrity isn't enough to justify sacrificing everything we have for some potential better future, which will most likely end up worse anyway.
Yes, and that is why in my opinion communism failed. He had great critiques of the current system, but his solution was untested unproven & ended up killing masses of people.

Instead, we should aim for gradual improvement.

However, most people don't even strive for that - people aim for personal gain or no real plan at all. Too few systems in the world are actually there to genuinely make us reach a brighter future.

This is why 'freedom' is so important, and why it is an end that is worth sacrificing an unhinged amount for imo - because it gives us checks and balances to make sure the general direction of those in power are actually improving things and not just taking everything for themselves.
 
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I think its worth mentioning too that just because one's life is monotonous that automatically means some kind of freedom has been taken from you.

It could just be that you're living in a properous time and there are no big crises to sort out.

Also, most people's monotony in life is by choice (I'm not saying they live easy lives, i know life is hard).
 
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I think its worth mentioning too that just because one's life is monotonous that automatically means some kind of freedom has been taken from you.

It could just be that you're living in a properous time and there are no big crises to sort out.

Also, most people's monotony in life is by choice (I'm not saying they live easy lives, i know life is hard).
How can one choose to live a less monotonous life then?
 
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How can one choose to live a less monotonous life then?
imo that is simple (but no less difficult).

Take risks, imagine a future where you sustain yourself with your own developed skillset instead of relying on big company/ government / system.

You take a leap out there and go on the adventure of life knowing it could bankrupt you, or cause rifts with certain relationships.

No one can seriously tell me they had "zero choices" unless they were sold into slavery.
 
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InsufferableCynic

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imo that is simple (but no less difficult).

Take risks, imagine a future where you sustain yourself with your own developed skillset instead of relying on big company/ government / system.

You take a leap out there and go on the adventure of life knowing it could bankrupt you, or cause rifts with certain relationships.

No one can seriously tell me they had "zero choices" unless they were sold into slavery.

On this point, I think most people's lives are monotonous because of laziness, not because of necessity or lack of freedom.

I know plenty of people who sit around all day playing videogames when they could be doing literally anything else.

I know others who sit around on forums all day lamenting how life is monotonous when they could be doing literally anything else.
 
I know others who sit around on forums all day lamenting how life is monotonous when they could be doing literally anything else.
hahah indeed.

Especially on the videogame bit. There's alot of people's steam hours which are enough to learn multiple languages fluently or master entirely new skillsets.

Don't get me wrong, I'm guilty too.

Although to be fair the time that gaming really risked being obsessive was when PUBG came out. I wouldn't say I was utterly addicted to gaming at any point in time before mid 2017.

Work and other responsibilities are slowly taking over.
 
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imo that is simple (but no less difficult).

Take risks, imagine a future where you sustain yourself with your own developed skillset instead of relying on big company/ government / system.

You take a leap out there and go on the adventure of life knowing it could bankrupt you, or cause rifts with certain relationships.

No one can seriously tell me they had "zero choices" unless they were sold into slavery.
I agree 100%. Although I'm more the type to not take leaps that cost unnecessary money & focus a lot on sustaining relationships.

I wonder though - what are you up to in life in order to fulfill what you are saying here?
 
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I agree 100%. Although I'm more the type to not take leaps that cost unnecessary money & focus a lot on sustaining relationships.

I wonder though - what are you up to in life in order to fulfill what you are saying here?
Well just for context in the thread above I was in the camp of there's nothing wrong with a bit of monotony because its not necessarily a sign that freedom has been taken away from you.

So although I've described for you the kind of non-monotonous life anyone can leap for, the key elements that give my life satisfaction are described below:

- Doing difficult things that put you on a journey. For me so far that has been martial arts, competing in basketball and learning a language.
- Working very hard at whatever it is I'm pursuing. I'm currently a finance executive at an somewhat large (6000 employee) IT company. Might not sound amazing but it's taken quite a few leaps of faith to get here and alot of hard grinding. Learning to be a better leader is a never ending challenge.
- On the other hand, there a few business ventures I'm exploring with my partner and some colleagues although we haven't 'taken the leap' yet.
- Focus on maintaining healthy relationships. After a few failed romantic relationships and a bunch of dating around it took 3 years of focusing on bettering myself before I really reached the maturity level that I needed to be at. I'm engaged now to an amazing girl and although meeting her was a fluke, keeping things healthy took a practiced level of maturity.
- I still do some cliche shit like travelling with friends too.
- Continuously reading, sometimes fiction sometimes non-fiction, helps me appreciate the beauty of living.
 
