Interesting reply on another forum

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SimpleLife
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Interesting reply on another forum

Post by SimpleLife »

From this thread that came up in my google search: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2362361

I'd say 75% of the workforce feels the same as you.

It's a rat race grind with the end goal of having 2-3 weeks of fun a year while on vacation - the rest of the time you can live at your job, pay your taxes, and do whats best for the rest of society.

We certainly appreciate your support.

I was not put on this earth to commute 2hrs a day & spend 9-10hrs at work, just so I can pay out over 45% to taxes, and support our Govt and its populace.

Ecuador, Mexico, Costa Rica - all are looking good and I'm hopeful to be retired at age 45 or sooner.

Since you have no kids, take a chance and change careers. Go back to school and learn to be a park ranger or something you would enjoy doing.

This guy pretty much sums it up. I don't understand why people get so excited that they can vacation for a couple weeks a year, when the other 50 weeks a year SUCK. And for what? So you can work to pay almost half of your income in one form of tax or another?

I haven't had a real vacation in so long I honestly don't remember when it was, maybe 7-10 years ago, and that was to see family for a few days. The only vacation I am planning on taking right now is to Thailand or Florida, to check them out as potential retirement spots.

IlliniDave
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by IlliniDave »

SimpleLife wrote:

This guy pretty much sums it up. I don't understand why people get so excited that they can vacation for a couple weeks a year, when the other 50 weeks a year SUCK. And for what? So you can work to pay almost half of your income in one form of tax or another?
I think the easiest answer is that for most people the other 50 weeks of the year just don't suck. Maybe there is some survivorship bias but I look around and see relatively few people who unhappy in their day-to-day lives. They don't all do cartwheels down the hall because they love work so, but somehow they manage to still be happy people. I think they do so by taking ownership and living a balanced life, rather than by finding something to hate and seizing on it as something to exonerate them from responsibility for their own contentment.

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GandK
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by GandK »

IlliniDave wrote:... I look around and see relatively few people who unhappy in their day-to-day lives. They don't all do cartwheels down the hall because they love work so, but somehow they manage to still be happy people. I think they do so by taking ownership and living a balanced life, rather than by finding something to hate and seizing on it as something to exonerate them from responsibility for their own contentment.
I don't think most people lead balanced lives at all. I think most people spend their day checking boxes, and although they don't usually sit around all day and dwell on it, they regret and resent that most of those are boxes that they did not deliberately elect to put there. My experience is that when you grab a person and sit him down and ask him how his life is going, assuming you know him well enough for him to be honest with you, he's going to talk about his desire to remove some or all of those boxes because his life isn't going the way he wants it to go.

cmonkey
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by cmonkey »

I agree both with GandK and ID. People don't lead balanced lives at all, but they are not exactly unhappy to do it. They just don't realize there is anything better other than work, work, work and so it really doesn't bother them. I'd have to say if it DID suck for 50 weeks a year they would find a way out of it......like all of us!

They changed our work-life program where I work from a 'work-life balance' program to a 'work-life management' program, subtly alluding to the fact that there is no balance. Work is first, life is second. No one cares.

HDT summed it up pretty well I think.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation...............A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work.

IlliniDave
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by IlliniDave »

Interesting, on the whole I do not see a whole lot of imbalance in the people I associate with professionally and personally. I think GandK maybe hit on the reason, most people don't sit around and dwell on it (it being how miserable they would be if they spent a lot of time judging things and dwelling on how bad things were). I think dwelling on it is a primary source of imbalance. It's like walking over a log spanning a creek--if you look ahead and and take one step after the other (checking the boxes), you make it across without problems. If instead you spend your time looking down at the water and don't just walk you might be in for a nasty fall. Certainly some people overdo it in terms of being workaholics for one reason or another, or allowing themselves to remain stuck in an oppressive environment. But that is a small fraction of the people I know, less than 10% I'd guess. And most of those people hated the idea of working before they ever worked a minute in their lives.

Dave
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by Dave »

This is like any discussion of subjective conditions.

Balanced is a relative term. What is balanced for me is not balanced for you. I would say EREs have a significantly different concept of a balanced life than the average American. To what degree the average person appears balanced depends on what you consider balanced. So, all of us are going to see something different.

In response to the OP, I will say that for me as well the idea of 2 weeks off a year is not encouraging. I prefer more slant towards "life" and less towards "work". Some people are able to craft a life where they blend these two things - more power to them. I have not yet, to date, been able to do this, unfortunately. Rewording ID's comment above, the correct solution in this case might be to take ownership and live a balanced life, rather than hating the present condition. Easier said than done, of course.

And it sounds like you need to take a real vacation, SimpleLife :-D.

George the original one
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by George the original one »

How silly of me! I left a job where I was getting 6 weeks off every year!

