Posted by thanedar 12/21/2025
Also, many people are genuinely burnt out from overwork, not just existential malaise. When you're juggling demanding work, family responsibilities, and barely have time for basic self-care, the problem isn't finding your "highest purpose" - it's structural.
That said, I agree that meaning matters. But meaning doesn't always come from work. Sometimes the healthiest thing is treating work as necessary fuel for a meaningful life outside of it - relationships, hobbies, community involvement.
The "go into politics" solution is fascinating though. Zero-sum games as existential fulfillment feels counterintuitive.
I do feel like I'm an example of someone who's juggled marriage, kids, startups, etc. where how I finally got a clean source of sustainable energy was having a part of my life to truly chase my highest potential. And to me that's politics, and specifically anticorruption and Positive Politics.
Glad that the "go into politics" ideas piqued your interest!
Family and building things are much more positive sources of energy to me.
IMO People focus way too much on national politics and not enough on local.
Focus on one issue and one bill, like you would with a startup MVP.
You can solve some of these problems in weeks!
Raising my family and building lasting things for the world are my positive sources of energy too!
I'm just saying that after 15 years founding three startups, I've found my building instinct works incredibly well in politics!
Both parties would cast me out for heresy for some of my beliefs and opinions. Why volunteer for that?
The next steps highly depend on where you live. Your HN profile says Australia, so at least safety-wise you are in a better spot. Connect to people in your area (preferrably offline), for example by organizing a local meetup, maybe there is one already. Activities can range from exchanging ideas to spreading awareness in your community to actively going against corrupt affairs. Make sure you know what and who you are up against, or you will have a very bad time.
Anticorruption is a group effort because it requires a lot of work and often special knowledge (info tech, law, finance, opsec, public relations and propaganda, ...) and, more importantly, a group provides safety from corrupt actors. On your own you will not be able to deal with lawsuits, misinformation, character assassination and worse.
This seems quite wrong in my experience. Meaningful work stays meaningful and exciting, every single day.
Not to demean your experience, but for me (5+ years now of daily grind for one purpose) that statement is very VERY real.
My thinking is - it's just another one of the struggles of doing real meaningful change - there's recurring, long and arduous timespans where no observable/exciting results manifest and one has to trudge forward.
If you know how to ease THAT part, please share (I'm begging you lol).
What I once found meaningful 20 years ago largely no longer feels that way. Both due to a lack of novelty and personal growth, and seeing how I was so naive regarding the outcomes and future I was supposedly building.
Those daily grinds back then for purpose were great - but sometimes the purpose never materializes since others (customers, business partners, society as a whole, etc) disagree with that purpose.
At least that’s how I tend to feel my life largely went. I thought I was building towards a different goal than what ended up happening, which makes me feel I wasted my life. Now it’s questioning whether or not I will ever find something that gives me that sense of purpose again without it ending up being a lie in the end. Why bring my “whole self” into a given task if it’s not going to end up with any sort of mental payback later?
Usually, I find, one has to invest an enormous effort to just find that purpose in the first place. And trying out paths/goals is part of that journey too.
I know I did a lot of soulsearching, in fact I was privilledged enough to save up for a couple of years to do JUST that, and I can report that it was a resounding success (with a sample size of one!).
However, as we're discussing this in the context of burnout, it's obvious that having a higher meaning did not take me out of my suffering. I still experience life as any other human being, I just feel like my life is not wasted - and the side effects of always striving for a goal - like focus and discipline - and other virtues - are a pleasant bonus. So I do sincerely think, that having a crystalized idea of my purpose creates a happy life for me.
There's nothing wrong with NOT having a goal, I just couldn't do it, even though matter IS ephermal, I believe that every action that we take, ultimately does have meaning.
Your work may have coherence and purpose, but if it doesn’t have significance then it isn’t the source of meaning you thought it was.
I think its OK if some people don't get to live their dream jobs, some dreams have no equivalent in real life, and some people need to do the mundane, boring underground jobs that keep things together.
I didn’t match the 1) nice place, 2) family and friends.
Apparently an ad huh.
But founders aren’t a big enough target demographic to make money on I guess.
And the problem is there seems to be no shortage of canvassers who'll advocate for such candidates.
So, your 'highest potential' argument is somewhat poisoned.
The middle is full of stories of how I failed for years.
