Brad Feld was the only mentor (out of ~100 we met) during our TechStars Chicago ‘15 program who had sessions with the CEOs of the cohort and told us to take a break each day to call our significant others.
He gave us perspective when all of us were focused on hustling for demo day and raising our seed round. He reminded us that amid the hustle, there’s more to life than your startup. Thank you.
I have five, and they are amazing. Youngest is 9 months.
We have an old car goiong to the scrapyard in a couple of weeks, and today I sat in the passenger seat of it as my 13 yr old grandaughter drove it around one of our fields getting more and more confident as I encouraged her to stop, put it in reverse, and drive in the opposite direction.
From "this is too difficult" to "I want to be a rally driver" in a few dozen gear changes.
Memories like this are some of the luxuries of life. For her, for me, for her parents, and her siblings watching.
Exactly. Amazing. My 6 year old kido started to paddleboard this summer and just today took our tandem kayak out by himself into the bay and handled it well despite the wind and waves.
Would be hard to imagine a better feeling than watching him grow into a capable young dude.
Health is obviously first, you have nothing without it. But real joy is wanting to do something, something that is important to you, and being able to. Without desire there is no joy... just a slow countdown.
Competition perhaps... but CS has not gone away! There is still joy in doing something well and in learning, even if the market will (perhaps for a time) not reward you well for it. Resist Skynet!!
I would put love above health. Suppose you are perfectly healthy and even rich but have no friends to share anything with, life must be meaningless then.
The two are related, bad health makes it difficult to have meaningful relations and lack of meaningful relations fucks up your health. Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day is worse for life expectancy than loneliness.
Usually yes. But people will also sacrifice their health for their loved ones, for example by working hard unhealthy jobs, or for a mission that's larger-than-themselves.
As with many things, it's easier to stay healthy if you are wealthy.
You can buy personal training services, workout gear, a home in traffic-calmed neighborhoods where you aren't jogging or cycling along rural highways, a pool, etc.
You can buy fresh fruit and vegetables instead of highly-processed food. If you're American you can buy imported or certified organic meat instead of the hormone-filled shit on the shelves at grocery stores. You can spend less time working and more time cooking healthy, with no pressure to eat fast food because you're in a rush.
Statistically, yes. And statical health things are the only health things to really worry about (because you can't ever do things to avoid getting cancer, you can only ever do things to decrease your chance of getting cancer).
But then again, the list of things that statistically keeps you healthy while being expensive is actually very short (GLP-1s currently being the most notable item on it).
Supposedly this is going to change in the near to mid future with more wonder drugs incoming. But, for the time being, that's nice!
I mean if I had someone tailoring workouts to me, keeping me motivated to stick with a training regimen, and free time enough to get super fit and look great naked, I'd sure be happier.
I accompanied a family member in an ambulance recently and I had the ambulance rerouted to a private clinic. They needed a €25k payment guarantee but we were able to go into surgery within a day.
Time with my young adult children. They are all out of the house, recently, and there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING more valuable/meaningful to us than when they come home for a visit or we spend time out in the world.
I lived a short time in my 20s with friends a few blocks from my parents. When I returned to live with my parents for a short period the entire dynamic changed. You leave the house so you don't go to your room, you visit. I started talking more and listening to music with them. I really appreciated my parents more. I hope my relationship with my children will be the same.
What do you mean by listening to music with them? Like, sitting around in the living room playing each other's favorite songs? I don't think I've ever done that with my parents, my kids, or anyone really.
Listening to music with my young kids is a favorite. My wife and I also frequently invite other couples over to listen to vinyl and enjoy a cocktail or two.
We like vinyl just because it has the physicality to it but I think anything here is fine. It's the music and the shared experience.
this is nice to know as someone who is the adult child.
i used to argue a lot with my parents when i was still living with them, but ever since i moved out and we only see each other once every few months, our relationship has improved so much, and we're always happy to see each other in smaller doses
Many parents would gasp at this sentence, but the same parents would likely complain to anyone who'd listen about how negatively their children are affecting their lives.
I never enjoyed spending time with my late parents. I only did so out of a sense of obligation. I have no children and have never really given that choice a second thought.
Its interesting that people value their relationship with their children so much and I assume its due to a deep sense of connection with them, they being "flesh and blood" but I've never given that any weight. I feel much more connected to people who have had similar life experiences and ideas to myself, and that could be anyone. I have quite a few relatives who I've never met or met once and do not see because they are nothing like me.
I suspect this is mostly due to being pretty far out on the pointy bits of various bell curves.
I actually have long disagreed with this sentiment -- I know people who don't want and never want kids, and they seem to totally comprehend the kind of love I have for my children. I also remember being a teenager and always kind of understanding the depth of the love my parents had for me (as in knowing "they love me implicitly, and they'd die for me, and they wish me so much happiness", and all the other trappings that I'd use to describe it with my own kids).
Being able to feel that love directly is, of course, a different story that's probably indeed pretty unique.
I think it is more than that though. Parenthood is a long, multi-year process full of hormones, self-reflection, and fundamental changes to your psyche. A non-parent can intellectually understand what happens and why, can emotionally understand or feel that love by swapping out kids with partners, pets, etc. But I believe there is a level of understanding that is just not possible unless you also go through that process. Hard to describe. Closest analog I can think of right now is my perspective on pregnancy vs my wife's.
You have to do the journey as a parent. It's long. It's beyond intense. It's a million small victories. A thousand small tragedies. If you come out the other end with mutual admiration and love, the depth is beyond explanation.
It also depends on the parents and how they nurtured the relationship with the child as they grew up.
I had a a good relationship with mine growing up, and enjoyed visiting, talking and so on as I was an adult.
A good friend had it different. They were not good parents. He, much like you, visit out of obligation and not to get written out of the will quite frankly. If it was up to him he'd never see them again.
One thing that surprised me as a parent is that watching kids grow up provides significant introspective reflection which is nourishing in a different kind of way.
Time seems to be one of the most valuable luxuries. AFAIK it is not entirely clear why time seems to pass faster when one grows older. One argument is that the older brain does not form memories as intricate as in the younger brain.
Has anyone experimented with actively making more complex memories to make time pass slower? Seems like the best approach to living longer, at least in experience.
No direct answer, but I’ve personally noticed that having seasons makes a big difference here. After spending the past year on the East Coast with all of the different seasons, I certainly felt like time was going slower and looking back. It is pretty clear cut in my brain as to how much I did during that time.
That’s in contrast to where I normally live, which is southern California where you basically just go between Summer and Winter Lite which does seem to make the time pass quicker and lead to more routine living. I’ve often speculated with my friends around here about how there is a “Paradise Effect” of living here with both how people live their lives, as well as with how we perceive time.
If you spend a year in prison then the time will pass incredibly slowly, but in retrospect (this is what prisoners usually say) the ordeal will seem quite short. Conversely, if you spend the year furiously partying or traveling or trying new adventure sports then the retrospective memory will be full to the brim, but the year itself will pass in an instant.
It all seems quite logical to me. There's no negotiating with the passage of time.
I've found that traveling and discovering new things make time seem to pass slower because I have a lot of memories of those new places. On the other hand when I'm in a routine and keep doing the same thing everyday, it feels that time passes slower at the moment (because I'm bored) but looking back then time seems to have flown by
Exactly my experience and fits with my idea of how time is perceived in general. Ask a young child what they did this last week and they can likely rattle off a whole bunch of things that they've learned/experienced/discovered for the first time - a lot of 'memory milestones'. Ask your average adult and you'll often just get "same same" - no new 'memory milestones' because the week was pretty much just a repeat of a regular routine.
As for how it feels at the time. There's a lot of truth in the sayings "time flies when you're having fun" and "a watched pot never boils".
The way back always seems shorter that the way there. That's because you've already seen everything on the way there.
Neuroscience says novelty, plus attention, plus later retrieval are what slow down subjective perception of time.
So make sure you are having novel experiences, pay attention while you're having them, and recall them again later.
Even small things like going to a park you don't normally go to, and noticing the foliage and sounds can help. Big things like travel helps as well if you make sure you're taking it in, and it you recall the trip again later.
I’m trying to fight it by journaling more and trying to remember more of the details that make each day special (good or bad). Even the small things. Whether that is something I did with my son, or something I did slightly different for a routine task.
