u/These_Wrap_4195

I am 31, married, and I have one kid. I have good friends. We joke a lot, we laugh, and that part is great. But I noticed there was never a right moment to talk about the things I am working on. When I tried, it felt like the wrong place for it, or it felt like nobody really cared. So those things stayed in my head.

I also go to a dads group, where we talk about the harder personal topics. I kept thinking, why is there no table like that for the rest of life? I mean the projects, the plans, and the things we are quietly trying to fix.

So I started hosting a small dinner, about once a month, for guys who are all quietly working on something. Some have side projects, some are building habits, and some just have ideas they want to move on.

The first try was a good night. One guy talked a lot, but honestly people were inspired by his project, and it opened a long conversation about posting content online. The real problem was quieter. The most silent guy told me later that he barely spoke, because he believed everyone else had life figured out. Nobody does. I only learned this from talking to him one on one, after the dinner.

The second try had more people and no plan for the evening. It was more chaotic, the conversation moved to politics for a while, and I was tired by the end. It was not a bad night, and I had a few good side conversations afterwards. But the evening lost the reason we were meeting, and I went home feeling it could be more than this.

The third try almost did not happen. Seven guys confirmed. Then one got sick, one had to take care of his sick girlfriend, and one had dropped out earlier. I looked at the group chat and thought about postponing. My wife told me to stop worrying so much. We held it with four people.

It was the best night I have had in years.

Two things were different. The table was small, so everyone had space to talk. And I tried the thing I was embarrassed about, which was a short printed page at each seat. It explained why we are meeting, and it listed a few questions to start from. What are you working on? What do you keep postponing? What did not work out? And the most important one, what do you feel you cannot talk about with anyone in your normal life?

I was afraid it would feel like a work meeting. It did not. When the conversation drifted away, someone would look at the page and bring us back, so I never had to play the moderator. The quiet guys spoke this time, because answering a question that is written on the table is easier than interrupting someone.

What I didn't expect - the page was all about projects, but what we actually talked about was relationships. We talked about wives, girlfriends, and dating. One guy is not dating at all and is fine with it. I'm the one is figuring out marriage with a kid. The projects brought us to the table, and the real conversation arrived on its own.

The small win that nobody saw is that nobody at that table knows I almost cancelled. The worry about the dropouts cost me more than the dropouts themselves.

If this is useful, copy it. Keep the table small, write down a reason for being there, and hold the dinner even when half the list falls apart. And do not worry if the conversation leaves the plan, because that is usually the sign that it is working.

Does anyone here have their own version of this? It could be a table, a group, or a walk with the same friend every week.

I am posting this because I see a version of my old self here every day, in the "my job is fine but I feel empty, maybe I should quit and figure things out" posts. I did exactly that, and I want to share what actually happened.

Some context first, because it matters for the lesson. A year or so before quitting, I did a public speaking workshop, and I discovered something strange about myself: I wanted to speak, but I had no idea what I wanted to speak about. That discovery bothered me enough that I started working with a personal branding coach. With her help I got much more in tune with what I actually wanted, and I sketched a plan with concrete projects: a newsletter, a coaching practice, some kind of community around real conversations.

So understand my starting position. I was a software engineer with savings, no kids yet, a clear picture of what I wanted, and a written plan. I was not jumping into fog. I quit believing that the only missing ingredient was time.

Here is what six months of total freedom produced:

• Newsletter issues: 2
• Paid coaching clients: 0 (I coached a few people for free, and it went nowhere)
• Small dinners I hosted for people I knew: 4 out of 4 planned

That third line confused me for years. Everything I tried to build alone died quietly, and the one thing where six people had said yes to a date happened every single time.

My days had no shape. I woke up with no reason to start. I was busy in a scattered way, and at the end of most days I could not tell you what I had done. I started to believe something was wrong with me. At some point I wrote in my journal, word for word: "I waste time. I do not do what I should with my life. I am lazy."

The journal was wrong, and the dinners were the proof, but I could not understand it yet. The newsletter was a plan in my head, and plans in my head could be quietly postponed forever. The dinners were different in one way only: I had told six people a date, and they had said yes. I had given my word. I had clarity. I had a plan. I had unlimited time. The difference was that the dinners were the only thing I had committed to someone.

In 2024 I went back to full-time software engineering, partly for the money, honestly. Then the strange part happened. With a full-time job, a newborn son, and maybe five free hours a week, I published 31 newsletter issues in one year, against the 2 from my free period. My first paid coaching clients came, after all the free coaching had gone nowhere. This year I restarted the dinners, and there have been three editions so far. The job gave my days a spine, and I started doing on purpose what the dinners had taught me by accident: for everything I actually cared about, I committed to a real person that I would do it.

Do I regret quitting? Honestly, no. Those six months were good for me. I got to see what life without a job actually feels like, and that killed a fantasy I would otherwise have carried for decades. What I learned is that the extra things I dream about fit next to a job, and they might even need one. I did not have to wait for some future free version of my life, and I did not get to use the job as an excuse anymore.

I am 31 now, and looking back, the empty feeling had two layers that needed different medicine. The first layer was not knowing what I wanted, and the coach work fixed that. No amount of free time would have. The second layer was that everything I wanted lived only in my head, unspoken and uncommitted. That one moved when I came to terms with what I actually wanted and started saying it to real people, as a commitment, not as a dream. What filled the emptiness was expressing what I want in different forms, writing, hosting a table, sitting across from someone and asking questions, and watching those things exist in the world. It turns out I did want to speak after all. I just needed to find my ways of doing it.

If you are writing a "should I quit to figure things out" post right now, my experience compresses into two questions. First: can you say, plainly, what you actually want? I needed help with that one, and it was worth paying for. Second: have you committed to another person that you will do it? Not shared the dream. Promised the thing, with a date. The first question gives you a direction. The second one decides whether you will ever move.

Has anyone else run this experiment? Did quitting actually work for you? I am genuinely curious, because I only have my own data.

TL;DR: Software engineer, worked with a coach, knew what I wanted, had a plan, then quit at 28 to execute. Six free months produced almost nothing, because I had committed to nobody. Back at work, with five free hours a week, everything started existing. Free time was never the missing piece. Come to terms with what you want, then commit to someone that you will do it. That beats unlimited time.

https://preview.redd.it/36pz8xwv7g6h1.png?width=952&format=png&auto=webp&s=fccee4b4aedabba884e5fc7a40cdbcd08f7070f7

Salut. Mă uit să îmi iau prima locuință și m-am uitat destul de serios la Scala Sopor (cartierul Sopor, spre Baza Sportivă Gheorgheni). Concret e un duplex la ultimul etaj al tronsonului cu CF abia în 2028.

Înainte să semnez ceva vreau și niște păreri de la oameni care chiar au de-a face cu dezvoltatorul ăsta, nu de la agentul de vânzări care normal că-mi zice că totul e perfect.

Ce m-ar ajuta să aflu:

• Stă cineva în Scala Frunzișului sau Scala Center? Cum arată după câțiva ani la capitolul execuție și întreținere, ce probleme v-au apărut?
• Mai ales cine e la ultimul etaj / etaj retras. Ați avut infiltrații de la terasă sau acoperiș? Și dacă da, cum s-a mișcat dezvoltatorul pe garanție?
• Cumpărare pe antecontract cu termen 2028. Pe ce clauze ați insistat ca să nu rămâneți și fără avans, și fără apartament la timp?
• Și Sopor în general, ca să stai efectiv acolo, cum e cu traficul și infrastructura acum?

Orice experiență, bună sau proastă, mă ajută. Mersi.