# Unemployed forever/Retired at 27.....



## Everymanalion (Sep 13, 2015)

Used to be a tattoo artist, stopped a couple years ago and now make money here and there with random stuff online, coming to the conclusion I will probably be unemployed forever due to my attitude of I would rather be homeless than waste my time on someone else's business for a barely viable wage on top of my excessive body modifications have condemned me to pretty much only being able to work in the tattoo industry(Which I now loathe and speak of with a venom on my tongue). I am starting to get older-ish and I can no longer write off my lack of employment as pre-teen angst and now I have to just accept it as just a facet of my personality, I am not lazy, I keep myself busy with things that I want to do personally such as hiking, running 3-4 miles a day, reading 2-3 books a week, writing, adventuring, nature collecting and generally just enjoying my time to myself(Has been this way for 4 years now). Yet society tells you your self-worth is measured in how many things you own and what you can accomplish vocation wise.

So I am posting this not to rant but out of curiosity, who else has pretty much lived this way majority of their life? You see both extreme sides of the spectrum with people who worked their ass off and made a decent amount of money for themselves and have materialistic objects to show, then you see the drug addicts and alchies who are burned out at 40 with nothing to live for but substance abuse but you never see the in-between, what about someone who is purposely unemployed and homeless, not addicted to drugs, keeps their mind and body in "peak condition" and is hitting their midway point in their life(35+ years old). How many of you on here are in that group?

Everyone else has their pensions, savings and 401K which my retirement plan is a backpack, tent and the road. What is yours?


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## stormcrow (Sep 13, 2015)

I definitely can relate to this. I've moved around all of my adult life, trying to maintain some semblence of "normalcy," all the while, but most potential employers want to see a resume that shows you are settled and stable. I guess I don't really like that feeling of being stable, but have at times been able to stave of wanderlust for as much as 2 years working and living in the same place. By the end of it I hate everything, my job, my boss, my shitty apartment that I pay too much for, my bills, my stuff. 

I just want to say fuck it and ditch normal life altogether, but here is the catch... Once you ditch normal life, unless you have a support net to catch you when you fall, nobody is going to ever let you back in the doors. This fear is what drives my desire to work at all, just so I can keep working. 

I hate working, though like you, I'm not lazy. When I have money and time, which is rare, I am very busy doing the things I want to do and always have projects going. My new project is to explore fully the idea of minimalism. Assessing and re-aclimating myself to living with only the things I need, that includes emotionally. The hardest thing for me so far has been that I like to play heavy music, which requires heavy gear. So I need to manage to have enough money to maintain that habit or give it up. I'm working on pouring my energy into new things so I won't require "gear." 

I hate working for other people, they are taking your time, which is a huge resource and the only one in this life that you never get back, but even more they take the soul out of you sip, by sip until your all deflated like a devoured sack of capri-sun juice. 

I'm always trying to find work I don't hate. I like working with my hands, I used to like working with computers... I used to like cooking... The common thread in the things I used to like, but no longer like: I made a job out of them.

I'm not sure if there is a cure for what society calls "attitude problems." A lot of us misfits end up dead or in jail at the hands of the state that determines, where ever you are, what "Normal," is. Being purposely homeless in a country that has so much abandoned, derelect and beat up homes, doesn't seem a choice to me, so much as something people get forced into. I think most people, though maybe not all would prefer at least to have a safe basecamp they can return to, when the weariness of the road becomes too great. So those that "choose," homelessness, would almost always choose a home if the impositions of the state were not so heavy. If home/land ownership were a right not just of the wealthy. What makes a home for everybody might be different, to some it might be the little bit of dirt between rocks where one can lay their tent. For others it means four walls and at least some sort of roof. I think its some little chunk of land where you feel safe.

Anyway, if you find the Big Rock Candy Mountain before I do, please send the GPS coordinates. I wish there were a safe "hobo land," where we could all go and get our needs met whatever they are. Good luck forging a way forward in this harsh world.


