7 ms·

I don't understand how so many people can anchor their lives to work. If you do that, when you retire, you've lost your meaning of life. I have a list of things

by Daynil 7y ago

I don't understand how so many people can anchor their lives to work. If you do that, when you retire, you've lost your meaning of life. I have a list of things a mile long that I just can't get to because 40 hours a week is already spoken for. Early retirement speeds cognitive decline? Maybe if you sit on the beach and/or watch TV all day long, but that sounds kind of miserable if done for more than a few weeks.

um_ya 7y ago
Some of us see work as the meaning of life. Traveling and doing things just for the experience alone seems kind of meaningless. Great for vacation, but not great for long term goals. Perhaps if you're at a dead end job, then work might feel meaningless, I agree.
- markus_zhang 7y ago
  totally agree with you. if i love my job then no reason to retire.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    Good luck keeping a job in technology into old age.
- lutorm 7y ago
  Except that if you retire early you can still "work". It's just that you can work on whatever you want, not just on what someone will pay you for.
  - spurdoman77 7y ago
    But is it work if no one is willing to pay for it? I would consider that to be hobby.
    - ht_th 7y ago
      For me, the separation between hobby and work is more of a matter of responsibility than pay. If I feel responsible for some activity/task/project I would classify it as work. It does not matter if it is taking care of kids, growing a garden, being a board member of some charitable organization, or one of my free software projects: I do not get paid, and I like doing it, but I think of it as work rather than a hobby. Building some software prototypes for ideas I have, that I count as a hobby. Reading all the books I do, however more time I spend on it than some work activities, I still think of as a hobby.
- cj 7y ago
  To the people downvoting this: why is this an unreasonable perspective? The commenter isn't advocating one way or another, only pointing out that there are people that exist who are content with work as their self-perceived life meaning. I can absolutely see how this can be true for people in the sciences. There are many academics who devote their entire career - and often their life - to finding the answer to extremely difficult problems. For those people, I imagine they must feel their work as more of a life mission rather than a regular job necessary to pay the bills. There are a lot of people who find significant meaning in their work (perhaps greater meaning in their work than they've been able to find outside of it). That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad or unhealthy. These type of people may be few and far between. But they exist.
  - dickeytk 7y ago
    I don't even think you need to be in the sciences. Perhaps it's a result of a protestant upbringing, but I grew up in blue-collar America where virtually everyone was a tradesman. If I may generalize: these are people that while they might complain and dislike going to work, they feel deep satisfaction about contributing back to society. Or maybe it's that with trades you have a direct connection to the work you do and the effect it has on the world. Either way I think we could learn something from them. White collar types seem to want to avoid work at all costs. Work isn't to be avoided. In fact if you measure your life by how much it affects others, it's probably the most important part of your life.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 7y ago
      As a developer, I feel a deep disconnect between the work I do and any results. At home I make things and I get way more satisfaction from designing a simple 3D object that serves a function and printing it out. I can see why tradesmen may have better job satisfaction. You can directly improve the life of someone else.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    I understand without really sharing the parent’s sentiment. I’ll probably continue doing some of the work I do now when I retire. But at some point I do want to spend more time on hobbies and travel that’s more in the more time than money (eg backpacking) vein. But I understand how someone might find fiddling around with photography or home software projects frivolous if they could instead contribute to projects they find significant-but are of a nature that they really need to work on more or less full time.
- strken 7y ago
  I think that the gp is using "work" to mean one specific job or at least only the work one does in their career, while you're using it to mean all work. I don't think they're mutually exclusive views. I think it's possible to do meaningful and impactful work outside of your job and career, like volunteering or running a side business as a passion project or even creating artwork, and I can imagine that kind of work being the kind of thing you never retire from.
- dickeytk 7y ago
