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My pursuit of happiness, I'm in fear of quitting my current job and go for a working holiday to Australia, I'm excited while still trying to overcome the fear of not having a stable and well paying job because I don't find any joy in this job no more , so I am working on mentally getting out of this, I want to truly let go "money is more important than my happiness" idea.


I embarked on a working holiday to the UK in 1998. Quit my job in South Africa and left with nothing but a backpack. Opened up my world, I worked for Coca Cola, the BBC, an investment bank, got wrapped up in the dot com boom, met my American wife, met the smartest people in the world, some invested in me, moved to the States, started a business that now has millions of customers and a team of 40 that my wife and I 100% own. So I guess I lean towards GO!! NOW!! :-) Best of luck.


I'm at a similar place to GP. Reading this comment and the employment[1] page for Defiant was a great reminder of some of the things I've been struggling with lately (and how alternatives can look). Congrats on taking the leap many years ago and setting up a company with a deliberate work culture that sounds brilliant to be part of!

[1]: https://www.defiant.com/employment/


Wordfence is pretty cool. Heard about it and your security research for years before I ever used the plugin, then started using it with a client in the past couple years. My time with it is ending shortly (see my comment elsewhere on this thread[0]), but it's been great. Thanks!

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43528309


This is just the right dose of motivation required for me now! Deciding to take a break and hopefully end up like this!

Thanks for this! :)


thanks for the story, one of the reasons I want to do this is to let go of control and to believe in myself so I can face unpredictable future, I will never know if future will get better or not, but I'll definitely be mentally stronger when I do this, cheers!


Not sure what your age and obligations are, but I did this years ago. Highly recommended.

I spent time kicking around, had a work visa through BUNAC[0] but didn't use it, went to some festivals, did some WWOOFing[1] and hiking and climbing. Also took the opportunity to visit other countries near AU that I wouldn't get to otherwise (NZ, Fiji).

One of my life highlights. Two thumbs up! I doubt my experience is super relevant any more, but feel free to send me an email (address in profile) if you want to chat about it.

0: https://bunac.org/

1: https://wwoof.com.au/


I'm 27 and have a bit of saving, I just checked wwoof and it seems pretty cool, I couldn't make up my mind which city I should go and WWOOFing gives me a general idea of the work demands, I'll hit you up sometimes, thank you for the sharing!


That is cool thing to do if you do not have family yet. If you do not, than do it. Life is too short to worry about not having a job for a few months. If.you have savings than why not?


I am doing this myself. I turned in my two weeks' notice a few days ago

I am worried about my decision too, but I think about a few things:

- You got your current job (plus all of the previous roles), so why wouldn't you be able to do it again if and when the time comes?

- Job gaps don't look as bad as they used to. People understand burnout and being stuck in a bad job. Breaking away from those can be seen as a positive, especially if you are pursuing your own health and interests

- There's more to life than draining your useful waking hours for a paycheck at a place that offers little else. With more time and energy, you can explore interests and projects on your own terms

Best of luck in your future endeavors


I guess I'm somewhat worried about not being able to get back to tech again, but I just realized I can still do open source contribution if I want to when doing WH.

I'm in a weird state that I have an okay amount of saving for me to do this, but I'm still worried because I had been through having almost zero money and two years of unemployment, I'm scared to get back to that again.

In the end, I know I have to let this thing go or I'll never become happy even if I'm making tons of money, gotta enjoy life sometimes, thanks for the words!

Best of luck in our journeys too!


I moved to a new city with nothing but a backpack a few years ago. It was tough, and I had a lot of painful experiences, but very cool.


a very good language this seems to me like


Social skills and mental health!, I've been working pretty hard on learning how to make friends, showing my admiration to girls and become generally an outgoing and honest person, I used to be somewhat afraid of talking to strangers because I was quite worried that people might hurt me, and now I'm feeling more comfortable having conversation with new friends with less trust issues, though I pushed myself a bit too hard to recently I got plenty of panic attacks, I know it's a phase, so I'll keep working on it!


Great work! I'm usually bored too, sometimes I find something to study or try to implement known tech, but only give up when I feel like it's too hard for me or it's too much work haha, this motivates me a bit.


People usually do this for validation or just the fact is the opposite, often times these kind of people couldn't get partners just because they have this "I'm top __% guy so my partner should be ___" mentality and keeps complaining.


Merry Christmas homies! We don't really celebrate Christmas in my country but I would still like to wish you all a great holiday! much love <3


Merry Christmas ^^


I used to be like this! then I figured out the reason what makes making new friends hard, I became more relaxed hanging out and reaching out to new friends, now I can enjoy both new and old friends' accompany, tho I'm still working on making myself more comfortable making friends.


glicol is super super cool, thanks for sharing!


I used to be defensive a lot, that's when I realized one of the main reason was due to low self-esteem and lack of self acceptance, many times people weren't trying to devalue me or offend me but because of I couldn't really accept myself, I usually thought they were attacking me instead of actually engage in the conversation to see if they really meant to judge me.

After therapy, lots of reading and learning to accept myself, now I feel better and more efficient communicating, sometimes I don't even notice people are judging me or making fun of me, because now I seek very little validation from people, this makes me focus on the issue and supporting kind people around me.

it's still a work in progress, but this new perspective of the world brings me more freedom and happiness.

this is a very good read, and I did found some of the mistakes I sometimes make in communication, this is one of the post that'll make me want to reread in the future.


I think this post is your first step, so kudos to this!, I think philosophy books help, you can read some basic philosophy, pause and write down what you think, instead of internal voice, you can make texts as a bridge between your thoughts and yourself.


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