Maybe this is because I'm not a native speaker, but I'm having difficulty parsing this. What breaks? Do you mean time slows down during the retreat, or does the effect persist afterwards?
A clean place to live with minimal clutter opens room for time to enjoy other things. Labor Day and Memorial day are milestones for assessing your hoarding. Or you could just rely on the season change as a reminder.
The ancient Chinese pursuit of the Five Blessings(五福) is, in my opinion, inspiring. These five blessings are: longevity, wealth, health, virtue and a worthy death.
Time, quiet mind, slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days - are all the same thing - escape from being busy. This assumes being busy is common, which is actually not that common for an age of 60+.
The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
Those are dependencies that make you weak. Lack of those means you won't be happy. Luxury is being happy without having any of those.
> The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs.
Fewer. Everyone will always have some dependencies and needs.
Personally, I pity anyone who sees a desire to be loved as a weakness. That’s quite literally a lesson taught as a trope about being a good person vs an evil one.
Being loved is not a weakness. But a strong requirement to be loved is a weakness because that means you don't have strength to be happy without being loved.
Love is extremely common. It is not particularly much of a weakness because there are plenty of people who will love you. Now, finding that person, or those people, depending on exactly what it means, that could be hard. There are also a lot of people who will abuse your need for love, and so you do have to be careful.
This is actually a sad comment. How did you ever come to believe that wanting to feel loved, which is a fundamental desire (if not "need") for the vast majority of human beings, could ever be construed as a weakness resulting from a lack of "strength"?
But your steel-man actually proves my point: people who have insecure attachment commonly develop such an attachment style as a result of their childhood relationships with their caregivers.
It has absolutely nothing to do with being "strong" versus "weak".
Under your steel-man, someone who is anxious-avoidant could appear very independent and therefore "strong" even though they are struggling inside.
How then about monks or priests? I wouldn't clasify them as all of them being sad or having a fundamental need to be loved. Also loved can have different meaning - mostly people think about family and partners. There is also community.
Charitably interpreted, GP is already loved and takes it for granted while arguing about a straw man. Or perhaps GP is specifically talking about someone who has trouble loving themself without a romantic partner.
>Time, quiet mind, slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days - are all the same thing - escape from being busy. This assumes being busy is common, which is actually not that common for an age of 60+.
If there's anything 60+ are starting to not have enough of is time. As you get older time is running out. Not free time - time in general, as in life expectancy.
Regular free time can be elusive too if you're still forced to work, which can be the case until your mid to late 60s, a common pension age globally or if your savings have been wiped out.
"Slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days" too are not just "escape from being busy", but also being away from all kinds of bad situations: war, social turmoil, family drama, spouse dying, and others, that are not just about not being busy with work. Being 60+ might help with being busy (if you're retiring), but not with those.
>The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
That's sort of true, but too much of that can also mean one is just a jaded, burnt out person who doesn't care about anything and has no joy anymore.
Just give me some land outside of the city, where I can’t really see or hear my neighbors, where I have enough space for an enormous garden, lots of native plants for the butterflies and bees, and a giant workshop. Starry skies at night shared with my wife and a dog or two.
And since I have the space, maybe a sauna and cold plunge would be nice. You know, stretch goals.
I did this for a few years but it got lonely. Now I draw energy from being around people, and walking to do things has lowered my blood pressure and weight. Subways and regional trains also allow me to live a larger radius.
Haven't used public transport in a long time. I used it to commute in the past but stopped using it during COVID.
Can't say I miss it. Prefer to just leave when I want, go where I want and stay there as long as I want. All while not enjoying other peoples music and smell or waiting at a platform for ages.
> Prefer to just leave when I want, go where I want and stay there as long as I want.
Which you can do with a good public transport system! You should not have to wait for a subway train for more than 5 minutes. Ideally no more than 1-2.
A subway is only for local trips. And only a very small part of the world has subways. I have never lived in a place with a subway. I did briefly live in Amsterdam but the subway wasn't very useful there.
With private transport I can go anywhere on the continent whenever I want.
Edit: reply to flexagoon since I am rate limited:
Going around Europe on trains is a total pain. There is a reason almost nobody does that and use airplanes instead.
Perhaps they can make the comfort of trains comparable with airplanes, so more people use it.
I'm OK with allocating tax money for better public transport but I just don't see myself using it.
Of course, I don't think anyone in this thread is advocating for banning private transport and only keeping public transit for everything. But most of the trips people take are local, and a good public transport system makes that much better for everyone (including the car drivers).
You can also go around the continent on trains. We should have more high speed rail.
Private transport is of course still hugely useful for many cases, but there are also many cases where it could easily be replaced for many people by a good transit system. And I'm not just talking about the US, which people usually give as an example of bad transit. EU's railway network should be much better.
With good enough public transit, you can do all that. When I lived in Seattle, I did not bother looking at the bus schedule before leaving, because usually I was waiting less than 10 minutes.
Must be nice, I have not encountered such public transport in the places I lived in Europe.
It's 0:45 currently. I want to grab an ice cream at McDonalds. Next bus leaves at 1:25. It takes the bus 20 minutes to get there and then it is a 5 minute walk. It is also a 10 minute walk to the bus station in my neighborhood. And since it's past 22:00 there are probably a bunch of crazies on the bus. Also a high chance of puke and trash in the bus.
Why would I do that if I can grab my bike and it is only a 10 minute ride.
I have to regularly travel to rural villages in Asia and the people that live in these places have only the most basic human desires. They barely know what an LLM is let alone interact with them. They're some of the happiest people I've ever met.
Of course they'll complain about work or money, and they assume that a Western salary buys me freedom. But they get to live through these luxuries on a daily basis. I'd be lucky to enjoy just one of these in any given week.
I saw a video of a guy in his 50s living in a small city in Vietnam. He claimed $800/mo was more than enough, and $1000/mo would let him live lavishly. He just did the math and as soon as his predicted months of life left * 1000 < savings he pulled the trigger.
I think about that a lot because I have already hit that number easily, my family would definitely suffer though and not be into it.
There is a reason that South East Asia is popular for digital nomads and for retired expats. Thailand and Vietnam have still very affordable places if you avoid tourist traps. I would recommend first trying some easier destination like chiang mai or danang (if first time in asia), staying for 2 months (vacation/workation) and seeing if you still like it.
But is that true though? This seems bit of a romanticism. Having lived in rural villages in Asia, I can tell you people are about as happy as anywhere else. They worry about not being able to afford or have access to basic healthcare. They worry about one off season rain destroying their livelihoods for the season. Depending on where you are, some worry about a sudden onset of escalating violence. Plenty of people don’t even have access to drinking water. Some worry about their land and only source of income taken away by larger interests.
Beautifully put, and definitely resonated with me as someone who entered mostly-contentedly-frugal retirement a few years back.
One thing you didn't mention is the need to feel useful in some way; would you consider that a weakness too? Is it covered by "rest without guilt"? It's the bit I still have some trouble with.
Not OP, but there's a nuance. In general there's nothing wrong with wanting to be useful, but it is definitely possible to take it too far.
If you get sick and need care, you are typically not "useful". But that doesn't mean you instantly lose all value. I've had colleagues who would feel almost physically ill if they were somehow not able to respond to an incident somewhere, even if they weren't even on call at that point. Almost all of them burned out at some point and were no longer able to respond to anything, even if they'd wanted to. That's not healthy, and it weakens everyone in the long run.
Resting without guilt comes from the realization that you cannot keep the world running all by yourself. Let others pick up the work when you need a rest, so you can shelter them when they are down.
That is quite opposite of weakness. Your entire life is exercising power of your mind. What is left if you take it away? Do the thing you love and you will find your happiness.
I agree with the gist what you're saying, like ditching the ego, the status chasing, etc. But dragging stuff like staying connected, being knowledgable, enjoying good food, and travel is where this goes a bit too far. A rock has zero dependencies, but nobody wants to be a rock.
> The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
This echoes with my (limited) understanding of Buddhism.
