Work to live or enjoy work?

[driveway]

The best advice I ever got was when my mother told me, "Figure out what you love to do, and then figure out how to get someone to pay you to do it."

I love being the smartest guy in the room, so I teach junior high. Also, I love to travel, so I teach internationally. Plus I love vacation, and teachers get a lot of it.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I live for work... so that I can live worry-free later.

There's a balance here. The two can be the same thing but I definitely work 60-80 hours a week in 4 different companies and will continue doing so for another 10 years probably... Or at least the plan is to do this until I'm successful enough to "retire" and start enjoying life.

A friend of mine had parents who had similar ideas like you. They both died before the reached retirement and never got to enjoy the life they envisioned for themselves.

The time to enjoy life is when you're young and in good health. None us knows when we're going to die.

[OMG!WTF!]

Oddly enough the first Friday of February, tomorrow, is Working Naked Day. I'm 100% in...

https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/working-naked-day/

[Corral]

Work is your life. Work to live sounds like prison. And indeed it can be for many. Find a job you would do for nothing, and you have found something you truly enjoy.

[Matata]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

There's a reason that there are only a handful of guys like Musk and Gates.

These threads always go the same way. People who love their jobs come in here and act incredulous that anyone can function in the world that doesn't have their dream job. It's easy to say if you have your dream job. Hell, some people probably have no idea what a dream job is, let alone the resources to make it happen.

It is so much more complicated than to just say "try hard and sacrifice". The condescending part is acting like people who work jobs they don't love have no ambition and have settled in life.

I hope no one is stuck in a job they hate and if they are, I hope it's for a good reason. But I'm not gonna condescend to them and say they just need to pull up their boot straps and make it happen.

Waaaaaaah, hard things are hard, waaaaaaaaah.

[OutOfTheCube]

Originally Posted by Corral

Work is your life. Work to live sounds like prison. And indeed it can be for many. Find a job you would do for nothing, and you have found something you truly enjoy.

I've found this line of thinking very idealistic, in my experience. In that, once something becomes a job, work you have to do instead of a hobby or interest you choose to do, it inherently becomes less enjoyable.

[oilfanforever]

Things aren't so black and white to me. I think it all comes back to what makes people feel fulfilled and my underpinning assumption here is that people are fulfilled in many different ways - it doesn't always mean making money, work life balance, or doing something you 'love'.

I have come to one personal realization - my fulfilment comes from having a strong commitment to the mission of my work. I believe this is slightly different than doing 'something you love'. Doing 'something I love' would mean something like playing hockey for a living. I love hockey.

In my current career I'm not always doing things 'I love' per say (I'd much rather play hockey than travel for meetings, write papers and PPT decks, etc.) but I feel very fortunate to have a job where the mission is something that makes me want to get out of bed each morning and has me finishing the day believing that I am advancing a worthy mission.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by oilfanforever

Things aren't so black and white to me. I think it all comes back to what makes people feel fulfilled and my underpinning assumption here is that people are fulfilled in many different ways - it doesn't always mean making money, work life balance, or doing something you 'love'.

I have come to one personal realization - my fulfilment comes from having a strong commitment to the mission of my work. I believe this is slightly different than doing 'something you love'. Doing 'something I love' would mean something like playing hockey for a living. I love hockey.

In my current career I'm not always doing things 'I love' per say (I'd much rather play hockey than travel for meetings, write papers and PPT decks, etc.) but I feel very fortunate to have a job where the mission is something that makes me want to get out of bed each morning and has me finishing the day believing that I am advancing a worthy mission.

Your insight belies your fandom

[calgarygeologist]

I work to live. I really like my profession and the challenges and rewards that come with a job well done or when a project is completed but I have no desire to eat, sleep and dream about work. I'll put in my 8 hours but after that I check out and it is my time. My personal time is much more valuable than company time. In the past I made the decision to give up salary for more time off because it was a small price to pay for greater enjoyment. I believe that in general people would be happier and more productive if they worked less and had more balance in their lives.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Matata

Waaaaaaah, hard things are hard, waaaaaaaaah.

lol. Ok quick, tell me how the poor are poor because they just don't try hard enough!

There is a difference between financial success, job success, life success and work life balance.

Seems like you equate financial and jobs success with life success and happiness. Seems kinda sad.

Even you basic premise doesn't make sense. Some people love to travel and sit on the beach and hike. Are they failures because they don't work hard enough at their jobs?

Life happiness and success is not always directly tied to job satisfaction. The idea that everyone can just magically work a job they love through hard work is laughable. Otherwise we'd all be astronauts, professional athletes and rock stars.

