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Comment by jeb | Hacker News Reader

What happened is that I took a risk, and let's just say I lost even more than before. I had to move in with my parents, and I think that's what really changed my attitude. Because before, I was just hanging on. Like, every month I made just enough to get by, so there was no reason not to wake up, go work, then download movies from the piratebay and watch tv shows and waste half the day.

But then I did this thing and could not afford to that. So I moved in with my parents, and I was just so ashamed that I would wake up early in the morning and work till late at night every single day, weekends and weekdays. When I had saved enough to move back out and get my own place, somehow that attitude just stuck and really, if you just work really long days, money comes. Wake up early, work till night, don't have too many friends, don't watch TV and within a year you can afford most anything.

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You did have parents to fall back on, which is huge. Sure, you worked hard, but you did have a family safety net.

Exactly. Speaking as someone who does not have them around any more, you cannot possibly imagine what it's like unless you've experienced it.

It's incorrect to assume that poor people don't want to work, as well. Most of them want to work so badly that they'll work for less than minimum wage. Think Hispanic illegals here working for < min wage. This really just ends up hurting everybody in the poverty range. But employers don't care; a body is just a body to them, menial workers for minimum pay equals more profits in their pockets and just enough dangled hope to keep them enslaved.

But were you still working for $900 month? You had to to make some additional change after you moved out again otherwise, regardless of your financial cushion, you would have fallen back into the same cycle. Did you change jobs? Re-evaluate and improve upon your current (past) skill-set while living w/ your parents? Go back to school?

Gave up my non-programming job and did programming jobs for clients. Was there for the clients all the time, answer emails within 15 minutes, tell them how best to make their software. I could have done this before I lived with my parents, but just didn't care enough, I guess.

Going back to school is something I did LATER, and frankly, it did not have as big an effect as just working hard for others.

> if you just work really long days, money comes.

Uhm... It's not that simple at all. If you work for some big company in a cubical, working really long days probably wont help you at all. Do you mean working for yourself long days? That isn't guaranteed either. Perhaps you just mean entry level-ish hourly jobs?

Doing programming for clients, not working at a company.

Thank you. My takeaway -- as a help for others in similar situations or if I ever fall into this situation -- is to live below my means (TV is a luxury) and to work harder to pay off those things that are outside normal cost of living. These are good lessons, and it sounds like it was pure determination wrought from shame that motivated you... that the key is to get motivated in the first place to achieve the goal of leaving poverty.

What about sleep? Health? You seemed to pull yourself out, but what was the cost to your body and mental state? How long did it take?

There was no cost to my body as I used the opportunity to exercise a lot as a way of distraction, but socially and mentally, the experience was pretty tough. That shit changed me - if you look at my photos from before and from now, my face is different. Before I looked relaxed and kind of nice-guyish, now I look kind of harder and more evil, if I may put it that way.

I really felt as if I was put through some kind of wringer, and came out tougher, but I also lost part of my humanity. I'm just not as nice a person anymore, less patient, more angry, not as easy-going, not quite as pleasant to be around.

So yes, that shit was not free. I paid for it, I got what I wanted in the end, but I know I'm definitely not the same person as before.

This comment is kind of harrowing. Interesting self-observation.

You seem to have a flare for melodrama. I say this only because I do, too, and I feel like I am seeing it in you.

Be careful with that, when you are writing the narrative of your own life.

Ever heard the phrase "poor but happy"?

It's an interesting theory ...

One often looks at the materially poor in developing world and finds them to be at least superficially happy.

The problem here in the west for me is the question of stability - I'm poor and happy but when 20% VAT hits if business goes down the tube then we'll be down and outs.

Literally we're on a knife edge highly susceptible to external forces in a way that makes it hard to be completely content.

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