As Dave says, take ownership and do something about the life you don't want to live and switch to living the one you want.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I think there are different flavors of happiness and unhappiness. At this juncture in my life, although I do have the occasional sucky day, I am mostly the same flavor of happy as Tom Sawyer or B'rer Rabbit. I pretty much do whatever I want and seem to suffer few bad consequences. I think trying to observe how things really are, rather than concerning yourself with how they should be is the key. For instance, some people do not work very hard and do not pay very much in taxes is a fact. Why feel resentment if you choose differently? It's really no different than observing that you can buy a very good wool coat for 1/50th the cost at a thrift store, but then choosing to pay full price at the mall anyways. Something like that.

IlliniDave
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by IlliniDave »

Dave wrote:This is like any discussion of subjective conditions.

Balanced is a relative term. What is balanced for me is not balanced for you. I would say EREs have a significantly different concept of a balanced life than the average American. To what degree the average person appears balanced depends on what you consider balanced. So, all of us are going to see something different.
You hit on a key point, that someone could live in a way that might not be the ideal balance for me, yet it may be a very good balance for them. From what I observe the recipe that sees to work for people is to build enough of a life outside of work that the sacrifice it takes to make that life possible is worth the effort. That's sort of what I meant by balanced above, not that there were some minimal requisite days off or hours per week dedicated to leisure. For a lot of people the good life happens every night when they return home to their families, take the kids to ball games, maybe camp for a night or two on the weekends. Right now I am sacrificing a lot of my present and reckon it's worth it to achieve what I want for my future. I know a lot of people, a large majority in fact, who have no such desire, they are living a reasonable version of the life they want to live now. They may have some wistful daydreams about something different, we'd all like everyday to be Saturday, but in the end they are happy enough continuing on with work in some way or another being part of their life. I keep looking around for all the vast hordes of wretched working people, and I just don't see them. Most folks make the adjustments they need to make.

black_son_of_gray
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by black_son_of_gray »

In terms of whether people say they are happy with their life, it's useful to keep in mind the remembering self and the experiencing self.

"The second trap is a confusion between experience and memory; basically, it's between being happy in your life, and being happy about your life or happy with your life. And those are two very different concepts, and they're both lumped in the notion of happiness."

People might be miserable at work, but still (honestly) confess that they are happy with their life. Or, people might be constantly 'having a good time', but remain dissatisfied with their life.

Peanut
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by Peanut »

Also people have very different expectations of what work is or should be like. In my observation this is often generational and class-related, i.e. lots of people who are older and/or working class think the definition of work is something that is inherently boring to do. A grind. They do not look to work when pondering the meaning of their lives. Their real lives begin once they clock out, a la Marx. Whereas a lot of younger and/or middle-class strivers think work is supposed to be about pursuing their primary passion in life. If you’re coming from this space and your job falls short of this lofty expectation you’re likely to find it much more difficult to cope with a mundane work life. Thus both these extremes have their pitfalls.

vexed87
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by vexed87 »

I find myself coming back to this often as parts of the work I do isn't particularly fulfilling in itself. E.g. pushing paper around, checking boxes, meetings etc. I recognise I'm in a cog in a far greater machine which helps people improve other people's lives (I work in clinical research).

Some of the work I do may not feel like the most efficient use of time but that's the way the system works at the moment and at least I get a pay cheque in return for incrementally making the world a better place. There's a disconnect between what I do and the end result (I don't see the patient benefit first hand) and I think that is what breeds discontentment among my peers. Lack of purpose/meaningful work is the key issue for most who lament about their work life.

When people say they love their jobs, it's because they recognise they add value to the world. A soulless career in IT, Finance or Law where the only goal is to maximise private gain will eventually lead discontent in life. A job where you make the world a better place and add value to other people's lives will make the 'sacrifice' of being in work 8am-6pm more palatable, although people obviously need to balance their personal needs with those of the work place.

As days go by, pushing paper around gets more tedious for me, and the reward for the other aspects of the role start to diminish with the introduction of more bureaucracy etc. So long as I find ways to subvert the negative aspects creeping into my role I remain fulfilled by what I do. When the negatives start to outweigh the positives, or the money is no longer enough, I'll make the decision to pursue some other interest. I certainly never plan on working, for working's sake. I'll earn enough to fulfil my basic needs (reach FI) then work on finding my ultimate calling in life (if there is such a thing?)

SimpleLife
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by SimpleLife »

IlliniDave wrote:
SimpleLife wrote:

This guy pretty much sums it up. I don't understand why people get so excited that they can vacation for a couple weeks a year, when the other 50 weeks a year SUCK. And for what? So you can work to pay almost half of your income in one form of tax or another?
I think the easiest answer is that for most people the other 50 weeks of the year just don't suck. Maybe there is some survivorship bias but I look around and see relatively few people who unhappy in their day-to-day lives. They don't all do cartwheels down the hall because they love work so, but somehow they manage to still be happy people. I think they do so by taking ownership and living a balanced life, rather than by finding something to hate and seizing on it as something to exonerate them from responsibility for their own contentment.

