The Real Luxuries In Life

In general you get paid for doing stuff that no one one would do without pay, because it isn't fun. So work is less about having fun and more about what kind of suck you tend to be capable of sucking up.

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 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.

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 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.

I remember feeling like the days passed painfully slowly, but the years flew by.

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.

I suspect most of the people here (including myself) are so addicted to tech and instant access to information it would be unbearable for most.

Experience: Meditated every morning for an hour for sometime, it was tough in the beginning.

And since I have the space, maybe a sauna and cold plunge would be nice. You know, stretch goals.

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.

Working on desire is a big thing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What's more is, many people looking for a partner are looking for a social step upwards, and these days the perceived social level is a lot about money. You got no job and no income? Good luck finding a partner! In that situation you usually simply aren't given even a chance to build a relationship. Cut off before there is even a chance for the other person to love you back.

Money also enables you to have many great shared memories more easily than in other ways. That wonderful vacation trip you shared to your partner's $dream-location costs money. Traveling simply costs money, but can also be a chance to get out of a dead sea and meet people who think differently and behave differently, which might more align with you.

The only risk is, if others find out about your money and want you for your money. Other than that I don't see how having more money would reduce your chances of having people who love you back.

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.

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.

Any ideas beyond real estate?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10227535/

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.