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It's the Mexican fisherman story. Sacrifice your freedom and happiness so that you can get rich so that you can have freedom and happiness.

Why not just take the direct route?




"It's the Mexican fisherman story. Sacrifice your freedom and happiness so that you can get rich so that you can have freedom and happiness."

and how do you suppose we do that?

Freedom to me means:

1) not having to work for anyone 2) having enough time to do what I want 3) traveling around the world

You need money to do all of these. To get money, you need to create something that people are willing to pay for, which takes some sacrifices.

You are sacrificing some time and freedom now for complete freedom later.


Sounds like you've never tried this freedom that you speak of. I've been doing the 3 things on your list for the better part of 10 years now, and I've never been wealthy.

3. Living on the road is no more expensive than living anywhere else. Less usually, since there's no rent or car payment involved. I can live large in Thailand for $500/month.

2. Living on the beach, I once calculated that I needed to bill one day per month to break even. Anything above that went into savings. That leaves 29 days a month to do whatever you like.

1. During those 29 days per month, I work for either a.) myself or b.) nobody. Maybe once a year I'll take a short contract, pull in 20k or whatever, and repeat for another year.

And that's just the level of effort needed for subsistence. Any money earned above that goes straight in to the "retirement" fund, in quotes because frankly I consider myself retired today.


Aren't you extremely wealthy compared to the average Thai?

It sounds interesting for someone in your kind of situation, but there's a lot of assumptions that are not universals: being fairly rich (or having skills worth a lot) off the start, being limited to cheap countries (the parent poster talked about going around the world, which sounds a lot more expensive than and quite different from staying on a beach in Thailand), having skills that can be applied via teleworking and short contracts, etc.


A personal question. You do not need to answer.

When you return "home", wherever that may be, do you find yourself treated distantly by friends and family? My sister did the world traveling thing for years and though she did send postcards - we found it hard to share the same feeling of excitement for her travels as she did. She is back home now and starting her own family.

What is it like when you return home?


"Living on the road is no more expensive than living anywhere else. Less usually, since there's no rent or car payment involved. I can live large in Thailand for $500/month."

When I say "travel", I mean living in other countries for extended periods of time, which as you pointed out, is cheaper than living in many cities in the US.

" Any money earned above that goes straight in to the "retirement" fund, in quotes because frankly I consider myself retired today."

so..are you wealthy or not? It sounds like you are agreeing with me.


If you don't mind me asking, what sort of short contract do you take? How do you get them (advertised jobs, through contacts)?


Welcome to our site, Mr. Ferris. ;)


My cofounder was telling me a story about his friend's brother--where he doesn't really work much, but travels a lot.

Apparently, when asked how he does it, the brother quipped, "Most people are too stupid to be poor."


> You are sacrificing some time and freedom now for complete freedom later.

No, for the chance of complete freedom later.


is that what freedom means? it sounds like you're condition of freedom is to have money, and its only freedom as long as you can pay for it. not really that free.


"is that what freedom means? it sounds like you're condition of freedom is to have money, and its only freedom as long as you can pay for it. not really that free."

I suppose I could live in a cardboard box on the side of the road and quit my job, but I don't think it would be a very nice existence.

Having enough money to quit your job, buy a nice house, support a family, and travel is the ultimate freedom. You don't have to answer to anyone.

You may be happy with much less, and that's your choice. This is my definition of freedom. It's also why I am working on my own company.

The money isn't even the point. If I could get all of the above for free, I would do it (who wouldn't?). It's what the money provides.


Having enough money to quit your job, buy a nice house, support a family, and travel is the ultimate freedom. You don't have to answer to anyone.

Ahh, but there's the rub. What good is a nice house and a family if you live at the office and devote every waking moment to your startup?

I think those things are nice too. My point is that there are a lot of people who have a house, a loving family, and travel, who are not rich. If that is really your goal, sacrificing your happiness, health and sanity in pursuit of FU startup money is a pretty circuitous way of attaining it.


"Ahh, but there's the rub. What good is a nice house and a family if you live at the office and devote every waking moment to your startup?"

You don't need to devote every waking moment to a startup to be successful. I devote lots of my time right now only because I am also working a day job. Once I am making enough money and I quit my job, I could easily run it during the day.

I value my free time more than anything. If I was just going to trade in one office slave job for another, I wouldn't even bother.

