Ask Lemmy

For me, I look to the past to see what life could have been like were I born 100 - 200 -500 - 1,000 years ago and try to find the positives that being born now has.

And the reality is that even as soon as 100 years ago life was much, much harder and worse in almost every metric. Brutal jobs, brutal hours, with safety of no concern, even if you were a child. Housing? You were lucky if you could heat your home in some way in the winter, and air conditioning didnt even exist yet. Physical labor jobs were a large amount of the work, so many people simple worked themselves into uselessness and then suffered the rest of their lives.

It doesnt get much better going back further than that really. Plague anyone?

Today we enjoy a massive, massive amount of comfort in our lives. Have amazing, tasty, and safe food at our fingertips almost without issue. Can travel the entire globe effortlessly when even a cross country trek could have been a multi-month brutal affair with a death sentence for half the travel party. Modern medicine eliminates so many of the issues of the past.

In reality very few people "just" work for 40 years and then retire useless husks and then die. I suspect you spend some time with friends and loved ones, perhaps even travel and engage in leisure time kings and queens of 200 years ago couldnt dream of during those 40 years.

Eventually you get to the point where you age-out of joy. I mean, sure, you try to throw yourself into your work, try to squeeze some semblance of satisfaction out of that dried raisin of a career. But it’s never the same as it used to be. It’s hollow, just like you, and you hate all of it. But what else are you gonna do? So you do your time and go home and stare at the wall; you have no desire to watch tv because it’s all the same bullshit you’ve seen for years. When you do watch tv, usually with your spouse who is little more than a grumpy roommate now. The tv screen is transparent, and you see nothing but the studs in the wall. The family mills about, completely clueless to the misery you are living. Sure you laugh, but it’s without the twinkle in your eye that you once had. You tend to spend a lot more time in the bathroom staring at yourself in the mirror, telling yourself you want to blow your brains out, but never do. Sometimes you cry in isolation. Most of the time you are numb and you sit there in silence. Otherwise, you pretend to do stuff until nightfall. Finally. You down some sleeping pills, go to bed early, doom-scroll for a few hours until the meds kick in. Lights out. You wake a few hours later, before the rest of the fucking world it seems, muttering the word “fuck”. Not with the frolicking fun connotation of youth, but in utter despair that you awoke at all. Again. So you drag yourself to that mirror, brushing your teeth, put on that hollow smile and start the day over. repeat. And again. And again.

I’m sorry, what was the question?

Volunteer. The options are endless, you get to support your community and meet amazing people, and sometimes there's lunch involved.

The key is to do your living now while you still can. Don't waste your youth on a grind that will get you nothing.

Here's a hot take. Do what you want when you are young. Find a way. I spent my 20's moving around, having shitty but fun jobs. I travelled. Saw all kinds of places and met all sorts of people. It wasn't easy and sometimes it wasn't fun. I found myself homeless even several times. I still wouldn't change any of it. I found a wonderful partner and we moved together for a while before settling and having kids.

In my early 40s I was diagnosed with a really rare cancer that paralyzed me from the chest down for a year prior to surgery and left lasting disabilities following. Now in my 50's with declining health I am so glad I lived. It means I don't have a lot of things others have but I've never cared much for the Jones' anyway. If Cancer taught me anything it's fuck society and their expectations. Do you. Find a way. Be happy.

I found a job with a career track that I can retire from in 25 years max and I already have 5 years of service. The system you envision doesn't really exist yet.

I love my job. I have crippling depression, so I won't live to retirement.

I don't just work it's not like nothing else happens. I get it's tough and frustrating but life is good even if work sucks sometimes

Lets be honest, my retirement plan is my corpse getting tossed in a dumpster.

Yes there are lots of useless jobs out there, but at least you're putting food on the table.

But also, you have to look at it from another angle.

Picture work as your way of trying to help advance humanity. Jobs, other than the useless ones I mentioned, all should have a reason behind their existence.

Have you tried alcohol? That seems to be the popular approach.

I've been thinking about this since middle school (when I was thinking about what was waiting for me after school, which I wasn't much a fan of either) and I just distract myself by doing things I enjoy. If it occupies my mind too much, I take a hit of copium and tell myself that maybe I'll get lucky and strike it rich somehow to let me retire early.

Existential dread. I am not here to be a wage slave but I can't figure out how to get out. I just drink a lot

I hate it. I started learning about FIRE, Financial Independence, Retire Early. The great part is that you can do what you want, you just have to match your spending to your income.

I hope for a better system for my kids' friends. (My kids will have me guiding them.)

Hate to say it, but I actually enjoy my job. Would I rather be playing video games and vacationing with friends in the mountains? Of course. But I'd also like to eat potato chips and pizza every day, which would get boring. I work in oil and gas, in environmental, and the money is decent and everyone is just trying really hard to do the right thing and meet government regulatory requirements at every step--regardless of mainstream anti-O&G sentiments. I deal with technical challenges, engineering complexity, and social diversity every day and my brain is better off for it than if I were just cozy on my couch instead. I do consider becoming self employed though--not because I hate my job, but because I would appreciate more control over my own life.

I slack. Oh boy do I slack. I'd work so harder if I thought I would actually get something for it. In fact, when I started my latest job, I was doing just that, because it seemed this company was different, and it's something I'm naturally good at. Got commended by my boss about how much I was doing, how quickly I was learning, how in a year I had already surpassed the next most recent hire that had been there for 2 years... Then time came for my review, and it was a "meets expectations". Like wtf do I have to do to exceed expectations? Then not long after, they started denying me time off, saying I had taken too much. Supposedly we had unlimited PTO, of which I had taken 2 weeks so far that year (1 week in March, the rest just single days here and there), and my request was for a week in July... Anywho long story short, I've pretty much figured out exactly how much I have to fake being busy to not get negative attention, and I do that. I milk cases for all they're worth. And I'm still getting more done than half my colleagues. I hate it, but it pays decently, so I have a hard time throwing it away for something that might be more fulfilling, but doesn't pay as well...

Have you heard of the five stages of grief? That's probably the best first way to deal with it. No capitalist/socialist/fascist/technocratic/authoritarian utopia will be able to fix that. I don't believe there is a better system yet than what the western world already has. Maybe one day UBI will exist and everyone will have more freedom to enjoy their passions but even then it you'll still have to work most of your life.

Best you can do is figure out what you want out of your life and take the steps to do it. Like what most people have said, living below your means helps with funding your goals and protecting yourself against accidents. Find ways to do what you want now but know there's always a trade off. It isn't fair but I don't think it ever has been, except for a very privileged class of people.

The alternative is much worse. I don’t want to be poor and/or homeless. I want to be able to take vacations and not worry about surprise expenses. I want to actually be able to retire someday.

The alternative is a much harder life to live, in my opinion. For me, giving up 40ish hours a week for the peace of mind it worth it. Yes, work is not how I’d prefer to spend my time, but it allows me to spend the rest of my time doing as I’d please.

I got out!

Rented out my apt to others and the tiny difference to my advantage was enough to sustain myself in south America (working a bit and or volunteer or living in free housing(my ex's)

I now got some more money (sold the apt) and do holiday rentals here, but even without that it's just few hundred per month for food and going out, maybe 95$ extra for social local Healthcare (for 2!)

Don't ever think you need to be a millionaire to get out. Government guaranteed bonds pay 9.5% per year.

So each 10k usd you put in a guaranteed usd account = 87$ free money each month. Need 50k for bit over 400$/mo which is the local minimum wage. 100% government guaranteed (if you split in 2 banks)