I think I can help you, here's how I failed, then succeeded, you can too!
And my book is truly the next step.
If you liked these ~2,000 words, there's 20x more in Positive Politics!
I specifically believe Positive Politics can best utilize the ambitious optimism of e.g. YC founders to solve the world's biggest problems!
Be kind to yourselves, people.
And while I don’t doubt that there are serious physiological conditions that warrant, even necessitate, medicating, my impression is that the first response to “depression” in general shouldn’t be medication.
I’ve been depressed in the past, in my 20s even severely. Clinically, you could say. But in the end, every one of those depressive episodes were because something was not right in my life.
Whether I acknowledged it or not, whether I even realized that there was a problem, once I figured the issues out and took the sometimes very painful and exhausting steps to sort them out, the depression faded away.
Over time, I’ve become better at introspection to figure out what’s really bugging me, and also in recognizing a budding early depression as warning signs.
No one should delay any part of depression treatment.
> And while I don’t doubt that there are serious physiological conditions that warrant, even necessitate, medicating, my impression is that the first response to “depression” in general shouldn’t be medication.
It’s very well possible that you, and the person you answered to, are solidly part of the “needs medication” fraction. I do not believe that medication against depression is bad in general.
How shall "proven and safe medication" help here?
Glad your journey has been positive, well done :)
Not everyone has a support structure they can count on as they fall apart. So some people just need help to get through a rough period even if a solution isn’t long term viable. When a spouse dies being able to function for the next few months can mean keeping the roof over someone’s head.
There absolutely are downsides and risks. There is a reason the SSRIs carry a "blackbox" warning for youths due to increased suicide risks. There's a reason they should only be used under supervision of a doctor and need to be tapered off of.
That is not to say they aren't useful and necessary for some/many people but they aren't and shouldn't be a catch-all treatment.
Meds don't magically make you happy and they don't magically get you out of fixing the problems in your life. They make it easier and therefore possible to do so. I'd describe it as the crane that lifts up the heavy weight enough for you to shuffle out.
If you can just think harder about your problems, by all means, do that. But there's zero virtue to rawdogging it when help is available, especially as this can easily lead to an isolation spiral and become deadly.
My experience from being a mental-health patient is that things take too much time. For me I struggled with how it seemed like that the society universally had agreed that medication for my condition is bad. Taking medicine doesn't mean that you cant threat your illness in other ways as well, in my experience taking medicine helps you to be able to take the changes you need in life.
Depression is also a broad spectrum condition (much like autism). Years ago I watched this lecture by Sapolsky[0] and it really helped. Breaking down the different classifications is really helpful. The SSRIs always made me feel worse, and this (along with a lot of other research) helped make sense of it. A few years back I was diagnosed with ADHD and a psychologist friend encouraged me to give Adderall a try. It was the first time that medication "worked" and it really made a big difference in my life. The big reason why being that psychomotor retardation and anhedonia were my biggest symptoms. When coupled with an anxiety disorder it creates a strong negative feedback loop.
But here's the thing: medication isn't the cure. For me it alleviates (not eliminates) symptoms but at the end of the day it still requires work from me to ensure I create a positive feedback loop and don't let myself fall into that destructive loop. This is all stuff I had to learn on my own and through reading and seeking out friends with people who are more experts in the area. That's where I think our care system fails.
The best thing I can recommend to people is to be introspective. Each journey is personal, but whatever your issues are try to find the early warning signs. For me it can be little things like the dishes piling up or my desk getting messy (these seem you be common). Things like depression build up, so look for the signs. And most importantly, open up. This was the hardest for me and makes me feel demasculated and embarrassed much of the time. But I've also found it to help build stronger relationships with my partner and friends. That it helps open a door to communicate both ways. Maybe you open the door for you, but you also open a door many are too nervous to open themselves. It's worth the discomfort and gets easier with time. (Talking behind a handle is a great way to start too. So make alt accounts if you need to. That's how I started)
Also remember that everyone reacts differently to things. SSRIs work great for some people, but not for me. So it's worth trying different classes of medicines too but also to make sure that when having more dangerous ones. I made sure close friends knew too
THIS! Thats the reason why I always refused to take any medication: Doctors said you could "try X or Y and in some days I should feel better" - while the problems where mainly because of problems at work or within relationship.
Why should I take medics if I have problems at work with bad colleagues? This logic never made sense to me.