I would also rather spend my life working on my own projects than be forced to make someone else rich. Have you ever had to implement ridiculous features or work until 10 o'clock (unpaid) because your manager or boss decided at the last minute that something needed to be changed?

"I think those things are nice too. My point is that there are a lot of people who have a house, a loving family, and travel, who are not rich."

What is "rich" to you? It's a relative term.

"If that is really your goal, sacrificing your happiness, health and sanity in pursuit of FU startup money is a pretty circuitous way of attaining it."

When did sanity come into the discussion? I love working on my business. Programming is a passion of mine. I am also pretty healthy. I exercise every day (biking, jogging, and/or lifting weights). I also sleep around 8 hours a night and try to eat a healthy diet.

It's also not a permanent sacrifice. It's only until things get to a level where I can hire other people and or quit my job. School is a 4+ year sacrifice. What's the difference?


is that what freedom means?

I'm halfway through Harry Browne's "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World" (recommended by someone on HN) and he has an interesting definition of freedom. Freedom is spending more time seeking pleasure than avoiding pain.

I'm paraphrasing, but I think that's the gist of his definition. Good book.


Freedom is spending more time seeking pleasure than avoiding pain.

Very interesting definition. Thanks for sharing that.

It vaguely reminds me of Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom, in which he explores how the right to certain opportunities may be as essential to freedom as the right to property.

The connection may only be superficial, but that was a good book too. (Sen was a Nobel Prize winner.)


Awesome book!


I think you're conflating two ideas here: negative and positive freedom.

Negative freedom, freedom from having to do things you don't want, can be had by quitting your job and living in a cardboard box. Don't want to go to work? That's cool, you can just sit in your box, or go for a walk, or whatever.

Positive freedom, on the other hand, can really only be had in this society by accumulating money. If you want to buy a house, support a family and travel, then you need to have the cash to do so.

Of course, if you get enough money, then you can have both. The converse isn't true. But that's difficult to do, and it certainly is a gamble. I think you and the OP just have a different idea of where it's desirable to be on the continuum from -ve to +ve.


Care to offer a better definition?


i honestly can't think of one that isn't constrained in some form. in modern society, that is. freedom seems to be constrained by the existence of other people.


"i honestly can't think of one that isn't constrained in some form. in modern society, that is. freedom seems to be constrained by the existence of other people."

When has it ever not been? In pre-modern society people still used some for of currency to obtain things. You could technically live a "free" life without money, but your existence would be even worse than it is now.


The Mexican fisherman story, in case people haven't heard it:

http://www.brefigroup.co.uk/resources/view_product.do?produc...

The main flaw is that it ignores the massive amount of wealth created by scaling up the fishing operation. The fisherman could've made a much greater contribution to the world by listening to the investment banker. We are all morally obligated to make enough money to buy a yacht with a flag saying, "Chillin' the most" and to subsequently rock that bitch up and down the coast.


Please god tell me you're joking.


I'm sure that is sarcasm.


Yeah, you're kidding me right?


Are you saying that there is some more direct route to working on what one wants? Or that the direct route to happiness is to give up such aspirations?


If your aspiration is simply to code interesting software projects all day long, I see no reason why being rich should be a prerequisite. Your expenses are minimal; you have no need of an office and can live anywhere. Will you require some money? Yes, and acquiring that will distract you slightly from the things you'd rather be doing. But that is a much better proposition, to me, than gambling away a decade or two of my best years on the remote chance to become wealthy and "completely" free.


You're talking theoretically about the life I actually lived for the second half of my twenties, living cheaply and supporting myself with occasional bursts of consulting. It was not as easy as you make it sound. I preferred it to a regular job (which leaves you too little time to work on your own stuff), but it was extremely stressful to keep running out of money. With kids it would have been impossible.

How remote the chances are of making money from a startup depend on the person. The probability ranges from a snowball's chance in hell to maybe 90% in the case of someone like Bill Gates. (He was not necessarily going to be the richest man of all, but the likelihood of him not even making enough to be independently wealthy was pretty small.) I can't tell what the chances would be in your case without meeting you, but certainly there are some people for whom starting a startup is a reasonable gamble.

It definitely wouldn't take decades to find out. When startups fail they usually fail in less than 2 years.


