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this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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If the point of getting a job is so that you can eventually retire one day, and you know what you want to do when you retire, you should start doing what you want to do now while you can enjoy it.
Similarly, If you feel like the place you were born in makes you unhappy, move to a different place. There are so many places.
For the first: Would but will run out of money quickly
Edited for clarity.
That's a common concern for those who haven't tried it yet.
Maybe, maybe not. For now all the approaches I've found out, heard, ideated have glaring problems, are very unique to the person, or rely on external factors not available to all.
I'll always appreciate new concrete information or solution guides, but lack of trying isn't the pitfall.
No maybe about it in my experience, I've encountered that exact concern hundreds of times, exclusively from people who haven't tried.
What concrete information or solution guides are you looking for, the first or second of my suggestions?
Ah, forgot you had two topics. I was replying about quitting working
I wrote out the easiest solution in another comment in this thread.
If you're a native English speaker, you can go work for $20 to $30 an hour for 10-20 hours a week a few months and then live for a year or more in dozens of countries on the savings.
There are many other solutions to quitting working, but that is the easiest one that you can start tomorrow and be finished within 2 or 3 months.
If you have more specific criteria for quitting working, I can give advice specific to you.
OK.
Geographical numbers vary but let's say an office worker needs something between 1200–2700 eurodollars per month for expenses. They might have a loan on their housing or they might rent. Maybe they have some hundreds, or even a few ten thousands in savings generating a bit in compound interest. They like to live where they live or live half of the year there and the rest elsewhere or have a few vacation trips. Maybe they'd want to spend the time not working anymore with their family, or enjoy culture, or learn new things, or keep themselves functional by exercising. Maybe they find a volunteer group that does something meaningful to the world which could take time.
Another case could be some sweatshop worker, where the daily pay is a bowl of food. No cash income, no higher education.
Are you trying to ask a question, or referring to something specific?
What's your (or any master/guru you know) guidance for people to stop working. Is it truly catch-all and trying is enough?
I'm very interested in the topic and love new perspectives
Trying is definitely enough to realize that it's possible to meet your goals if you know what your goals are.
Values determine your goals.
My values were maximizing time spent as I saw fit.
My goals were to continue all of my hobbies and interests while maximizing time for myself.
If that's all you want to do, if those are the most important things, then it's pretty easy to achieve that in multiple ways.
One solution isn't a catch-all, but there are so many solutions that you don't need a catch-all.
I'm definitely not a master or guru; i tried a bunch of things to meet my goals and a few of them worked and work for other people.
Personally I'd agree on similar values and goals but my personal anecdote side tracks from the point of an accessible solution to anyone. Even I'm in a more privileged situation than an average human and still have issues with the income-expense equation yet to solve, not for a lack of trying.
This is another very common rationalization for inaction.
That's why I said there are multiple solutions to this problem for the set of values.
If your argument is that a single solution doesn't work for every single problem for every person all of the time?
Of course not.
You can own the perfect pair of pants, but your pants aren't going to feed you.
That is a separate problem.
But that sort of anxiety exercise has no bearing on the practical solutions for maximizing your free time while working less.
I think you might've misunderstood?
I don't have that argument (or any arguments) in any of my comments and I don't believe there's a single solution to everyone.
I have only been interested in the framework that relies only on trying to see if there's anything new to apply to my or any different situation.
Clarifying(?) edit:
Sure I think I see you champion a mindset shift, and that is definitely what most people would first need. In addition to that, there's hard math that needs to work. Similarly; a person might want to become an entrepreneur, they have that anxiety or fear of leaping to the unknown I detect from your message. When they cross that barrier, they also need to have the numbers which are sustainable. A wonderful can-do attitude and trying again and again but with failing numbers isn't enough.
Maybe I am misunderstanding.
There are definitely multiple effective solutions to your or anyone's situation to maximize their personal free time and work less.