And my 2ct: If this wouldnt be a hardcore capitalist society in which most people struggle despite the fact living in a rich country, possessing nothing and having no homeownership, then there would be near zero demand for any psy medics.
edit: but yes, now that I have done that work, purpose is good, and what keeps me positive and away from the black dog.
I don't complain about mornings, about working, about any activity: I dig most of them, I really like some, but I just can't seem to feel alignment with this "purpose" thing. In my mind, my purpose is to live with health, enjoy life. For that I do the usual: travel, meet new people, practice a different sport or physical activity, hike, dive, go out to restaurants, play video games, watch films, go to theater, cook, draw, paint figurines, I help people (I'm no volunteer, though). I'm only missing woodworking because I live in an apartment and I can't fit any of that here, haha.
Am I cooked? Do I have depression and psychologists can't seem to adequately name it? Or can I simply go on with my life like this without feeling weird that every one else has/perceives all these issues that I don't?
Even nice vacations aren’t enjoyable the way they used to be.
All started at the beginning of the pandemic (long before getting COVID).
Have had poor luck getting doctors to diagnose and treat actual problems, so haven’t tried for this.
Medically quite healthy by all measures.
What confuses me is I see people 10-20 years older with passions for doing things. They seem to have a zest for life that I cannot comprehend.
You absolutely can start by saying "I don't seem to have the joy of life that others have" and see where that leads you.
It might not help, but it also might.
You’re not in the right field you say? Then you’ll be depressed from the poverty that comes from abysmal wages and the complete lack of job security.
For me, I'm always framing whatever I currently earn as "right now". Right now I'm doing ok, but it's fairly likely it won't last longer than 2 years, because it never has, and I have no reason to think it will this time. That means that even if a bank were to give me a long term loan, I'd be stupid to commit to anything but the most manageable terms, which means I'd have to consider what I'd be able to make in a part-time laborer position when layoffs come around or something.
If I can theoretically make myself liable for a 3.5k a month tiny condo mortgage, even if it's less than half my take home, I'd be uncomfortable doing so unless it was half that amount. Therefore, either a miracle needs to happen on the career side or the housing market needs to finally crash before my partner and I move out of this basement, no kids, used car etc.. and that's fine for now. If I lose a job, I need to have at least a year if not more of liquid or close to liquid assets available to cover living expenses, and for that to be possible, I need to have relatively minimal fixed liabilities
If it all comes tumbling down tomorrow, I would be out a ton of money, but basically where I was 5 years ago. I wish I had taken the plunge on each of these things 5 years earlier.
Nothing risked, nothing gained.
> I Got myself liable for a 7k mortgage, about 80% of my take home.
That is... spicy. I guess context matters though, if you're already financially secure and the ongoing income would otherwise just be added to other investments, and the remaining 20% is enough to cover you, and if you're in a place that locks in your interest rate for the whole mortgage, then I could see that being less dramatic. Likewise if you're both working or stand to inherit something.
Additionally, a mortgage is one of those things where if you've consistently earned whatever income it is, then it's more a matter of being excessively cautious. I've probably only ever earned an income for half of my working life; year on year I might make zero or full-time income, and the economy (in Canada) is indeed tangibly precarious right now.
Broadly I agree though. I wouldn't be in the relatively good position I'm in now without a series of scary bets earlier, moving to a new city, trying harder at more ambitious career moves etc..
It's just that there have been multiple times where I've lost a job, couldn't find _anything_ to pay bills with for long enough that I've literally dropped all the way to zero financially, losing the rental, and needing to live out of a car, so those kinds of liabilities just don't (yet?) make any sense. My hunch is that for people who haven't had that experience, it's more of a major milestone that they're eventually going to do without a doubt in their mind, they just need the raw salary number
Don't gatekeep.
I had burnout this year and was too dumbfounded in the supermarket to buy what I always buy or drive a car. I didn't have any mental capacity anymore. Like an IQ of 20 and the physical energy of a 100 year old.
Please go and get help.
Brains really don't work this way, and you are damaging yourself.
e.g. pottery, crossfit, book club. for me, it was bjj, a world of warcraft group, and a "beer club".
regularly watching and chatting in a small twitch stream could be a start, but beware its parasocial nature
solo activities add structure but social bonds reinforce discipline and motivation. "someone will notice my absence".
