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Stop existing to work. Instead create the memories now. Go have fun now. In the US the retirement age is going up to 70. One of the reasons is specifically because people are getting more good years, so of course the bar had to be moved. Enjoying retirement is a con.
That’s great advice in a society where most people don’t need several jobs to survive.
I know of some people who have radically redefined survive. From Van Life to learning a language and going to developing countries where it's easier to earn money and have fun. I'm not saying that's a good fit for you or that we should all be doing it but at some point putting 90 hours in just to keep the apartment and child care paid for is going to break. So something needs to happen to relieve that first or else you're just going to die young and stressed.
People need to face the reality that currently for a lot of people it’s just not possible to escape the reality of living in financial distress and on the edge of homelessness their whole lives. Just because you know of some lucky people who were able to escape it doesn’t mean that it’s possible for everyone. It’s really demeaning to tell people to ‘work harder’ or ‘change it up’ ‘you’ll get there!’. Because you’re implying that it’s their fault if it doesn’t get better.
The only way to change this reality is to change the system we live in, and to stop letting rich people rule our economies and thus our lives.
Fun requires being alive, requires money, requires work, demands time. Getting fun can get complicated. There isn't a true answer to this conundrum as far as I know—not an inspiring one, at least. Makes me think about what human life is supposed to look like.
Go have fun now.
That doesn't look like anything to me.
I had workaholic parents who expected "retirement" to finally be the time to enjoy life. So they grinded, 60 hour work weeks for decades. They made a ton of money but by the time they made it to retirement they destroyed their bodies.
My mom has extremely severe chronic hip pain and cannot sit down. Due to constantly working in an office her muscles were severely atrophied and she cannot find the motivation to get back in shape. She spends the vast majority of her time in bed, completely exhausted.
My father suffered chronic stress and once passed out at work. He struggles with high blood pressure and went partially blind. He is still working due to decisions I can't share here.
The grind culture is such an alluring chopping block. A meat grinder... some people go in, apply for a thousand internships, work three jobs, but not all of them go out. Is it a weak vs. strong separator? Am I weak?
I hope not. I'm just an archer, not a tank, I'd like to think.
I'm sorry your dad still has to work, and about their injuries.
When you die, they will put two dates on your tombstone. The day you were born and the day you died. And, in between will be a little dash. That dash represents everything that mattered about your life. All your achievements and failures, all your joy and all your pain. All roll up in just a little dash. Make the most of it before that second date is written.
Remind me to start writing a diary in clay tablets, I'm gonna own the rest of graveyard and future archaeologists!
Bold of you to assume everyone gets a tombstone, some are gonna end up in a mass graves after being mass murdered by their government.
And this feeling is why I started picking up music again after I stopped playing/recording for nearly 12 years. I've worked too hard and focused so much on being successful when I've forgotten what makes me truly happy.
Word. All of these efficiencies and inefficiencies... humanness is distinct from it
It's hard to come to terms with sometimes. Looking at a staff with 3 bars, or a short riff, then thinking man, did I review my finances for the month? But the time isn't wasted. The pastime isn't a reward. It's as important as the work.
But you don't have to be a monk to balance again :)
Everyone wants to be happy. Be the least asshole possible.
This is why hedonism is a good thing.
You just can't be so hedonistic that you can't keep being one next year, and the year after. Or in a way that screws someone over.
That's a pretty big question, with a couple of different interpretations. If you are asking how I handle thinking about the passage of time, the easiest answer is to make it tomorrow's problem. This is probably not the healthiest answer; but it doesn't pay to stress over inevitabilities, so I just do my best to put them out of my mind.
If you are asking the best way to utilize your time, my recommendation is to start focusing on yourself immediately. It's very easy to prioritize work by staying late or overworking yourself to make your bosses happy, but no amount of overwork will ever satiate your company; it will only serve to drain the life from your body. It's very important to set firm boundaries with your job. I, personally, will not even look at my work phone or computer the minute I leave the office (on Mon-WFH days) and have a hard stop every day at 5PM unless agreed upon well in advance. You lose so much time and energy to your job that just standing firm on your boundaries can be a huge QoL boost.
Please also do your best to cultivate a creative outlet as a hobby. A lot of people don't think they are/can be creative, but anyone can be creative if they find the right outlet. It could be art, sewing, crochet, music, writing, or even creative programming. The important thing is to find a way to explore your feelings and do something productive with them. In my experience, I am often the most vivacious are when I am making art in one form or another; I highly recommend it.
Thank you for this. This comment is just a little push but now I see -- I've already forgotten how long I'd gone without writing a note onto a staff. How long I've spent on just "things that will pay me or pay off."
I will do this immediately.
Let go and let life slip through your hand like sand
I don't like sand. It's coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere.
just like life
Ani, have you always been such a whiny bitch?
Accept that good actions will not give an immediate or always measurable result for you to observe.
You are a social being. What matters most is often not what increases you in status, but what increases others in wellbeing or allows you to appreciate the beauty in lifem
On your death bed you will not wish to have worked more, but probably to have spent more time with people dear to you or that you had spent more time for actions that nudge society a tiny bit more towards your values.
Capitalism especially todays consumerism is built around manipulating you to identify yourself with superficial status. Breaking free of that will open yourself to value your time and actions as meaningful as they become meaningful, even if there is no number or title attachable to it.