Lives of quiet desperation...Just because people seem happy or put on a face at work in limited interactions, doesn't mean they are happy and satisfied, finding balance in life, at least I haven't seen any studies to support this. In fact, survey after survey shows, most people are NOT happy with their jobs, more than 70% of general workers and 80% of IT workers are unhappy. Just because everyone puts on a face and eats cake in the lunch room to celebrate the receptionists birthday doesn't mean they are happy with the other 50 weeks a year. I myself put on pleasantries just like everyone else, saying "Good morning!" in a chipper tone, and pretending to like people who I despise. Merely a corporate survival tactic I picked up on the job from others...

IlliniDave
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by IlliniDave »

I haven't seen any "studies" one way or the other, but don't know why survey responses would be any more reliable or insightful than what a person observes first-hand. It's like there's this alleged secret cult of misery out there that I just just don't encounter. I would tend to agree that people don't see their jobs as perfect, or even great or good. But to me it's a stretch from there to an unhappy life or "SUCK". Peanut had some very good insight above.

heyhey
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by heyhey »

I think a lot of people get a certain amount of satisfaction from the contact they have with other people through their work, regardless of how they feel about the job. I know several people who would much rather spend time with people they dislike, than be on their own. This lends appeal to work of almost any kind, as long as they don't have to work alone. Kind of the opposite of a lot of us :)

jacob
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by jacob »

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/99-pe ... laves.html ... starting about half way down.

IRL, I know lots of people who complain about money troubles, but comparatively few (just one) complaining about their job (and that's only in the sense of replacing it with another job. In fact, not having a job, almost everybody expects me to find one ASAP. After all, "what are you going to do all day w/o a job"?

This group excepted.

Anyone who expects that employment is the natural stage (and the only one) is not out of balance. Note that the original quote also just suggested to replace the sucky job for another one as a park ranger. Fundamentally, humans can and will adjust to any level of comfort and will accept that level as long as they're not dreaming about something else. It's the dreamers who tend to complain. I think dreamers erroneously believe that because they dream, others do, but I don't think that is the case.

cmonkey
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by cmonkey »

jacob wrote:In fact, not having a job, almost everybody expects me to find one ASAP.
Even after all this time?

7Wannabe5
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

jacob said: IRL, I know lots of people who complain about money troubles, but comparatively few (just one) complaining about their job (and that's only in the sense of replacing it with another job. In fact, not having a job, almost everybody expects me to find one ASAP. After all, "what are you going to do all day w/o a job"?
Right. Just like how people complain about their SO's but not about the institution of marriage or the practice of monogamy. I was telling somebody about how much I am enjoying the company of both of my current polyamours for different reasons, and she said "Well, now you just need to find somebody who has all those traits and then you can marry him." , whereas I am considering what additional traits I might want in a third partner. Some people just don't get web of goals lifestyle thinking.

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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by jacob »

@cmonkey - I have worked a regular W-2 job in finance for the past 4 years (until last month) and I've otherwise learned to keep a selectively low profile wrt FI IRL. After some early naive enthusiasm on my part trying to explain FI and how it works and failing with everybody except investment professionals who noticeably understand the concept right away, I've taken to using a strategy of class passing when it comes to "what I do for a living". It's a cop out on my part but I don't feel like disturbing the wa by implying that 1) Yes, I'm loaded; and 2) I can choose whether or not to work. When people ask me "what I do for a living" I almost always pick some minor income source of mine and use that as a foil. I tend not to be very confrontational about it because in most cases the concept of FI will challenge some deep-held beliefs and/or require too much explanation.

@7wb5 - Exactly. Like fish in water. This is less of a WOG thing that a quadrant thing. Most people only have experience with their own quadrant, so in my passing strategy, I try to give an answer that relates to where they are.
1) Salary: "I'm a writer", alternatively, "I'm an X but currently taking a break".
2) Work: "I do some woodworking on commission from time to time."
3) Business: "I run a blog empire on the net."
4) Renaissance: ;)

It doesn't matter that some of these just make coffee money. If they ask, I tell them that, yeah, "coffee money", "but I have some savings". Incidentally, there are some positive side-effects to this approach because each quadrant is likely to attempt to connect me to people in their network.

cmonkey
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Re: Interesting reply on another forum

Post by cmonkey »

@jacob, Its unfortunate it has to be that way. I have a feeling I'm going to find this out the hard way as I will be all too excited once we reach FI status. I have a couple of friends that understand what we're doing but would never do it themselves. The family...not so much. The DW and I honestly want to tell her folks now the path we are taking but part of me just knows they wouldn't get it and might even be disappointed with our decision. Not sure what we'll do yet... Might just tell them I'm working from home full time now. Wouldn't be lying. ;)

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