Some years ago my manager (who has since moved up one tier) told me that it had taken him a long time to understand that some people don’t want a career, they just want a job. He was of the former persuasion, I the latter.
My wife occasionally nudges me to advance up the career ladder into management. but I’m an introverted engineer, and I have no interest in directing the activities of other people, or taking on the stress of dealing with underperforming/noncompliant employees. Moreover, my wife and I already earn enough money to retire early; earning more would enable us to retire even earlier, but I don’t think the stress would be worth it.
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[*using convenience items and expecting the final product to look/taste like what it’s imitating
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[li]not bothering to double/triple check measurements then wondering why everyone in the comments is suggesting “you did something wrong”[/li][LIST]
[li]More IMO but I cannot stand blogs where the blogger is more interested in promoting their own oozy cutsey selves then they are in refining the recipes they post. I know self-promotion is necessary to get your blog noticed but it’s so easy to overdo it. Joy The Baker, I’m looking at you.[/li][/ul][/LIST]
If I’m reading a food blog I’m more interested in recipes/techniques than I am schmoozing with whoever’s writing it. For example, I love Simply Recipes. She doesn’t make the blog all about her. She doesn’t talk down to you. Her recipes work.
I worked a high pressure job in real estate. I gave it up when the market went down, and I’m now a store cashier. I do my work, check my till, and go home. No stress, no worries.
I don’t think the OP’s attitude is particularly uncommon. Speaking for myself, I work because I need to to pay my bills, but ultimately, my passion lies elsewhere. As a whole, if I make enough money to cover all my needs, most of my passions, and some of my wants, I’m okay with that.
With all of that said, I’ve also come to the realization in recent months that contentment leads to apathy. And apathy in my career was starting to bleed through into other parts of my life, notably into my passions. I still don’t particularly care about recognition at work, but I do need challenge. Even though I work in programming/IT, so things are constantly changing, I’d gotten to a point where even solving these problems just wasn’t challenging anymore. So, even though I’m a big fan of stability and don’t have any particular desire to make more money or get promoted, I’ve found that it’s still something I need to pursue to a certain degree, it’s just that what I’m looking for is greater fulfillment in work, if more money or prestige comes with it, great, but if I can get more interesting problems, get less stress or a shorter commute instead, that’s much more important.
People have all kinds of money-related regrets later in life. “I wish I’d made enough money so I could travel the world.” “I wish we could have afforded to do the stay-at-home parent thing.” “I wish I had made enough money to buy Cadillac health care coverage instead of Yugo.” “I wish we could have afforded to live in a better neighborhood, so that the kids could have gone to better schools.”
People also regret not accomplishing more in their professional life. Like writing the Great American Novel. Or being the next Bill Gates. Or winning the Nobel Prize. Or just being recognized as Employee of the Year.
You don’t even have to be on your deathbed to have these kinds of regrets.
So I think it is a myth that people don’t ever regret not being more ambitious. There are a whole heap of retirees nowadays who wish they had worked longer and harder, because they now realize that 24/7 of leisure on a Social Security pension is a highly overated experience.
Most larger companies need a certain number of employees with that attitude. A good mix of people with varying degrees of desire to move up is essential to an efficient and productive operation. They provide stability and subject matter expertise. The only “danger” in wanting to stay in the same job forever is that one may max out in the pay grade. It then becomes more difficult (though not impossible) for a manager to reward them for a job well done.
This is my biggest fear, tbh, I dread vacations because 9 times out of 10 I’ve been too busy to even think of making plans. Suddenly there’s this huge chunk of free time in front of me and it makes me want to scream because I have no idea how to deal with it. I no longer have the energy/wherewithal to dive into anything catching my fancy like I did when I was younger, and that’s frightening.
I don’t have a degree of any kind, and I’m of average intelligence, so all I have is my work ethic and ambition. I work my ass off for promotions and raises so I can be sort of comfortable, and employers absolutely exploit that. I’ve come to peace with it as I’ve gotten older, so it’s not a big deal anymore. I’d like to get a degree and increase my earning potential, but I work too many hours to commit to education. Bit of a catch 22. I guess my point is that for me to live comfortably, I have to seek out the things the OP refutes. And that’s okay.
One of my sons is very much like this. He has the exact same job he got directly out of college, and he’s 33 now. He loves what he does, who he works with, and likes to be the one everyone turns to because he knows so much about his product. He also loves where he lives and doesn’t want to relocate. So offers have come his way, but each would have involved relocating, so he’s turned them down. He’d probably take a promotion if it could keep him in the area he’s presently in, though. Sometimes I’m so tempted to ask him why he doesn’t have any ambition anymore? But then, I stop myself and realize that being so happy and content with your life is major. Not everyone has to be a non-stop striver. I’m that way, but he isn’t. And I’ve learned to respect that about him. He’s certainly a much happier person than many I know.