You can decide not to do any of these things. In fact, not wanting _anything_ is 100% within your control. It's literally what the stoics built the entirety of their philosophy on: aversion to pain and pleasure and redirection to moral choice
Age has nothing to do with it. Those were your life style choices and they now impact you for the rest of your life. You could well have done the opposite and thrown all your earnings into the SP500, rented for cheap near your parents, traveled the world, and have no partner and/or multiple partners
As someone in my 30s I'm not sure I need the things on your list. Can't escape the aging of my parents but I'm lucky they will be able to financially support themselves through retirement. If I do add complications to my life I'll be careful to do my best ensuring it's a net benefit to my stability and peace.
yeah some people are very orthodox and think having a partner, kids, pets, mortgage is a must. The easiest exceptions is being a monk or priest and they are fine and society accept it.
I agree with some of what you listed here but a few I think are critical to being human. What's the point of not having needs?
Desires are what makes us human. I have kids and family and friends that love me and them in return but I don't believe that makes me weak. In fact it is the opposite, they give me the strength, confidence, and motivation to power through life.
I supoose not having any needs and desires would be an asset for a hitman.
Desires are OK as long as they don't make you unhappy when you can't have them. But that's not usually the case, which means they became crutches, making your happiness to depend on achieving them.
As an example, there are places where people don't see electricity as an absolute necessity. Hours of outages everyday go mostly unnoticed. That's lack of strong dependency.
We need purpose, as a species; after all we left the caves for a better life. Desires make us human, the pursuit keep us busy and entertained.
There is no passion without wanting, and without passion what is the reason for living?
I know a couple, retired, who are constantly traveling to Europe and Japan. When they’re not traveling, they spend all their time reading or visiting with their kids and grandkids.
I often want to tell them: You fools! You’ll never find happiness if all you do is give in to these weaknesses!
It's also true that if you raise you expectations enough then you will never be able to hit them.
Keep in mind that it's not always a case of "shoot for the stars but hit the moon if you miss", sometimes it's "shoot for the stars and suffer crippling burnout for 20 years, after which it's too late to recover to anything meaningful".
Being realistic, for all it's boringness, does have advantages.
All luxuries indeed. Are they enough, though? Particularly, don't many books talk about how important it is to have productive hobbies or output-oriented hobbies? The underlying thesis is that one would quickly get bored and start seeking the meaning of life if he does not output something consistently. I was wondering if being able to find such hobby and being able to afford it is also a luxury.
because having money isn't the ultimate goal imho. it's what money enables - like a slow morning, a quiet mind, and good health. If money can't provide those or similar things, it loses its value more or less
Money can be a goal, but that's only because you're keeping score with it. If your life doesn't result around the top score in something, money will never be anything but an enabler. Of course, if you're a rich person and trying to keep score, you can also keep your score where's something other than money. If you like art, then having a Van Gogh original is going to be worth more than a money, and so the specific unique art you have can be how you keep score.
Don't read the above as if all rich people are trying to keep score in some way. A large majority of them are just trying to live their life. Even when it appears they're keeping score you typically discover they like the art and that's why they have it. they couldn't care less if you have more or less than them. They might be jealous if you own the particular original that they're looking for but they're not keeping score against you with it.
Which is good for me and probably the vast majority of those reading this because we have the ability to earn decent amount of money as an engineer and with some investment we can have a nice life and retirement but we will never be anywhere near the top of any attempt to keep score.
Slow mornings and rest without guilt are very apt and specific but time and health are just general wishes.
I would add work with meaning and flow.
Also life with few... snags, all the issues that are small but extremely bothersome (knocking sound in a car, that one window that doesn't close fully, etc).
I can't do boring. I've had bouts of time with really not much to do (pre-kids) and it really starts to pick at my brain as to what am I really doing with my life.
The school year, across the US used to be labor day to Memorial Day. No longer the case. My step daughter’s former district started at the beginning of August, her freshman year of college last weekend.
At least here in the states, districts because they pay teachers shit, are getting pushback to add required meetings and learning on the end of the day. Instead there are “short days” for the kids.
It’s no longer an issue for me, but seriously annoying how little k-12 are actually in school these days.
I am 60 too and I'd add to that list 'Doing the things you like'
I love letting my mind 'play' with the computer, not work, play
And I love pickleball, going to the gym, and watching movies with my wife. My life has become really simple and I enjoy it the most. Yeah, peace of mind is at the top of the list at this age
Sounds a lot like my life. Agree with all of this. People were flabbergasted when I told them I was retiring “you’ll be so bored!” “What will you DO with all that time?”. I’m busier now than I was while I was working because I can actually commit to regular workouts/sports/projects instead of only being able to claw a few minutes here and there between work and family. Life is infinitely better. Once you gain control of your time, most of your stress melts away.
As others have said in-thread and elsewhere: work to live, don't live for work. Yes, be professional and exceed expectations from time to time, but your in-basket will be full when you exit. Take time as the years progress to do "other things", as the physical abilities or people involved might not be there "later".
As other comments already stated and have stated, money should never be the goal, it's the middle. Having money allows you to not worry about some of those topics, or having more time for them. If you don't have more it means you must worry about that. Having money means you don't: you don't have to worry about rent, health insurance, paying for experiences, food, etc. It's true, you don't need that much money, but still.
I don't know, self-reported happiness seems like an awfully unreliable metric. For one, I've noticed that projecting unhappiness is much more of a faux pas in rich circles. On its own this could account for much of this relationship.
Past being a millionaire or so, making money is a clicker game. It's something you do just for the fun of seeing number go up. And just like a clicker game, past a certain point you're no longer making the money through your own efforts, but by acquiring assets that can make the money for you (like buying the grandmas that bake cookies for you, etc.), so the game becomes determining the right mix of assets that let you acquire more, that you can then plow into more assets for even bigger growth.
The super rich aren't making more money because they think more money will buy them correspondingly more happiness. It's a game to them played at massive real-world scales.
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, is on the record saying he is 'not often happy.' Somehow I doubt he'd give up half his wealth to double his happiness, though that's just a guess based on his other obvious character flaws ;)
Well, considering the SpaceX IPO, I think that him giving up the majority of his wealth early on to make SpaceX employees hilariously rich worked out well for them
My favorite book about this is "The Happiness Trap," because it makes the simple point that we didn't evolve to be happy all of the time. It makes a really good case for learning to live with the range of emotions and suggests ways of creating a contented/good/whatever life with what you've got.
One through eight read as the list of sacrifices you make in having children. But the experiences of loving and being loved back seem at least incomplete without that.
Well yea, it's the luxury that underpins most of the other ones on this list. The real luxury is not having to worry about money so you can focus on things like this. A luxury that is increasingly out of reach..
I humbly disagree a bit. Most items on that list do not have to cost a lot of money (besides a washing machine and a dishwasher) and some of them cannot be bought. It is also a mindset. I adore slow weekends.
I agree, for at least some listed, though many people blow past the amount of money actually needed. Money starts as a proxy measure for attaining these things, but it eventually replaces them as the goal, per Goodhart's law.
Happy is tall order, but there is a uniquely American sense of impending doom that is always hanging over your shoulder that doesn’t exist in most other countries.
I know a few retired men who labored hard, neglected relationships and health, and conditioned themselves to the point where a quiet mind and a slow morning would take a lot of work. I don’t think retirement means that you get the things on the list for free. You have to work for a long time to get those things.
I disagree with this list. I understand it but it's not my list.
We have three little kids right, so "time" and "quiet mind" are not on the menu, and "health" is diminished since it's hard to find time to exercise.
And yet, we are very lucky to be crunched in this way. I would rather be tired and busy with the kids than relaxed without.
Maybe the word luxuries is right actually. This list isn't the "goals" or "essence" of life. It's the nice-to-have luxuries you can try to get after the basics are taken care of.
time... oh time is something I long for and hunger for
I am only 18 yet I feel like time moves so fast and I don't get to enjoy life day to day in a world where everything seems so fast i just want to slow day and enjoy time but yet again time is the one element in this universe that no one has control over... never the less beautifully put!
This is very true. These kinds of lists tend to be reactive to the author's environment and current state of mind. Work is not the enemy. A lack of autonomy ruins motivation.
Ask someone younger and their top ten is completely different. Too many will dismiss that as naivete while not recognizing their own ignorance.