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## landpirate (Sep 13, 2015)

Amen Brother! i am with you on this one. I have not had what I would classify as a proper job since June 2008. Before that I worked full time for 10 years. I have worked since then, but I do literally the bare minimum of time in that job to get the things I need and then i get the hell out and carry on pursuing my own happiness. I've done farm work, laboured on building sites, dog walking, house sitting, painting and decorating, driving jobs, all sorts of shit, but literally I will work two weeks to get the money together to pay the insurance on my van for example then I am gone, or to buy a few months worth of dog food then I am out of there. I can go months without working. I am 33 now and whenever someone asks me what my job is I say "i don't have one I retired when I was 26!" they don't usually have a comeback to it!

I don't see the issue with it really. I haven't borrowed any money, begged or claimed any type of government benefit in over 4 years. So who's business is it of anyones when or if I work. I don't earn enough money to declare taxes. So again, who's business is it. I think if people have a negative opinion it probably only stems from jealousy that they haven't thought about it first and slave for someone else.

I am not opposed to hard work and, like you said I am also not lazy. I just refuse to be treated like a functionary for someone else's gain. I will bust my arse for myself but the boss man can get fucked. Life is too short to be sat behind a desk and dealing with dickhead colleagues. I've got shit to do and earning a fat wage packet doesn't really factor into that.


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## Tripp Dover (Sep 13, 2015)

I'm a lifer through and through, cheers and remember life is what you make it .


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## wizehop (Sep 13, 2015)

Man the only thing I'm going to say is this. Don't look at working for someone as only making them rich. Whether or not you are the one they hire means fuck all really. If its not you they hire its someone else, and their life goes on.
But if you aren't working at all because you think it only benefits others, your fucking yourself worse. Whether or not someone is making more from your work or not is irrelevant, and just because you are working for them doesn't always mean they are actually better off, life isn't that black and white trust me.

Here's the main thing, if you fuck off completely you are denying yourself the things in life you may really want. You not working for people, changes nothing for the rest of the world; but you not working for yourself changes everything for you. Do you get what I'm saying? Who gives a fuck what people get from you, your not working for them, your working for you..for your dreams what ever they may be

Work sucks, I fucking get that...that's why we only do it for money. But shit in life costs money, so at least from time to time we gotta work to get that extra goodness. I've lived with nothing and had to eat at soup kitchens, and I've had shitty jobs that paid pour. I'd rather work from time to time and have things occasionally, than give up on life completely, especially because I'm worried someone else may get money off me..that's insane...

seriously, your going to plan your future based on this perceived notion your making others rich? Like fuck yourself out of everything just because some one makes more from you than you make off them?..I just don't get this shitty attitude.


Having nothing puts you at just as much of a mercy to the "system" as what you think your ditching by dropping out. "Wage slavers" are mentally controlled by the "system", and bums are Physically controlled by it, like you said the extremes. Your just choosing one illusion for another. The trick is to know what your living for in yourself and live for that. Use the parts of the "system" you want for the reasons you want, not this black and white business kids are so obsessed with.

If you really want to roam the earth with nothing and that makes you happy, then so be it...but if that's really what you wanted you wouldn't be jaded about how everything is going down for you. Stop worrying about society, quitting on life because of some imaginary force is just as lame as giving into it.

Your life is your own, don't live it based on how much you hate others. At least your honest with yourself about your attitude. There is nothing worse than people who blame the rest of the world for their life choices. They want to be free but expect everyone else to give it to them.
But man regardless of whether or not you accept the consequences of your decisions, I think you'd be missing out on a lot in life by just dropping out.

I know this goes against the general consensus of the travelling community, but just look at how most end up...


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## Tripp Dover (Sep 14, 2015)

Thanks for that @wizehop ! That just made me think and reevaluate some things within myself.


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## Everymanalion (Sep 14, 2015)

As much as I agree with some of what you are saying, it does not end with your employer, everyone nickle and dimes you, I pay $14 a month for a natural gas access fee, yet I only use $2 worth of natural gas a month, if it takes me losing out on having a large television, a family on an already over populated earth and for my money, whatever little bit of it I have, to remain MY money to be free, then so be it. It is not JUST the employer, is it everything that comes with being apart of society that being an employee encompasses.


