Leaving the corporate world?

Discussion in 'Pandora's Box' started by Mire, Feb 26, 2013.

  1. Has anyone else thought of just buying a ticket to some random South American
    country and living in some random tribe instead of just working endless hours waiting for the next paycheck? I feel like I'm not going to enjoy my future if I have to suit up everyday and deal with financial transactions and whatnot. Is it even possible at all to just head to some civilization frozen in time, where money does not take priority in everyday life? Would living amongst the natives even be enjoyable at all? Anybody have experience with this?
     
  2. Like everything else you've got to find a balance. Part if my balance is the herb.

    I think if you were to up and leave into the wild..you might find you'll miss some of the comforts of home. Instead of doing it extreme and since you know you won't be happy chasing money all your life, why not start saving and working towards a goal
    Like buying a house in the country, growing your own fruits and veggies, have a few farm animals for fresh eggs,cheese, meat, etc.

    Just my 2cents
     
  3. I was thinking about moving to Jaco, Costa Rica and working at one of the hostels... such a chill life. Smoke, surf, chill all day long.

    Maybe one day :)
     
  4. Im going to start mining gold in south africa tomorrow
     

  5. Be careful over there, not the safest place you could've chosen... and good luck finding a place that HASN'T been mined yet :p
     
  6. If I was (a lot) younger I would probably move to S. America, but not because the American corporate world drove me out, but because the American government drove me out.

    I'm self-employed and have been involved with industry all my life. Sure there are problems but life is full of problems, always has been and always will be for everybody.

    If you don't mind shitting in the woods and wiping your ass with leaves, walking who knows how far to fill buckets with questionably clean water, lugging them home and using it to drink, bathe, and do dishes with, don't mind being cold in the winter or sweating constantly in the summer, not having any money to buy all the things that make your life comfortable right now, then by all means give the wilderness a try.
     
  7. I did this. I moved to hawaii and lived off the land for months, theres a lot of people on the big island who do this. They have solar power and batteries for electricity, boil and sterilize their own water or get city water, grown your own food. Everyone just chills, smokes a lot of weed, and surf like all day. Play music during the day, yoga etc.

    There is good and bad. Like someone above said its easy to take some things we have for granted that are awesome. A nice clean bed, god damn I missed that so much. A clean bathroom with a flushing toilet, shower etc. A sink to rinse and clean dishes, a fridge.. electricity! lol, every time I tried cut my hair with my electric razor out there it would take like an hour because it would short out every 5-10 min and the electricity would have to charge again. Forget anything above 100 watts.

    Instead of being a slave to the corporate world how about finding a way to make money that you enjoy? Then you can live a chill life still growing your own food and living by nature by still have the convenience that we have in America.

    Its up to you though, at first I was thinking about going to Kenya and living with the tribes in Africa as well, Im glad now I didnt as that would have been really extreme. Im sure it would be great fun and a lot to learn but even after a little bit Im sure it would be rough. I like being able to live chill in the american country and drive into a nice city and have the nice things it has to offer. A good idea would be to just go on a trip to a place like that among a tribe and have money so that you can return if you want to, experience it for a month or two and decide.
     
  8. Ha, when friends of mine occasionally bitch about their electric bill, I tell them to shut the main breaker off for a month and then assess if the two, three, four dollars they were spending per day for electricity is worth it. Especially if they have a well, cuz with no electric you got no water at all, which also means no flushing toilet.
     
  9. No thanks, I'm glad I don't live in a Third World country.

    I plan on taking full advantage of civilization. I will go to work in an office all day until I retire. Sometimes it sucks but I would be so miserable if I always had to be farming or hunting or doing without all the things I enjoy.
     
  10. I've said it once I'll say it again... If I was living a different life, I would work to save up for some land, buy a tiny house (nothing more than 600ft, I don't need or want much) and start me a small farm, raise some animals, veggies, fruits, build your house to be self sustainable (yes the technology is there, and you can find kits online to build your own homes haha). Yes all of this takes time, and yes you lose some "luxury" but for me, that's what I would do. It fits "me" pretty perfectly. I could always work part time or clean houses sense I love to clean or work with animals, I would see where the road took me.

    That's me though, self sufficiency is out there, but you have to work, save, and plan for it.
     
  11. Those were my plans once, and I carried it out to some degree. In the late 70s, my second wife and I were going to homestead somewhere in the south -- N. Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky or thereabouts. We took a 2 week camping trip down there to look around in the fall of '77. We both knew gardening, she knew about food preservation, I learned how to raise, slaughter, and process hogs. But then we got divorced in '78.

    But the bug was still with me, so in 1981 I bought a 20 x 24 unfinished one-room cabin on 7 acres of woods, with a creek running about 20 feet away from it. It had a toilet and a kitchen sink which at one time had creek water pumped to it, but nothing when I bought it, so I basically had to plumb the whole place -- which included hooking up to an existing old dug well, adding a shower, hot water heater, etc. I've never had any desire to live without indoor plumbing.

    It was really just a weekend summer camp on a dirt road, no phone, and that's what I wanted. I was living cheap and I had my own firewood supply -- a huge plus to me. I raised hogs (up until around '91) and the first summer I worked on my buddy's farm for not much money but enough to survive on. But not really. I couldn't last doing that and paying for homeowner's insurance, truck, motorcycle, and health insurance (which was cheap then), nor would I ever be able to own another new vehicle and the truck I had was falling apart. So I had to go back to my toolmaking roots.

