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I feel like too many people get sucked into the idea of furthering their career, to the point that they forget to further their own life. What is the point of

I feel like too many people get sucked into the idea of furthering their career, to the point that they forget to further their own life. What is the point of existence if we never get around to experiencing it? "It's not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed, it is the things we do not." - Randy Pausch

deleted 13y ago
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curiousfiddler 13y ago
Makes sense, but I also feel that thinking about the regret-at-death moment is not quite an appropriate motivator - it will anyway be so shortlived.
zobzu 13y ago
and that obviously, not everyone can be promoted to whatever they wanna be promoted to, and thus, the chance of hitting the target is never "good" Same for startups ;-)
_delirium 13y ago
Hence the somewhat curious (and I think, very American) idea of the "Golden Years". If you put your head down and work hard, taking no vacations, until you're age 65, then you flip 180 degrees in the other direction and retire into a life of full-time leisure. So if you live long enough, it really won't be a waste; you cash it in all at the end! A Scandinavian psychologist somewhat recently proposed a typically Scandinavian reversal of this: he suggested people should work to age 80, but work proportionally less in all the years up to there. Basically redirect the pension system to subsidize more early-age vacation and less pension. edit: http://cphpost.dk/business/researcher-advocates-25-hour-working-week-%E2%80%93-until-age-80 http://cphpost.dk/business/researcher-advocates-25-hour-work...
- VexXtreme 13y ago
  > Hence the somewhat curious (and I think, very American) idea of the "Golden Years". If you put your head down and work hard, taking no vacations, until you're age 65, then you flip 180 degrees in the other direction and retire into a life of full-time leisure. So if you live long enough, it really won't be a waste; you cash it in all at the end! And this exact kind of thinking is what the societal overlords want you to subscribe to. Give them the best years of your life to get a degree of freedom later in your life, when the freedom won't matter anymore anyway, cause you'll be pissing in your diapers and be limited to a very small subset of things a healthy young person can do. I see it this way: when you're retired and old, the overall potential of what you can do with your life is much lower than that of when you were in your 20s and 30s. Why is that? Because an old person with the same amount of time and money can do much less with those resources than a young person. When you live your life like a run off the mill robot, living your life according to a set of societal expectations and rules set by other people, what's the point of such a life anyway? PS. OP, I wasn't addressing you, in case you feel I've attacked your point, I am just furthering it :)
  - orofino 13y ago
    I always kind of shake my head at this. On a board with many people making 100k+ per year, who are the "societal overlords" you're referencing. Sure there are people that make much more than that, but anything beyond 80k allows a person to save quite a bit and "quit" the rat race earlier if they like.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      This is part of why the "rat race" works/exists. People are always looking up to see who is above them, never down to see how far they've come. "I IPO'd for ten million dollars! Life is awesome!" quickly transitions to "Frank IPO'd for 5x what I did! That's not fair!"
      - VexXtreme 13y ago
        But that's human nature, we're designed to always keep climbing up and striving for more. It is not healthy to constantly compare yourself with people who are worse off. Sure, it induces a sense of gratitude to know that you have clean drinking water and no threat of being killed by a warlord today (unlike many people in Africa, for instance), however if we settled for that, there would never be any incentive to improve our situation further. Imagine what would've happened if every inventor and scientist in the history of mankind had that attitude. Also, not everyone on this board lives in Silicon Valley and works for a startup that spoils him stupid with catered lunches, scheduled massages and a 150K/yr salary. A lot of us are just normal middle class people living in economies that aren't that prosperous and the prospect of losing a job can really threaten our financial security. Also, if you work for a shit company that takes advantage of that, you can be in for a pretty miserable experience. So get off your high horse already.
- noonespecial 13y ago
  The "Golden Years" are not what they used to be. The WWII generation likely thought that way, but what I see on the ground now is not working hard to cash in, its working hard in terror of a coming time when you can't work. If you haven't saved enough by that time you die in misery and poverty. Eek over the line and if you don't get an unlucky disease, you get a modicum of comfort. "Enjoy your Golden years" has turned into "Winter is coming."
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    Doubt that the golden years ever were what they used to be.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Unless you are a hedonist, maximum leisure in your prime working years and minimum leisure in old age don't make sense. Personally, I've found work matured both me and my brothers, gave us more perspective, and generally improved us as human beings. Without including the chance to really mature, you are basically talking about extending adolescence, and we already complain about how irresponsible and short-sighted twenty-year-olds are today.
  - sown 13y ago