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## stormcrow (Sep 14, 2015)

Everymanalion said:


> As much as I agree with some of what you are saying, it does not end with your employer, everyone nickle and dimes you, I pay $14 a month for a natural gas access fee, yet I only use $2 worth of natural gas a month, if it takes me losing out on having a large television, a family on an already over populated earth and for my money, whatever little bit of it I have, to remain MY money to be free, then so be it. It is not JUST the employer, is it everything that comes with being apart of society that being an employee encompasses.


I hear that. I wish it weren't that way, but everybody will always try to get a cut and the only way to stop more middle men inserting them between yourself and the things you need is to figure out how to be more self sufficient... When it comes to it, we don't need natural gas or the people supplying it. You can cut out natural gas and then you cut out the middle men. Squatting and other ways of living more free are the way to cut out the landlord. I want to get a bus and convert it, but that still runs on gas or diesel which supports the petroleum industry and their various processors and distributors. At some point you have to pick and choose the evils you engage. Some people are comfortable with less and then they need to engage the system less. You just strike the balance that you can live with. The more luxury you require, the more people you pay for them.


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## Everymanalion (Sep 14, 2015)

That last reply was more so aimed at Wizehop, but what it comes to is what makes you happy, all I have in my life is my body and my mind and I would rather spend my days nurturing both than coming home exhausted for minor profit and repeating it day in and day out. 

I would rather work for my own necessities than labor for useless habits but it all comes down to personal preference.


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## wizehop (Sep 14, 2015)

Everymanalion said:


> That last reply was more so aimed at Wizehop, but what it comes to is what makes you happy, all I have in my life is my body and my mind and I would rather spend my days nurturing both than coming home exhausted for minor profit and repeating it day in and day out.
> 
> I would rather work for my own necessities than labor for useless habits but it all comes down to personal preference.



I get what your saying, but even when I'm working, it's for my my own benefit. What anyone else gets out of it from me means fuck all. 
What matters to me is that plane ticket to somewhere far off, or the likes. 

When I think about all the amazing things I've experienced in my life, I can tell you 100 percent it came due to proceeds of working the system.

Think about it man. You want to maintain person control, so you refuse to work under someone else. But in doing so, you actually gave them control over you. Only now you have lost an opportunity, the whole while this power game is only in your head. 

The rest of the world doesn't give a fuck about you or me or anyone. So in the end this game, this battle with the world is all in our head. Life is yours alone to lose man.

If you honestly think being homeless gets you more freedom than not then by all means. But man from where I sit there is so much more one can get out of life.


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## Deleted member 2626 (Sep 14, 2015)

Same on the work thing. I too hate the amount of waste most every job entails both physically and mentally but as wizehop said its for yourself. I work for family a lot in a serviceable trade but still don't hate it but won't and couldn't do it everyday till I finally slip to another planet. I too will be fine being in poverty and not having much. My biggest leap, normalcy wise, is building a 12x12 cabin on a couple acres and then being broke after it again. But it will beat a mortgage, power and water bills and I would as you said rather rough it and live more freely than like the slaves. I find myself sometimes worried about money but always get passed it. I'm happy with my dog guitar and tent. How is the off grid thing going for you everymanalion? And I sometimes wish I treated my body as well as you.


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## Everymanalion (Sep 14, 2015)

I am not off the grid yet, I am stuck in a sort of limbo as I have not hit my breaking point so I still, like a hypocrite, have a smartphone, a roof over my head and do the best I can to keep up with my bills but sooner rather than later I am sure it will all come crashing down and I will be hopping the border south to live on the beach, fuck fat assed spanish women and put myself in even crazier situations until I die from something stupid and trivial like being hit by a bus.

P.S. I did not put how well I treat my body up there in that post to rub it into anyone's face or sound pretentious, was just a mere statement so if it came off like that, I apologize!


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## Deleted member 2626 (Sep 14, 2015)

I use a smartphone for etsy and this forum and stuff but revered back to flip phone. Smartphone stuck in my face I am in done. Peoples over use annoys me.beyond belief sometimes. And I didn't take it as pretentious. Just sometimes after benders I think to myself it'd be nice to be healthier. But I am no and won't ever be an addict or junkie to anything


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## JamesPrice94 (Sep 15, 2015)

I like hard work actually, I do a job for me not the man paying me. Work hard for a bit, then I can relax, not work and do whatever I want to do for an extended period of time because I can live simply and dont require a lot of money. I like what you can do with money, although I know its just paper and has no real value and I will never trade off my health for money, or my values, or let myself become dependant on it. Being self sufficient would be great, but its not really a possibility for most of us. So pretend to play the game, and do your own thing.


