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Same. In three years of immersing myself in my passion (pentesting/vuln research), I've tripled my income and vastly improved my quality of life. A lot of it was just going after my area of interest vs listening to other people tell me what I "need" to do before I go there.

Again, probably not the route if you aren't interested in it though... Not saying you need to wake up, hack, sleep, repeat, but you probably won't be able to "tough it out for a paycheck"... There needs to be a substantial level of passion/interest in the subject for it to work. IMO, that's where it goes wrong for a lot of people. They get excited about buying a bootcamp or whatever, but then quickly find out that it isn't for them and lose interest, or worse, go through the motions and then wonder why it isn't working...

This is tough if you have children. I have no problem living in a 1200sq ft modest house, but they simply don't exist in good school zones in my area.

"...warned against drawing conclusions based on simple correlation."

Can we just do this, in general?

I, too, follow the twodave method.

Yep. And Signal is as good as it gets for end users with zero technical knowledge. I've had many family members and friends install it on their own and not skip a beat.

Best thing I have read on the internet in quite some time. Thank you.

American here. I would like to point out that places with amazing health and vacation benefits exist. I work at one in academia. Amazing health insurance, amazing sick leave and vacation (that you are actually allowed to use, guilt free). Paternity and maternity leave, six months (so a total of a year for one couple). If you have a family or value those things, it pays to quit looking solely at that salary field and look for culture and benefits.