Someone who relies on you, whatever the context, is some of the greatest motivation out there.
Sure, it could be kids, a partner, a spouse, or a friend or family. But it could also be the rest of the team on the weekly bowling league, the puppies at the shelter who need playtime each week with a volunteer human, the community one serves as a volunteer firefighter, the homeless shelter where one helps serve the weekly dinner, the neighbor who needs help with yard upkeep, or any other parts of the village where one lives that relies on you, and makes you feel included, involved, and fulfilled inside by having that purpose.
Not kids. Maybe start with a gym or workout buddy. Then work your way up to projects or volunteer work, with people you can't blow off.
You burn out creating value for others that you end up either not owning or it not materially contributing to your immediate community.
We evolved to work for ourselves and our tribe again immense satisfaction from that. Cleaning your house, pulling weeds volunteering locally. Etc.
But endlessly serving shareholders (ownership class or not) while giving up way more value then you out in yields a deep sense of happiness because we can’t express the unfairness woven into our life so deeply.
I have also been thinking of giving my notice for a while now, but I'm also struggling with finding a purpose so that part also hit me hard. I'm actually scared of leaving my job in case I find out it was the one thing that gave me purpose and I won't be able to find something better.
Congrats on doing it, and please do send a message if you do find something that gives you more purpose, it will greatly help me.
I did that a few years ago and it’s been transformative.
HMU if you want help.
My un at icloud is best.
We're humans and no matter what you're pursuing, you'll hit a point where your brain will adjust to the new reality and things will start feeling mundane. This is called the hedonic treadmill.
To me, what has helped is developing hobbies and relationships outside of work. We're social animals and need connection with others to feel fulfilled. Personally, my own life feels way more fulfilled right now than when I was just working on interesting projects at work or on my startup (that went nowhere).
The happiest people I know treat work like the necessary evil to be endured to fulfill all other facets of life.
Work shouldn't be treated as a "necessary evil".
Reconciling the work vs. meaning split is hugely important.
Even if it means making less money short term, aligning work and purpose through work like politics and writing can make us way happier long-term.
You work to earn, you earn to buy.
But buying is not meaning. It's a momentary sugar high that's lost to the wind the moment the transaction is over. No deeper life meaning can be derived from this.
When your culture is based around constant self satisfaction, there's nothing bigger than the self.
Community is dead, culture over generations is dead, building and making is dead, even cooking your own food is dead - "just order it". There's nothing for us to do except our individual parts, and our individual parts often feel like we're just putting a quarter into a machine that spits out a paycheck.
Etc etc
With TFR rapidly falling, current and future children are much less likely to even have any family other than parents, which cuts out another pillar supporting community and tradition, too.
I don't have a pat answer or know where this is going, but--assuming humanity survives--unless we want to turn into Asimov's Spacers, we'll have to find something to care about.
So, don't condense your thought here, I would love to read everything.
And people sit around stupidly asking why everyone is pissed off and angry.
If your problem could be fixed with a raise or a nice vacation, that’s overwork. 996 schedules, crunch time, and a high cost of living make overwork.
Burnout is when you stat asking yourself “what’s the point of doing any of this?” and your life is overwhelmed with apathy and anhedonia. Closer to a career-induced bout of major depression.
I know I'm burnt out (increasingly severe burnout at that) and I ask myself that question daily. The truth is there is no point and I can't motivate myself anymore. I don't see any solution to the problem and I expect I will lose my job sooner or later at which point I'm not sure what I'll do.
I've largely come to the conclusion that what I need to be mentally healthy and what society needs from me are fundamentally incompatible things.
Maybe in extreme cases where a raise translates into big time savers like a maid, but those are not the type of raises you while keeping the same job.
But if you’re in a position where there is difficulty affording your living expenses, a raise can make a huge quality of life change. It can remove enough stress from your life that the stress of your job goes from pushing you over the edge to staying within your limits
Dreading work is very different than overwork.
I'm arguing we replace the "what's the point?" question with a "what's my highest purpose? exploration.
In that second answer is the solution to what many are calling burnout.
I have kids, but I don’t think having kids or even a lack of money is necessary to experience the type of burnout you’re describing.