I get the theme of this post. I also get the theme of DHH and Hashimoto talking about how exciting LLMs are and how much they are getting done.
I've also spent the last 10 years of my life feeding my family with my tech skills which are primarily coding, debugging and improving observability and monitoring tools and processes.
This leads to mixed feelings of both:
- this is the most exciting time to be alive and I'm building a gas town
- this is the end of my career as I know it and I better pivot hard and fast
In other words, been a bit of an interesting last six months.
Right. What these luminaries mean is being driven to the airport and the flying business class (or on a pj) to your next totally frivolous destination.
Would you mind sharing an example of "Working on something meaningful that pushes at the edge of my self actualization"? In my experience, work, even when meaningful, is quite separate from self actualization. I'm interested to hear how you're combining them.
I am approaching 40 and in two weeks I will begin clowning lessons with a Cirque du Soleil clown. I am thrilled.
So why clown as a discipline? Something deeply misunderstood and that probably lowers my social status with people who don’t understand it? Something with zero career utility? Because to me it represents extreme vulnerability.
I’m a pretty dignified person. A lot of poise. Goofy, but restrained. If I can debase myself in front of an audience in order to win a laugh then I believe I can do anything.
If I can (figuratively) hang my ass out for all to see then I can move with confidence. If I can blow past my natural inclination to save face, or have the answers. If I can discard the emotional hangups that make me feel embarrassed then I can be the person who I (and I suspect a great number of us) want to be deep down.
I want to (constructively) tear down everything inside of me that restrains me and discover who I can really be.
Ah, thanks for chiming in with your inspiring anecdote. I realize that perhaps I interpreted "working on" as pertaining to career work, rather than just investment of effort.
Your example of clowning shows something that requires real work and, as you laid out, hopefully does wonders to improving confidence, humility, humor, and charm. I wish you the best with that! And happy early birthday. :)
I took an acting class in college and found it remarkably challenging, but valuable, to tear down those emotional restraints. I should get back into it, it’s a skill that needs to be regularly practiced. I wish you luck and I hope it’s a valuable experience for you!
> In my experience, work, even when meaningful, is quite separate from self actualization.
I guess it depends on your temperament - I am very very high in industriousness and moderately high in curiosity, but the industriousness overrides the fragmentation of attention that normally comes with high curiosity individuals.
2 years ago my hobby project turned into a company, and now I run that, so for me I can find self actualisation through work, but I imagine if I was a different temperment, where work didn't overlap so much, it would be harder for that type of person.
I would replace freedom to travel with contentment / joy at home. I love my home , neighborhood and town. I used to die to travel because home had so much chaos. Now my home is beautiful , peaceful and safe so I get homesick when I travel.
That is why it is not a "List of things you can have tomorrow" but a "Luxury list".
When you have time, health and no stress - that is the luxury OP is talking about.
You don't even need to make more money if you have all those things. If you know your health is insured and you are healthy, you have a decent place where you can feel safe and sleep until late mornings and you do not have to worry about how much food costs - you basically live like a king.
These are rhetorical tricks. Mate I see what you mean, but honestly, the article was just the usual useless old man's talk. I'm glad he is posting on the internet, but it was a useless post.
Jobs will be a luxury soon, if they aren't already. Sure, dead-end jobs aren't a luxury, but they're basically life support - or rather to say existence support.
I live in a country with single-payer healthcare, which some Americans dream so much. If I don't have a job, I'm pretty much screwed - I won't have health insurance. I'm glad I'm healthy, not stupid and not lazy, but single-payer doesn't help that much with life luxuries as you think. To have a place to sleep and not have to worry you need a job - and unless you inherited that place you'll have to work hard for years without the luxuries the old chap talks about anyway. Those are just old man's useless ramblings. I'm sorry, but they are.
Brad Feld was the only mentor (out of ~100 we met) during our TechStars Chicago ‘15 program who had sessions with the CEOs of the cohort and told us to take a break each day to call our significant others.
He gave us perspective when all of us were focused on hustling for demo day and raising our seed round. He reminded us that amid the hustle, there’s more to life than your startup. Thank you.
Grandchildren.
I have five, and they are amazing. Youngest is 9 months.
We have an old car goiong to the scrapyard in a couple of weeks, and today I sat in the passenger seat of it as my 13 yr old grandaughter drove it around one of our fields getting more and more confident as I encouraged her to stop, put it in reverse, and drive in the opposite direction.
From "this is too difficult" to "I want to be a rally driver" in a few dozen gear changes.
Memories like this are some of the luxuries of life. For her, for me, for her parents, and her siblings watching.
This is going to be a core memory that she will hold on to forever
Exactly. Amazing. My 6 year old kido started to paddleboard this summer and just today took our tandem kayak out by himself into the bay and handled it well despite the wind and waves.
Would be hard to imagine a better feeling than watching him grow into a capable young dude.
Health is obviously first, you have nothing without it. But real joy is wanting to do something, something that is important to you, and being able to. Without desire there is no joy... just a slow countdown.
Kinda depressing cus that thing used to be coding (or mastery of), which seems to be dying/being replaced by gen ai.
you can still do it, but it may not be your ticket into a secure (upper?)middle class existence like it used to be.
Competition perhaps... but CS has not gone away! There is still joy in doing something well and in learning, even if the market will (perhaps for a time) not reward you well for it. Resist Skynet!!
Allow me to join your team.
I want and try to do stuff which is important to me and I know there will be problems along the way.
And there is joy in solving problems!!
Health determines the quality and quantity of time, so put that at the top above all else.
I would put love above health. Suppose you are perfectly healthy and even rich but have no friends to share anything with, life must be meaningless then.
The two are related, bad health makes it difficult to have meaningful relations and lack of meaningful relations fucks up your health. Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day is worse for life expectancy than loneliness.
Usually yes. But people will also sacrifice their health for their loved ones, for example by working hard unhealthy jobs, or for a mission that's larger-than-themselves.
As with many things, it's easier to stay healthy if you are wealthy.
You can buy personal training services, workout gear, a home in traffic-calmed neighborhoods where you aren't jogging or cycling along rural highways, a pool, etc.
You can buy fresh fruit and vegetables instead of highly-processed food. If you're American you can buy imported or certified organic meat instead of the hormone-filled shit on the shelves at grocery stores. You can spend less time working and more time cooking healthy, with no pressure to eat fast food because you're in a rush.
Money really does buy happiness.
Statistically, yes. And statical health things are the only health things to really worry about (because you can't ever do things to avoid getting cancer, you can only ever do things to decrease your chance of getting cancer).
But then again, the list of things that statistically keeps you healthy while being expensive is actually very short (GLP-1s currently being the most notable item on it).
Supposedly this is going to change in the near to mid future with more wonder drugs incoming. But, for the time being, that's nice!
Personal training services? Workout gear? Not sure you should have lead with that, these are expensive things with minimal impact.
If you are wealthy, it does not matter if they are expensive. If they have any impact, why not?
Sure, why not, it’s just not selling the idea that money buys happiness…
I mean if I had someone tailoring workouts to me, keeping me motivated to stick with a training regimen, and free time enough to get super fit and look great naked, I'd sure be happier.
Both have quite a lot of impact if you're wealthy because they're combined with resources and time to do them.
If you're not wealthy you can do them, but you have to sacrifice other things, and some of those you wont be able to afford.
Those services aid will power instead of health directly.
A graceful pivot. Almost no tire noise.
?
And better healthcare.
I accompanied a family member in an ambulance recently and I had the ambulance rerouted to a private clinic. They needed a €25k payment guarantee but we were able to go into surgery within a day.
Time with my young adult children. They are all out of the house, recently, and there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING more valuable/meaningful to us than when they come home for a visit or we spend time out in the world.
It's incredible.
I lived a short time in my 20s with friends a few blocks from my parents. When I returned to live with my parents for a short period the entire dynamic changed. You leave the house so you don't go to your room, you visit. I started talking more and listening to music with them. I really appreciated my parents more. I hope my relationship with my children will be the same.
What do you mean by listening to music with them? Like, sitting around in the living room playing each other's favorite songs? I don't think I've ever done that with my parents, my kids, or anyone really.
Many such mutual activities are being lost. But I can't believe permanently.