[Corral]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

I've found this line of thinking very idealistic, in my experience. In that, once something becomes a job, work you have to do instead of a hobby or interest you choose to do, it inherently becomes less enjoyable.

Idealistic yes, but still worth striving for. To use your words a bit, the challenge is to find the work that doesn't lead you to separate your life into work and play (hobby, etc). Its all just work - make sure you enjoy it for what it is.

[dobbles]

Originally Posted by Corral

Idealistic yes, but still worth striving for. To use your words a bit, the challenge is to find the work that doesn't lead you to separate your life into work and play (hobby, etc). Its all just work - make sure you enjoy it for what it is.

But once again, this philosophy would require hundreds of thousands if not millions of people to have hobbies that include: flipping burgers, cleaning hotel rooms, standing in the same place all day making widgets, etc.

Those jobs have to be filled by someone. So if we all get our dream job of athlete or poet or scuba dive instructor, who is left to fill the jobs people don't regularly dream of having?

[Kybosh]

Originally Posted by dobbles

But once again, this philosophy would require hundreds of thousands if not millions of people to have hobbies that include: flipping burgers, cleaning hotel rooms, standing in the same place all day making widgets, etc.

Those jobs have to be filled by someone. So if we all get our dream job of athlete or poet or scuba dive instructor, who is left to fill the jobs people don't regularly dream of having?

Take your pragmatism elsewhere!

I'm fortunate however. My dream was to become a multi-millionaire cowboy astronaut geneticist, and hard work made it happen.

[dobbles]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

I've found this line of thinking very idealistic, in my experience. In that, once something becomes a job, work you have to do instead of a hobby or interest you choose to do, it inherently becomes less enjoyable.

I agree totally. I got into web design as a hobby after college. Decided that if I enjoyed it enough to do in my spare time at home that I should do it for a living. Been working in marketing doing sites for 8 years now and while it has afforded me good pay and the ability to work from home, it is no longer something I do outside of work.

I think for a lot of people having a hobby become a career kills the hobby. Often because it takes the fun and creativity out of it. For me specifically an example would be instead of designing a cool new site or learning a new web language, I got to spend a significant portion of my week recreating a bunch of old crappy webpages we had retired because stupid people in sales were giving links out to prospective customers containing super old information.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

That strategy seems like such a gamble though. You could die long before then, or have illnesses that prevent you from travelling or exercising or whatever you intend to do. And once you "retire" you will then get bored and want to keep doing something for work anyway. I get that it is nice to have options later in life, but you only get one chance, and missing your 30's and 40's to bank it for later just doesn't compute for me. And I'm a saver.

It's only a gamble if you view it in black & white terms like win or lose. Working various jobs and starting different companies have given me opportunities to do and try things many people normally would never have. We all value different things in life.

I have never taken a vacation in my adult life and I honestly see no need to do so. I hate vacations. I never know what to do. I've done school semesters in Europe, I've traveled for work. I've taken trips to do business research for my own company, etc. One time I went to Hawaii for a family wedding and I was completely lost as to what to do with my time. I ended up buying a guitar from a ukele shop and spent a few days teaching myself a bunch of songs on the beach because I needed a purpose or needed to be productive. People value different things and are driven for different things.

I might be on the wrong track, but when I say I'm working x number of hours a week so that I don't have to later, my real goal for doing this so that I don't have to work the 8-5 shift at an office anymore in 5-10 years and can do the actual work that I really want to do. I wouldn't want to retire. You're right, I'll probably never stop working.

Originally Posted by TheSutterDynasty

This is absolutely crazy to me. By the time you retire work is ingrained in you and you will probably just be bored, no? Besides, why spend your prime physical years working when you can be traveling, playing sports, trying new things, etc?

I work 35-40 hours a week and depending on circumstance in a few years I want to cut back to 4 days per week (30-35 hours). At 40 hours I feel there's barely enough time to do what I want during the week (gym, run, dog, friends, sports). Weekends are of course perfect.

This is of course a huge privilege that not a lot of people get to enjoy. But some may have that opportunity and yet choose 60-80 hour work weeks? What is it you do?

I work a full time professional office job with lots of OT, I started 3 local businesses in the last 3 years, some which requires me to be hands on. I am launching an online store next week. These are all a hectic juggling act. I'll get off work at 6PM and go straight into more meetings or working on another job. Same with weekends, I'm usually working another job as well. Some have been successful, some have been abject failures. Maybe it's a little like gambling. You feel the need to keep doing it. In terms of the dream job discussion, I definitely don't have that. I hate a lot of what I do. Finding something that works and becomes successful is what I'm chasing and I have an impulsive need to keep trying different things.