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Although to be fair the time that gaming really risked being obsessive was when PUBG came out. I wouldn't say I was utterly addicted to gaming at any point in time before mid 2017.

Jesus Christ man, if you're going to get addicted to a game, at least destroy yourself for something actually worth playing, not an unbalanced bug-ridden barely functional mess.

I wonder though - what are you up to in life in order to fulfill what you are saying here?

Not directed at me, but I will answer anyway.

The vast majority of my gaming time is now spent creating, rather than playing. I have created several mods for Doom, System Shock 2, Fallout New Vegas, and other games, and I am working on a VR game ful-ish time 3 days a week.

I find having personal projects is a much better use of your time than wasting it.

The really awesome thing about modding games is that when you DO decide to play them again, you get to play a better version because you've had a hand in improving the mechanics, gameplay or graphics, and it feels more rewarding.

I still like gaming though. I spent a couple of hours the last few days playing Half-Life MMod, which is excellent. But it's meaningful because I set out to play something and enjoy it, I'm not just passively absorbing another videogame I don't care much about. When your time is just spent "gaming" (with no context or purpose), you enjoy what you're playing a lot less. I need to do another System Shock 2 run with my own mods, for the best experience (in my opinion, of course. Other people might not like what I have made and that's okay).

Get hobbies. If you don't have hobbies, build something. If your hobbies are time-wasters like gaming, turn them into something productive.

I am about to pick up another development contract too, so that should take up a lot of my time soon.
 
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'Wake up - Work - Watch TV - Sleep' was never meant to be the end goal, only the means that allow us to accomplish the things that we strive for. The days in-between a fun weekend, the grind towards whatever luxury catches your eye. After all, the word 'work' implies some kind of result. A reward that makes the all tedium worth it.

The problem these days is that people are expected to work with no incentive, no reward. The rewards that used to drive workers to endure the grind have moved almost completely out of reach. And in their place we have disposable, short term pleasures that do nothing to enhance our quality of life.
Wanna travel the world or indulge in an expensive hobby? Why would you need to do that when you can experience these things second hand virtually! It's better for the environment that way, too. No need to waste jet fuel flying a bunch of peasants around the world when they can just watch travel videos on TikTok. Have a dream of owning a home? Nah, peasants like you don't get to own property. But hey, at least you can get weed from the weed dispensary cause it's legal now! That'll distract you from the existential dread you feel long enough to get you into work the next morning! Still feel too depressed to wake up? Looks like we gotta prescribe you some antidepressants. They might make you feel like a zombie, but hey, that just means you won't have the energy to contemplate the cynical monotony that is your life! No thoughts, only smiles! :D We're all in this together! The system depends on it.


The silver lining to all of this, is that if you somehow manage to escape this system, then all the rewards I previously mentioned suddenly become attainable again. If you can find a way to become self made and be your own boss, then you absolutely can structure your life around a more fulfilling routine where you actually get rewarded for the work you put in. I've already done this myself, and have had enormous success with it and live a very fulfilling life. I get to travel as much as I want, I'm in charge of my own finances so if I plan ahead properly I can take as many vacations as I want for as long as I want, and I'm already on track to buying my first home.

I know it's not that easy for everyone to just ditch their current stable routine, despite how draining it may be. But my advice to anyone feeling like this would be to at least try. Look into other avenues where you can make money and be %100 in charge of it. Maybe try starting a small side business along side your day job. And save up some money so that one day, if that side business is successful, you can quit your day job and dedicate yourself it full time.
 
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Jesus Christ man, if you're going to get addicted to a game, at least destroy yourself for something actually worth playing, not an unbalanced bug-ridden barely functional mess.



Not directed at me, but I will answer anyway.

The vast majority of my gaming time is now spent creating, rather than playing. I have created several mods for Doom, System Shock 2, Fallout New Vegas, and other games, and I am working on a VR game ful-ish time 3 days a week.

I find having personal projects is a much better use of your time than wasting it.

The really awesome thing about modding games is that when you DO decide to play them again, you get to play a better version because you've had a hand in improving the mechanics, gameplay or graphics, and it feels more rewarding.