    When you say 'work' you have to be be explicit in what you mean. Do you mean 'work' as it has come to mean in the industrial capitalist revolution way? Or the kind of 'work' that, say, a forager/gather type society would do? It could mean effort towards creating something new and neat, like music or story telling. The reason I ask is because without distinctions, it is difficult to tell what your motivations are and what about what kind of work you find attractive. As a side note, the word 'work' of the industrial revolution sense being combined with notions that it automatically makes you better than people who don't 'work' in the same sense because it makes them more childish was one of those 'white-man's burden' type justifications for imperialism because of that particular poem's observation that non-european first nation people were 'half-devil and half-child'. NOT an accusation of you. Just an observation. :) This is and, will be, a contentious topic in the near future, I think.
    - tankbot 13y ago
      I took "work" to mean purpose, which applies in either case. The problem comes when people limit themselves to a singular purpose and spend the rest of their time being consumers. The don't learn and grow and so end up in this rut for the duration. You're left with aging, atrophied, one-dimensional automatons who don't know anything else besides the grind and T.V. to relax in the evening. Rinse, repeat. When they retire they have no idea what to do with themselves and the thought of figuring it out probably makes them anxious so they stick to what they know. Speaking of which, I gotta go. TMZ is on soon...
- bane 13y ago
  Weirdly, lots of folks I know at retirement age retire, then simply have no idea what to do with themselves. They've never cultivated a meaningful hobby or interest in the all the years of workaholism. The ones that vaguely remember something they wanted to do in their 20s find themselves fighting off a constant urge to sit in an office and work. A few folks I've known worked until they simply couldn't, then died a few months later. I'm reminded of my own father, who worked like a dog since he was a pre-teen, and simply hasn't been able to come to terms with retirement, choosing to start another job in his elder years instead of writing, painting and fishing which he has an obvious talent and interest in. I tell myself that I won't succumb to this failure to live life and try to overcompensate a bit by traveling a lot, photography and many stalled attempts at writing. I wonder what would happen if I got fuck you money and if I could discipline myself to follow up to my passions instead of trying to fit them into my free time.
- price 13y ago
  My grandmother basically did that, in rural Texas. She was a nurse, shifted to inspecting nursing homes for the state, and then to consulting for nursing homes, and worked at reduced hours up to six months before she died in her 80s. She had plenty of time for family, friends, and her church, and still got the satisfaction of putting her professional expertise to good use and getting paid. Seemed to work out pretty well for her. Consulting was a critical step. This approach would be hard to pull off in most regular jobs.
  - ihaveajob 13y ago
    I think this used to be much more common in the past. My grandfather, a farmer, also worked till about 6 months before passing, when his heart started weakening, at age 92. He would pull 12 hour days, and that's what kept him alive and happy. He would get depressed when he came to visit us in the city with nothing to do. Going from working 40 hours a week when you're 64 to idling all day as you turn 65 is just not healthy.
- greenyoda 13y ago
  Working until 80 might sound reasonable to a software developer, but if you have a job like a construction worker or a firefighter, you may not be physically capable of doing your job at 80, even part time. So you'd have to switch careers to work into your 80s, which not everyone would be successful at pulling off.
  - _delirium 13y ago
    I agree that's an open question. Whether a large proportion of people could work in some job up to age 80 (possibly after changing jobs) is definitely an important part of whether it would produce a plausible system. It doesn't have to be the same job, or to be gap-free, though. If you have a strong retraining/welfare system to cover the gaps, as Denmark has, it's not as big a deal if someone needs to take a year or two off to change jobs. If you can't do your job anymore at some point for health reasons, there is a generous system for disability leave. And, a common unemployment insurance system (a-kasse) covers being unemployed for up to two years, with up to ~$36k/yr salary and retraining / job-finding assistance. As a last resort, there's a floor of ~$22k/yr welfare that anyone can get if they have no other source of income, with no time limits. That's comparable to the low end of U.S. Social Security, so at least nobody would really end up with no income. The wager is that enough people would be productive post-65 to have a significant overall effect.
    - ttflee 13y ago
      > a large proportion of people could work in some job up to age 80 (possibly after changing jobs) It would be an interesting question given most of the aged people change their job. Then those categories of jobs would probably be overrun by aged people seeking those jobs, and hence poor wages and rampant unemployment.
  - homosaur 13y ago
    Assuming robots haven't taken over software development
    - sergiosgc 13y ago
- dictum 13y ago
  >he suggested people should work to age 80, but work proportionally less in all the years up to there. At 70, your body is generally not able to do the same things you were doing at 20/30, at least not with the same ease. A 75 year old man could work as hard as a 25 year old man, but the same amount of work will probably take a greater toll on his health. In a way, seems like his scheme is pretty much geared to make people dread reaching old age, and a reduction in pension payments would come from all the people committing suicide after facing the realization that as their bodies become more tired and less resilient, they will have to work harder.
  - mattm 13y ago
    And why is the body not capable of doing the same things at 70? Is it because you overworked it earlier on?
    - nsxwolf 13y ago
      No, because it's old.
    - homosaur 13y ago
      Unless you're mining coal, no. It's normally because you ate shit and had a high stress life and pursued sedentary activities and/or alcohol to unwind. If you take care of your body, it rarely breaks down at age 70. Age 90, then I'll give you a pass on being old.
    - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