While everyone and every situation is different, my personal experience is that having kids led to less burnout for me over time. I expected the opposite after reading comments online, but it turns out that for me the time spent caring for the kids was energizing and purpose-providing. The job no longer felt like some isolated drudgery without purpose because it played a clear role in my family’s well being. I also learned how to manage time and prioritize better after having kids.
But I will never gatekeep burnout or try to differentiate burnout based on having kids or money. I can even think of someone who was clearly experiencing burnout despite having neither kids nor a job and while not having to worry about money. Burnout isn’t a simple function of life circumstances, personal circumstances and mental well being play a large role. In some cases, certain personality types can seemingly become burned out under any circumstances. It’s a heavily personal reaction.
Though, to be fair, you gain a whole new set of much scarier things to worry about.
And work = highest purpose!
Depends. At 3am it's not.
Before having kids I read so much about this difficult period and thought it was going to be the defining feature of having kids.
Then you go through it and one month you realize they’re sleeping through the night. Then you have an entire lifetime.
So yeah, it’s not fun. But it’s also such a tiny segment of parenthood that the emphasis on it feels pretty excessive.
I would say hang in there, and once in a while give yourself permission to prioritise the "care for myself" over the "maintain a household".
Do things in little increments and don't torture yourself about not being full of energy all the time
Many of my posts and most of my book were written in either the first two hours after they go to school or the first two hours after they sleep.
I got a rare Sunday afternoon off, which is why we got this post now!
Totally agree that work only to pay for a household is a tough life. I'm trying to connect more people with work that can give more meaning now and maybe more money long-term. People chasing their highest potential tend to create greater projects!
Now, empty nested, I can see that I was both rudderless and identity-less before the kids. I'm wandering now (and retired) trying to find a replacement identity.
I'm still a father of course (and husband) but with less input and less to do. In fact I feel inclined to step back and let the girls have their lives now. So I road-trip, come up with projects to keep me busy, try to be an "educator".
It’s never quite as much time as expected, though. Each is a marginal addition of free time that brings its own complications (like my friend who did an alarming amount of DoorDash and is now investing a lot of time into dropping weight and managing cholesterol and blood sugar)
My parents buy groceries delivery what is really useful and time saving on other hand. House cleaner is difficult topic, they do seldom a good job even when offered more money. Typical example: there is dirt under edges of carpet after vacuuming.
This really bothered me when I was in social situations with college students who would alternate between bragging about how much they spent on DoorDash and complaining about how they’re always struggling with money.
It was only a handful of people out of a larger group of mostly rational students, but it drove me crazy.
Of course this has always been a thing with prepared restaurant food (just listen to various comments Anthony Bourdain made over the years about restaurants and butter use) but I'm somewhat convinced the friction removal of having these foods delivered at nearly any time of the day is going to cause an uptick in middle age heart disease in a group of people who are going overboard in trading money for time without thinking of the long term consequences.
The American Heart Association’s narrative is based in observed clinical relationship between saturated fat intake, LDL, and coronary events.
There’s been a big social media push to turn saturated fat into a good thing, but everything I actually read in the research still points to excess saturated fat being a bad idea.
It is about spending your time doing what you want (including doing nothing if that's your thing), and outsource the things that you don't want to do.
> and call a contractor for every small thing that needs to be done. They’re buying time.
I _really_ wish I could find a contractor that didn't suck up more time than they save every single time!
But sadly the people I know who made enough money to be able to retire young are workaholics that will hire people to raise their kids. Because their workaholism is what made them rich in the first place. See Elon for an extreme example, I doubt he can even name all his biological children.
It was a revelation to find out how little one needs materially to feel happy.
But a basic income or something is mandatory IMO as it's the only thing that can remove us from the rat race and free us from the zillionaires. Oh, sorry. We need to get rid of the zillionaires first, the last thing they want is normal people who aren't hungry and desperate for pennies.
I burned out basically because I'm stupid and decided to work a demanding full time job while also remodeling my house by myself. Like all renovation jobs, it ended up being bigger than planned (I actually expected it to grow from us discovering something that had to be done during the renovation, I just never expected the thing we found to be as large as it was: we had to redo the whole foundation of our 1840 house, and because a machine wouldn't fit through the doors, we ended up digging out around 16m3 of hard packed dirt by hand and carrying it out of the house, also by hand)
What was supposed to be a kitchen upgrade turned into roughly half our house looking like something out of tomb raider for a year. 8 hours of intellectually demanding office work followed by 8 hours of grueling digging in "the mine" as came to nickname the ground floor really did a number on both me and my wife.
