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Comment by socialist_coder | Hacker News Reader

Everything is difficult if you don't care enough. If you truly cared about writing your own software and taking a more active role in parenting, you would figure out a way to do it.

edit- I practice what I preach and am currently bootstrapping my own startup. I was able to move to Germany though where I don't have to pay an exorbitant amount for health care for me, my wife, or my daughter (who has a medical condition and would probably have bankrupted us had we stayed in the US). I readily admit that doing this type of thing in the US is infinitely harder because of health care.

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I don't think you deserved the downvote. Very few people in the world are in as good a position to do this as software engineers. A common problem that I see in myself is getting sucked into a lifestyle and then the golden handcuffs are forged by a story we tell ourselves about how much money we need. But go look up the median income in your area and then tell me you can't make that money part time from home if you're a decent programmer.

>Everything is difficult if you don't care enough.

I don't agree with that. Some things are hard and have nothing to do with how much effort you put into it. It's a common misconception that people who succeed are those who care (or who had enough will power). There's much more to life than that, I think.

I didn't say if you care enough that it becomes easy.

To truly achieve something difficult (such as leaving a high paying career to focus on your hobby + family) you usually need to really want to do it and have a good plan on how to do it. You need both. Motivation + Perspiration.

I practice what I preach and am currently bootstrapping my own startup. I was able to move to Germany though where I don't have to pay an exorbitant amount for health care for me, my wife, or my daughter (who has a medical condition and would probably have bankrupted us had we stayed in the US). I readily admit that doing this type of thing in the US is infinitely harder because of health care.

This may work to a limited extent as motivational talk, but it isn't true. The truth is more like: If 100 people truly care about writing their own software, etc., then some percentage of them will figure out a way to do it. The rest will not find the right opportunity.

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