      Because you don't think as clearly anymore, you can't have as much fun anymore, your sense aren't as good anymore. Shit, you can't go to a club and flirt with 20-something hot chicks, ok? Weed and alcohol aren't much fun anymore. Your idea of fun is actually borin*g and you don't even know it because you have difficulty grasping half the stuff that's going around you. You are just old. In pain. Slow. Afraid. SUCKS!
  - _delirium 13y ago
    Is it really more impractical for a 70-year-old to work 25 hours, than for a 60-year-old to work 40 hours? The latter is widely expected today, and we expect 60-year-olds to work as hard as 25-year-olds. Otherwise, we'll hire the 25-year-old over them. If that's a problem, we should change it across the board. Note that this proposal is also in the context of a system that provides full support for job retraining and unemployment pay in the gaps (and a good disability and mental-health system), so if you run into serious problems you have options.
- minikites 13y ago
  There was a recent episode of the podcast Back to Work that mentioned this very thing: http://5by5.tv/b2w/120 http://5by5.tv/b2w/120 At around 42:00-56:00, (I made a note because I liked it so much), they start talking about safety nets and how we think about events changing our behavior. Merlin made the point that if you're not practicing enjoying your weekends now, having a lot of money can give you a more expensive weekend, but not necessarily a more enjoyable one. A more productive strategy is to rehearse how to be happy with what you have, not what it would be like if you didn't have to worry about anything (because that's probably never going to happen).
- reinhardt 13y ago
  > he suggested people should work to age 80, but work proportionally less in all the years up to there. Here's another crazy idea: become financially independent in your 30s; no hitting the startup jackpot required: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145360121X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145360121X/ref=ox_sc_act_ti...
- gexla 13y ago
  > Hence the somewhat curious (and I think, very American) idea of the "Golden Years". If you put your head down and work hard, taking no vacations, until you're age 65, then you flip 180 degrees in the other direction and retire into a life of full-time leisure. So if you live long enough, it really won't be a waste; you cash it in all at the end! Also odd is the flip at the other end of the scale. You live your childhood, go to college and don't need to think much about career and then all of a sudden you get sucked into the cycle (graduating from college.) I was working from an internet cafe in the Philippines the other day (my connection at home was down and I needed to knock some stuff out) and while I was busting my ass the the kids (late high school and college aged) in there were playing games or checking Facebook. Occasionally there is someone in there working on homework. The economy here in the Philippines sucks. These kids will graduate from college and be lucky to make minimum wage, which is $5 - $6 per day. A good job where I live in the Philippines is a call center position which pays something like $300 / month. Of course, the call centers require that you have a college degree. Even a lot of cashier positions at the local stores require a college degree. Because labor is so cheap, it's not uncommon to walk into a small store and see a half dozen workers behind the counter where in the U.S. you might only see one or two. That doesn't mean the service is better though. ;) So, talk about slavery. I want to tell these people who are going to college and playing online games during their off-time that they are being conned. They are wasting their time going to college and then wasting their free time thinking college will bring success. What they really need to be doing is exiting the system and plowing their own path. There is nothing preventing them from doing what I do, sitting right next to them making in one day what they might make in a month. Good thing they haven't figured that out yet, I might have a bit of competition!
medell 13y ago
"I wish I worked more" - said no one ever on their death bed.
- karlkatzke 13y ago
  "I wish I achieved more" -- said a large number of people as they died.
  - udit99 13y ago
    Depends on the kinds of achievements? Unless your achievements positively impacted other people's lives, I wouldn't imagine them being important on your deathbed. Then again, I don't have much experience with deathbed regrets.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  Depends on the work, I think? If it's degrading nonsense done for the nonsensical greed of others, sure. But there is no reason to assume or accept this as the only possible kind of work. Why would a doctor not feel good about all the time they spent helping patients, if they were passionate about it, for example? Sure, you need to find a balance, for yourself and friends and family. But where work is utterly separate from being alive I think something is broken. Just consider what dogs enjoy doing most: running after stuff and biting it. You could say, doing their job, that's what makes them fucking happy. Most animals are harder to read than dogs when it comes to happiness, but I really don't see dragging anyone "dragging their feet to work" except humans, and maybe some animals that lived too close to humans, or were caged by them.
- thetrb 13y ago
  Well, maybe someone who got fired because of poor work ethics and then never got a job again and died in poverty said it before.
  - medell 13y ago
    In that case, he'd say "I wish I worked smarter". (or harder, but I don't like that usage)
rollo_tommasi 13y ago
I think you've missed the point of the letter entirely. It's not about people who are obsessed with their work, it's about people who have no choice in the matter.
- njharman 13y ago
  No, it's about a system, capitalism, that gives most no choice in the matter.
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    The system isn't capitalism, it's life: you don't work, you don't eat. The author was one of the few whose work is both enjoyable on its own and worth enough to others to survive on, capitalism in the form of sponsorship. Capitalism at least gives a generally fair exchange of work for value; the alternatives amount to institutionalized theft.
    - wffurr 13y ago
