My career plan

[TheGoudaDoctor]

Simple:

Be a modern day hobo for 10-15 years, and write books about it. I like myself, but I dont find my life to be particularly valuable (Im not suicidal, I just dont care), so I might as well LIVE.

[Roussel]

Simple:

Be a modern day hobo for 10-15 years, and write books about it. I like myself, but I dont find my life to be particularly valuable (Im not suicidal, I just dont care), so I might as well LIVE.

ah man, start talking to homeless people and you will see a lot of them are very intelligent people who reject modern day society and its ills and have very legitimate reasons for it. saw some documentary which followed a few homeless people in canada, by the end of it, i felt like i was living my life wrong and they where living theirs right. ill try to get the name of that doc.

[ElkCloner]

Interesting
I read a review on a book written by two guys who took a year hitchhiking their way across the continental U.S.
Sadly I have forgotten the title of the book, but from reading the review it sounded veeeerrry interesting.
Might be something you would want to look into.

[mahatma]

While lifestyle is certainly a personal call with very little right or wrong being poor sucks ass.

[TheGoudaDoctor]

Ahh, well said Mahatma. But, as a Zen Buddhist, not having money could help me simplify my life, and therefore have more time for me to fully understand the nature of my mind.

I have an idea, too, you guys could help me with.
I was thinking about going to a major ski resort, buying a seasons pass, and then going up and into some offsides snow, and building a small, concealed igloo. I could work as a liftie, get paid, and buy my food in town, stick it in a pack, and head on up to my snowshack.

Maybe Im just dreaming, but it could work out. But it would have to be positioned very strategically so as to not be seen.

[mahatma]

Gouda,

Of course that could be done. Make sure to consider things like the need to bathe, potable water, laundry, what to do if you fall ill, etc.. I think simplifying life has a lot of value. Keeping your worldly possessions to a minimum, keeping relationships at boyfriend/girlfriend at the most serious and what have you. Being able to pick up and move/change your life at the drop of a hat is freedom. However, truly not having money is not. If you have no money what do you do if you get an ear infection? Know what I mean? Money or I should say the complete lack thereof is not a preferred lifestyle.

[TheGoudaDoctor]

Yeah, I totally get you. There would always be some form of income. Im a natrual entertainer (I can rap, act, tell jokes, ride a unicycle, the works) so thats always a fallback in between times when I have some small work. But if I was living for free at a resort, I could feasibly live on part time minimum wage.

In short, Id keep the work to a minimum, and Id keep the living to a max.

[mahatma]

Gouda,

Suggestion - finish college first. That way, you'll actually have more freedom because you'll be a little older although still very young - this matters in generic ways because say as a 21 year old the world finds you more believable than an 18 year old. You'll also have a bail out. If/when living meagerly gets old you'll have a degree you can use to your advantage to gain some form of "better" employment that could very well allow you to continue your preferred lifestyle for longer. You see, we all at some point trade time for money. The more money you make per unit of time the less you time you have to actually use to make enough to carry on. That's part of freedom. If you must use say 20 hours per week just to exist then that is 20 hours away from freedom. But, if you can make the same green in 10 hours then you've just increased your freedom with no loss in core standard of living. Actually, things would probably work out closer to if you can make enough to live for a year in 4 months then you have 8 months of freedom. Something like that. You get what I'm saying.

[TheGoudaDoctor]

Yeah, I totally get what your saying.

Are there still any free colleges, like there used to be? Ive read "Steal This Book" dozens of times, and Abbie has a list of free colleges in there. Of course, that was in like 1971, so things might have changed..

[mahatma]

Gouda,

Mooch the most expensive education you can get. This might be the one area I suggest being utterly shameless in your pursuit of a "free lunch".

[Matthies]

Seriously, go school when you’re young. I didn’t. I went right to work at 18 (well after failing out of college in one semester). By sheer luck I got into commercial real-estate and rode the boom in Phoenix until everything fell about in 2001. I made a crap load of money in that decade, only because in that economy even an uneducated moron could make millions in real estate in Arizona. Those days are gone forever.

In 2001 at age 30, and much more maturity I went back to college and got straight As, then on to get a masters degree, and in May I’ll graduate law school at 38. During that time I have spent just about all the money I made the decade before on schooling and keeping up my lifestyle. So at 38 when I finish I’ll be much worse off money wise than when I started. I’ll have to scrimp for a decade or so to build back up my coffers if I ever want to retire.

Point is do this while you’re young so your building assets in your late 20s and 30s not spending them. Get schooling over as fast as you can. And for the love of god don’t major in poly sci or communications, all that major is, is pre-grad school. Get good grades in high school, study your ass off for the ACT/SAT and rock that test and you should be able to get plenty of scholarship money. High SAT/ACT (or for that matter LSAT if you want to be a lawyer) means schools throw money at you because your numbers help the schools ranking, higher scores, higher ranking, higher ranking, more students, more students more $, more graduates more alumni to donate money. Its all a numbers game scholarship wise.

As to working as a lifty, this is not mutually exclusive with going to college. Here in CO a lot of students take class only in the summer and fall, so Jan-April they can work at the resorts. The lager resorts also have employee housing (I think its free, or at least very low cost) kind of like dorms. So they work during the spring semester at the resorts, ski, and then go back to school in the off seasons. Some of the universities even have majors in ski resort management.

Learn from my mistakes, do school while you’re young. It sucks spending six days a week studying when your 37 years old. The days of making money without a degree are over for the most part, get your education while you’re young. Get good grades in high school, rock your SAT and you can go to school for free or close to it.

[mahatma]

Amen.