Escaping wage slavery went like shit... But I grew a lot!

[Raphael]

Hey there, I just want to share my experience of escaping wage slavery. I didn't achieve it, everything basically went like shit, but I experienced some deep growth from it!

So, back in late 2017, I wanted to become financially independent with affiliate marketing. I made one sell, however, most products on popular platforms were low-quality products that I didn't like, so I stopped everything. I was also in a work environment where I was bullied a lot, I was quite depressed, and I decided to quit this job.

At the beginning of 2018 I went back to my parents' house, in March/April I started to work on a SAAS app. At this time I was very angry at the world and more particularly with my father (which I hated). I also found a new job located more than one hour away from my hometown. Concerning the web app I didn't know many of the technologies that I needed, so I learned on the way.

For several months I had to do more than two hours of traffic every day, I was working on my computer in the bus and was really tired. I was also stressed by putting a lot of pressure on myself. Sometimes I was very productive, sometimes less productive and I was very hard on myself. I was telling me things like: "Some people are working 70 to 80 hours a week, so stop complaining about your life and go fucking do it!", and was unable to do any work. Hard masculine compassion (like Leo did in some videos) didn't work pretty well for me. Because of this the day after I would backslide and speak negatively to myself and be depressed, then another day I would try to catch up the loosed time by working late and sleeping only four hours. I was also at this period of time going to the gym five times per week, at 5 AM.

Finally, one day, the pressure becomes so hard with all the work, stress about my productivity, and all the intense hate against my father that I had a panic attack, the first of my entire life. I was very scared and thought I was going to die, I had difficulty to breathe and was very thirsty. I almost didn't sleep of the night but managed to calm down by doing some deep breathing.

This experience really calmed me down. Days and weeks after this, I didn't stop working on my app, but I was calmer. I also had several other panic attacks, but their intensity decreased more and more in time. Two or three months after my first attack I moved into the city where I was working, to not have to work in the bus. I was alone by myself, I didn't have and still don't have a lot of money, but I'm more independent now.

Concerning the project, I really underestimated the complexity of making a web application. I had to redo many things, work that I didn't do right, unexpected changes, etc. I basically tried to build something too complex, and it didn't even get off the ground. So I feel a little fucked up.

Now, something that I really didn't expect to happen was spiritual growth. After my last panic attack three or four months ago (who wasn't very intense), I had some deep spiritual growth which I didn't expect. I learned that acceptance is one of the most powerful things ever and I started to fully accept reality as it is and had some deep feeling of happiness. One day I had a very intense ecstasy feeling when I was in my bed, I was so happy that it was overwhelming and was unable to sleep. Sometimes I was looking at the room where I was sitting and also other things like my body, my hands and was feeling deeply connected and in peace with the world. I was smiling and had some small laughs all alone. I was looking at everything and was like: "Wtf? Wtf is all that? All of this is incredible!" I tried to describe my feelings with words but was unable to do it.

Right now I'm so grateful of everything that happened to me, so grateful that I've experienced those panic attacks, so grateful that I'm alive and exist. All of this is incredible, Even though I'm still a wage slave, I've learned a lot about myself and about web development. I did many mistakes from which I learned and feel more authentic and more happy with my life, even if don't have anything fancy.

I'm continuing my journey now

[ajasatya]

@Raphael so it didn't go like shit.

newbies think that life is like a bifurcation: success vs failure.
masters know that life is a sequence of straight failures until you reach success.

of course you'd find it in the last placed you looked!

[Matt23]

I've felt similar... I think.

One thing that might be helpful in escaping wage slavery is too accept it.  Making you more peaceful and happy, and therefore, more able to be productive in the long run.

[Raphael]

@ajasatya Well, if we think of the relative sense, it went like shit because I didn't attain my goal, in some other senses I learned a lot. Anyway there's still a lot of shit that I need to go through!

[Shadowraix]

Yeah sounds like you needed a lot more personal development to even think about this goal.

Going for a goal on a rocky foundation will most likely backfire.

[Moreira]

Pressure, stress, panic attack, it seems you should work on your overthinking. Do you meditate enough?

[UDT]

On 2/21/2019 at 10:47 AM, Raphael said:

I learned that acceptance is one of the most powerful things ever and I started to fully accept reality as it is and had some deep feeling of happiness

That is such an important lesson, not many people make it, try to go back to this realization in your mind every time you need to !

Edited February 22, 2019 by UDT

[Raphael]

 

16 hours ago, Moreira said:

Pressure, stress, panic attack, it seems you should work on your overthinking. Do you meditate enough?

I meditate 10 minutes the morning and 30 minutes the evening, but I have some trouble to do it properly since I moved back to my native country. However, I overthink less now