4 ms·

I had some years in my life where I could definitely relate to this, but I'm completely recovered. I think the key is to have some part of your life that is me

by gretch 2y ago

I had some years in my life where I could definitely relate to this, but I'm completely recovered. I think the key is to have some part of your life that is meaningful and fulfilling and not dependent on your work situation - aka hobbies. To relate it back to the story, there's a part where the protagonist thinks about what they've been doing with their time ("What have you been doing with the remaining 36 hours of the past workweek?") - when you're at this step, you should pick something up. Painting, learning spanish, volunteering at the animal shelter, amateur hockey league, picking up trash at the park, writing a book, etc If you can manage this, you'll find a new appreciation for your job. This thing that is minimal tax on your life that allows you the opportunity to hobby in the 99th percentile.

notevenreal 2y ago
That doesn't always work. Maybe some people can lie to themselves that the 8+ hours they spend grinding away in some fluorescent hellhole for 40 years is fine if they can just avoid thinking about that 1/3 of their precious short time on Earth, but that doesn't work for everyone. Compartmentalizing your misery is not healthy, and it DOES eventually catch up to you. Trust me.
- disqard 2y ago
  I'm intrigued by this exchange. I was like GP, and worked on fulfilling side-projects for years (after family goes to bed). Like you, I'm beginning to see that it isn't working well any more. Though I've built some very useful things for myself, being productive in this all-but-invisible manner still leaves much to be desired.
  - gretch 2y ago
    I don't know how to express this in text, but I want to say that I'm not frustrated by it in the same way that I'm not frustrated by the other things that I just-have-to-do in order to live the life I want. For example, I'm not frustrated that I have to spend 8 hours sleeping. I simply accept that's the world I was born into, that our bodies require sleep, so I do it. I imagine you probably accept it in the same way. If we were to criticize this from a perspective of "this is a dumb design and we should change it", then maybe we would be frustrated by it. Now when it comes to "bullshit jobs", I feel the same way. I was born into a society where some % of my job is bullshit but I can be paid for it anyway. But it really doesn't bother me that much, it's historically a great transaction, and I'm not responsible to change it (is it even a bad thing that needs to be changed? even if it's dumb that doesn't mean bad) I simply spend some hours of my week doing this arbitrary thing, just as I do for Sleeping and Pooping. And as soon as I'm done, I put it down and go live my "real life". I've never thought - "wow 15 minutes spent pooping everyday? I'm wasting my life" So what's the difference between the bullshit job and pooping? Well maybe there's a perception that these 2 things are different categories because 1 is designed by other humans and can therefore be changed. But I don't actually think it is changeable because it turtles down to some quirk in basic human desire. It won't work in the same way that you can't just tell people "Hey don't be curious today" or "don't be vain" or "don't be greedy". I accept that our current iteration of society has been defined somewhat organically, much like the way our body has biologically evolved. And that I need to "poop" at the societal level.
    - disqard 2y ago
      I saw your reply a bit late, but I wanted to thank you for this mental model. We all need to "poop" at the societal level That is one of the more "zen" things I've read recently. Thank you!!
nunez 2y ago
This is super difficult to do when you've just left your 7th Zoom meeting for the day and still have a mountain of project work to do, which you'll start doing right after picking up the kids from school and spend several hours tending to them. Or your weekends are spent doing everything you couldn't do during the week, except everyting takes twice as long to do because everyone else is doing the same thing.
- pas 2y ago
  It's ridiculous how many big corps can't accept someone working 4 days only. Happened to a friend, a big Java shop spent 1 year looking for the perfect candidate, courted him again after they failed, and even my friend said no to them.

by gretch 2y ago

notevenreal 2y ago

That doesn't always work. Maybe some people can lie to themselves that the 8+ hours they spend grinding away in some fluorescent hellhole for 40 years is fine if they can just avoid thinking about that 1/3 of their precious short time on Earth, but that doesn't work for everyone. Compartmentalizing your misery is not healthy, and it DOES eventually catch up to you. Trust me.

disqard 2y ago
I'm intrigued by this exchange. I was like GP, and worked on fulfilling side-projects for years (after family goes to bed). Like you, I'm beginning to see that it isn't working well any more. Though I've built some very useful things for myself, being productive in this all-but-invisible manner still leaves much to be desired.
- gretch 2y ago
  I don't know how to express this in text, but I want to say that I'm not frustrated by it in the same way that I'm not frustrated by the other things that I just-have-to-do in order to live the life I want. For example, I'm not frustrated that I have to spend 8 hours sleeping. I simply accept that's the world I was born into, that our bodies require sleep, so I do it. I imagine you probably accept it in the same way. If we were to criticize this from a perspective of "this is a dumb design and we should change it", then maybe we would be frustrated by it. Now when it comes to "bullshit jobs", I feel the same way. I was born into a society where some % of my job is bullshit but I can be paid for it anyway. But it really doesn't bother me that much, it's historically a great transaction, and I'm not responsible to change it (is it even a bad thing that needs to be changed? even if it's dumb that doesn't mean bad) I simply spend some hours of my week doing this arbitrary thing, just as I do for Sleeping and Pooping. And as soon as I'm done, I put it down and go live my "real life". I've never thought - "wow 15 minutes spent pooping everyday? I'm wasting my life" So what's the difference between the bullshit job and pooping? Well maybe there's a perception that these 2 things are different categories because 1 is designed by other humans and can therefore be changed. But I don't actually think it is changeable because it turtles down to some quirk in basic human desire. It won't work in the same way that you can't just tell people "Hey don't be curious today" or "don't be vain" or "don't be greedy". I accept that our current iteration of society has been defined somewhat organically, much like the way our body has biologically evolved. And that I need to "poop" at the societal level.
  - disqard 2y ago
    I saw your reply a bit late, but I wanted to thank you for this mental model. We all need to "poop" at the societal level That is one of the more "zen" things I've read recently. Thank you!!

nunez 2y ago

This is super difficult to do when you've just left your 7th Zoom meeting for the day and still have a mountain of project work to do, which you'll start doing right after picking up the kids from school and spend several hours tending to them. Or your weekends are spent doing everything you couldn't do during the week, except everyting takes twice as long to do because everyone else is doing the same thing.

pas 2y ago
It's ridiculous how many big corps can't accept someone working 4 days only. Happened to a friend, a big Java shop spent 1 year looking for the perfect candidate, courted him again after they failed, and even my friend said no to them.