
Ask HN: Anyone living here completely by your rules and rejecting the “normal”? - justaguyhere
Most of us live the default life - even those who move thousands of miles away (to other countries, other cultures etc) deviate not a lot.<p>Anyone here living completely by your own rules? I&#x27;m deliberately not giving examples in order to not influence the course of discussion. Just interested in knowing what <i>your</i> rules are and how you&#x27;re living by them
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Crazyontap
Not sure if this would be not considered "normal" here but for the past 15
years I've just been doing my own thing for work. Right now my routine has
been: I sleep at 5am, wake up at 12, then play with my daughter, go for a
walk, do whatever i like, like watch movies, cook, gym, etc until 4pm then i
go to sleep again around 4/5pm and wake up around 8p. then do some work for 2
hours. then more family time, watch netflix, and do two more hours of work
around 3am.

It's not very exciting but i guess it fits the description of your post of
living by your rules. My wife found it very odd, tried to correct my routine a
lot because I don't generally sleep on time with her but she has given up
after 5 years.

I did work very hard after college when I created some SaaS sites that are
paying for this lifestyle which includes lots of vacation and travel. I'm not
very rich though (if I were in America I'd be poor i guess).

One of the downsides of this is that I find it very hard to do routine chores
like going to the bank, or catching a flight. I also have never seen the
inside of an office (i mean i have but i mean i've never worked in one or had
a boss).

I sometimes feel that this is very bad and I should be more normal and then I
try to force myself to sleep on time and do 8 hour work like normal people but
it has never lasted more than a week. So now I've given up on that as I
believe that it's just my center of gravity and it's unfixable.

------
deanmoriarty
I am in my early 30s and struggled a lot with the social pressure of getting
married, buying a house and having kids, all things I’ve never wanted to do
since as far as I can remember.

I refused to obey to those social norms, which has caused several social
connections to fade (especially in my original home country), as well as
"disappointment" in my family, despite being successful in my career and many
other areas of my life. However, I’m lucky enough that I found, for the moment
at least, a woman as a partner who thinks the same as me, namely that love and
companionship is enough to fuel life without having to “waste” it away raising
kids or paying mortgages.

~~~
deanmoriarty
I just wanted to report that someone
([https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ekaulakis](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ekaulakis))
left this comment, and then deleted it before I could reply:

" You embody the death of our civilization. Have you ever felt gratitude for
the systems which you count on to sustain you? "

This is exactly the kind of reaction that I am facing from social connections
and family for living a "non-normal" life, where everybody tries to make me
feel incredibly guilty for taking a decision of not having kids and pursue
other activities in the incredibly limited amount of time I have on this
planet.

~~~
justaguyhere
I am in the same boat, having decided not to have kids.

IMHO, the best we can do with people is ignore them. This becomes difficult if
they are close relatives like parents or siblings, should be relatively easy
with others.

------
n00bdude
_Not by my own rules_ but I've been living in Manhattan out a storage unit
since 2017, shower/meditate @ gym, write a novel during the day, day-job at
night, then get ZZZs on SOHO streets.

It's affordable. I live in Manhattan. And I'm working to be professionally
published by a NYC Publishing House within the next three years, hence reason
for wanting to be on scene. I'm 32

I know there are more conventional / logical ways to go about a thing, but you
know.

And again, _not by my own rules;_ everything outside how it seems is ordinary
+ demand law

~~~
WAthrowaway
If you have a storage unit why are you sleeping on the streets ? Or am I
misreading?

I wish you the best of luck. I am friends with several published literary
personalities and I can tell you it is not easy and took a lot longer than
three years.

~~~
n00bdude
You are 'not allowed' to sleep in the storage unit, even though it is open 24
Hours. The guards keep tabs on who is in and out. And even if one could, I
would still choose to sleep outside. I tell myself: "I'm just Urban Camping
.."

Thanks for the wishes. I don't doubt it may take longer than three years. But
I've been @ it for 10+ already & have written / self-published what I believe
is a great novel (like everyone;) But am without marketing. (What I need's
_discovery_ )

And if nothing happens, I'll just self-publish over and again

------
potta_coffee
I don't have a television. This is a huge departure from the norm for my
wife's and my families. We don't even notice, until we visit them for the
holidays. Can't handle TV anymore, it's such inane garbage.

~~~
maceurt
To some degree not watching t.v, youtube, and netflix has been very rewarding
for me. The consumer culture that has permuated the world really gets tiring
after awhile. Just relaxing, meditating, or praying is a lot more calming for
me personally than constantly reading or watching something.