I guess most people don't sit and listen to something nowadays. I rarely do it.
But to just play your favorite songs to your family? You surely have woken up to a song you remembered or have been listening and played it out loud?
If you haven't, do it! Your family will love to see you sing, dance, react to it!
I currently do that with my kids (Older teens almost to college) pretty regularly
Sitting and listening to an album with someone is a very nice experience.
You learn from each other in unexpected ways.
Listening to music with my young kids is a favorite. My wife and I also frequently invite other couples over to listen to vinyl and enjoy a cocktail or two.
We like vinyl just because it has the physicality to it but I think anything here is fine. It's the music and the shared experience.
this is nice to know as someone who is the adult child.
i used to argue a lot with my parents when i was still living with them, but ever since i moved out and we only see each other once every few months, our relationship has improved so much, and we're always happy to see each other in smaller doses
So true..had my parents over for Christmas one year and they stayed for 4 days. 3 would have been perfect.
It's because we're no longer a burden.
Many parents would gasp at this sentence, but the same parents would likely complain to anyone who'd listen about how negatively their children are affecting their lives.
It's also the other way around - when the parent is no longer in charge of you, you can coexist as peers more easily.
Thank you for this reminder. This is probably only a short few years away for me.
I never enjoyed spending time with my late parents. I only did so out of a sense of obligation. I have no children and have never really given that choice a second thought.
Its interesting that people value their relationship with their children so much and I assume its due to a deep sense of connection with them, they being "flesh and blood" but I've never given that any weight. I feel much more connected to people who have had similar life experiences and ideas to myself, and that could be anyone. I have quite a few relatives who I've never met or met once and do not see because they are nothing like me.
I suspect this is mostly due to being pretty far out on the pointy bits of various bell curves.
It’s actually incomprehensible as a non parent. Your entire psychology re-orients after kids.
I actually have long disagreed with this sentiment -- I know people who don't want and never want kids, and they seem to totally comprehend the kind of love I have for my children. I also remember being a teenager and always kind of understanding the depth of the love my parents had for me (as in knowing "they love me implicitly, and they'd die for me, and they wish me so much happiness", and all the other trappings that I'd use to describe it with my own kids).
Being able to feel that love directly is, of course, a different story that's probably indeed pretty unique.
I think it is more than that though. Parenthood is a long, multi-year process full of hormones, self-reflection, and fundamental changes to your psyche. A non-parent can intellectually understand what happens and why, can emotionally understand or feel that love by swapping out kids with partners, pets, etc. But I believe there is a level of understanding that is just not possible unless you also go through that process. Hard to describe. Closest analog I can think of right now is my perspective on pregnancy vs my wife's.
You have to do the journey as a parent. It's long. It's beyond intense. It's a million small victories. A thousand small tragedies. If you come out the other end with mutual admiration and love, the depth is beyond explanation.
I don’t think we disagree at all. The feeling is very different from the intellectual understanding of it.
> I suspect this is mostly due to being pretty far out on the pointy bits of various bell curves.
this is the most cringe, pick me, "look how I'm not like the other girls" thing I've ever read on this forum
Do you want people here to try to convince you to have kids?
It also depends on the parents and how they nurtured the relationship with the child as they grew up.
I had a a good relationship with mine growing up, and enjoyed visiting, talking and so on as I was an adult.
A good friend had it different. They were not good parents. He, much like you, visit out of obligation and not to get written out of the will quite frankly. If it was up to him he'd never see them again.
One thing that surprised me as a parent is that watching kids grow up provides significant introspective reflection which is nourishing in a different kind of way.
Time seems to be one of the most valuable luxuries. AFAIK it is not entirely clear why time seems to pass faster when one grows older. One argument is that the older brain does not form memories as intricate as in the younger brain.
Has anyone experimented with actively making more complex memories to make time pass slower? Seems like the best approach to living longer, at least in experience.
No direct answer, but I’ve personally noticed that having seasons makes a big difference here. After spending the past year on the East Coast with all of the different seasons, I certainly felt like time was going slower and looking back. It is pretty clear cut in my brain as to how much I did during that time.
That’s in contrast to where I normally live, which is southern California where you basically just go between Summer and Winter Lite which does seem to make the time pass quicker and lead to more routine living. I’ve often speculated with my friends around here about how there is a “Paradise Effect” of living here with both how people live their lives, as well as with how we perceive time.
If you spend a year in prison then the time will pass incredibly slowly, but in retrospect (this is what prisoners usually say) the ordeal will seem quite short. Conversely, if you spend the year furiously partying or traveling or trying new adventure sports then the retrospective memory will be full to the brim, but the year itself will pass in an instant.
It all seems quite logical to me. There's no negotiating with the passage of time.
I worked in a mattress factory for a while, doing the same repetitive task day in and out.
I remember feeling like the days passed painfully slowly, but the years flew by.
I've found that traveling and discovering new things make time seem to pass slower because I have a lot of memories of those new places. On the other hand when I'm in a routine and keep doing the same thing everyday, it feels that time passes slower at the moment (because I'm bored) but looking back then time seems to have flown by
Exactly my experience and fits with my idea of how time is perceived in general. Ask a young child what they did this last week and they can likely rattle off a whole bunch of things that they've learned/experienced/discovered for the first time - a lot of 'memory milestones'. Ask your average adult and you'll often just get "same same" - no new 'memory milestones' because the week was pretty much just a repeat of a regular routine.
As for how it feels at the time. There's a lot of truth in the sayings "time flies when you're having fun" and "a watched pot never boils".
It's a paradox.
The way back always seems shorter that the way there. That's because you've already seen everything on the way there.
Neuroscience says novelty, plus attention, plus later retrieval are what slow down subjective perception of time.
So make sure you are having novel experiences, pay attention while you're having them, and recall them again later.
Even small things like going to a park you don't normally go to, and noticing the foliage and sounds can help. Big things like travel helps as well if you make sure you're taking it in, and it you recall the trip again later.
I’m trying to fight it by journaling more and trying to remember more of the details that make each day special (good or bad). Even the small things. Whether that is something I did with my son, or something I did slightly different for a routine task.
Does it work? Journaling is a major commitment, I hope it pays for itself.
Because time is relative —— year for a 50 y/o is 1/50th of their life; a year for a 5 y/o is 1/5th of their life.
Go on a ten day meditation retreat.
Time will hit the breaks, hard.
Maybe this is because I'm not a native speaker, but I'm having difficulty parsing this. What breaks? Do you mean time slows down during the retreat, or does the effect persist afterwards?
I think they meant "brakes" but not completely sure.
Yes, I meant slow down.
With effort, the effect can persist. But you have to be willing to make changes.
A clean place to live with minimal clutter opens room for time to enjoy other things. Labor Day and Memorial day are milestones for assessing your hoarding. Or you could just rely on the season change as a reminder.
The ancient Chinese pursuit of the Five Blessings(五福) is, in my opinion, inspiring. These five blessings are: longevity, wealth, health, virtue and a worthy death.
Time, quiet mind, slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days - are all the same thing - escape from being busy. This assumes being busy is common, which is actually not that common for an age of 60+.
The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
Those are dependencies that make you weak. Lack of those means you won't be happy. Luxury is being happy without having any of those.
> The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs.
Fewer. Everyone will always have some dependencies and needs.
Personally, I pity anyone who sees a desire to be loved as a weakness. That’s quite literally a lesson taught as a trope about being a good person vs an evil one.
Being loved is not a weakness. But a strong requirement to be loved is a weakness because that means you don't have strength to be happy without being loved.
And that perspective presumes that being loved isn’t a fundamental human need.
Eating is not a weakness. But a strong requirement to eat is a weakness because you don't have the strength to be happy without eating.
I would actually argue that eating is a weakness, that every single human (and animals in general) just happen to share.
At some level you are defined by your weaknesses enough that they can't really be called weaknesses.
Definitely, but it would be silly to say not needing to eat is a luxury. Not starving, perhaps.
Isn't that true? Not being able to live without eating is, in fact, a weakness, just a very common one.
Love is extremely common. It is not particularly much of a weakness because there are plenty of people who will love you. Now, finding that person, or those people, depending on exactly what it means, that could be hard. There are also a lot of people who will abuse your need for love, and so you do have to be careful.