I still like gaming though. I spent a couple of hours the last few days playing Half-Life MMod, which is excellent. But it's meaningful because I set out to play something and enjoy it, I'm not just passively absorbing another videogame I don't care much about. When your time is just spent "gaming" (with no context or purpose), you enjoy what you're playing a lot less. I need to do another System Shock 2 run with my own mods, for the best experience (in my opinion, of course. Other people might not like what I have made and that's okay).

Get hobbies. If you don't have hobbies, build something. If your hobbies are time-wasters like gaming, turn them into something productive.

I am about to pick up another development contract too, so that should take up a lot of my time soon.
haha I think PUBG really got me because it was the first BR and had a group of friends who were into it at the same time.

The sessions were more like a discord hangout, I daresay the quality of our friendships increased significantly during this time with monthly LAN parties, UFC PPV watch parties at people's houses, and generally just hanging out more.

Of course this was also the time my previous serious relationship fell apart so all that extra free time and desire to socialise was there too.
 
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'Wake up - Work - Watch TV - Sleep' was never meant to be the end goal, only the means that allow us to accomplish the things that we strive for.
The 'waking up, work & sleep' are indeed the means to an end-goal. However, I'm very skeptical that watching TV / doing other mindless activities is also part of this. It serves no value except distraction. I suppose a good conclusion from this thread is to replace this part of the routine with something better. Even if it's just walking through nature.

I'm in charge of my own finances
Do you wanna tell me/us more about this? Am eager to hear how you became self-made
 
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InsufferableCynic

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The 'waking up, work & sleep' are indeed the means to an end-goal. However, I'm very skeptical that watching TV / doing other mindless activities is also part of this. It serves no value except distraction. I suppose a good conclusion from this thread is to replace this part of the routine with something better. Even if it's just walking through nature.

The issue is that for most people, their 9-5 is so tiring that they get home and immediately feel drained, not wanting to do anything. Replacing that with "working on a project" or whatever is largely impossible for most people because they will significantly lack energy.

It's much better to approach the problem from the other side. Find a way to fix the 9-5 so that you have more energy, then you can find ways to better utilise the downtime with more energy available.

For most people who have bought into the housing lie, this is impossible - they are on a 20-30 year leash (uhh...lease) or a mortgage and so are essentially permanently tied to their day job - the moment they lose it or reduce their hours, they are in deep financial trouble and lose everything. Even if they try to save money from that job, it's in such small quantities and amounts that it will take them years to get far enough ahead to actually do anything with that money. By that time, a big holiday (to rest from work) for a month or so sounds far more appealing anyway.

This is the cornerstone of why people are so financially irresponsible nowadays. Lots of boomers like to say things like "kids are just stupid with money", and to a degree they're right. But there's also the important factor of just how draining work is and how predatory companies are when they can promise to make you feel good NOW while you're exhausted and depressed after work. So we spend. I can see why people do it. It's the same way companies use data to find people at their lowest point of depression, so they can advertise various impulse items to them for easy sale.

I feel like the way to fix this as an individual depends on the person, and it can be VERY hard - I don't blame people at all for giving up and resigning themselves to the grind, not even bothering to save because the moment-to-moment gratification day-in-day-out after an exhausting work day can be enough to keep them sane. But breaking out is possible.

If you really want a change of pace, I would recommend finding a roommate to move in with. If you own a house, this means moving someone in to help you pay your mortgage. If not, find a roommate and rent a place together. I know the conventional wisdom is that roomates suck and having your own place is a sign of "responsibility" and "maturity" (not to mention you can have people over for sex), but the cost is astronomically higher.

By cutting your expenses down, you gain more wiggle room - you can now do 4 day weeks instead, for instance. As long as you remain diligent and vigilant, and don't waste the extra time you have, it can be quite easy to turn your life around for the better job wise. Having time to master a new skill to get a job more closely related to a field you want to work in, or (even better) to start your own business are all empowering goals that will make your actual work so much easier and more interesting. Then, you'll naturally have time to do more projects. As you get better at this, you'll be able to move into your own place again, and continue moving forward, but with a firmer footing.