Trying(by which I specifically mean enacting those solutions) is the largest stumbling block I've encountered for anyone to implement those solutions.
Sure. I appreciate the view, even though I can't verify if a lack of trying is a common thing or not. Personally I'm past that issue.
Do you mean you've personally exhausted all solutions to your desire to maximize your own without success?
What do you mean you're past that issue?
No I don't mean I've quit trying. I mean that I am past needing the will to try. I'm equipped with it forever, and am actively continuing to pursue solutions.
What have you tried so far?
And which goals are you pursuing specifically?
Or I guess you can reverse those questions.
Just the goal of removing the mandatory quality of working. Free from work. Quitting forever. Every day a personal choice. To use professional skills for helping those who need them instead of benefiting capitalists.
I'll skip the details, it'd be too long to write now.
The problem is that the one thing I want to do that I'm not already doing is "not work"
I don't have any grand plans to take up new hobbies or anything in my retirement (though I'm sure I'll continue collecting hobbies just as I always have) I just want to be able to do them on my own schedule
That was my focus too, finding a way to have more time to myself on my own terms.
I usually suggest teaching English abroad if you're a native speaker.
You could chant primary colors at kindergarteners online line for a maximum of 20 hours per week, or in person for a maximum of 10 hours per week and clear $400 easy.
You could also teach 20 hours a week for 6 months and then live off the savings for years.
That's minimum wage 400 bucks a week, we'll say you spent $400 for monthly expenses wherever you are, tje other 3 weeks are all your necessary expenses for 3 months without working, or one month partying.
Want to boost your pay? Take an internationally accredited tefl course online for a couple days, pdf tests, that costs 40 bucks and you'll instantly be paid more than the minimum wage($20 an hour's the usual minimum) they pay teachers at any job you apply for.
If having your own time is really the most important thing to you, as it is to me, the process is very simple, especially for native English speakers.
You don't need to do it the rest of your life either.
Work part-time for a few months and then take a year off to figure out If you're doing what you want to be doing. At least you won't be wasting time and money figuring it out.
Do you want to keep vacationing? Then you have already done it and have experience with that.
The next year you vacation it'll be even cheaper and easier than it was the first time.
Do you want to pursue a hobby professionally? You have time to set that up. Or you can pursue the hobby for fun, indefinitely.
That may work for you, and if it does I'm happy for you, but for me, as much as I want more time for myself and my hobbies, one thing I want even more is to not ever spend any amount of time doing anything even remotely like that.
I also have no real interest in working abroad even if I didn't think that job sounded horrible. A week or two of vacation, sure, but by the end of week 2, I'm ready to go home, and that's really the point here, I want to be able to just stay home, and only leave when it's to do something I want to do.
So youre sure you don't like the situation you're in, but equally sure you don't want to leave that situation.
You have a lot of company.
Teaching is not the only option, and no, that's not what I do.
It doesn't sound like you're really looking for solutions yet.
He doesn't want to leave that situation for a nightmare shitshow of a downgraded situation.
He should try something easier that fixes his problems instead.
It's surprisingly pretty rare when someone wants that either.
Because your suggestions are all completely deluded.
They're not better. For pretty much anyone.
Talking to them doesn’t help. I’m a German teacher for new immigrants and I explained how poorly people adjust to a new country when all they wanted was something different, and they condescended to me about not letting my personal experience (with scores of students) color my opinion 🤦
I just hope anyone who’s interested based on what they’re saying adequately prepares themselves. I’m personally a proponent of freer global migration and language teaching, but it’s laughable to think that it’s general advice for people who don’t like their current situation.
I'm all for it if that's what you want to do.
But "you're a hypocritical idiot for not saving all the money from a minimum wage job and finding a dirt poor country to live in or going across the world for some random job most people don't want to do" is nonsense.
I've helped a lot of people stop working, so you're definitely incorrect on both counts.