      Wow. Just wow. Simply amazing you can think that given the distribution of wealth in the world. The only reason the vast majority of us have to work to eat is because the vast majority of the proceeds from our labor go to benefit a tiny global elite. For quite a long time now, the technical means have existed to provide the basics of life to every human being on the planet at a modest cost. And yet we don't – instead the vast majority of us continue to work hard to provide that global elite their "due". Institutionalized theft? How about economic and social justice?
      - ahomescu1 13y ago
        I don't think you understand basic economics. > For quite a long time now, the technical means have existed to provide the basics of life to every human being on the planet at a modest cost. Are you sure we have all the fuel and land to feed, house and clothe everyone? And if so, who's going to work for that? If everyone gets food and shelter for free, I'm not working to provide that. The reality is, food needs to be grown, clothes made and houses built. Some people need to work for that. In exchange for that work, they ask some sort of compensation from others, in the form of other services or goods. This has nothing to do with the "global elite", this is just the nature of trade. I think giving someone stuff for free without getting anything in return is a greater injustice than this "instutionalized theft" you speak of.
nnoitra 13y ago
I will totally regret not robbing a bank.
- qu4z-2 13y ago
  The quote isn't "You'll regret every single thing you didn't do." OK, so you're unlikely to regret not robbing a bank, but do you think you're any more likely to regret robbing a bank? Bear in mind that requires you to a) rob a bank and b) regret it. Sure, given a) it seems plausible you'd regret it, but it also seems exceedingly unlikely you'll actually rob a bank, even following that advice. It's the actions that we toy with but never get around to that count, not the things that we know full-well are terrible ideas.
hoffcoder 13y ago
It's sad that most of the people I meet today can only be described as 'careerists'. I hardly see any artists or people who really enjoy what they do. And you know what your environment can do to you: it can make you or break you. Having an unhappy person next to you is a cyclic and disturbing process. The negativity percolates to unimaginable proportions. Negativity is often more affecting than positivity. That is why it is so important to 'engineer' your surroundings with care.
goggles99 13y ago
How many hours per day have humans worked historically compared to now? Just to survive (not starve to death). Do you think man works more now than historically? Man was cursed (after expulsion from the garden of Eden)/ or evolved (depending on your beliefs) to work, a lot.
- pja 13y ago
  Hunter-gatherer societies worked fewer hours and lived longer than agricultural ones & certainly worked far fewer hours than the average modern US worker. You could regard the invention of agriculture as the curse which permanently excluded humankind from the hunter-gatherer Garden of Eden.
- thenomad 13y ago
  There's considerable evidence that most serfs in the Middle Ages (Europe) worked the same or less hours as we do today. http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_w...
kh_hk 13y ago
On an added note, I feel that a tangential problem here is that we do not know how to handle death. It is not about the things we do not do, it is about having had enough.
giantSlayer 13y ago
On the contrary, money motivates people. How can you get it? Through working, but in the end they will enjoy. I hope.
ececconi 13y ago
You know, I don't see the career ascent about forgetting my own life. I see it as a way I can do good for this world. If I have people under my span of control, I can impart what I believe to be good in this world as a part of my leadership and management style. I also want to be a motivational speaker when I 'grow up'. I came from humble beginnings. Some people's talks have really changed my life. In order to give those talks and be invited to speak, yes you have to ascend the established social order. Am I wasting my life by working a lot? No. The things I work so hard for have real effects in this world. My mom has been working for over 40 years of her life. If I do things right, she'll be able to retire eventually. Do I work harder than other people do for the same, or less, compensation? I'm sure I do. But you know what, you have to make the best of the situation you're in. I was recently invited to give my first talk. Here is the abridged executive summary: http://www.evernote.com/shard/s34/sh/9a92bf45-27e1-4470-be7e-4aca3aba5cac/4a5fdbf41d26cb91d0aa5cff7b093f96 http://www.evernote.com/shard/s34/sh/9a92bf45-27e1-4470-be7e...
gbog 13y ago
Here the audience might think "create a startup" but I think this quote may resonate the strongest with those who forgot to have kids in time.
pinaceae 13y ago
so this is something i don't get - why is your worklife something separated from your personal one? you spend the vast majority of your awake time working (as an adult), so why have this mindset? once you realize that work by definition is your life, you'll take it more seriously, especially if it is harmful to you. you do not have to swallow each and every bullshit thrown at you, this is your life. you want to travel, experience other cultures? use work to reach this goal. nothing shows you other cultures like working with them directly, on the ground. lots of consulting gigs allow you to do this. i also don't get this inherent fear that seems prevalent in US corporate culture. well, i fundamentally understand, in Europe you can't get fired on a whim, but over here in US I see this amazing mindset around CEOs and how people behave around them. Massaging emails until they definitely won't cause a ruckus, filtering, keeping silent. Why? Because CEO. your work time is your life time. treat it as such. coincidentally the people I have met that have understood this seem to have great careers. they go all in and are not driven by fear. my first boss called this mindset "scheiss di ned aun", viennese for "don't shit yourself". life's too short to be afraid of suits and orgcharts.
- karlzt 13y ago
  To do is to be.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

