You're viewing a single thread.
This isn’t wholesome for me, it is a literal waking nightmare.
I don’t want cookie cutter suburban stability I want a reason to live.
This ain’t it for me man.
The OP post doesn't say it's a suburb. It could be country or city for all we know. I have seen snow in both.
Maybe the "kids" are your cat/dog "children."
Maybe it's not stable. Maybe you are the president of a company that does work on a contract basis, and you choose who you do the work for because you make the proposals.
If marriage doesn't sound good to you because you associate it with monogamy, know that there is such a thing as a non-monogamous marriage. I'm in one.
I recently moved to a city close to several national forest preserves. My dream is to buy a few dozen acres butting up against preserved land with a supply of water. I want to start a family and build a homestead that might withstand the changing climate.
I've spent over a decade of my adult life split between roles both teaching children and working at a tech company that didn't appreciate me nearly enough. Up until the end of last year, I made between $14 - $35 / hr. I finally left the abusive tech company and spent 6 - 9 months searching until a few months ago, I started a new job. It's a DevOps role at a company with a great product, doing something I believe in, for really intelligent passionate people, for almost $200k a year.
Currently, not only is paying off my student loans finally a possibility, with remote work, that homestead life is now possible too. My work is rewarding, and instead of just staying home and smoking weed, I have high enough income and low enough stress to feel comfortable going out.
I sing Karaoke one day a week, go to a writer's group another day, take a cooking class about once a month, and currently, I've decided to learn DnD. All of these activities once seemed fiscally irresponsible to me, because I felt like I had to devote my time into passion projects to try to escape the rat race. Now that I have real income, I'm fully invested in it. I'm ready to sacrifice my day hours for good enough cheese.
It's all relative. I want to overthrow our oppressors as much as anyone. I haven't been bought out necessarily. But given the situation, I'm starting to buy in, just a bit. If a bit of wealth and a role I don't hate can enable me to get physically fit, find a partner, and secure a plot of land where we can weather the oncoming storm, I have a hard time not rejoicing in the idea that ten years from now, we might be living a relatively mundane rural lifestyle. If we need some technical manpower to bring the oligarchy down, I'll be there. But maybe also it's okay to want to be happy.
May I ask how you landed such a pay bump?
In short, transitioned from a company with mostly state-level contracts to one with mostly federal-level contracts, which requires a higher level of clearance and more knowledge about security.
More specifically, the company I used to work for is a foreign conglomerate with many thousands of employees and a high turnover rate due to low pay. We would hire inexperienced people, train them up on complicated systems, and they'd leave for higher pay elsewhere, forcing us to start over. I begged HR, not to raise my pay, but to raise the pay of everyone under me because we were losing so many people. They refused. The VPs refused. I think they were under orders from overseas not to give a dime more than they had to. In the long run, it cost us millions in training. Our technical debt was through the roof. And I finally got sick of it.
My new job isn't much more complicated than my old one, but all of the people are better, the culture is way better. Less than 100 employees. Less work to do on weekends, no on call. No outages because we follow proper DevOps practices, whereas I had to forcibly drag my previous employer into modern times.
If I have one suggestion, it's to read The DevOps Handbook (2nd edition). Or listen to it, the audiobook is very good. It goes into great detail about how companies become like the one I left and how to implement practices that will prevent that kind of decay. Let me know if you have any questions. 😊
Based into space
You hear: Employed, has home, married, has kids
You think: Cookie cutter suburban stability, literal waking nightmare?
You can’t walk away from those things easily.
I see them as suffocating and a compromise to my own self.
Of course I accept that others see it differently but your response is exactly why this is a denigrated view.
If you go against the grain of our society (I.e. you aren’t a heterosexual couple with children, a house, job and family pet) you are weird or unsuitable for raising children.
FYI the person above me edited their original comment where they said I shouldn’t have children (for the children’s sake - won’t somebody think of the children!!!).
It’s important context because I would say it is the prevailing view of our society (that social deviants should not have children) but they said the silent part out loud and realised.
You know, I know how you feel. You may change, you may not. I used to feel the exact same way, but I did change some (not 100%). I'm pretty happy.
On the other hand my very good friend is well into his 40s, hasn't changed, and he's like this weird (in the best way) technical nomad who walks away from almost everything every so often.
So do you. That dream is for a whole lot of folks, but not everyone. I see you. Do what makes you happy.
I did edit out that part, almost immediately, because I realized it came off mean and that wasn't my intention. I do still very much think if you "have no reason to live" you should not have children.
For someone who's so concerned about feeling like your perspective is denigrated, I wonder why you think denigrating the perspective of people who have kids, etc is alright? I mean, what did you expect in response when you insult people, calling their lives "cookie cutter suburban stability" when you don't know anything about them? You don't need to be some white cishet christian man to have a family and a job, to think you're not insulting diverse people with the way you approached this is ignorant on your part
Tbf two of those four I would like to avoid if at all possible.
Homeless and unemployed it is
is lifescript ._.
You just don't get it man, he's different. He has edge!
To each their own. No doubt. You should still shoot for some sort of equivalent. Doesn't have to be monetary just a dream to make a reality.