This is actually a sad comment. How did you ever come to believe that wanting to feel loved, which is a fundamental desire (if not "need") for the vast majority of human beings, could ever be construed as a weakness resulting from a lack of "strength"?
To steel-man their argument, I think what they are trying to describe is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxious-preoccupied_attachment vs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_attachment
But your steel-man actually proves my point: people who have insecure attachment commonly develop such an attachment style as a result of their childhood relationships with their caregivers.
It has absolutely nothing to do with being "strong" versus "weak".
Under your steel-man, someone who is anxious-avoidant could appear very independent and therefore "strong" even though they are struggling inside.
How then about monks or priests? I wouldn't clasify them as all of them being sad or having a fundamental need to be loved. Also loved can have different meaning - mostly people think about family and partners. There is also community.
Charitably interpreted, GP is already loved and takes it for granted while arguing about a straw man. Or perhaps GP is specifically talking about someone who has trouble loving themself without a romantic partner.
A rock feels no pain.
And an island never cries.
A rock never feels anything. That's the price, and it's a very steep one.
>Time, quiet mind, slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days - are all the same thing - escape from being busy. This assumes being busy is common, which is actually not that common for an age of 60+.
If there's anything 60+ are starting to not have enough of is time. As you get older time is running out. Not free time - time in general, as in life expectancy.
Regular free time can be elusive too if you're still forced to work, which can be the case until your mid to late 60s, a common pension age globally or if your savings have been wiped out.
"Slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days" too are not just "escape from being busy", but also being away from all kinds of bad situations: war, social turmoil, family drama, spouse dying, and others, that are not just about not being busy with work. Being 60+ might help with being busy (if you're retiring), but not with those.
>The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
That's sort of true, but too much of that can also mean one is just a jaded, burnt out person who doesn't care about anything and has no joy anymore.
Just give me a place with safe dense public transportation, walkable places to eat, and nature to relax.
Just give me some land outside of the city, where I can’t really see or hear my neighbors, where I have enough space for an enormous garden, lots of native plants for the butterflies and bees, and a giant workshop. Starry skies at night shared with my wife and a dog or two.
And since I have the space, maybe a sauna and cold plunge would be nice. You know, stretch goals.
I did this for a few years but it got lonely. Now I draw energy from being around people, and walking to do things has lowered my blood pressure and weight. Subways and regional trains also allow me to live a larger radius.
Haven't used public transport in a long time. I used it to commute in the past but stopped using it during COVID.
Can't say I miss it. Prefer to just leave when I want, go where I want and stay there as long as I want. All while not enjoying other peoples music and smell or waiting at a platform for ages.
> Prefer to just leave when I want, go where I want and stay there as long as I want.
Which you can do with a good public transport system! You should not have to wait for a subway train for more than 5 minutes. Ideally no more than 1-2.
A subway is only for local trips. And only a very small part of the world has subways. I have never lived in a place with a subway. I did briefly live in Amsterdam but the subway wasn't very useful there.
With private transport I can go anywhere on the continent whenever I want.
Edit: reply to flexagoon since I am rate limited:
Going around Europe on trains is a total pain. There is a reason almost nobody does that and use airplanes instead.
Perhaps they can make the comfort of trains comparable with airplanes, so more people use it.
I'm OK with allocating tax money for better public transport but I just don't see myself using it.
Of course, I don't think anyone in this thread is advocating for banning private transport and only keeping public transit for everything. But most of the trips people take are local, and a good public transport system makes that much better for everyone (including the car drivers).
You can also go around the continent on trains. We should have more high speed rail.
Private transport is of course still hugely useful for many cases, but there are also many cases where it could easily be replaced for many people by a good transit system. And I'm not just talking about the US, which people usually give as an example of bad transit. EU's railway network should be much better.
With good enough public transit, you can do all that. When I lived in Seattle, I did not bother looking at the bus schedule before leaving, because usually I was waiting less than 10 minutes.
Must be nice, I have not encountered such public transport in the places I lived in Europe.
It's 0:45 currently. I want to grab an ice cream at McDonalds. Next bus leaves at 1:25. It takes the bus 20 minutes to get there and then it is a 5 minute walk. It is also a 10 minute walk to the bus station in my neighborhood. And since it's past 22:00 there are probably a bunch of crazies on the bus. Also a high chance of puke and trash in the bus.
Why would I do that if I can grab my bike and it is only a 10 minute ride.
You probably wouldn't, just like you wouldn't drive your car to visit your next door neighbor.
I wouldn't use public transport to visit my next door neighbor.
Ok boomer
Millennial actually.
I have to regularly travel to rural villages in Asia and the people that live in these places have only the most basic human desires. They barely know what an LLM is let alone interact with them. They're some of the happiest people I've ever met.
Of course they'll complain about work or money, and they assume that a Western salary buys me freedom. But they get to live through these luxuries on a daily basis. I'd be lucky to enjoy just one of these in any given week.
Not to be glib, but I assume you're not quitting your Western job and moving there. So isn't this romanticizing it?
I have my own family dependencies that aren't too keen on the idea of living the village life. Otherwise I'd already be there.
I saw a video of a guy in his 50s living in a small city in Vietnam. He claimed $800/mo was more than enough, and $1000/mo would let him live lavishly. He just did the math and as soon as his predicted months of life left * 1000 < savings he pulled the trigger.
I think about that a lot because I have already hit that number easily, my family would definitely suffer though and not be into it.
There is a reason that South East Asia is popular for digital nomads and for retired expats. Thailand and Vietnam have still very affordable places if you avoid tourist traps. I would recommend first trying some easier destination like chiang mai or danang (if first time in asia), staying for 2 months (vacation/workation) and seeing if you still like it.
It’s not that easy to emigrate afaik, even ignoring family and obligations like that.
for real happiness it would be the most important thing if not romanticizing.
Yeah as someone whose family left this, you guys are crazy
But is that true though? This seems bit of a romanticism. Having lived in rural villages in Asia, I can tell you people are about as happy as anywhere else. They worry about not being able to afford or have access to basic healthcare. They worry about one off season rain destroying their livelihoods for the season. Depending on where you are, some worry about a sudden onset of escalating violence. Plenty of people don’t even have access to drinking water. Some worry about their land and only source of income taken away by larger interests.
Desires only tend to magnify in intensity and multiply in numbers because there is rarely enough.
Working on desire is a big thing.
Beautifully put, and definitely resonated with me as someone who entered mostly-contentedly-frugal retirement a few years back.
One thing you didn't mention is the need to feel useful in some way; would you consider that a weakness too? Is it covered by "rest without guilt"? It's the bit I still have some trouble with.
Not OP, but there's a nuance. In general there's nothing wrong with wanting to be useful, but it is definitely possible to take it too far.
If you get sick and need care, you are typically not "useful". But that doesn't mean you instantly lose all value. I've had colleagues who would feel almost physically ill if they were somehow not able to respond to an incident somewhere, even if they weren't even on call at that point. Almost all of them burned out at some point and were no longer able to respond to anything, even if they'd wanted to. That's not healthy, and it weakens everyone in the long run.
Resting without guilt comes from the realization that you cannot keep the world running all by yourself. Let others pick up the work when you need a rest, so you can shelter them when they are down.
That is quite opposite of weakness. Your entire life is exercising power of your mind. What is left if you take it away? Do the thing you love and you will find your happiness.
Even just asking that question implies self-judgment and a need to “do the right thing”. Perhaps just be, and that is enough.
> Perhaps just be, and that is enough.
Don't be evil tho
I agree with the gist what you're saying, like ditching the ego, the status chasing, etc. But dragging stuff like staying connected, being knowledgable, enjoying good food, and travel is where this goes a bit too far. A rock has zero dependencies, but nobody wants to be a rock.
This! I want new art, books, music. Yes, I want them. And I want delicious coffee. That's one of the reasons this life is worth living!
> The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
This echoes with my (limited) understanding of Buddhism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths#The_Four_Tru...
You can decide not to do any of these things. In fact, not wanting _anything_ is 100% within your control. It's literally what the stoics built the entirety of their philosophy on: aversion to pain and pleasure and redirection to moral choice
That is a nice list for someone in their 20s with no responsibilities.