I feel like the biggest mistake people make is that they are afraid to move backwards. Once they have "completed" a phase in their life, they are usually afraid to return. For instance, if someone moves out of home, they will be very reluctant to move back in. When they leave a housemate and get their own place, then they are reluctant to move in with someone again, etc. But the endless move forward is often fraught with missteps or, what I generally see, people take steps too early, and then they are constantly fighting against a current they are only just strong enough to keep up with, leaving them exhausted and resulting in little progress. That's when they realise they have been in the same dead-end job for 15 years, have no spouse or partner, and are miserable. Moving back to a previous step is okay.

Of course, for people in relationships, they both have less and more options. If you're living with a partner, you can't simply move in with someone. Couples also tend to fall into a different issue. When living together, a couple should be able to save a fortune, and so what often happens is that they both work slightly less or spend slightly more to encompass the new income. Usually one person works significantly less than the other (for eg working part time) because there's less overall need for income since they have pooled their income together. I know several couples where one person works a full time job, and the other works part time, with the full-timer having more say over the income. While they say this "works for them", it tends to be miserable for everyone involved, as the part-time work is usually menial boring work that doesn't count as enough of a "real job" to be full time (which isn't to denigrate it), and so is not likely to be fulfilling, and the person working full time sees no real benefit to their life with a partner financially - they are still working just as hard and are as unfulfilled since they are exhausted all the time. Even with a spouse to come home to, they are often too exhausted to actually enjoy themselves. A MUCH better approach for couples is for them to pitch in to each others development. If one of them wants to do a university degree part time in order to change careers to something more fulfilling, the other should be willing to take on more work to accommodate that - leaving them free to put the adequate time into the degree (NEVER do part time uni and full time work at the same time, it's a huge mistake and you can't make it work, you will ALWAYS drop out eventually. It's too much work for one person). This will have the temporary effect of wearing down one partner even faster, but in the long term, will result in both partners being more fulfilled as they should be able to facilitate better lives through development of more skills and doing tasks they enjoy more. This should leave them free to explore projects together and generally have enough energy to actually live a fulfilling life.

Sorry, that became a bit of a word-salad there. I hope it all makes sense. This is something I constantly see people get wrong. Life is hard, and decision making about life is even harder. Most people make bad decisions, usually because they have been told again and again and again that those decisions are good. "You should get into a relationship as soon as possible, buy property with money you don't have ASAP, work any job and be grateful for it, and if you feel exhausted after work it's because you're just lazy and not trying hard enough". This idea cuases a death spiral as people feel it's their fault that they aren't succeeding, when the reality is, the game is rigged. Humans were not built for constant 8 hour workdays and transit to and from an office, and nobody is going to find fulfillment by playing the game using the accepted strategy - that's exactly the strategy they want you to use, and they have already set you up to fail.

The entire corporate world is a scam. Don't fall for the "good worker who goes home exhausted because life sucks" meme. Life sucks because you haven't made it good yet. They don't want you to make it good or you will leave your job, which is a hassle for them.
 

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The 'waking up, work & sleep' are indeed the means to an end-goal. However, I'm very skeptical that watching TV / doing other mindless activities is also part of this. It serves no value except distraction.
I disagree with this because that would imply that leisure time is meaningless. I suspect you think this way because most TV shows/movies are trash nowadays and are actually distractions but that doesn't mean that on the whole TV and movies are worthless. This thread also reminded me of a book that you might like and I think sort of tackles the issue of monotony in life. It's called Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper if you're interested.