  Work is the way you contribute back into society. Going to work and doing my job is my way of knowing that I'm giving back into the system that allows me and my family to live. I find it far more fulfilling than anything else. Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well. At my job, I get to exercise the skills I'm best at. I can't do any old job though. I have to be able to trace at least a thin line from what I'm doing to the broader society. I know this isn't a common opinion, but I encourage you to at least consider that work—while not fun—is at least a fulfilling way to spend your time. This should be the case regardless of what you do or how much you make.
  - mkl 7y ago
    > Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well. Depends. If no one else is doing that particular thing, then by definition you're the world expert. It doesn't matter if there are other people who could hypothetically do it better; they're not in the game. I have a current hobby that most able-bodied technically minded people could do better than me (genetic joint condition), but as far as I can tell I'm accomplishing things no one else has.
  - username90 7y ago
    > Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well. Doing it as a hobby just means that you don't do it for money, not that you aren't good at it. For example often your hobbies overlap with your work. I program games as a hobby and program/design extremely performance sensitive things at my job, they overlap quite a lot.
  - tasuki 7y ago
    > Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well. If you love doing something (which is the origin of the word "amateur"), you're likely to be good at it. If you're a professional, it just means you get paid. Amateurs care primarily about the pursuit itself, while professionals care primarily about their paychecks.
    - Grustaf 7y ago
Frost1x 7y ago
I agree, it's really not related to work at all. To me, this sounds more like propaganda that falls under the elitest premise that "...people need to be assigned work tasks to be productive members of society." Perhaps this study gives some merit to this premise, at least for cognitive use, if there's really any relationship at all and it's not purely genetic/age related (past data conflicts with some of these findings). I find myself far more intellectually stimulated doing activities outside work than during work because people don't want to pay me enough for the things I find alluring, so I often compromise and do some bit of what people will pay me to do.
disordinary 7y ago
It's quite common for people to die within months of retiring, even if they retire healthy. It's down to a lack of purpose.
tluyben2 7y ago
Well, most people I see did have other plans before they retired, but when finally retired and having no one to force them to do anything, they actually do nothing. The hobbies they complained they had no time for, the charities they wanted to work for, etc all quite rapidly vanish. Smart people with high profile jobs who end up watching tv and doing the odd sudoku puzzle. New generations might be different (although I cannot imagine the much reduced attention span of people helps against this) and ofcourse this is anecdotal but I do see this a lot. I know people who are now retired 10+ years and kind of assumed they would be dead by now while they ofcourse have 20 years more probably. At least 3 I know died over 95 in good health (for 95) while being bored shitless (travelling, which somehow is a retirement obsession, apparently gets boring too) for the past 15-20 years.
- ImaCake 7y ago
  Being self-motivated is actually incredibly difficult. Just ask any PhD student who has hands-off supervisors. Learning to chase your own goals independently is a skill you have to cultivate. You need to learn your weaknesses, what tricks you can employ to get working, and what you actually care about enough to achieve.
  - arvinsim 7y ago
    Yup. You can get all the time you want, buy all the equipment you need and even then, you sometimes feel like just watching Youtube.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Do you think there's demand for a motivation as a service non-profit?
    - ImaCake 7y ago
      Hmmm there is a market for self-motivation advice to PhD students but they aren't exactly a wealthy audience, and atleast some of it is purchased by education institutions rather than individuals. Beyond that, there are plenty of motivation oriented smart phone apps and etc. And there is 80,000 hours who sometimes take that as their purview. https://80000hours.org/ https://80000hours.org/
erfgh 7y ago
It's not the same. Work requires you to finish. Just having a list of things is not the same. You get lazy, you shift to the next thing too early, etc.
- 2muchcoffeeman 7y ago
  That’s part of cultivating an interest in other activities. Figuring out how to make time for them and following through till completion. The external motivation is not succumbing to dementia. I’ve seen people suffer from dementia. At the moment I’d rather have the option of euthanasia rather than live like that.
tzjmetron 7y ago
Precisely.

