Seems a bit all or nothing/permanent, though I don't have the perspective of age quite yet. In my mind, paid work is the 'degraded' form of life; you do it whe

Seems a bit all or nothing/permanent, though I don't have the perspective of age quite yet. In my mind, paid work is the 'degraded' form of life; you do it when you have to, for as long as you have to, and aim to not be doing it. I've probably spent less than half of my adult life "working" (easy as a software dev, a starting salary is more than double minimum wage). That doesn't mean I'm not studying/working in the abstract sense (I work on my own projects or play sysadmin or whatever), but money really shouldn't be an issue I think, unless you inflate lifestyle to require an always-on income. I think another poster dealt with this well. A job is a job, work is work, they are seperate. Work is good; jobs are necessary evil.