Quitting Society Practical Plans
I’m sure everyone periodically has the pipe dream of quitting corporateland and going off to live on a beach in Mexico. I personally wish I could throw my phone into the ocean and never look at another screen for the rest of my life, like that feeling when you go camping with no technology and your thoughts are actually totally organized and calm. But obviously it’s not that easy.
But realistically, if I was tired of the media cycle, social media, the rate race, prestige, recruiting, office politics, the constant competition, and having so many obligations all the time, what could I do? This is the best I have so far:
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I don’t plan to get married or have kids
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save until have 200k of disposable cash, then go travel around eastern/Central Europe and Southeast Asia for approx 10k a year (that number is completely made up, correct me in the comments)
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alternatively (or after doing international), get an RV and travel around national parks, which probably would cost like $20-25k a year to do
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build some internet or remote business that produces at least 10k a year in net profit but doesn’t require constant oversight so I can only have a computer I check like once a week, which is a pretty low bar imo (maybe I’ll live off my $1200 a month federal reserve money if certain bills pass)
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only have flip phone for texts and calls with friends and family, no social media, zero awareness of news whatsoever
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in a perfect world, one of my good friends would be doing it with me so I wouldn’t be alone. In terms of girls I’m not too worried about meeting them in whatever place I’m in
The issue is that as I get older healthcare costs will probably fuck me. So then I’d have to move to a country with solid but affordable medical care, that ideally speaks English — not sure where that is.
please tell me why this would never work and what I’m missing — otherwise I might actually do it
Bump
thebrofessor
thanks for the tag PeRmAnEnTiNtErN
I have this dream often, but then my thinking in terms of upside/downside prevents me from a total exit. part of this is because I'm an extrovert, I love people (some people) and I think the life of a recluse in an idyllic place would still be empty for me, so rather than make the leap from leaving investment banking to living in salina cruz in a hut, ask yourself what you want to extricate and then try to replicate those same things in the way you arrange your life. on the upside/downside thinking, the downside of this experiment is pretty fuckin enormous if it goes poorly, very few employers are going to look past that gap on your CV and you may be similar to a prisoner who has to get re-adjusted to society
interestingly enough I don't have many of the problems you say you're trying to get rid of, so it's possible that what you want can be found in a career. I don't get caught up in the media cycle (I watch local news and read WSJ for about 10mins a day, that's it), don't do social media, don't have a rat race (I can't be promoted, I'm my own boss, 100% commission, etc etc etc), don't have office politics, recruiting, and don't really have competition (plenty of clients to go around for everybody). in terms of obligations, I wrote about this in another thread, you will ALWAYS have obligations. say you were doing subsistence living in mexico, well you still have to buy shit, you still have to make that shit last, and if you're totally off the grid and maybe you built your own hut, what happens when a tree falls on it? what happens when the palm leaf holding your canoe together starts to wear and you gotta rebuild the whole thing and you're out of fish and you're hungry and starving and it's the middle of summer? life will always have bullshit you gotta deal with, it's just up to YOU to arrange your life in such a way that whatever bullshit you got is tolerable
in a bit of a rush today so can't write more now, feel free to follow with more Q's
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