    Then I got a steady GF in '83 and not having a phone was starting to bother me. Not just because of her, but because of my parents, friends, etc. I guess I had proven my point or something, so then in '84 I gave in and had a phone installed.

    Living in a 480 square foot cabin with no closets was a challenge at times and the idea of adding on entered my mind once in a while. Then in '88 I got another GF who had 2 little kids and that gave me the reason I needed when we decided to live together. I added a big living room and 2 bedrooms, expanding the square footage to 1280. I now had a "regular" house.

    I heated solely with wood and coal until 2010 when I had central heat installed (I never use it though, it's just for emergencies and to increase the value). And I finally got tired of water from a dug well -- they are NOT clean; mice, etc. fall into them and drown, etc. so in 2005 I had a new well drilled (which are sealed and sanitary).

    So, no regrets, but living without modern conveniences and without enough money to supply them isn't much fun once you've had them. For primitive peoples who know nothing about them it doesn't mean anything. But to be born and raised with them and then try to go backwards isn't much fun.
     
  12. wow respect to you old man haha. Damn you had a 2nd wife in 77, does this mean you were old enough and seen the great Jimi Hendrix?? Haha Hendrix is a big idol of mine I always ask older people if they seen him. Get great stories from people who have.

    Thats pretty bad ass though, no phones, no pets, no cigarettes.. ultimate freedom. There is something to living in the wild that is so satisfying to me, makes me forget about all the superficial things in life, more spiritual with the land and life. I have a really good situation goin for me lately where I have been traveling each year from May-Oct then come back and work, make money and then go travel again.

    Im thinking of this summer going and living in the wild for a month or so, and then travel around to different areas. Its such a freedom feeling that nothing else compares to for me. Really feel like Im living and getting so much out of my days. Last year when I was comin back from Hawaii me and a buddy traveled through North Cali just goin from place to place, sleeping wherever we could. Made me see life in such a different way, met hundreds of people, a lot of fun.
     
  13. No, I never got into concerts etc. I dated a girl who had gone to Woodstock, I guess that's as close as I ever got, ha. When I was a young buck all I cared about was pussy, beer, and hot cars/motorcycles.
    I bet you will never regret doing that, but when you get older you will (probably) yearn for a home you can call your own.

    My best buddy and I were going to quit our jobs in '70 (we were both born in '50), pack our motorcycles and just take off (haha, our inspiration was the movie "Easy Rider" which I think came out in '69). Work here or there, earn some money and move on, although I don't recall Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper working. But that wasn't reality. Peter kept a tube of white powder hidden in his handlebars; if I recall correctly that was their money stash.

    My buddy had a car that he had just bought brand-new a year or so before, and sold in anticipation of all this, then I met my first wife in '71 and that was the end of our free and easy "Easy Rider" plans. Pussy power and all that. He was really pissed at me at the time, understandably, although we joke about it now.

    But had we gone through with it, I'm quite sure it would have been a good, un-regrettable experience no matter how it all turned out. And I am also quite sure that we both would have come back to our home area to settle down within a year or so. Unless we met some hot pussy somewhere, then all bets would be off, haha.
     
  14. #14 gotexans, Feb 27, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 27, 2013
    dont go to africa. my friend made that mistake for a misssionary trip and ended up getting really sick off some african flu shit



    i enjoy buffalo wild wings too much to leave the us
     

  15. Neat :D

    My cousin does this, but he lives with a large group of different people.

    I don't know I'm a minimalist... different people can adapt better I think, but I don't assume a lot of people would be able to give up their TV cars and internet, but meh the internet is really the only thing I'm attached to and you can get free WiFi almost anywhere. I find myself overwhelmed a lot of times in my current life, it seems wasteful and poisonous to me. But like you mentioned at the end of your post with the 2 kids, I have a boy of my own so at this point in my life it's not an option, maybe a in a different life or maybe a while from now, who knows? I don't make bets on the future though haha.
     
  16. Heh, in the '60s we called those "communes." And they never lasted for the same reason that communism doesn't last.

    Heh, when I first moved here I toyed with the idea of selling my tractor and buying a team of horses to haul logs for firewood. But it was just the ramblings of a young, clueless idiot. My father grew up around work horses (he would be 100 years old this spring if still alive) and although he never discouraged me, he did give me some tips about work horses.

    When I'm done with the tractor, I park it in the barn and shut it off and go in the house. That's it, done. Not so with horses.

    And when I need the tractor, I just jump on it, start it up and use it. Not so with horses.

    When I'm not using the tractor, I don't have to "feed" it. Not so with horses.

    The nearest town/store is 5 miles from me; driving there is a non-issue but rigging up a horse and riding there to get groceries is a bit over the top for a whole lot of reasons: the grocery store no longer has a hitching post, and they probably would not be real happy with piles of horse shit all over their parking lot. The obvious compromise, of course, would be a bicycle but they are quite limited when hauling plywood, 2 x 4s, or a half ton of coal.

    Using a truck is so much easier for many obvious reasons.

    I agree totally with you about making bets on the future. Extremely risky!

    As Mohammed Ali said, paraphrased: "If a man sees things at fifty the same as he did at twenty, then he wasted thirty years of his life."
     
  17. Where there is a will there is a way. Knowledge is power. You decide if you want to pass your life by working for someone else for pennies, stagnant, powerless, lashing out on others due to your own self loathing because deep down you know whats wrong and you do nothing day in day out.

    This is just what this thread made me think. :bongin:
     

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