Going Surfing

30 Sep 2012

You want to go surfing, but you have to pay the rent.

I can see four types of approach:

A) Work brutally hard.

Give up on surfing. Make a million bucks by 30 (or 40, or 50), invest it at 5%, go surfing for the rest of your life.

B) Go surfing.

Sleep on friends' couches. Eat rice and beans. Make a surfboard out of driftwood. Do odd jobs when you have to.

C) Find a job in surfing.

Get paid to surf. Also surf for fun. Don't let the former destroy the latter.

D) Find a job you don't hate.

Do something for 40 hours a week that pays the rent. Go surfing on weekends.

I know people using each of these strategies. (C) is probably optimal, but it's hard to achieve, and not stable. (A) is very risky, because "die without ever doing any surfing" is a real possibility. I've seen (B) work very well, but I have doubts about its long-term viability. (D) seems to be the default, and majority, approach.

I'd be interested to hear comments.