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Comment by nestorherre | Hacker News Reader

You're ahead of a lot of people in a similar situation as yours, and that's because you have identified what's the problem that is affecting you.

Now, will you b1tch about it for the rest of your life or are you going to find a solution and work to achieve it?

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That's not a very nice thing to say. I am in the position where I could take your advice but for many folks there is no plausible solution. Sure, anyone could fuck off to the woods, open a fruit stand, and tell their spouse and children to suck it up and college is overrated anyway. But what if your spouse doesn't want to live behind a fruit stand in the woods? What if you have to support a family and the pay ceiling for your profession doesn't allow you to save enough money to retire early? What if you're already closing in on 50? It's easy to tell people they just need a plan, but everybody has their own unique problems and it's a bit rude to imply that it's their own fault because they didn't work hard enough. GP could have made a plan to retire at 35 and sail around the world, pinched their pennies, and saved up a million bucks, then their child got cancer or something else equally horrible. Or maybe you're right and they spent all of their discretionary income on magic the gathering cards. Point is, we don't know and it's not nice to tell random strangers on the internet to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Everything I'm hearing sounds like a choice. Married? That's a choice. Kids? Choice. MtG cards? Choice. Fruit stand? Choice.

America is a place where you have more chpices, but also bear the consequenses thereof.

Let me take the opposite: should you be able to live behind a fruit stand in the woods and have your wife taken care of and kid put through college? Who should pay for that?

I don't think it's "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" as "make your chouces and deal with/don't whine about the consequences".

Is cancer a choice? What about other debilitating, chronic, expensive-to-treat illnesses?

Please don't cross into personal attack. I'm sure you meant it as a gesture of help, and maybe that tough-love approach can help in person, but on the internet it just comes across as a slap. Previous explanations if anyone wants more: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Bitch about it for 10 years while aggressively saving and then peace out to live on a farm somewhere cheap.

Well, that can be considered as a solution. 100% better than just bitching and falling into the rat race, and instead of saving for that purpose you end up buying more useless stuff and spending more.

Oh look, an evangelist.

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