Ask HN: How did you escape your safe 9-5 job?
I really need advice, I&#x27;m in this exact situation and I&#x27;m feeling lost.<p>I&#x27;m gonna go throwaway since I really need to spill the beans here:<p>My story is full of &#x27;pendulum swings&#x27; and &#x27;comparisons&#x27; and I can&#x27;t really make up my mind. I need help.<p>- I am married with children.<p>- I live in Brazil, which is shitty right now, as most of you know (far-right trigger-happy president just got elected). Lots of unemployment going down here, people are genuinely struggling. Basically everyone knows someone unemployed or in bad shape financially.<p>- I managed to somehow escape all the suffering from the last 3-5 years by landing a .gov job several years ago. That means I currently have a good stable income, I am able to afford a mortgage and a comfy home, I have a car and health insurance. Not much money left at the end of the month but everything is properly paid and managed. And I basically cannot be laid off unless I do something really bad.<p>(Lots of people here would kill to have this job -- in our culture landing a .gov job is synonymous of &quot;having made it&quot;, because the majority of Brazilians don&#x27;t really enjoy hard work -- they measure success by your amount of free time).<p>- Problem is, my current 8-5 job is as meaningless as one can imagine. I siphon data thru python scripts and write excel spreadsheets, deal with lots of useless crap, data that is not going to be used for anything, and that&#x27;s it. It&#x27;s a .gov job after all, filled with bureaucracy and useless stuff to do just to fill time. It makes me feel really empty and after all these years I have ended up developing Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic Attacks ;(<p>- Otoh, before working here I worked on places in which I&#x27;ve consistently put 70h+ work weeks, I was really fat and my overall health (blood pressure, sugar, cholesterol levels) was poor. After joining this boring dayjob I managed to have more time for exercising and hobbies and I ended up losing an excess of 50kg, which was really good to me. My health is mostly in check, besides my anxiety which fucks me on a weekday basis (I almost don&#x27;t have it on weekends).<p>- After I arrive home from my dayjob I&#x27;m usually so stressed out for not really doing anything meaningful (which worsens my anxiety) that I have several freelance gigs lined up so I can &#x27;feel alive&#x27; for a bit. I am a systems developer and I have almost 20 years of UN*X experience, which lends well to these kinds of custom workloads where they need specialized solutions and whatnot. When I&#x27;m in the zone doing this kind of work at my home office, I have no anxiety whatsoever.<p>- I know I need more free time for my family and the kid. I don&#x27;t think I should be living two work lives for that much time or I&#x27;ll end up not seeing my kid grow up or something. As much as the freelance gigs make me feel really accomplished, I realize I also need time for &quot;real&quot; hobbies (music making, woodworking), exercise, etc.<p>- All these freelance gigs helped me shape my career outside of my day job and build a good network and portfolio of solutions and cases. I currently have some interviews lined up with recruiters from Europe, and some are going pretty well. I think I might score a job there soon-ish and if that happens I&#x27;ll be offered to move. That means abandoning my &quot;dream job&quot; here.<p>- Thing is, I don&#x27;t know how it can turn up there, it could be good, it could be bad and if I come back I&#x27;ll not have my safe job anymore, and I&#x27;ll end up being thrown into genpop without any kind of safe net which is much needed in this extremely volatile environment that is Brazil right now. And now I&#x27;m older and I have a mortgage and a kid.<p>- I am currently &quot;taking a hit for the team&quot;. Not happy at my dayjob, but I do it anyway and I &quot;like it&quot; because I am thinking about how I am able to keep my family together and well-fed, while several people are losing their houses etc and suffering a lot. It really is a &#x27;lesser evil&#x27; situation.<p>My doubts are:<p>- Am I complaining on an full stomach? Should I stick to my safe job and not go into unsafe adventures?<p>- What if I end up hating there as well and regretting not having valued my current safety as much as I should?<p>- Otoh, what if I am losing myself into this hole of a job and living a lesser life, for me and for my family? Emigrating to a better place could mean more work and less slack but also living in a better place, with less crime and with a better overall quality of life.<p>Doubts doubts doubts.<p>I&#x27;d appreciate your sincere opinions! I&#x27;m gonna come back in a few hours to read the replies.<p>Thanks in advance and have a good day, y&#x27;all! o&#x2F;