As a 27-year old, part-time consultant, it's not so theoretical :-) I agree I could never support a family living the way I do, but raising a family is at odds with maximizing your free time anyways.


I don't really know what to say about this. It makes me totally face_plain. In my opinion, a goal of maximizing your personal free time at the expense of family is completely crazy. You should raise a family because its joys are immense and awesome, more immense and awesome than anything involving a huge chunk of money and/or free time (i.e. boredom, which more often than not does not end well), and I would instantly sacrifice my entrepreneurial desires if I had to choose between my wife and son and my hope of getting a lot of money independently. It's much better to have a family waiting for you after an eight-hour work day than to set your own hours and come home to an empty house.


I draw the line at like 6 threads deep, so I will shut up after this, but:

At the expense of what family? The hypothetical one which I am purposely not creating? I'm glad that it's worked out well for you (really), but you need to recognize that, contrary to what people want to believe, parenthood and happiness are not synonymous. You look at my life and see empty houses (nevermind that I live with a bunch of fun, like-minded people); I look at yours and see sleep deprivation, debt, stress, loss of the ability to travel and develop myself personally--basically the end of everything I enjoy. Other than conventional wisdom, is there anything to suggest that your life is "immense and awesome", while mine must be empty and sad? For my part, I see a litany of studies suggesting that people like me are, on average, actually a lot happier (http://nymag.com/news/features/67024/).

I would never be so smug as to insinuate that you made the wrong choice. But it's not your place to make face_plains at me, either.


For what it's worth, as Daniel Gilbert notes in "Stumbling on Happiness", people's minds tend to rationalize their actions and warp the past based on more recent events.

If you were to marry and have kids, you would likely argue the same points about it being the greatest experience of your life. However, you would only feel that way because your memory of your past bachelor life would be distorted by the joy that your new settled life has brought you.

So I think you're both right. :)


Hah, so it doesn't matter what we do.

Live frugally and work on projects we love.

Develop an idea into a valuable tech business and get rich.

Or work at a regular job and make modest but secure income.

Our level of happiness will be relative to our current life, warping our history to match.

I can see many potential life threads for myself going forward. Most include a family because I'm married and both of us wish to have children. All of them include struggling to build a valuable tech company by solving a pressing need. Making enough money to survive in the meantime is a given (part time work), I can't imagine not paying the bills.

I take comfort in the fact that my personal success is independent of the happiness I can bring to and receive from my family, as long as my restless ambition doesn't become a burden on them. Life feels so short and ephemeral, 36 years have come and gone in the blink of an eye. At other times I feel ancient and have forgotten more than I'll ever learn from here on out.


"You look at my life and see empty houses (nevermind that I live with a bunch of fun, like-minded people); I look at yours and see sleep deprivation, debt, stress, loss of the ability to travel and develop myself personally--basically the end of everything I enjoy."

You can have a very happy life with or without children. My wife and I waited until our late 30's to have our daughter. We were happy before and we're happy now. If we decided not to have a child we would have been happy. Your list of downsides to having a family are accurate with the exception of "develop myself personally". It depends on what you mean by developing yourself. If you mean being able to study interesting subjects, e.g. take foreign language classes/study cooking/etc., then there's some truth to it. With a child, you have to pick and choose what you study based on having a less flexible schedule. But, developing oneself isn't limited to that. My daughter causes me to learn patience, empathy, and selflessness far beyond what I could have learned without her. It's a matter of not having a choice to do otherwise.

As for the other side of developing oneself, she and I will be studying martial arts and piano together. Not bad.

Enjoy your life whatever your choice. You're the only one in control of your happiness.


Actually, as a divorced man, I prefer the empty house.


"With kids it would have been impossible."

It's not impossible, it's just adding another degree of difficulty. I did exactly this in the second half of my twenties. Working on my projects, doing consulting when I had to to support myself and my family. I believe the impetus that drives "family men" to seek shelter in a "normal" job can also drive you to be relentless in making your startup work. More skin in the game.

Also, team comes into play here. Personally. I know that if I wouldn't have had such a wonderful and supporting partner at home, the startup issue would have been a non-starter.

Team first =)


It's a little bit disingenuous to say earning lots of money is the same as "gambling away a decade or two" while a full-time job will "distract you slightly." Getting money and getting modestly rich are essentially the same thing, just one way you have a reasoned goal for which to optimize your money-earning.


