I’d rather be broke, than have a job

(aka yet another arrogant digital nomad bragging about how awesome it is)

I didn’t have a job for more than a year and it was the best year of my life.

It doesn’t mean I didn’t work — in fact I work almost every day, sometimes up to 12 hours a day, although I’m trying to limit the hours to avoid burnout. Empirically I calculated that 3–4 hours of uninterrupted work are the optimum. Sometimes I get stuck trying to figure out a problem and I spend all day and all night at it, which I found to be counter-productive, but I still have to develop a discipline to stop working when the solution seems to be so close, and instead take a break. Surely, change of focus works like magic. Also, one can’t underestimate the power of critical thinking, sometimes you have to completely change the approach, and Eureka!

I travel while working, or shall I say work while traveling? I don’t travel for entertainment, I do it for practical purposes: to cut my costs and to learn something new. Call it romantic consumerism, but I want to believe that there is always something to learn by exposing yourself to new experiences. In fact, I think that one doesn’t have to travel to live life to the fullest. Just by developing consciousness in your everyday routines you can live a memorable life as well. The fact that you travelled to Tibet doesn’t make you enlightened, it’s not where you’ve been, it’s not what you’ve experienced, it’s the knowledge you’ve gained from it that counts.

Recently yet another recruiter called me up about a software engineer opportunity and asked me where I currently live. I didn’t know how to answer this question. I paused for a bit and asked her to rephrase the question. The only thing I could tell her is that I’ll be in Los Angeles until Saturday and then I’m flying to France. I couldn’t stay there for more than two weeks, so I got a one-way ticket to go to Southeast Asia. I always have to be on the go, for me that’s the way to live. But I never think about it as traveling, rather I just move from one place to another, and wherever I am, that’s my home.

I don’t have many personal belongings — all of them fit in my 80L backpack, and I still could get rid of some things there. The most expensive item I own is my laptop, and that with a reasonable internet connection is all I need to do what I love. Over the last month, besides hacking my own projects I’ve learned a new language, how to ride a motorcycle, how to do skim-boarding, besides what I’ve learned professionally just by having access to the Internet.

I don’t want a job, I want to work for a real purpose, one which matters to me. Only a few jobs I considered would match this criterion, but the real problem is that I won’t be a good match there, because of the cultural misfit. In fact, most of the internet startups appear the same to me — yes, the engineering work could be challenging, but that’s not enough. I want to see some real values, I want to see a team driven by a mission which resonates with me. Of course, on a surface, every startup in Silicon Valley claims to “make the world a better place”, but most of them merely develop a more optimal way to stuff ads down your throat to make you buy stuff you don’t need, or focus on on-boarding as many users as possible to please the investors.

I know the title may sound naive and arrogant to you, and I still might take up some job when I run out of money, or just for fun. But this would be a job unrelated to software engineering. Yes, I’d earn less money, but I believe by exposing myself to a different profession, instead of building yet another social mobile app, I can balance it out with gained life capital. I’d rather be broke and work on what I love, than have a typical software engineering job.