This was really my takeaway as well.

The finality of decisions is highly situational.

The article doesn’t hold true for me, I have used myriad chances to fail, and have so far lived 3 distinct epochs in my life, each one a life unto itself. I owe this to the simple decision of my father to buy 5 acres of raw land a couple of miles out of town and teach me to use tools.

On the basis of that I have never had to rent, I have had my own shelter (starting with a simple cabin and an outhouse) from the age of 16, and I have never been overly dependent on a job to where I wasn’t willing to walk away.

Having simple shelter made it so I could fuck around and find out until I found something that worked a little, then iterate.

I spent many years of my life intermittently in poverty, getting my food from food banks and buying expired surplus from food thrifts, gardening, etc and relying on social programs for medicine, but I was never at risk of being homeless. Always a place to fall back to.

I have parlayed that into a pretty good life, comfortable, productive, and a small economic engine that provides for several families in the community.

My advice for anyone having children: buy land if you can. Not structures, but land. A few miles out of town is fine, because vehicles and bicycles exist. Teach your kids basic carpentry, electrical, mechanical, and masonry skills. Those are the basis of civilisation.

Move to where you can do this if your local environment is too expensive or restrictive. Move to a new country if needed.

I have done this with my children and because of that, they enjoy the same benefits that I had, and are finding their way having known nothing but self determination as the fundamental principle of their lives.

Debt -Free Land you control without many restrictions, not “real estate” is what makes it possible to live better than most people do while technically being in “poverty” by income. That is what makes it possible to take risks. Risks are what makes it possible to find a working solution.

Of course, if you are born into financial privilege, that’s also a great start, but that wasn’t my case. I often struggled to even pay the (very low) property tax.

Without the freedom and willingness to take risks, and the resilience and willingness to endure hardships, you may have to endure being a servant to someone unless you are very lucky, and luck works better if you can make your own.

This might read like a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps “ rant, but it is not. For most people, they are trapped in a situation designed to keep them in service of some goal not their own. It is very difficult to escape, and impossible without the proper training for self sufficient action and the complete lack of debt (or the willingness to lose anything you owe money on) You also might have to sacrifice your comfort, security, and literally risk your life or health to obtain the foothold from which you can launch a self determined life.

That is a position of extreme privilege, but it is one that can be obtained if you want it bad enough and are willing to roll the dice, and accept the finality of failure if you do not succeed (looping back to the article).

My point is that that kind of privilege is more within reach that most people understand. But you might’ve have to be willing to give up everything at first to use it. Most people are simply not prepared for the hardship and sacrifice that entails.

Land is still cheap all over the world. Unless you live on an island, You can probably get an acre of land for a months wages at a fast food place (in the USA) within a weeks bicycle ride of where you are. But that won’t do you any good unless you know how to turn that into a place to live and work from.