In your youth, you don't have to care about risks much, hence your expenses are low. You can never get really broke, because you'll always have an able young body to sell and start over. The older you get the more you have to worry about risks.


Most hackerly types I can think of just go work on what they're interested in, without an explicit goal of making millions from it. Take the quintessential Jobs/Woz thing: Woz, the hacker of the pair, was interested in making Apple machines, but didn't give a damn about getting rich.


I bet he's pretty happy now that he is rich. And Steve Jobs wouldn't have bought Pixar and created NeXT if he hadn't made a fortune at Apple before he got fired.


It's hard to say that for sure. Jobs seems to be a pretty driven guy.


woz was quoted in return to little kingdom that jobs was driven by making money. that was when they started selling blue boxes in dorm rooms.


Darn it you changed your reply after I replied, this still kind of applies. Edit again, you're reply is practically evolving every time I hit update.

Being free and being broke is what I think his direct route is. You can say that the pan handlers have more or less freedom than a business owner, depends on how you define the words.


Yeah but very few people can successfully pull this off. The vast majority of broke people are still harboring some sort of grudge against society or someone from their past - it's like they have 99% of the inconveniences of abandoning materialism, but none of the benefit because they refuse to "go all the way" with it.

In many ways intellectual freedom can only be found once material mastery has been achieved. There are a few famous examples from history that say otherwise, like Diogenes, but I doubt you're at his level. I also doubt you really believe in what you're saying, otherwise you would go straight to "abandoning" instead of posting on Hacker News.


Would you really say intellectual freedom is truly achieved only once the material has been achieved?

I would argue that there is a threshold for this material mastery. I don't think is necessary for it to be exorbitantly rich. I can look at researchers who enjoy their work, and are working on problems interesting to them. They usually don't have a big monetary profit. Just a thought


Way to much you, your and you're in that last sentence zachattack, I felt like you think I personally believe that is freedom. I don't believe in that codswallop at all I was just offering an interpretation of what he might have meant, much like his interpretation of freedom. Money is my means to the end and I won't stop till I've got enough.


Because the direct route is not easy, or even possible for most people.

We are human being living in a commercial society. Money is essential for us to survive. And for most people, a modest level of success is essential for happiness.

I think the right approach is to strike for goals which have dual rewards: material and spiritual. Do things you love. If money doesn't come, also do things bringing in money.


Sitting on your ass all day staring at the see is not what everybody wants. Also, the fisherman in the story already has a successful business.


I'm not familiar with the Mexican fisherman story (search didn't return anything).

Was the Mexican fisherman toiling away on a fishing boat so he could become rich so he could have the freedom to spend his days fishing?


This was one reference to the story I'd found: http://bluehaert.wordpress.com/2006/05/02/story-the-business...

Basically, a businessman runs into a fisherman by the beach and is telling him how he should get a boat, a fleet, put in hard work to make a lot of money and then he can retire, take it easy, go fishing for a couple hours each day, etc. Then the fisherman says "Isn't that what I'm doing now?"

Being successful is vague. If your goal is to be happy rather than rich, your requirements are much simpler.


"Basically, a businessman runs into a fisherman by the beach and is telling him how he should get a boat, a fleet, put in hard work to make a lot of money and then he can retire, take it easy, go fishing for a couple hours each day, etc. Then the fisherman says "Isn't that what I'm doing now?"

If the fisherman is already fishing and selling his fish to earn a living..isn't he already in business for himself? If he can save enough for retirement, than I see his point. If not, it's going to be pretty rough for him when he gets to an age when he wants to quit. If he had enough money, he could also move onto something else if he ever got bored of fishing.

Fishing for fun is also different than fishing for a living.

Money doesn't make you happy. It opens many more doors that can lead to happiness.


I think you may be taking this story too literally.

The moral of the story is to pursue happiness over extreme financial success at the expense of happiness.

The story also acts against the deferred life plan. Many people endure things they hate in order to make a lot of money. In most cases, this is probably a bad thing... especially when there are better alternatives.


I believe your search required "jimmy johns" where the story is often on the wall.

http://pitchfevermusicacademy.blogspot.com/2008/06/great-sto...



For people who don't know the story: http://pauldecowski.com/

I put it up on my domain a while ago because I liked it a lot. Maybe it will be useful for once.




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