That’s essentially the fundamental problem with the US system as I see it. The message is that you should always want to be top dog, and be competitive and ambitious, but there’s no goal or end-game to be achieved. It’s just a never-ending competition, and you can’t win, in that there’s always someone out there with more money, more power, more influence, better stuff, etc… That’s why Donald Trump is running for president- it’s not like he needs more power, money, etc… but he can’t just be content with what he’s achieved- he has to continually compete.
Once I realized that, I re-evaluated my personal goals, and realized that I didn’t really want to advance above a certain level- it would take more of a toll than it would be worth, and ultimately I don’t give a crap what others think about my ambition or lack thereof.
I like my free time, but I also like working. I’ve found that I need contrasts.
The idea of working for the rest of my life doesn’t bother me at all, as long as the work I do gives me a sense of purpose. I don’t think I “live to work”. But I don’t live to sit in front of the TV all day either. 24/7 of leisure doesn’t appeal to me. And between the weekends and the hours outside of 9 to 5, I already have plenty of time to engage my hobbies. I also do plenty of traveling and adventure-seeking during my annual vacations.
I totally get why retirement is a dream for so many people. But to me, it is a more ambitious dream than scheduling your bucket list around life-long employment.
Someone has to lead and someone has to follow. I’m not a leader; this doesn’t mean I work mindlessly but it does mean I don’t have ambitions to move up. I do improve processes and am always trying to learn more but not to move up, just to do my job better.
I have the best boss imaginable and the team I work with is competent and drama-free so I do not take for granted how good I have it. If my boss moved on, I would re-evaulate but for now I am quite content.
I’m with monstro. People may not literally wish on their deathbed that they had worked more hours, but they may well regret not having the resources to do more, especially in their retirement.
My parents and their friends have been entering retirement in the past several years and it’s obvious now which ones wish they had made different choices. My parents worked hard and are proud of their accomplishments, and are now living comfortably. Others took the easy way whenever possible and had to sell their house and move to a cheaper state.
And personally, I am so thankful that my parents were financially responsible. The children of my parents’ irresponsible friends are now looking forward to a couple decades of financial support.
I’m not really just putting in time; it’s a little different than that. It’s sort of like what I do is what I do, and I’m perfectly content with it and the people paying me seem fine with the job I do. Everyone is happy (except for the aforementioned coworkers who complain all the time).
It really is a situation where I go in, and I don’t look at the clock for a while; but when I do, 4 or 5 hours have passed - I get in a zone is what people call it I guess.
Well, for a lot of us, the idea isn’t so much the kicking back and relaxing and doing leisure-time stuff 24/7, as it is the freedom of not having to do stuff we don’t care about, on someone else’s schedule, dressed how they think we should dress, and where they think we should do the work. Basically doing things to my own expectations and whims, not someone else’s.
I mean, when I’m retired (or win the lottery), I plan to do volunteer work and the like, but entirely on my own terms, and if I find that it sucks, I’ll just stop doing it.
You definitely do get bored and in a rut if you just have to do leisure time stuff for an extended period without significant cash to try new stuff all the time when you get bored.
I think one source of my ambition (which for me is simply the desire to stay comfortably employed, with some control over my job duties and some sense of purpose) is the awareness that I’m not going to have anyone caring for me in my old age…at least not out of the goodness of their hearts. And the desire to not rot in a horrible nursing home. I’m content with my lifestyle now, but will my pension/retirement savings be enough to keep me content when I’m in my 80s and 90s? If Medicare won’t pay for my knee or hip surgery, will I be content just shrugging my shoulders and allowing my health to deteriorate due to lack of exercise (and pain killer addiction). Or will I really wish I had enough money saved so I could get that surgery, so that I could then live to see humans colonize Mars and all the other amazing things I imagine we will be doing fifty years from now?
I am driven because I don’t want to perform this experiment. I don’t want to worry about what Medicare covers or anything else.
I wouldn’t say I “dread” vacations, but I don’t really look forward to them either. I have no idea what I would do with myself. I’m not up for traveling 'cos I wouldn’t know what to do or where to go.
my goal is to work until I can’t work anymore, then hopefully kick it shortly thereafter. I really don’t think I want to live to be 90+ if it means I’ll be sleeping 18 hours a day, and if it means a “walk” is me shuffling slowly from the kitchen to the living room and back.