curiousfiddler 13y ago

Makes sense, but I also feel that thinking about the regret-at-death moment is not quite an appropriate motivator - it will anyway be so shortlived.

zobzu 13y ago

and that obviously, not everyone can be promoted to whatever they wanna be promoted to, and thus, the chance of hitting the target is never "good" Same for startups ;-)

_delirium 13y ago

Hence the somewhat curious (and I think, very American) idea of the "Golden Years". If you put your head down and work hard, taking no vacations, until you're age 65, then you flip 180 degrees in the other direction and retire into a life of full-time leisure. So if you live long enough, it really won't be a waste; you cash it in all at the end! A Scandinavian psychologist somewhat recently proposed a typically Scandinavian reversal of this: he suggested people should work to age 80, but work proportionally less in all the years up to there. Basically redirect the pension system to subsidize more early-age vacation and less pension. edit: http://cphpost.dk/business/researcher-advocates-25-hour-working-week-%E2%80%93-until-age-80 http://cphpost.dk/business/researcher-advocates-25-hour-work...

VexXtreme 13y ago
> Hence the somewhat curious (and I think, very American) idea of the "Golden Years". If you put your head down and work hard, taking no vacations, until you're age 65, then you flip 180 degrees in the other direction and retire into a life of full-time leisure. So if you live long enough, it really won't be a waste; you cash it in all at the end! And this exact kind of thinking is what the societal overlords want you to subscribe to. Give them the best years of your life to get a degree of freedom later in your life, when the freedom won't matter anymore anyway, cause you'll be pissing in your diapers and be limited to a very small subset of things a healthy young person can do. I see it this way: when you're retired and old, the overall potential of what you can do with your life is much lower than that of when you were in your 20s and 30s. Why is that? Because an old person with the same amount of time and money can do much less with those resources than a young person. When you live your life like a run off the mill robot, living your life according to a set of societal expectations and rules set by other people, what's the point of such a life anyway? PS. OP, I wasn't addressing you, in case you feel I've attacked your point, I am just furthering it :)
- orofino 13y ago
  I always kind of shake my head at this. On a board with many people making 100k+ per year, who are the "societal overlords" you're referencing. Sure there are people that make much more than that, but anything beyond 80k allows a person to save quite a bit and "quit" the rat race earlier if they like.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    This is part of why the "rat race" works/exists. People are always looking up to see who is above them, never down to see how far they've come. "I IPO'd for ten million dollars! Life is awesome!" quickly transitions to "Frank IPO'd for 5x what I did! That's not fair!"
    - VexXtreme 13y ago
      But that's human nature, we're designed to always keep climbing up and striving for more. It is not healthy to constantly compare yourself with people who are worse off. Sure, it induces a sense of gratitude to know that you have clean drinking water and no threat of being killed by a warlord today (unlike many people in Africa, for instance), however if we settled for that, there would never be any incentive to improve our situation further. Imagine what would've happened if every inventor and scientist in the history of mankind had that attitude. Also, not everyone on this board lives in Silicon Valley and works for a startup that spoils him stupid with catered lunches, scheduled massages and a 150K/yr salary. A lot of us are just normal middle class people living in economies that aren't that prosperous and the prospect of losing a job can really threaten our financial security. Also, if you work for a shit company that takes advantage of that, you can be in for a pretty miserable experience. So get off your high horse already.
noonespecial 13y ago
The "Golden Years" are not what they used to be. The WWII generation likely thought that way, but what I see on the ground now is not working hard to cash in, its working hard in terror of a coming time when you can't work. If you haven't saved enough by that time you die in misery and poverty. Eek over the line and if you don't get an unlucky disease, you get a modicum of comfort. "Enjoy your Golden years" has turned into "Winter is coming."
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Doubt that the golden years ever were what they used to be.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Unless you are a hedonist, maximum leisure in your prime working years and minimum leisure in old age don't make sense. Personally, I've found work matured both me and my brothers, gave us more perspective, and generally improved us as human beings. Without including the chance to really mature, you are basically talking about extending adolescence, and we already complain about how irresponsible and short-sighted twenty-year-olds are today.
- sown 13y ago
  When you say 'work' you have to be be explicit in what you mean. Do you mean 'work' as it has come to mean in the industrial capitalist revolution way? Or the kind of 'work' that, say, a forager/gather type society would do? It could mean effort towards creating something new and neat, like music or story telling. The reason I ask is because without distinctions, it is difficult to tell what your motivations are and what about what kind of work you find attractive. As a side note, the word 'work' of the industrial revolution sense being combined with notions that it automatically makes you better than people who don't 'work' in the same sense because it makes them more childish was one of those 'white-man's burden' type justifications for imperialism because of that particular poem's observation that non-european first nation people were 'half-devil and half-child'. NOT an accusation of you. Just an observation. :) This is and, will be, a contentious topic in the near future, I think.
  - tankbot 13y ago
    I took "work" to mean purpose, which applies in either case. The problem comes when people limit themselves to a singular purpose and spend the rest of their time being consumers. The don't learn and grow and so end up in this rut for the duration. You're left with aging, atrophied, one-dimensional automatons who don't know anything else besides the grind and T.V. to relax in the evening. Rinse, repeat. When they retire they have no idea what to do with themselves and the thought of figuring it out probably makes them anxious so they stick to what they know. Speaking of which, I gotta go. TMZ is on soon...
bane 13y ago
Weirdly, lots of folks I know at retirement age retire, then simply have no idea what to do with themselves. They've never cultivated a meaningful hobby or interest in the all the years of workaholism. The ones that vaguely remember something they wanted to do in their 20s find themselves fighting off a constant urge to sit in an office and work. A few folks I've known worked until they simply couldn't, then died a few months later. I'm reminded of my own father, who worked like a dog since he was a pre-teen, and simply hasn't been able to come to terms with retirement, choosing to start another job in his elder years instead of writing, painting and fishing which he has an obvious talent and interest in. I tell myself that I won't succumb to this failure to live life and try to overcompensate a bit by traveling a lot, photography and many stalled attempts at writing. I wonder what would happen if I got fuck you money and if I could discipline myself to follow up to my passions instead of trying to fit them into my free time.
price 13y ago