I did some school abroad in early 20s, travelled to every continent already for family (weddings, funerals) or work or school things already. I've had enough of travelling. I don't see the point. I don't play sports either, I did cycle about 1000 KM last year but that's about it. People just value different things. You can manage to squeeze all these things into your time if you are creative. A lot of my coworkers cycle to work every morning to get their fitness in. I used to play music with a bunch of people at work, we'd get together at lunch and have a band.

I've always been different than normal people. I don't see the point of a lot of the things people want to do on weekends or in their spare time or in their retirement. People have different things that keep them going. I'm pretty indifferent to the usual things people enjoy like socializing, travelling, being a foodie, adrenaline sports etc. Most of those things bore me or it's a "been there, done that, don't need to do it again" thing for me. I've tried all those things in my early 20s, I don't need to do them every weekend or even anymore at all. I'm that annoying person that would turn down social gatherings unless we could gather to do something productive. I'll show up every time to help you move and build furniture but I'll never show up to play board games.

Originally Posted by Dion

A friend of mine had parents who had similar ideas like you. They both died before the reached retirement and never got to enjoy the life they envisioned for themselves.

The time to enjoy life is when you're young and in good health. None us knows when we're going to die.

That's true, but I'm pretty indifferent to whether or not I am able to bear the fruits of my labor or I die trying. It's the journey or struggle that matters for me. At the end of the day, people have different goals, aspirations and plans. I learned this when I kept trying to pull my childhood friend into my serial entrepreneur-ism and for the longest time I couldn't understand why he wouldn't want to try new things. Ultimately, his goal was to raise a family, have a stable job, enjoy his time on the weekends doing the things he loved, retire at a set age, and not take any major risks. This is not what I wanted. We are just different people.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

I've found this line of thinking very idealistic, in my experience. In that, once something becomes a job, work you have to do instead of a hobby or interest you choose to do, it inherently becomes less enjoyable.

This is true in every experience I've had. Turning your hobbies into your job will often make you hate your hobbies or you'll go home not wanting to do that thing ever again.

HOWEVER

What turning your hobby into your job does is create a path of least resistance for you because you inherently have a lot of background and experience in that niche and it can lead to a lot of potential success. The side effect is that you no-longer do that thing for fun anymore but that's okay, you can always find more hobbies and new things to interest you.

[CliffFletcher]

You always get two groups of people talking past each other in these discussions: one group who talk about what an individual person could do, and other talking about the way things actually turn out collectively.

Telling people to follow their dreams is all well and good, but what happens when you have a massive glut of professional chefs? They get paid like crap, and wake up one day to realise that their dream job makes it almost impossible to raise a family (which may be another aspiration). On the other hand, nobody dreams of working a support desk for a telecom, washing dishes at East Side Mario's, or fishing tampons out of plugged toilets. And yet somebody needs to do that work.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Kybosh

Take your pragmatism elsewhere!

I'm fortunate however. My dream was to become a multi-millionaire cowboy astronaut geneticist, and hard work made it happen.

I call Bullcrap.
You are no real cowboy

[Kybosh]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

I call Bullcrap.
You are no real cowboy

Sorry, I mean multi-millionaire rhinestone cowboy astronaut geneticist.

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

snip

I can certainly respect why you do it; based on your description you enjoy it more than other things.

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I have never taken a vacation in my adult life and I honestly see no need to do so. I hate vacations. I never know what to do.

This is a red flag to me. If this were me, I wouldn't know what to do because I'd be in constant stress mode thinking about work 24/7 (by the sounds of it). Our body adapts to how it's used and I don't think that taking a few days off to travel = vacation when the whole time you're thinking about your 4 jobs. I wouldn't enjoy being somewhere else when I'm stressing about work either.

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I might be on the wrong track, but when I say I'm working x number of hours a week so that I don't have to later, my real goal for doing this so that I don't have to work the 8-5 shift at an office anymore in 5-10 years and can do the actual work that I really want to do. I wouldn't want to retire. You're right, I'll probably never stop working.

It sounds like you're quite successful and I assume you have some money saved up as you don't spend any on vacations, socializing, etc. What stops you from doing this now?

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I've always been different than normal people. I don't see the point of a lot of the things people want to do on weekends or in their spare time or in their retirement. People have different things that keep them going. I'm pretty indifferent to the usual things people enjoy like socializing, travelling, being a foodie, adrenaline sports etc.

Pardon more judgement, but this is another red flag. To me you don't like these things because they interfere with work. We're social and physical animals, and it's been said in this thread already - no one regrets not working more.