She crashed out first, which left me with no choice but to keep pushing long past what I felt I could handle. Saw a doctor who diagnosed me with burnout and told me to rest for 6 months,I instead held out for another ~6 months until my wife was back on her legs before allowing myself to rest.
The 6 months of sick leave the doctor prescribed wasn't nearly enough.
But hey, my kitchen is fucking gorgeous, so there's that, at least!
You're right, one shouldn't DIY the foundation of ones house, unless you really know what you're doing(and honestly, not even then: it's too much work!)
I'm not sure it was clear in my original comment, but the 1840 I wrote in there is the original construction year of the house. The technique my foundation was built with hasn't been used for a little over a century: Not a lot of construction firms around with experience in it! And it's not easy to replace a foundation, because, well, it's under the house! Luckily repairing turned out to be possible(simplifying again, sorry!), and not particularly difficult in technical terms. It just wasn't easy either, but in physical terms.
I did have a professional "building conservationist"(rough translation) over for consultation. Basically he looked over what was, I told him my plan, and then he told me what to do instead. (I actually wasn't far off - I had spent a lot of time reading up on it before he came - he just added a few (possibly vital) details I hadn't thought of)
The conservationist did have a construction firm and offered their services, but we had budgeted for a kitchen upgrade, and while we had some margins in the original plan, with the extra work we got surprised with, we were strained to afford the materials. Just the ground insulation material cost almost as much as the new IKEA kitchen furniture!
The good thing in all this is that the new construction should, in theory, according to the conservationist who actually does know these things, probably last a couple of centuries!
I also took on a remodel under similar conditions and I think that the decision they undertook was likely very reasonable at the time. The outcome, in retrospect, would be obvious as well. But sometimes you have to grit your teeth and finish something.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the planned changes, combined with the unplanned ones (which were like 90% of the work), put the project well outside our budget unless we did it ourselves.
But yeah, in the end even my budget was stretched to it's limits! Not that I was in any way poor, pulling around 3x the average salary in my area. Shit just got crazy expensive. Had I known the condition the house was in when I bought it, I would've lowered my offer by around 25%. But it was impossible to inspect the foundation without first breaking up the floor, and I don't blame the seller for not wanting to do that. I don't think they knew the condition either tbf. Based on the bottled message I found, nobody had looked under those floorboards since shortly after Kennedy's assassination!
Healthy Minds https://hminnovations.org/meditation-app
It’s a missed opportunity for posts like the link to also mention and reinforce the importance of family planning. Many go into setting up a family because of peer pressure without assessing that it’s a very long term commitment. I’m sure you’re doing the best you can, of course. Maybe raising awareness that having kids is no longer an imperative for humans living in the 21st century could be something we do more of.
If you want to have kids do it when you're in your early 20s.
Which is also OK. It's financially smart to realize you don't have the resources and not have kids.
If {some subset of the government, rich people, people who control the economy} want more people to have kids, which is something I keep hearing from that class of people: They need to collectively figure out how to put more money into the pockets of people. Higher salaries, drastic tax cuts, cheaper housing, more people will be financially ready and more kids will happen as a result. Also, work hours need to be standardized at 4 hours/day per person OR costs of living need to be designed that 1 parental income is enough.
the problem is lifestyle and career demands.
The upper class is financially smart, AND has the resources (20+ years of child rearing costs already secured upfront, ability to hire night nannies, ability to take a few years away from work without income, own a home and not at the mercy of rent increases), so they have kids.
The lower class is often not financially smart, is not health smart, and systematically poisoned to sacrifice themselves and buy things they cannot afford. They are given insufficient resources and told that they should have kids, so they do.
i don't believe that is true.
raising kids is not that expensive. what is expensive is the high expectations for what you should spend on your kids with that middle class and high earners have. like sending kids to college.
Huh? In a world where people have zero job security, could get put on some layoff or 15%-per-year PIP quota any time and lose their income at the whim of some politics 5 levels above, and any random health issue could cost hundreds of thousands due to insurance not paying, I'd say as a self-proclaimed financially literate person, that you'd need to save up a couple million in cash and set it aside to even begin considering kids.