My grandmother basically did that, in rural Texas. She was a nurse, shifted to inspecting nursing homes for the state, and then to consulting for nursing homes, and worked at reduced hours up to six months before she died in her 80s. She had plenty of time for family, friends, and her church, and still got the satisfaction of putting her professional expertise to good use and getting paid. Seemed to work out pretty well for her. Consulting was a critical step. This approach would be hard to pull off in most regular jobs.
- ihaveajob 13y ago
  I think this used to be much more common in the past. My grandfather, a farmer, also worked till about 6 months before passing, when his heart started weakening, at age 92. He would pull 12 hour days, and that's what kept him alive and happy. He would get depressed when he came to visit us in the city with nothing to do. Going from working 40 hours a week when you're 64 to idling all day as you turn 65 is just not healthy.
greenyoda 13y ago
Working until 80 might sound reasonable to a software developer, but if you have a job like a construction worker or a firefighter, you may not be physically capable of doing your job at 80, even part time. So you'd have to switch careers to work into your 80s, which not everyone would be successful at pulling off.
- _delirium 13y ago
  I agree that's an open question. Whether a large proportion of people could work in some job up to age 80 (possibly after changing jobs) is definitely an important part of whether it would produce a plausible system. It doesn't have to be the same job, or to be gap-free, though. If you have a strong retraining/welfare system to cover the gaps, as Denmark has, it's not as big a deal if someone needs to take a year or two off to change jobs. If you can't do your job anymore at some point for health reasons, there is a generous system for disability leave. And, a common unemployment insurance system (a-kasse) covers being unemployed for up to two years, with up to ~$36k/yr salary and retraining / job-finding assistance. As a last resort, there's a floor of ~$22k/yr welfare that anyone can get if they have no other source of income, with no time limits. That's comparable to the low end of U.S. Social Security, so at least nobody would really end up with no income. The wager is that enough people would be productive post-65 to have a significant overall effect.
  - ttflee 13y ago
    > a large proportion of people could work in some job up to age 80 (possibly after changing jobs) It would be an interesting question given most of the aged people change their job. Then those categories of jobs would probably be overrun by aged people seeking those jobs, and hence poor wages and rampant unemployment.
- homosaur 13y ago
  Assuming robots haven't taken over software development
  - sergiosgc 13y ago
dictum 13y ago
>he suggested people should work to age 80, but work proportionally less in all the years up to there. At 70, your body is generally not able to do the same things you were doing at 20/30, at least not with the same ease. A 75 year old man could work as hard as a 25 year old man, but the same amount of work will probably take a greater toll on his health. In a way, seems like his scheme is pretty much geared to make people dread reaching old age, and a reduction in pension payments would come from all the people committing suicide after facing the realization that as their bodies become more tired and less resilient, they will have to work harder.
- mattm 13y ago
  And why is the body not capable of doing the same things at 70? Is it because you overworked it earlier on?
  - nsxwolf 13y ago
    No, because it's old.
  - homosaur 13y ago
    Unless you're mining coal, no. It's normally because you ate shit and had a high stress life and pursued sedentary activities and/or alcohol to unwind. If you take care of your body, it rarely breaks down at age 70. Age 90, then I'll give you a pass on being old.
  - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
    Because you don't think as clearly anymore, you can't have as much fun anymore, your sense aren't as good anymore. Shit, you can't go to a club and flirt with 20-something hot chicks, ok? Weed and alcohol aren't much fun anymore. Your idea of fun is actually borin*g and you don't even know it because you have difficulty grasping half the stuff that's going around you. You are just old. In pain. Slow. Afraid. SUCKS!
- _delirium 13y ago
  Is it really more impractical for a 70-year-old to work 25 hours, than for a 60-year-old to work 40 hours? The latter is widely expected today, and we expect 60-year-olds to work as hard as 25-year-olds. Otherwise, we'll hire the 25-year-old over them. If that's a problem, we should change it across the board. Note that this proposal is also in the context of a system that provides full support for job retraining and unemployment pay in the gaps (and a good disability and mental-health system), so if you run into serious problems you have options.
minikites 13y ago
There was a recent episode of the podcast Back to Work that mentioned this very thing: http://5by5.tv/b2w/120 http://5by5.tv/b2w/120 At around 42:00-56:00, (I made a note because I liked it so much), they start talking about safety nets and how we think about events changing our behavior. Merlin made the point that if you're not practicing enjoying your weekends now, having a lot of money can give you a more expensive weekend, but not necessarily a more enjoyable one. A more productive strategy is to rehearse how to be happy with what you have, not what it would be like if you didn't have to worry about anything (because that's probably never going to happen).
reinhardt 13y ago
> he suggested people should work to age 80, but work proportionally less in all the years up to there. Here's another crazy idea: become financially independent in your 30s; no hitting the startup jackpot required: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145360121X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145360121X/ref=ox_sc_act_ti...
gexla 13y ago
> Hence the somewhat curious (and I think, very American) idea of the "Golden Years". If you put your head down and work hard, taking no vacations, until you're age 65, then you flip 180 degrees in the other direction and retire into a life of full-time leisure. So if you live long enough, it really won't be a waste; you cash it in all at the end! Also odd is the flip at the other end of the scale. You live your childhood, go to college and don't need to think much about career and then all of a sudden you get sucked into the cycle (graduating from college.) I was working from an internet cafe in the Philippines the other day (my connection at home was down and I needed to knock some stuff out) and while I was busting my ass the the kids (late high school and college aged) in there were playing games or checking Facebook. Occasionally there is someone in there working on homework. The economy here in the Philippines sucks. These kids will graduate from college and be lucky to make minimum wage, which is $5 - $6 per day. A good job where I live in the Philippines is a call center position which pays something like $300 / month. Of course, the call centers require that you have a college degree. Even a lot of cashier positions at the local stores require a college degree. Because labor is so cheap, it's not uncommon to walk into a small store and see a half dozen workers behind the counter where in the U.S. you might only see one or two. That doesn't mean the service is better though. ;) So, talk about slavery. I want to tell these people who are going to college and playing online games during their off-time that they are being conned. They are wasting their time going to college and then wasting their free time thinking college will bring success. What they really need to be doing is exiting the system and plowing their own path. There is nothing preventing them from doing what I do, sitting right next to them making in one day what they might make in a month. Good thing they haven't figured that out yet, I might have a bit of competition!