~~~
fishingisfun
i lost the patience to sit in front of a machine for entertainment. Doing it
all day for work is enough

~~~
maceurt
True, its hard though to find nature and to find things away from screens in
the digital age. That is what I hate the most about this world is how much we
are surrounded by screens.

------
badpun
I'm nearing fourties, only working intermittent contracts, managed to
accumulate enough for a modest FIRE through them (would like a bit more to
upgrade the lifestyle though), spend a lot of time between contracts working
on things that interest me. On personal front, I haven't been in relationship
for over 10 years now (don't have kids as well). I feel like I'm an outlier as
far as general population goes, probably not as much here in HN.

~~~
ioddly
How much length do you leave between contracts? How have you found scaring up
contract work after long layoffs to go?

I'm in a somewhat similar situation but I'm scared to leave too long of a gap.
Not so much worried about the resume gap as falling off on networking and the
other things that lead to getting more work. It seems like I'll probably end
up working mostly continuously for the next couple years while pursuing FIRE.

~~~
badpun
My gaps are usually 6-12 months long. I have significant in experience in a
hot technology, so I’m currently not that worried about getting new contracts.
I find them from internet ads only. As for getting referrals via contacts, I
get the feeling that my developer colleagues don't like me very much - I don't
share the typical philosophies of the field (huge overcomplication, willy-
nilly adding technologies to the stack). Managers quite like me I think -
they're happy to see a developer who says the job can be done without changing
the stack every quarter. However, they tend to stay in a single company for a
long time, so are a poor source of referrals.

~~~
ioddly
Gotcha, thanks for the reply.

------
WAthrowaway
For twenty years I made and sold LSD across the East Coast. I spent my youth
and perhaps most of my sanity doing it. For the longest time I lived by only
one rule: Are you kind? Now I can pretty much do whatever the fuck I want.
It's great, but not for everyone.

~~~
eykanspelgud
Oh wow. Do you have an academic background in chemistry? I've heard stories of
chem phD students synthesizing in their labs at night. I've considered
synthing for the challenge and for personal use, but haven't built up the
chutzpah to start.

~~~
WAthrowaway
No I studied Operations Research but dropped out.

Those are not stories, that's the industry. Right now most of it is based out
of Waterloo with some in upstate NY but honestly the Canadians are wild -
check out [https://lysergi.com/](https://lysergi.com/) they are selling lsd
pro drugs on the clear net!

~~~
eykanspelgud
Interesting website.

The legal jargon on one of their pages is reminiscent of things I'd see in
online pharma websites that sell viagra pills, modafinil, and the like. I'm
not sure how the legalese holds up in court though, but trying to pass off as
a research company is one vector of approach to try pass off as legit, I
suppose.

Interestingly, a lot of these pharma websites are based in Canada. Maybe
there's a law I don't know about? Regardless, if I were being incredibly
paranoid, a website like this on the clearnet suggests honeypot to me, even
though it's most likely not. But still... on the clear net, and I'm assuming
chemicals are made in house? Other drug sites buy from India/Mumbai/Sri
Lanka/Thailand and ship to their destinations.

I'm impressed that they have access to NMR and LCMS stuff too - or at least
they say they do. Shits expensive to buy and maintain. No doubt they are
probably operating in an academic chemistry lab.... though I don't blame them.
A PhD stipend isn't exactly investment banker status, nor is research funding
increasing.

~~~
WAthrowaway
Someone whom I know ordered a sizable quantity of 1P-LSD from them and gave a
strip to me. I gotta say it was some of the best "acid" I have ever done,
maybe even better since on 1P I'm actually able to fall asleep after 8-10
hours of tripping. With LSD-25 if I dose at noon I'll be up until 8am the next
day. Other than that there is no discernible difference.

I'm almost positive they operate out of Waterloo's lab or have significant
access to their facilities. Otherwise I'm boggled at how they can make sure
pure stuff in such quantities.

Hopefully, the psychedelic legalization initiatives in CO and OR will pass and
the US can catch up again ;)

~~~
eykanspelgud
Yeah. Probably will take a while. So much for freedom, eh?

I'd be interested if they had tutorials to make your own, but I'm pretty sure
they'd like to keep this a trade secret.

------
wilsonnb3
I’m not attending a meeting right now that I should probably be at but am not
required to be at.

Does that count as living by my own rules?

~~~
AznHisoka
Just barely :)

------
dvko
I dropped out of college at 22 with a huge amount of student debt to start a
business while traveling through Asia & the US (am from Europe).

After the business took off and the money, countries or the countless short-
term friendships stopped providing enough meaning for me I started looking for
the next thing.