Most commenters here are responding to their fears or anxieties of being a teacher specifically, which is one of the simplest and quickest solutions (among many) to their stated goals.
If your goals are to minimize work to maximize your own time, becoming an English teacher is a very simple and fast way to achieve those goals.
That is practicality; the opposite of delusion.
There are many other ways to work less and have more free time that you and the others are too afraid to investigate, let alone seriously attempt.
This is very common anxiety, and an example of your delusion you're projecting.
My suggestions, that you have not heard or considered, work when actually attempted.
Maximizing your own time and minimizing the amount of work you have to do is a very simple goal to realize by various methods.
It's just scary for you because If those are your goals and you succeed in achieving them so quickly, it means that you've been wasting your life complaining about something you could have changed at any time because you were too afraid to be sincere and ask for help.
Often, it turns out that maximizing your own time and minimizing work are not your values and goals and you don't know yourself as well as you thought you did, which also frightens people.
Several of those programs are scammy. I know people who’ve been screwed by their company in South Korea, Ethiopia, and the Philippines. I’m glad it worked for you, and it’s a worthwhile thing to try if it calls to you, but it’s a recipe for culture shock and depression if someone doesn’t fully understand and want that experience.
I’m an American living in Germany, and I teach German classes to new immigrants, so I see a lot of people who wanted something different, but didn’t specifically want Germany. It’s much more difficult for them to adjust to a new place than for people who specifically seek Germany out.
I also personally think teaching children is too important to leave to people who are untrained, even if they’re subject matter experts, but I may be biased as it’s my career. I definitely wouldn’t teach kindergarten, because I (like most people) don’t have the patience.
As much as literally any profession is scammy, I'll agree that teaching can also be scammy.
I'm glad it worked for you, but like I said, there are many other avenues.
Teaching abroad is not a recipe for culture shock and depression.
That's like saying learning to swim is a recipe for drowning.
All these people complaining about their jobs and how they can't survive their life and don't want to do anything?
They're already pretty depressed.
That's fine if you don't have patience, lots of people do.
People assume that if something can't help everybody then it can't help anybody. And that is about as wrong as it gets.
Do you want to heal people? Go into health services. Do you want to make video games? Go into programming or design. Feel like working with your hands? Carpentry.
The carpenter isn't going to want to make video games, and the programmer doesn't want to be a doctor. They found their own solutions. Not everybody has to be a teacher.
If your goals are simply to maximize your own time, there are many effective ways to do that quickly.
Teaching abroad without proper preparation and understanding of what you’re signing up for is a recipe for culture shock and depression.
Just like going swimming without proper preparation ( swimming lessons and adequate aerobic fitness) is a recipe for drowning.
Lots of people have the patience for kindergartners, but that’s only because there are eight billion people. Telling everyone who’s depressed to go to a new place where they know no one and have to deal with kindergartners and employers who may or may not fulfill the accommodation or pay promises they made while not having a good working knowledge of the local culture or language is irresponsible.
It sounds like you had a bad experience, but try not to project that on to others.
Nobody suggested teaching or swimming without proper preparation and adequate aerobic fitness. I understand how changing your argument makes it easier to argue against yourself.
Kind of like how in your subsequent paragraph you pretend things were sad that nobody has said in the entire thread except for you.
You don't have to teach kindergarteners if you don't want to. It sounds like it you might want to re-examine your choices.
Making up your own arguments and then throwing a tantrum about your own bad ideas is not very convincing.
If your goal is to maximize your time and minimize your work, there are lots of easy ways to do that.
Teaching is one of them.
You seem stuck on teaching, probably because of your profession, but it's not the only road and you shouldn't force it on others.
You prefer to minimize your own time.
I help people maximize their time and minimize their work.
Youre naturally defensive, try to recognize that.
lol
You were funny. Neurotic like.
But what if I enjoy not going to work?
That's my favorite thing.
I would redirect you to the easiest solution I made to another commenter of saving up money for a few months and then not working for a year.