medell 13y ago

"I wish I worked more" - said no one ever on their death bed.

karlkatzke 13y ago
"I wish I achieved more" -- said a large number of people as they died.
- udit99 13y ago
  Depends on the kinds of achievements? Unless your achievements positively impacted other people's lives, I wouldn't imagine them being important on your deathbed. Then again, I don't have much experience with deathbed regrets.
PavlovsCat 13y ago
Depends on the work, I think? If it's degrading nonsense done for the nonsensical greed of others, sure. But there is no reason to assume or accept this as the only possible kind of work. Why would a doctor not feel good about all the time they spent helping patients, if they were passionate about it, for example? Sure, you need to find a balance, for yourself and friends and family. But where work is utterly separate from being alive I think something is broken. Just consider what dogs enjoy doing most: running after stuff and biting it. You could say, doing their job, that's what makes them fucking happy. Most animals are harder to read than dogs when it comes to happiness, but I really don't see dragging anyone "dragging their feet to work" except humans, and maybe some animals that lived too close to humans, or were caged by them.
thetrb 13y ago
Well, maybe someone who got fired because of poor work ethics and then never got a job again and died in poverty said it before.
- medell 13y ago
  In that case, he'd say "I wish I worked smarter". (or harder, but I don't like that usage)

rollo_tommasi 13y ago

I think you've missed the point of the letter entirely. It's not about people who are obsessed with their work, it's about people who have no choice in the matter.