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## Hillbilly Castro (Sep 17, 2015)

wizehop said:


> When I think about all the amazing things I've experienced in my life, I can tell you 100 percent it came due to proceeds of working the system.



What do you mean by this? When you pick an apple from a tree in an abandoned orchard, what's that got to do with the system? The best things in my life (and granted, I'm young) have been _in spite of_ the system. Love, taking walks, making art, preserving roadkill and berries, whatever.


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## wizehop (Sep 17, 2015)

Met the love of my life at a shitty serving job I had, my best friend in a collage I flunked out of. I've travelled the word and its changed my outlook on life drastically. I've invested in camera gear in order to make things, none of which I could have bought without money. I have done a lot of things that cost cash in order to do, and I wouldn't trade for the world. 
None of that would have been possible with out work or participating in this empty system you speak of. These systems may be machines, but they are still full with people and life regardless of why they exist. If all you need to be happy are berries, then we are drastically different people. That being said, there is nothing wrong with wanting nothing more out of your life, but those people don't post rants online about it...that's the difference.

When I have cash I have security. I can chose where I want to be without the worry of being kicked out. When I have cash I can do the things I want, whatever it may be that I choose, that's freedom. Turning my back on all the things just because someone else is making more money off of me is mental. Its a shitty way to see things. It scares me to think what my life would have been should I have maintained this "freedom". I would have missed out on everything....Everything!

But what if I stayed a bum, I'd be sitting in a squat telling myself at least I'm living free? Waiting to get kicked out by the police. Begging for spare change so I can eat (which is the same as going to work, only Id argue much more pathetic than being a wage slaver), or waiting until the soup kitchen opens? At least I'm free right. Although is waiting for people leftovers really a form of freedom? 
Man when I used to eat at soup kitchens my whole fucking day revolved around the hours they served food, so instead of being a slave to capitalism, I was a slave for handouts...still having to plan (and walk across the city) my days around someone else's schedule, only end of the day I still had fuck all, and could do fuck all.

So what if I can't buy a plane ticket to go visit some exotic culture to get more perspective on life, at least I don't have to go to a shitty job that's sucks the life out of me right? No one is going to make money off of me, so I'm going to do nothing. How the fuck is any of that freedom? 

I don't get this attitude that its either being a bum, or slaving away at some shitty cubicle for eternity. Why is it that the only options in life are one or the other? Why does working from time to time mean your a slave to the system and you have to be miserable. Its all a head game man and people fuck themselves out of so much because they are fighting a battle with themselves. If your what matter in the end, stop making decisions based on fantasy.

Everything I actually own can fit in a back pack ( almost ). Just because I work from time to time doesn't mean I have to spend my money buying meaningless things. It doesn't mean I'm buying into anyone else's illusions either. But when I want to take off to some distant land for a few months, I do. When I want to go to a restaurant and even treat my friends, I go. If I need to buy tools in order to make art, I can. Fuck, If I wanted to get my drivers licence and buy a car and fuck off somewhere I can save up for it. The list is endless
If doing the things I want means I have to exchange my time for a while, then so fucking be it. Because doing what I want with my life if more important than fighting this illusion that anyone gives a fuck about sucking the life from me. 
I am nothing, I know that. But I can be a nothing who waists his life doing nothing, or experience the world and my reality. Unfortunately the latter cant be done without some level of work. Having a job doesn't mean you have to work it till your death bed. You can quite any job at any time, and find another one down the road if need be. You can even chose what you do with the money you make. No need to blame society for what they think you should buy.

A lot of kids on here have the wrong Ideas of freedom, just like the people on the other end who over work do. I'm sure as you said, youth plays a big part in that. Freedom means having choices and in this society money brings options. Not having anything takes away options, its simple math.

Of course its not all based on money, but have coming from having none I can tell you a fuck of a lot more options are at my door with it. If you think waiting for other people to offer you some of their hard work is freedom, I feel for you. Some of us in this life make our own, and to me that's far better.