I could be on the chopping block tomorrow at work and then have to downsize my lifestyle next week, but I'm prepared to downsize as a child-less person. If I didn't have the entire course of child-rearing costs saved up in cash I wouldn't consider starting the process. If children cost $2 million over the entire course of their life, I need to have $2 million now. In cash. That's the financially smart way in an income-uncertain world; you don't ever assume things that you don't already have.
20 years ago, job security was pretty good, you could relax and saving up the full cost in cash was not a prerequisite. You could throw your money into a mutual fund and get rich, because the US had sane economic leaders. You were virtually guaranteed a job if you had skills. None of this is guaranteed anymore. Nowadays, you either have it or you don't; the system guarantees you nothing about the future.
And if one wants to avoid that chopping block in today's corporate work environments, working nights and weekends is a good start, but then you'd have no time for kids.
food, clothes, school materials, a bike. maybe a computer. also a bed and a few square meters of space in your home. everything else is optional. that doesn't cost 100,000 per year. not even 10,000.
sure, with less money you have less to offer or your kids. no or only cheap vacations, no expensive toys. no fancy brand name clothes. no expensive extra curricular activities. and certainly no money for college. but none of these things are necessary to have and raise kids. and it is not irresponsible to have kids and raise them that way either.
Start with housing. A few more square meters costs ~$1000 more on top of what I pay now, per month.
That's $200K in today's dollars or $500-700K over their childhood (0-18 years) if you include inflation, rent increases over the next 20 years.
If you want to sleep 8 hours a day AND work demands 12-15 hours a day, you absolutely need nannies, add $500K for that.
Because today's work environments demand that many hours a day, you evidently don't have time to cook anymore so you need to buy all your food, add $20K/year for that, or $350K.
Costs add up pretty quick.
and your math only works for middle to high income earners.
2k/month for a nanny to compensate for 5 hours lost per day means that you have to earn 20$ per hour extra. in a minimum wage job that only pays $15 per hour you would be financially better off to work less, so you don't need that nanny.
so you simply aren't going to work 15 hours per day. same for the food. 20K per year is more than $50 per day. again, you are going to work less in order to make the time to cook because the extra money earned does not make up for the higher expense of eating out.
are you suggesting that there are no jobs that demand less than 12 hours per day? so your choice is either work 12-15 hours or be unemployed? i do not believe that.
It's sad to see people so deep in the consumerist rat race that giving life is seen as a cell in their life's financial excel sheet.
Weirdly enough people who actually don't have money are the one having the most kids. And people who lived pretty much from 300k years ago until the ~1950s had it worse than you yet they had more kids. People making 1m a year have less kids than people working in fucking coal mines 100 years ago.
We don't have less kids because we're poorer than 50 years ago, we have less kids because we drunk way too much capitalist kool aid and put traveling, buying shit, careers, money in front of everything else on our list of priorities: https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-pull-back-from-values...
It is, though. My own food, water, housing, heating, hobbies and things that make me happy, are all cells on that sheet as well. The numbers add up now. Money for kids would absolutely obliterate all the other cells on that sheet, and the numbers wouldn't add up.
on the contrary. global population growth will plateau in a few decades, and negative population growth is already a problem in many countries, like all western countries, south korea, and also china.
https://assets.ourworldindata.org/uploads/2016/03/ourworldin...
The problem at hand is not growth rate slowing down, it’s humans divided in tiny pockets of countries burning through what little we have left of natural resources.
People who have kids today, do so knowing that their children will most certainly be displaced by natural disasters.
what is the evidence for that? if that were true then we would have lot's of people going hungry, but that's simply not the case. poverty is getting reduced world wide. if we could not sustain the current population, we should have lots of people dying from hunger and the population should stop growing. but the reason why population is growing especially in africa is exactly because the growth is still sustainable. if it wasn't, then it could not be growing.
https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=900&type=Probabilis...
Often times ourselves get the short end, but others find a way to give each their due including themselves
good luck to you though
1. I'm intelligent enough to raise questions about the point of life.
2. I've always been an outcast, having it extremely difficult to build meaningful relationships, which are number one predictor of quality of life.
3. I live in a dirty, noisy, overcrowded city full of people who don't share my culture and work for a company that has no morality.
There is nothing for me to look forward to, and no straightforward way to build anything. I'll never have a group of friends to do things with, I'll never feel loved, and I'll never be important in any sense of this word. I'm an autistic ant in an anthill.