Once you get a partner, kids, elderly parents, pets, mortgage, etc. you won't be worrying about your needs anymore trust me.
Age has nothing to do with it. Those were your life style choices and they now impact you for the rest of your life. You could well have done the opposite and thrown all your earnings into the SP500, rented for cheap near your parents, traveled the world, and have no partner and/or multiple partners
As someone in my 30s I'm not sure I need the things on your list. Can't escape the aging of my parents but I'm lucky they will be able to financially support themselves through retirement. If I do add complications to my life I'll be careful to do my best ensuring it's a net benefit to my stability and peace.
yeah some people are very orthodox and think having a partner, kids, pets, mortgage is a must. The easiest exceptions is being a monk or priest and they are fine and society accept it.
I agree with some of what you listed here but a few I think are critical to being human. What's the point of not having needs?
Desires are what makes us human. I have kids and family and friends that love me and them in return but I don't believe that makes me weak. In fact it is the opposite, they give me the strength, confidence, and motivation to power through life.
I supoose not having any needs and desires would be an asset for a hitman.
Desires are OK as long as they don't make you unhappy when you can't have them. But that's not usually the case, which means they became crutches, making your happiness to depend on achieving them.
As an example, there are places where people don't see electricity as an absolute necessity. Hours of outages everyday go mostly unnoticed. That's lack of strong dependency.
We need purpose, as a species; after all we left the caves for a better life. Desires make us human, the pursuit keep us busy and entertained. There is no passion without wanting, and without passion what is the reason for living?
Without them then you wouldn't have strength, confidence or motivation and you wouldn't power through life. But you might be just as happy?
Why would I want a slow morning? That sounds miserable, like the opposite of luxury.
Yeah why would anyone want to chill, I want my boss shaking me awake at 5am shoving adderall into my mouth
So true.
I know a couple, retired, who are constantly traveling to Europe and Japan. When they’re not traveling, they spend all their time reading or visiting with their kids and grandkids.
I often want to tell them: You fools! You’ll never find happiness if all you do is give in to these weaknesses!
Nicely said.
Having dependencies or needs is one thing, having them managed for relative minimal impact on one's time might be another way to look at it for some.
Are the need to make music, the need to read books, the need to work on and improve myself dependencies that make me weak?
Lacking those things is not a luxury. What is a luxury is time. Time is incredibly precious.
It's true that if you lower your expectations enormously that it's easier to hit them.
It's also true that if you raise you expectations enough then you will never be able to hit them.
Keep in mind that it's not always a case of "shoot for the stars but hit the moon if you miss", sometimes it's "shoot for the stars and suffer crippling burnout for 20 years, after which it's too late to recover to anything meaningful".
Being realistic, for all it's boringness, does have advantages.
All luxuries indeed. Are they enough, though? Particularly, don't many books talk about how important it is to have productive hobbies or output-oriented hobbies? The underlying thesis is that one would quickly get bored and start seeking the meaning of life if he does not output something consistently. I was wondering if being able to find such hobby and being able to afford it is also a luxury.
Rich people never mention money in such lists.
Lists like this look very different when you don't have money.
because having money isn't the ultimate goal imho. it's what money enables - like a slow morning, a quiet mind, and good health. If money can't provide those or similar things, it loses its value more or less
Money can be a goal, but that's only because you're keeping score with it. If your life doesn't result around the top score in something, money will never be anything but an enabler. Of course, if you're a rich person and trying to keep score, you can also keep your score where's something other than money. If you like art, then having a Van Gogh original is going to be worth more than a money, and so the specific unique art you have can be how you keep score.
Don't read the above as if all rich people are trying to keep score in some way. A large majority of them are just trying to live their life. Even when it appears they're keeping score you typically discover they like the art and that's why they have it. they couldn't care less if you have more or less than them. They might be jealous if you own the particular original that they're looking for but they're not keeping score against you with it.
Which is good for me and probably the vast majority of those reading this because we have the ability to earn decent amount of money as an engineer and with some investment we can have a nice life and retirement but we will never be anywhere near the top of any attempt to keep score.
Also... Money?
Oh this is from someone retired and rich ;). Most could retire if they owned and sold this 4 letter .com used for the blog.
The real luxury is the thing you haven't got but desperately need which is different for everyone.
Agree with all , but I am not ashamed to admit that some material goods bring me immense pleasure, especially mechanical watches and vintage cars.
Slow mornings and rest without guilt are very apt and specific but time and health are just general wishes.
I would add work with meaning and flow.
Also life with few... snags, all the issues that are small but extremely bothersome (knocking sound in a car, that one window that doesn't close fully, etc).
Why "work with meaning" rather than purpose or meaning on its own? Do you see meaning as conflicting with slow mornings and rest without guilt?
Dogs. 24/7 validation and unconditional love without ads
I can't do boring. I've had bouts of time with really not much to do (pre-kids) and it really starts to pick at my brain as to what am I really doing with my life.
My friend wrote something similar recently. Here's her take as a 30-something. https://argentumaspicio806903.substack.com/p/luxuries-as-an-...
The school year, across the US used to be labor day to Memorial Day. No longer the case. My step daughter’s former district started at the beginning of August, her freshman year of college last weekend.
At least here in the states, districts because they pay teachers shit, are getting pushback to add required meetings and learning on the end of the day. Instead there are “short days” for the kids.
It’s no longer an issue for me, but seriously annoying how little k-12 are actually in school these days.
The older I am, the more I appreciate slow days over the weekend, cooking, reading, and just appreciating small things at a slow pace with my gf.
I am 60 too and I'd add to that list 'Doing the things you like'
I love letting my mind 'play' with the computer, not work, play
And I love pickleball, going to the gym, and watching movies with my wife. My life has become really simple and I enjoy it the most. Yeah, peace of mind is at the top of the list at this age
Sounds a lot like my life. Agree with all of this. People were flabbergasted when I told them I was retiring “you’ll be so bored!” “What will you DO with all that time?”. I’m busier now than I was while I was working because I can actually commit to regular workouts/sports/projects instead of only being able to claw a few minutes here and there between work and family. Life is infinitely better. Once you gain control of your time, most of your stress melts away.
As others have said in-thread and elsewhere: work to live, don't live for work. Yes, be professional and exceed expectations from time to time, but your in-basket will be full when you exit. Take time as the years progress to do "other things", as the physical abilities or people involved might not be there "later".
True. Money is just an instrumental goal. I was thinking about how some have 1000x more money but not 1000x more happiness. Enjoyment doesn't scale.
Yes money helps you achieve the goals on Brad’s list.
It is a luxury to not have to worry about having enough of it.
As other comments already stated and have stated, money should never be the goal, it's the middle. Having money allows you to not worry about some of those topics, or having more time for them. If you don't have more it means you must worry about that. Having money means you don't: you don't have to worry about rent, health insurance, paying for experiences, food, etc. It's true, you don't need that much money, but still.
Goodhart's Law in operation.
It just doesn't scale linearly. There's substantial evidence that happiness scales logarithmically with income.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/contra-pritchard-on-liberal...
I don't know, self-reported happiness seems like an awfully unreliable metric. For one, I've noticed that projecting unhappiness is much more of a faux pas in rich circles. On its own this could account for much of this relationship.
It depends on your current situation. For some, 1.5Xing your money can add 100x happiness
Past being a millionaire or so, making money is a clicker game. It's something you do just for the fun of seeing number go up. And just like a clicker game, past a certain point you're no longer making the money through your own efforts, but by acquiring assets that can make the money for you (like buying the grandmas that bake cookies for you, etc.), so the game becomes determining the right mix of assets that let you acquire more, that you can then plow into more assets for even bigger growth.
The super rich aren't making more money because they think more money will buy them correspondingly more happiness. It's a game to them played at massive real-world scales.
> acquiring assets that can make the money for you
Any ideas beyond real estate?
Index funds.
Businesses
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, is on the record saying he is 'not often happy.' Somehow I doubt he'd give up half his wealth to double his happiness, though that's just a guess based on his other obvious character flaws ;)
Sometimes I wonder if he would be willing to give up half of his wealth to make everybody as unhappy as himself.