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## kelz (Oct 14, 2015)

I struggle to maintain any sort of job. Always have. The only thing the drives me to stay employed right now is my dog, she is getting older and health slowly deteriorating. I want to keep her comfortable and safe for as long as she lives. When her time does come though, that's it for me. She is my only tie to normalacy and materialism. Most of my friends understand my yearning for freedom from society's expectations and will never look down upon me for walking away from a stable home and job to find myself elsewhere. My family on the other hand is the polar opposite, but what they think has never bothered me in the least. I will always do as I feel and trust my gut, I dont care what others perception of me is. I am a minimalist, I wear my clothes till there's nothing left and the only money I spend is on my dog, my rent and my food and all of that I keep as minal as possible. I see a life fully off grid in my future, somewhere on warmer, maybe on the west coast. I am learning how to forage for food and sustain myself. How to build my own shelter, collect water, endure winters, etc. Even if i do decide to stay urban, I know how to stay healthy, safe and warm. I will never beg for money but I know how to trade hard work for a meal or whatnot. I make friends and connections easily and have a good support network. I never ask for anything, and I always repay every kindness ten fold.


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## kecleon (Oct 14, 2015)

*drunken rambles edited out* 

I'm the same not happy working and all that normal stuff but stuck in a cycle where I always think I need money.


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## Deleted member 2626 (Oct 15, 2015)

Well man in America its good to have a dime. I'm getting better at realizing, even with my dog, that I don't need as much as I thought a few years ago I go broke and then have and so forth. I have a great setup where I can return and work for the family construction business. I've had all my own work many times but still work frequently in home remodeling


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## Rob Nothing (Oct 16, 2015)

I too occupy my time with things I want to do personally. And I am in the same boat as regards being homeless and getting old enough to look at it more soberly.

Soup kitchens were fun for a little while, all the oddballs and wing nuts, fruits, flakes, junkies, homocidal fedorra wearing good Samaritans, the occasional bhudda or Jesus Christ or Hare Krshnawhatever you discover hidden in the bowels of the city, a work of art,. what a trash heap of a system we scratch around in. But it gets repetitive, especially as a clean sober and sane young gent with his whole life ahead.

Still, not so much that you can't metamorphose that lifestyle over time into a trade altogether your own, starting with survival skills, and with craftsmanship. I've seen it done, multiple counts of social suicide that blossomed into something intelligent, impressively adaptive, enterprising even revolutionary. And you see examples of this here in articles, blogs, and everywhere. 'The system', or rather the predominance of hive-mind mentality and people stuck in the dark ages, is broken apart and has already been replaced by freethinking, responsible, clearheaded people all over the world.

One day I will roam the earth w nothing, and not just on skid row but everywhere. I will walk the mthrfkin tundras, for there is a Sasquatch in my heart. But until then I am content with lesser things... Like a fish taco on a bench at Ventura pier with one of its thousands of gorgeous gorgeous oh so gorgeous mouth watering homosapiens, money in the pocket.


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## Everymanalion (Dec 3, 2015)

^I appreciate you because your avatar is Judge Holden, I actually have tattoos for him. My favorite book of all time.


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## Rob Nothing (Dec 3, 2015)

anything to be appreciated by you my sweet


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## codycodnyk (Dec 6, 2015)

In my ideal scenario, I'd still have money, I'd just get a check from the guvment and not have to work. But that ain't happening, and until gas, food and cigarettes are free, i gotta earn some cash. 
You don't have to work year round. You can work seasonally, live cheaply and use money when you need to. Being desperate and hungry ain't living free to me. Having to hope you get enough money from spanging to eat ain't free, neither is worrying about cops running you off or hassling you. 

1000 dollars can be stretched a long way and gives you a security blanket. You can make that much with a minimum wage job in about 4-6 weeks if you save most of it. Live cheap and spend the money to help you reach your goals, travel, do whatever. It'll make your travels a lot more enjoyable when you can't find any food, need to upgrade to a better jacket, need to get somewhere that hitching/walking isn't going to cut it, whatever. When you run low, work another job for a lil bit, quit, do your thing, whatever it be, and work again when you need more. That would be my happy medium anyway. I see that route as neither being a slave to a job or to poverty.


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