Now, I'm back on the same path that others never ventured off of. Close to my
family & a handful of very good friends, with a great partner and a lovely
daughter as of a few months ago. It's simple, it's beautiful.

~~~
unknownkadath
You can't come home if you never leave!

------
zunzun
If anyone reading this were a prolific psychopathic serial killer living
completely by their own set of rules, their likely reasonable avoidance of
prison food would not let them answer. I think this would be generally true
regardless of country or culture.

------
Hamlet42
I have a wife and two kids, we rent an expensive house on the countryside. I
struggle to find enough work even though I have a university degree and I
taught myself programming (R). I feel totally constrained every day. I guess
that is living by other peoples rules.

So my own rules (which I am working towards) would mainly be decreasing our
minimal monthly expenses. This is hard in a country where the norm is to earn
a lot, spend even more, pay the highest taxes in the world and where the
government wants to make everything even more homogeneous.

------
growlist
No, but I do what I can: resisted buying a house as long as possible and have
zero debt apart from a mortgage that should be paid off in 2-3 years if all
goes to plan, and enough in the bank to cover myself for at least a couple of
years should things go tits up. And I'm earning nowhere near what I gather a
lot of people on HN earn. I never fail to be amazed at how many people are
quite happy to live showy lifestyles yet are in reality only 1 or 2 paychecks
away from disaster.

~~~
cyberpip
How did you resist buying a house as long as possible? Did you just resist it
until the numbers no longer made sense?

------
AnimalMuppet
Nobody gets to live _completely_ by their own rules. No matter how much you
want to, everyone is constrained to live in the real world (physical, even if
not social), and the real world imposes constraints that we don't like
(entropy, if nothing else).

Then, the social world can also impose constraints (such as prison, as zunzun
pointed out).

The best you can do is try to arrange things so that the external stuff you
can't avoid pinches as little as possible.

~~~
trevyn
I think this is less true and/or relevant than you claim.

If a 10 on the Yudkowsky ambition scale is “I think I know how to hack the
computer that the universe is running on”, I propose 9.5: I know how to hack
the computer that _my perception of the universe_ is running on.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
But the external universe doesn't care what your perception of it is. So
hacking your perception into something that is incompatible with the universe
that is there is not going to be workable for very long.

------
FlyMoreRockets
There's a lot to be said for the off-grid lifestyle. Yeah, it's a lot of work,
and some of it is a grind, but it is generally very rewarding.

~~~
justaguyhere
any experience you can speak about?

~~~
snazz
Joey Hess[0] does this and writes about his experiences on his blog. Fridge
0.2[1] was popular on here a couple of weeks ago.

[0]: [https://joeyh.name](https://joeyh.name) [1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18770213](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18770213)

------
snyena
This january I am turning 40 and it will be exactly 10 years since I quit my
last job. I am a pro sports bettor so I have a fair degree of flexibility and
time freedom. However, I am strongly considering applying for work again, in
fact I've already sent my resume to two advertised jobs.

~~~
vipa123
I'm really interested in how that will work out for you.

What line of work are planning to go into, return to? How will you represent
the decade of pro sports betting on your resume?

~~~
snyena
With a 10 year gap in my resume I'll probably have to take whatever comes.
Ideally it would something analytical, with numbers, where I can learn a lot
(I went to a high school with focus on Math and I have a Master's in
Management). I don't really care about the salary. I know a bit of PHP and I
am currently starting to learn Python.

I worked as a technical documentarist in the past and also in a managerial
(non-technical) role for an online bookmaker. During the first three years of
my pro betting career I also launched my own online sportsbook but that
project failed miserably. Maybe I can use that to partially explain the huge
gap but I am still undecided.

~~~
vipa123
Well you have a good start. I would think that ten years of successful (i.e.
making a living) sports betting would make for a unique anecdote and
discussion during an interview.

A strong desire for maths with an ability to tolerate programming, maybe look
for a path into data science or machine learning. I see on this site or reddit
or lobste.rs for free online courses for both all the time.

Regardless, I wish you luck and hope things go well.

~~~
snyena
Thank you, much appreciated. I started looking into both recently, mostly
under the influence of posts on here but also upon seeing them in many job
ads.

------
oldsklgdfth
I have a huge whiteboard above my bed.

On one side I have a list of things to do everyday (eat, drink, run, make bed,
bathe, get dressed, call ma, be kind) On the other side I have a list of
things to do when I am feeling down (eat a piece of fruit, have some water,
calisthenics, go for a run)

The middle is reserved for things I find meaningful. At the moment it is empty
except for at the top it says "this is water".

~~~
sixstringtheory
I love this. My wife taught me to put focus on meaningful activity. When
meeting new people, instead of adking “what do you do” she asks “what do you
like to do” and this method of planning sounds like the perfect analogue.

~~~
oldsklgdfth
I do this because I go through times where I am either depressed or in a rut
and can't seem to jolt out of it. It's the most in-your-face way I could think
to help me snap out of it and do things consistently.

------
dragonwriter
> Most of us live the default life

No we don't, and, moreover, there is no such thing.

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bradd
2 beers (and counting) (classic Budweiser). Figuring out how to write a Python
extension. Roasting a couple of hot dogs. And yes, I live in Mississippi.

------
kgwxd
Yes, but my own rules are mostly normal.