Of course, for people in relationships, they both have less and more options. If you're living with a partner, you can't simply move in with someone. Couples also tend to fall into a different issue. When living together, a couple should be able to save a fortune, and so what often happens is that they both work slightly less or spend slightly more to encompass the new income. Usually one person works significantly less than the other (for eg working part time) because there's less overall need for income since they have pooled their income together. I know several couples where one person works a full time job, and the other works part time, with the full-timer having more say over the income. While they say this "works for them", it tends to be miserable for everyone involved, as the part-time work is usually menial boring work that doesn't count as enough of a "real job" to be full time (which isn't to denigrate it), and so is not likely to be fulfilling, and the person working full time sees no real benefit to their life with a partner financially - they are still working just as hard and are as unfulfilled since they are exhausted all the time. Even with a spouse to come home to, they are often too exhausted to actually enjoy themselves. A MUCH better approach for couples is for them to pitch in to each others development. If one of them wants to do a university degree part time in order to change careers to something more fulfilling, the other should be willing to take on more work to accommodate that - leaving them free to put the adequate time into the degree (NEVER do part time uni and full time work at the same time, it's a huge mistake and you can't make it work, you will ALWAYS drop out eventually. It's too much work for one person). This will have the temporary effect of wearing down one partner even faster, but in the long term, will result in both partners being more fulfilled as they should be able to facilitate better lives through development of more skills and doing tasks they enjoy more. This should leave them free to explore projects together and generally have enough energy to actually live a fulfilling life.
I'm interested to hear your thoughts on what would be fulfilling in a later stage in life. This advice really only works for people in their 20s and maybe early 30s. Me personally I'm in my mid 20s but I'm married, both me and my wife are fully done with college, I have a job at a small company that's about to massively grow which will set me up as the number 2 guy due to when I joined, and my wife works a teaching job at a homeschool co-op, which she loves. I love your take on all of this (honestly I love pretty much all of your takes and just how much effort you put into every one of your posts) but what you're describing here is a couple that's still very young in terms of life events. I might only be 24 but I feel older than that simply because I got started on the whole typical adult life earlier than most people. What do you do when to a certain extent you've "made it?" And I get that the point of your post is to redefine what "making it" means but on the other hand people live lives like this for a reason. What about when you have kids? When you have the money to finance more expensive things, how do you spend it in a way that feels fulfilling? I came into this thread with similar questions to Cahcaw. I'm pretty happy with my life but there are definitely periods where I feel that everything is just so dull and so samey. There are things that I would love to try to save up for but with student loans, a car loan, saving up for a house, and random bullshit that life sends my way it's really hard for me to see any of those things as attainable. (I will put some thought into housing though because you bring up a great point about moving too quickly to the next stage of life. I just hate renting an apartment because the rent gets raised every single year and I prefer to own things rather then lease things.)

One of those things I would love to buy would be a waverunner. Being able to just be out on the water whenever I want going really fast sounds amazing to me. But there are some issues and these are what makes it hard for me to ever imagine owning one. I don't live near enough to a good lake to do it so it would either require moving closer to one or not being able to use it as often. It's pretty hard to save up for more than one thing at a time and seeing that I have more pressing things to pay off I don't feel like I'm saving up for anything fun. And to top it off even if I did manage to get myself into a position where I would be able to buy one, it still doesn't solve the fact that I live in Michigan and would only be able to use it for a few months out of the year. What am I supposed to do when the sun sets before dinner and it's too cold to enjoy anything outside? Your advice centers around the idea that working your way towards something is the fulfillment you get out of life, and while I generally agree, as a person grows more and more what else is there to work towards? There are always things to work towards but in general it's getting harder and harder as people in power leech more and more off of the common man. This is where the monotony sets in for me. When I've achieved all that I can for the next few years and everything I want seems so far away it's very easy to start seeing every day as being the same. Ironically, I just got out of a two month period of absolute car hell where both me and my wife's cars were totaled followed up by getting a dented rim in my new car and it did wonders for my mentality and focus. Yeah it was shit because every single day for two months required us to extensively plan out how we were going to get to where we needed to go along with coordinating borrowing cars from family (not to mention the cost of all of this), but my focus for my work increased and it felt really good. Now I just need to figure out how to capture that without experiencing some sort of catastrophe of some kind :binTot:

Idk, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts/advice on later stages in life if you have any
 
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By cutting your expenses down, you gain more wiggle room
Exactly why I still live with my parents and don't own a car (I live in the Netherlands, so living carless i ez).

ofc I won't live like this, but I'm still studying to finish my bachelor. I just don't see a real advantage to either of these, that outweigh the immense cost (renting in the city of my school costs like 700 euro a months, it's real fucked up). Idgaf what society says about it being responsible and whatnot. My parents allow me to get away with everything regardless

Very based word salad. Loved and agreed with everything.
 
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I disagree with this because that would imply that leisure time is meaningless.
Hey hey hey I'm not shitting on leisure time. Free time is one of the most valuable things in our lives. I was just shitting on television specifically.
I came into this thread with similar questions to Cahcaw
Hey, imma be real honest here - I'm very far from that stage of life. It's not a stage of my life I'm fretting too much about, since it's far away. So I'm not gonna pretend it applies to whatever stage you feel like you're at.
 