njharman 13y ago
No, it's about a system, capitalism, that gives most no choice in the matter.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  The system isn't capitalism, it's life: you don't work, you don't eat. The author was one of the few whose work is both enjoyable on its own and worth enough to others to survive on, capitalism in the form of sponsorship. Capitalism at least gives a generally fair exchange of work for value; the alternatives amount to institutionalized theft.
  - wffurr 13y ago
    Wow. Just wow. Simply amazing you can think that given the distribution of wealth in the world. The only reason the vast majority of us have to work to eat is because the vast majority of the proceeds from our labor go to benefit a tiny global elite. For quite a long time now, the technical means have existed to provide the basics of life to every human being on the planet at a modest cost. And yet we don't – instead the vast majority of us continue to work hard to provide that global elite their "due". Institutionalized theft? How about economic and social justice?
    - ahomescu1 13y ago
      I don't think you understand basic economics. > For quite a long time now, the technical means have existed to provide the basics of life to every human being on the planet at a modest cost. Are you sure we have all the fuel and land to feed, house and clothe everyone? And if so, who's going to work for that? If everyone gets food and shelter for free, I'm not working to provide that. The reality is, food needs to be grown, clothes made and houses built. Some people need to work for that. In exchange for that work, they ask some sort of compensation from others, in the form of other services or goods. This has nothing to do with the "global elite", this is just the nature of trade. I think giving someone stuff for free without getting anything in return is a greater injustice than this "instutionalized theft" you speak of.

nnoitra 13y ago

I will totally regret not robbing a bank.

qu4z-2 13y ago
The quote isn't "You'll regret every single thing you didn't do." OK, so you're unlikely to regret not robbing a bank, but do you think you're any more likely to regret robbing a bank? Bear in mind that requires you to a) rob a bank and b) regret it. Sure, given a) it seems plausible you'd regret it, but it also seems exceedingly unlikely you'll actually rob a bank, even following that advice. It's the actions that we toy with but never get around to that count, not the things that we know full-well are terrible ideas.

hoffcoder 13y ago

It's sad that most of the people I meet today can only be described as 'careerists'. I hardly see any artists or people who really enjoy what they do. And you know what your environment can do to you: it can make you or break you. Having an unhappy person next to you is a cyclic and disturbing process. The negativity percolates to unimaginable proportions. Negativity is often more affecting than positivity. That is why it is so important to 'engineer' your surroundings with care.

goggles99 13y ago

How many hours per day have humans worked historically compared to now? Just to survive (not starve to death). Do you think man works more now than historically? Man was cursed (after expulsion from the garden of Eden)/ or evolved (depending on your beliefs) to work, a lot.

pja 13y ago
Hunter-gatherer societies worked fewer hours and lived longer than agricultural ones & certainly worked far fewer hours than the average modern US worker. You could regard the invention of agriculture as the curse which permanently excluded humankind from the hunter-gatherer Garden of Eden.
thenomad 13y ago
There's considerable evidence that most serfs in the Middle Ages (Europe) worked the same or less hours as we do today. http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_w...

kh_hk 13y ago

On an added note, I feel that a tangential problem here is that we do not know how to handle death. It is not about the things we do not do, it is about having had enough.

giantSlayer 13y ago

On the contrary, money motivates people. How can you get it? Through working, but in the end they will enjoy. I hope.

ececconi 13y ago

You know, I don't see the career ascent about forgetting my own life. I see it as a way I can do good for this world. If I have people under my span of control, I can impart what I believe to be good in this world as a part of my leadership and management style. I also want to be a motivational speaker when I 'grow up'. I came from humble beginnings. Some people's talks have really changed my life. In order to give those talks and be invited to speak, yes you have to ascend the established social order. Am I wasting my life by working a lot? No. The things I work so hard for have real effects in this world. My mom has been working for over 40 years of her life. If I do things right, she'll be able to retire eventually. Do I work harder than other people do for the same, or less, compensation? I'm sure I do. But you know what, you have to make the best of the situation you're in. I was recently invited to give my first talk. Here is the abridged executive summary: http://www.evernote.com/shard/s34/sh/9a92bf45-27e1-4470-be7e-4aca3aba5cac/4a5fdbf41d26cb91d0aa5cff7b093f96 http://www.evernote.com/shard/s34/sh/9a92bf45-27e1-4470-be7e...

gbog 13y ago

Here the audience might think "create a startup" but I think this quote may resonate the strongest with those who forgot to have kids in time.

pinaceae 13y ago

so this is something i don't get - why is your worklife something separated from your personal one? you spend the vast majority of your awake time working (as an adult), so why have this mindset? once you realize that work by definition is your life, you'll take it more seriously, especially if it is harmful to you. you do not have to swallow each and every bullshit thrown at you, this is your life. you want to travel, experience other cultures? use work to reach this goal. nothing shows you other cultures like working with them directly, on the ground. lots of consulting gigs allow you to do this. i also don't get this inherent fear that seems prevalent in US corporate culture. well, i fundamentally understand, in Europe you can't get fired on a whim, but over here in US I see this amazing mindset around CEOs and how people behave around them. Massaging emails until they definitely won't cause a ruckus, filtering, keeping silent. Why? Because CEO. your work time is your life time. treat it as such. coincidentally the people I have met that have understood this seem to have great careers. they go all in and are not driven by fear. my first boss called this mindset "scheiss di ned aun", viennese for "don't shit yourself". life's too short to be afraid of suits and orgcharts.

karlzt 13y ago
To do is to be.