by Daynil 7y ago

um_ya 7y ago

Some of us see work as the meaning of life. Traveling and doing things just for the experience alone seems kind of meaningless. Great for vacation, but not great for long term goals. Perhaps if you're at a dead end job, then work might feel meaningless, I agree.

markus_zhang 7y ago
totally agree with you. if i love my job then no reason to retire.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  Good luck keeping a job in technology into old age.
lutorm 7y ago
Except that if you retire early you can still "work". It's just that you can work on whatever you want, not just on what someone will pay you for.
- spurdoman77 7y ago
  But is it work if no one is willing to pay for it? I would consider that to be hobby.
  - ht_th 7y ago
    For me, the separation between hobby and work is more of a matter of responsibility than pay. If I feel responsible for some activity/task/project I would classify it as work. It does not matter if it is taking care of kids, growing a garden, being a board member of some charitable organization, or one of my free software projects: I do not get paid, and I like doing it, but I think of it as work rather than a hobby. Building some software prototypes for ideas I have, that I count as a hobby. Reading all the books I do, however more time I spend on it than some work activities, I still think of as a hobby.
cj 7y ago
To the people downvoting this: why is this an unreasonable perspective? The commenter isn't advocating one way or another, only pointing out that there are people that exist who are content with work as their self-perceived life meaning. I can absolutely see how this can be true for people in the sciences. There are many academics who devote their entire career - and often their life - to finding the answer to extremely difficult problems. For those people, I imagine they must feel their work as more of a life mission rather than a regular job necessary to pay the bills. There are a lot of people who find significant meaning in their work (perhaps greater meaning in their work than they've been able to find outside of it). That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad or unhealthy. These type of people may be few and far between. But they exist.
- dickeytk 7y ago
  I don't even think you need to be in the sciences. Perhaps it's a result of a protestant upbringing, but I grew up in blue-collar America where virtually everyone was a tradesman. If I may generalize: these are people that while they might complain and dislike going to work, they feel deep satisfaction about contributing back to society. Or maybe it's that with trades you have a direct connection to the work you do and the effect it has on the world. Either way I think we could learn something from them. White collar types seem to want to avoid work at all costs. Work isn't to be avoided. In fact if you measure your life by how much it affects others, it's probably the most important part of your life.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 7y ago
    As a developer, I feel a deep disconnect between the work I do and any results. At home I make things and I get way more satisfaction from designing a simple 3D object that serves a function and printing it out. I can see why tradesmen may have better job satisfaction. You can directly improve the life of someone else.
- ghaff 7y ago
  I understand without really sharing the parent’s sentiment. I’ll probably continue doing some of the work I do now when I retire. But at some point I do want to spend more time on hobbies and travel that’s more in the more time than money (eg backpacking) vein. But I understand how someone might find fiddling around with photography or home software projects frivolous if they could instead contribute to projects they find significant-but are of a nature that they really need to work on more or less full time.
strken 7y ago
I think that the gp is using "work" to mean one specific job or at least only the work one does in their career, while you're using it to mean all work. I don't think they're mutually exclusive views. I think it's possible to do meaningful and impactful work outside of your job and career, like volunteering or running a side business as a passion project or even creating artwork, and I can imagine that kind of work being the kind of thing you never retire from.
dickeytk 7y ago
Work is the way you contribute back into society. Going to work and doing my job is my way of knowing that I'm giving back into the system that allows me and my family to live. I find it far more fulfilling than anything else. Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well. At my job, I get to exercise the skills I'm best at. I can't do any old job though. I have to be able to trace at least a thin line from what I'm doing to the broader society. I know this isn't a common opinion, but I encourage you to at least consider that work—while not fun—is at least a fulfilling way to spend your time. This should be the case regardless of what you do or how much you make.
- mkl 7y ago
  > Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well. Depends. If no one else is doing that particular thing, then by definition you're the world expert. It doesn't matter if there are other people who could hypothetically do it better; they're not in the game. I have a current hobby that most able-bodied technically minded people could do better than me (genetic joint condition), but as far as I can tell I'm accomplishing things no one else has.
- username90 7y ago
  > Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well. Doing it as a hobby just means that you don't do it for money, not that you aren't good at it. For example often your hobbies overlap with your work. I program games as a hobby and program/design extremely performance sensitive things at my job, they overlap quite a lot.
- tasuki 7y ago
  > Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well. If you love doing something (which is the origin of the word "amateur"), you're likely to be good at it. If you're a professional, it just means you get paid. Amateurs care primarily about the pursuit itself, while professionals care primarily about their paychecks.
  - Grustaf 7y ago

Frost1x 7y ago

I agree, it's really not related to work at all. To me, this sounds more like propaganda that falls under the elitest premise that "...people need to be assigned work tasks to be productive members of society." Perhaps this study gives some merit to this premise, at least for cognitive use, if there's really any relationship at all and it's not purely genetic/age related (past data conflicts with some of these findings). I find myself far more intellectually stimulated doing activities outside work than during work because people don't want to pay me enough for the things I find alluring, so I often compromise and do some bit of what people will pay me to do.

disordinary 7y ago

It's quite common for people to die within months of retiring, even if they retire healthy. It's down to a lack of purpose.

tluyben2 7y ago

Well, most people I see did have other plans before they retired, but when finally retired and having no one to force them to do anything, they actually do nothing. The hobbies they complained they had no time for, the charities they wanted to work for, etc all quite rapidly vanish. Smart people with high profile jobs who end up watching tv and doing the odd sudoku puzzle. New generations might be different (although I cannot imagine the much reduced attention span of people helps against this) and ofcourse this is anecdotal but I do see this a lot. I know people who are now retired 10+ years and kind of assumed they would be dead by now while they ofcourse have 20 years more probably. At least 3 I know died over 95 in good health (for 95) while being bored shitless (travelling, which somehow is a retirement obsession, apparently gets boring too) for the past 15-20 years.

ImaCake 7y ago
Being self-motivated is actually incredibly difficult. Just ask any PhD student who has hands-off supervisors. Learning to chase your own goals independently is a skill you have to cultivate. You need to learn your weaknesses, what tricks you can employ to get working, and what you actually care about enough to achieve.
- arvinsim 7y ago
  Yup. You can get all the time you want, buy all the equipment you need and even then, you sometimes feel like just watching Youtube.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Do you think there's demand for a motivation as a service non-profit?
  - ImaCake 7y ago
    Hmmm there is a market for self-motivation advice to PhD students but they aren't exactly a wealthy audience, and atleast some of it is purchased by education institutions rather than individuals. Beyond that, there are plenty of motivation oriented smart phone apps and etc. And there is 80,000 hours who sometimes take that as their purview. https://80000hours.org/ https://80000hours.org/

erfgh 7y ago

It's not the same. Work requires you to finish. Just having a list of things is not the same. You get lazy, you shift to the next thing too early, etc.

2muchcoffeeman 7y ago
That’s part of cultivating an interest in other activities. Figuring out how to make time for them and following through till completion. The external motivation is not succumbing to dementia. I’ve seen people suffer from dementia. At the moment I’d rather have the option of euthanasia rather than live like that.

tzjmetron 7y ago

Precisely.