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Hey hey hey I'm not shitting on leisure time. Free time is one of the most valuable things in our lives. I was just shitting on television specifically.
ah ok. You just started to sound like one of those people who argue that anything that isn't "high art" or whatever is a waste of time. Glad to see you ain't :CoolKong:
 
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InsufferableCynic

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Idk, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts/advice on later stages in life if you have any

I'm only in my 30s so giving life advice for older people would be disingenuous. I don't see why it would be that much different, though. Money doesn't suddenly work differently the older you get. You might get more opportunitues - like the ability to help run a company - but unless it's something you actively enjoy or are emotionally invested in, getting the "higher end job" for more money is still part of the grind. You aren't escaping by becoming CTO or CIO or whatever - you will have longer hours and the extra money won't go anywhere meaningful (maybe you will be able to commute in a nicer car), and you will be just as unfulfilled - possibly more so since work stress will be a lot higher.

A few direct comments/responses to your post, though:

1. Buying is definitely better than renting, given the option. The issue I brought up is that it's a LARGE commitment. You should only consider buying if you have a contingency plan in place. What happens if you lose your job? What happens if you get a divorce? Most people don't consider these and their mortgage becomes a 20 year trap. They own a house and are technically saving money, but pay the price by being essentially tied to "stable work" for the whole time. That means they can't start a company, or become a contractor, or really do anything risky. Are you prepared to make that sacrifice? If so, definitely buy. I have paid more overall by renting, but as a result I was able to pack up and move interstate on a whim just a few months ago, which has been a very positive change as I am somewhere far nicer and more fulfilling. That would have been impossible by buying.
2. Congrats on being married. I don't know your situation directly, but it does seem like you both work different amounts of hours and she is the one doing the fulfilling work while you're essentially providing for your family by doing the grind. I specifically mentioned these kinds of arrangements in my post. I would suggest you both consider options going forward (for the next year or so) so that you can both work fulfilling jobs. If you're in this thread considering life to be monotonous, it's probably time to change something.

But, at the end of the day, you should do what gives you more freedom and autonomy and don't just follow some model I describe in a forum post. My life doesn't even match the model I gave. I instead took a slightly different approach which was to live at home for ages while working (with my parents) with rock-bottom expenses, then saved like $20k in two years as a result, then quit my job cold turkey to do contracting. It took me 8 months to find a contract but it didn't matter, I had money in the bank. Now I work from home and set my own hours. Risks sometimes pay off.

One more important take away. Some people can "find ways to focus on work", and they feel pretty good for a while. But the crash always comes, and it's horrible. Unless the thing you're doing is fundamentally fulfilling, pretending it is and "focusing on work" will only temporarily distract you from how hollow it feels.

A lot of this comes from a variety of factors, like economic growth and similar financial goals amongst the population. Consumerism has a mentality of "Your neighbor/friend/family has one, you should get one too as to not be behind the curve!" It works so well because we as people are social and envious of possessions. Monotony just comes with it. More want the same things, and as such the same must be the norm. People also want constant efficiency. I think this monotony has been weaponized against the lower and middle class to keep them there. Less competition except to the exceptional. So people pile in to subway cars like sardines every day, sit at a desk doing pointless work hoping it will be different with a raise or the coveted promotion. Go home tired, and relax with some content. Sleep. Take less care of yourself. Lose the wonder and ambition you had when you were younger. The constant loop is there to keep you in it, not become the creator of said loop. This is a consequence of crony capitalism as the top are always reaping the benefits while the bottom buy their motivational posters to keep them from putting a bullet in their brain. Welcome to the world. Sometimes you break the loop only to return to it's warm and comfortably familiar embrace as you serve the rest of your days to achieving nothing and being content. People like familiar, not outlandish. That's why change takes a long time, especially in law and government. When someone is uncomfortable with the contents of their future, they either refuse to take a dip or go all in. To break the loop is to learn to love uncertainty. To embrace the risk. To understand that regardless of your choices, you will end up in the same place the richest man on earth will.

This is possibly the most important post in this thread.

You will NEVER beat the system by trying to do well in it or be a good little boy for the man. If your job sucks now, it's not going to suddenly not suck after a promotion. Even if you get more money, that money will disappear fast, and usually on garbage, because when humans are exhausted and bored after a lot of high-stress work (which will absolutely be increased with the promotion), they impulse spend.
 
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