Well, considering the SpaceX IPO, I think that him giving up the majority of his wealth early on to make SpaceX employees hilariously rich worked out well for them
My favorite book about this is "The Happiness Trap," because it makes the simple point that we didn't evolve to be happy all of the time. It makes a really good case for learning to live with the range of emotions and suggests ways of creating a contented/good/whatever life with what you've got.
The most Hacker News thing ever is top comments haggling over the order of the list.
One through eight read as the list of sacrifices you make in having children. But the experiences of loving and being loved back seem at least incomplete without that.
The cynic in me thinks: most of the things on that list are most easily acquired if you have money.
Well yea, it's the luxury that underpins most of the other ones on this list. The real luxury is not having to worry about money so you can focus on things like this. A luxury that is increasingly out of reach..
I humbly disagree a bit. Most items on that list do not have to cost a lot of money (besides a washing machine and a dishwasher) and some of them cannot be bought. It is also a mindset. I adore slow weekends.
I agree, for at least some listed, though many people blow past the amount of money actually needed. Money starts as a proxy measure for attaining these things, but it eventually replaces them as the goal, per Goodhart's law.
“People who love you back” is harder if you truly have money.
Sure, but it also depends how much money you need, which is in your control to a certain degree.
Most of them are also easily pissed away if you have money. It cuts both ways.
Maybe. But I can think of some very wealthy people who do not have these luxuries.
this makes me wonder, does having kids change the list of things on your list? and why?
Having children changes pretty much everything in your life.
No, it just means you need a lot more money because you want the things on your list for your kids also.
Im only 45, but this is very true.
In very broad strokes, it seems that Europeans on the average have much more of these things than Americans.
Are they noticeable happier?
Would be nice to hear from someone who lived both sides of the pond for a long while.
Happy is tall order, but there is a uniquely American sense of impending doom that is always hanging over your shoulder that doesn’t exist in most other countries.
13. Time in nature
I can proudly say, that I have got 11.5 of that list.
My #3 is questionable, since work is stressful. It's my bad, I know better. Working on it.
Mine:
- Good health
- A calling (something I can devote my life to)
I think getting either is good enough for me.
I would add there _creativity_ in the sense of creation. And joy of it.
I wonder if the author has these things in abundance, or wants to have them.
While they sound incredible to me, I can't help but ponder that the demographic with the highest suicide rate is retired men.
I know a few retired men who labored hard, neglected relationships and health, and conditioned themselves to the point where a quiet mind and a slow morning would take a lot of work. I don’t think retirement means that you get the things on the list for free. You have to work for a long time to get those things.
source?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1578415/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10227535/
> Time, quiet mind, slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days.
Ah, I remember pre-parent life too.
I disagree with this list. I understand it but it's not my list.
We have three little kids right, so "time" and "quiet mind" are not on the menu, and "health" is diminished since it's hard to find time to exercise.
And yet, we are very lucky to be crunched in this way. I would rather be tired and busy with the kids than relaxed without.
Maybe the word luxuries is right actually. This list isn't the "goals" or "essence" of life. It's the nice-to-have luxuries you can try to get after the basics are taken care of.
0. Money (home, food, security)
time... oh time is something I long for and hunger for I am only 18 yet I feel like time moves so fast and I don't get to enjoy life day to day in a world where everything seems so fast i just want to slow day and enjoy time but yet again time is the one element in this universe that no one has control over... never the less beautifully put!
Yup, time and freedom. The true luxuries. And a subset of freedom: The freedom to work on projects that excite you with people you like.
This is very true. These kinds of lists tend to be reactive to the author's environment and current state of mind. Work is not the enemy. A lack of autonomy ruins motivation.
Ask someone younger and their top ten is completely different. Too many will dismiss that as naivete while not recognizing their own ignorance.
I get the theme of this post. I also get the theme of DHH and Hashimoto talking about how exciting LLMs are and how much they are getting done.
I've also spent the last 10 years of my life feeding my family with my tech skills which are primarily coding, debugging and improving observability and monitoring tools and processes.
This leads to mixed feelings of both:
- this is the most exciting time to be alive and I'm building a gas town
- this is the end of my career as I know it and I better pivot hard and fast
In other words, been a bit of an interesting last six months.
> Ability to travel
I choose: ability not to travel (commute).
Right. What these luminaries mean is being driven to the airport and the flying business class (or on a pj) to your next totally frivolous destination.
40.
The luxuries I am grateful for:
Sleeping in as much as I need
Working on something meaningful that pushes at the edge of my self actualization
Not ever having to worry about bills
The love from my partner
Having the ability to help others selflessly
The wisdom I have gained over the last 20 years of life
The incredible people around me
Would you mind sharing an example of "Working on something meaningful that pushes at the edge of my self actualization"? In my experience, work, even when meaningful, is quite separate from self actualization. I'm interested to hear how you're combining them.
I’m not OP, but I can speak to my own experience.
I am approaching 40 and in two weeks I will begin clowning lessons with a Cirque du Soleil clown. I am thrilled.
So why clown as a discipline? Something deeply misunderstood and that probably lowers my social status with people who don’t understand it? Something with zero career utility? Because to me it represents extreme vulnerability.
I’m a pretty dignified person. A lot of poise. Goofy, but restrained. If I can debase myself in front of an audience in order to win a laugh then I believe I can do anything.
If I can (figuratively) hang my ass out for all to see then I can move with confidence. If I can blow past my natural inclination to save face, or have the answers. If I can discard the emotional hangups that make me feel embarrassed then I can be the person who I (and I suspect a great number of us) want to be deep down.
I want to (constructively) tear down everything inside of me that restrains me and discover who I can really be.
Ah, thanks for chiming in with your inspiring anecdote. I realize that perhaps I interpreted "working on" as pertaining to career work, rather than just investment of effort.
Your example of clowning shows something that requires real work and, as you laid out, hopefully does wonders to improving confidence, humility, humor, and charm. I wish you the best with that! And happy early birthday. :)
I took an acting class in college and found it remarkably challenging, but valuable, to tear down those emotional restraints. I should get back into it, it’s a skill that needs to be regularly practiced. I wish you luck and I hope it’s a valuable experience for you!
> In my experience, work, even when meaningful, is quite separate from self actualization.
I guess it depends on your temperament - I am very very high in industriousness and moderately high in curiosity, but the industriousness overrides the fragmentation of attention that normally comes with high curiosity individuals.
2 years ago my hobby project turned into a company, and now I run that, so for me I can find self actualisation through work, but I imagine if I was a different temperment, where work didn't overlap so much, it would be harder for that type of person.
Venture capitalist discovers importance of time, health, relationships, sleep and travel in his 60s. News at 10.
I would replace freedom to travel with contentment / joy at home. I love my home , neighborhood and town. I used to die to travel because home had so much chaos. Now my home is beautiful , peaceful and safe so I get homesick when I travel.
If you have a family and are not already independently wealthy you will be enjoying very few of those. In my experience.
"Cats. Cats are nice."
Thank your nice
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: indoor plumbing, and a nice clean bathroom to use it with.
That is a luxury not everyone gets even today.
Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.
TLDR: be rich.
Good luck enjoying a slow morning without a job. So much free time, so much joy. Old people give the most ridiculous and unsolicited advice.
That is why it is not a "List of things you can have tomorrow" but a "Luxury list".
When you have time, health and no stress - that is the luxury OP is talking about.
You don't even need to make more money if you have all those things. If you know your health is insured and you are healthy, you have a decent place where you can feel safe and sleep until late mornings and you do not have to worry about how much food costs - you basically live like a king.
These are rhetorical tricks. Mate I see what you mean, but honestly, the article was just the usual useless old man's talk. I'm glad he is posting on the internet, but it was a useless post.
Jobs will be a luxury soon, if they aren't already. Sure, dead-end jobs aren't a luxury, but they're basically life support - or rather to say existence support.
I live in a country with single-payer healthcare, which some Americans dream so much. If I don't have a job, I'm pretty much screwed - I won't have health insurance. I'm glad I'm healthy, not stupid and not lazy, but single-payer doesn't help that much with life luxuries as you think. To have a place to sleep and not have to worry you need a job - and unless you inherited that place you'll have to work hard for years without the luxuries the old chap talks about anyway. Those are just old man's useless ramblings. I'm sorry, but they are.