Eh. How hard is it to believe different people have different needs?
When I was the OPs age, I loathed, loathed, loathed offices. I’d feel a pit of emptiness in my soul every time I left for work, and at work I’d want to cry every slow, slow second that ticked by. I swore I would never do it again. I hated sitting, hated staring at a screen, hated seeing the same people everyday, and hated the routine. I worked 40 hour weeks, and after work I was so drained and depressed that I didn’t do much else but trudge to and from work, perpetually frustrated that I couldn’t work on all the plans and schemes my wandering mind would dream up while I was chained to my deal.
So I did something else. I became an overseas teacher. And it was great. I got to walk around, be around a lot of different people, and work and an irregular workday. Every day was different, and the work was fun and engaging. I had short hours, and all the free time I could ask for, which I used to learn languages, organize community projects, learn to cook, putter around building stuff, read, do art, travel and explore. I didn’t make hardly any money, but my needs were covered and life was sweet.
And years later I returned to office life. But this time I was in a different place in my life and career, and I am finding it fun. The people around me are smart and interesting, the office is clean and comfortable, and the work is challenging and meaningful. I’m also generally less restless and better able to focus on abstract tasks that would have once felt to me like pointless paper pushing. I work more than 40 hours and have next to no free time, but it’s okay. I’m engaged through the day, I feel like in moving forward in life, and I actually enjoy the respite from responsibilities at home.
But ten years ago? I would have probably hated this. Different times have different needs.
Right. Which I think everyone agrees with. But the OP seems to think that he knows what he’s always going to want. And just as all of us when we were 24, he is probably wrong. So he should be careful about putting limits on himself.
I think jsgoddess’s last post says this much better than I possibly could.
Yeah, young people are short sighted. Old people are, too, but they have less time left to be short sighted about.
I think you and jsgoddess have some real wisdom in your posts. I’m always amazed, though, by the insta-pile on and dire warnings every time a Doper suggests they might want to take a little bit of risk in their life or strike a slightly different path. Yeah, sometimes the path is dumb, but that’s why we have our 20s!
As a contrast, I work from home doing pretty much what I’d be doing for free and getting a lot of money for it. My job is literally my favorite hobby.
Maybe you guys should try that: monetize what you love and whore out your fondest dreams instead of slaving away for “the man” making old white men richer in order to fund whatever small crumbs of happiness fall from the fat cats tables. WAKE UP SHEEPLE!
On a side note, it was soooooo nice out today. I spent my working hours, walking around the city, enjoying the fresh air and sunlight, because that’s my prerogative and my chosen vocation allows me to work outside whenever I want beholden to no middle-management whims.
Having my own goals, values, and plans, and making my own decisions that align with them, ARE NOT A JUDGEMENT of anyone else’s choices. In fact, I don’t think about your choices AT ALL when making decisions about my own life. Your choices have nothing to do with my choices. I presume you will make choices that align with your own goals and values, and yay for you for doing that. My choices are DIFFERENT from yours, but that doesn’t make them better, or worse, or purple, or whatever.
You do what works for you. I will do what works for me – which, as it happens, is not identical to what works for you. People, weirdly enough, are different, and have different skills, needs, and desires. DIFFERENT IS NOT BAD, mkay?
Sheesh!
Let’s keep this in context, please. I’m running on fumes because I’m essentially working a FT day job (which does occupy about 10 hours a day of my time) plus another career that is more than FT. I am not working for 8 hours then going home and sitting on the couch staring at the TV for the rest of the night. Yes, I’m running on fumes, because I work a lot – both work I love, and work I like well enough to keep doing to pay the bills, but not enough to do so at the expense of what I love. Which was why I was talking about crafting “hard cutoffs” around a balance between the two. I don’t have a traditional work path. I won’t have a traditional work path… well, ever. It is not for me. Sure there are people that it IS for, but it is not for ME. So I will be scaling the desk job back when I can, to focus on my career. Why is that so difficult to understand?
To be blunt, all this defensiveness over my making different choices than other people do, and explaining my value system which leads to these choices, comes off like a whole bunch of insecurity issues around your own choices. If you all are content in your decisions and your work path and your value system, why are mine so threatening to you?
To be blunter, I think you (Kaio just want to justify to yourself that the work schedule that you take that’s making you run on fumes is worthwhile. I’m certainly not threatened by what you do with your time. Judgmental, perhaps but I’m neither bitter, envious, nor concerned.
My original point is that putting the cutoff at 25 hrs is really putting that cutoff at the bare minimum and that anyone doing so really re-examine their life. Notice how I didn’t say that they were lazy, weak, feeble, or stupid?
You then came in saying that your part time job is leaving you running on fumes and that a 40 hr work week leaves you with no time for yourself YET you have time to take up a second job that’s more than FT? Well then I imagine your workweek well surpasses 40 hrs/week and edges on 100+. I also imagine you’d rather minimize your desk job’s hours and maximize your nonpaying job’s hours because you enjoy it more. Well fancy how the hard cutoff now all of a sudden becomes flexible? Why is the idea of hard cutoffs so threatening to you?
All of that and we haven’t even touched on the subject of job satisfaction playing a role in hours worked, which I imagine would open another set of insecurities.
I apologize then… it sure seemed from the earlier posts like you were saying that working 40 hours a week was making you run on fumes, when clearly you’re working more like 50-60+ hours a week… which does make you run on fumes in short order.
Lots of people aren’t looking for meaning in that desk job, they’re looking for it elsewhere.
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All of that and we haven’t even touched on the subject of job satisfaction playing a role in hours worked, which I imagine would open another set of insecurities.
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Dis is you, pancakes3. Let me be your cockney chimney sweep. Please let me be your chimney sweep.