Capitalism also exploits the inherent nature of humans to please and feel validated by others through work. However, the system initially stems from the idea that individuality is sovereign and the cornerstone of successful being and society as a whole. However, no one notices or questions this paradox. Capitalism promotes individualism, and yet if you are not immersed in the grind, hustle and productivity culture, you are deemed lazy and unproductive by society. In other words, even in a system that touts individuality, the worth of someone is still tied to impressing society at large. At the end of the day, you're not pleasing yourself or your colleagues, you are pleasing those at the top who are earning more than you ever will.
I notice a lot of comments here saying "Hey go live your life now! Pick up that guitar or paintbrush or dancing shoes or whatever! Live for you!" And I agree. I often struggle with these existential thoughts.
But something they might leave out is that it's HARD.
Following your own path can be unpredictable, and meandering, and you need to know who to trust and lean on them, and let them lean on you.
It can be a one-move-to-the-next kind of existing without that facade of "predictability" a society-prescribed life will get you. The good news is that stability is a myth anyway, so why not see it for what it really is?
I was treading water in a soul-destroying job for almost a decade when I finally saw the opportunity to strike out for myself, and I ran for it. My wife was promoted to a position that paid more and she didn't hate it, so we discussed it and I quit, and took on more household duties and put my efforts towards finally becoming a 3D artist.
It's been like a year+ and I still haven't "made it" yet! It's scary! But I've gotten some gigs! I'm still slow, and not as wildly creative as I'd like to be, but I do random labor on the side and try to keep my costs as low as possible. But she's happier with how not-depressed I am, and I've made so much progress more than I ever would have otherwise.
Are we even able to start saving for retirement? Not even close! But I'm betting on myself and in the process I get a lot more time well-spent with the person I love.
No, not everyone is gonna have these opportunities or privileges, I know. But keep looking, talk to people, DO THE WORK instead of just talking about it. Help people! Let people help you! There will be some foothold for you somewhere.
And if you gotta pull some shifts at a coffee shop to keep the lights on there's no shame in that! And you're gonna have people who think you're crazy and try to pull you back into the pot with the other cranky crabs because you're there reminding them that they could've done something with their lives too.
My point is, taking charge of your life instead of asking permission from various gatekeepers is HARD. You might follow your dreams and find out you suck at it. The dream might even change at some point.
But it's worth doing. Because what's the alternative?
Lord knows if the worst were to happen, your boss will be filling your job before your body is cold. So where is your effort, energy, discipline, talents, love, best spent?
As Bruce Lee once said: "Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one."
I'd add, "one worth living."
Yeah... it's hard.
The status quo, even if its dredged from a lake, is so comfortably uncomfortable. You resolve to change, but do futilities. You resolve to change, but your leg is caught and you return by week two (aka the New Years' Resolutions number).
And to leap out and be instantly different is to play as something that doesn't have the safe façade of being a system gear. Then you're an oxbow lake, rather than in the river, and you wonder if everyone else is "floating by" already while you erode the soil that kept you streamlined down the main.
And then comes the "Should I have stayed? Was I being arrogant, spoilt enough to give up what I had?"
Idk what the moral of my comment is. I don't want to say "I'll discover it in a few years" either (,,>ࡇ<,,). Hopefully the mystery box is truer to my self than the alternative
There are no destinations, only journeys. If you don't find meaning in the path you're walking you have three choices:
There is no right or wrong answer, only choices and your experience of making them.
https://i.imgur.com/LMlTKLM.jpeg
Kaiji expressed the sentiment as well though imo a smidge better
For work-life balance on the basis of the comic, by refusing to do any kind of overtime on a regular basis, and making sure any time it happens I'm compensated for it. I'm also fortunate enough to earn enough that I was able to reduce my working hours to have Fridays free. Having half of the year free gives me the opportunity to actually do some living.
Now for the more general question, I mostly try to not think about it, because it tends to throw me into a FOMO driven frenzy where I do things to cross them from a checklist and end up not really enjoying anything. For the most part, I found I'm much happier trying to live in the moment even if I'm not very good at it.
Been meaning to contact my teachers. Telling myself after I finish community college, after I get into the uni I want, and after I get my internship. I have now done those things and have not contacted my teachers out of fear of disappointment.
No harm in messaging them just to say thank you.
If you've just stepped out of uni into an internship you still have a lot to go, but getting through college, uni and into an internship is an achievement in itself. They won't be disappointed, they will probably be proud that the work they did encouraged you to stay in education for as long as you did!
I always wanted to contact my French teacher and tell him I’m now married to a French woman, and how I found the love of my life because of the language he taught me… Well, I waited too long.
Capitalism is the hidden antagonist here.
I honestly stopped caring about time as we use it (I'd need to think for a minute if someone asked me what day it is) since the Pandemic. Never had much use for time other than scheduling, but the Pandemic seems to have completely cut me off from it.
Now, I just exist. Que sera, sera.
Make your life as close to what you want it to be in the present as you can personally achieve, and make plans. Focus on what you want to accomplish this day, week, month, year, 5 years, decade, and by the time you retire. Adjust as necessary if you go off track, whether faster or slower.
Time will pass. Harness it.
"My kids will live the life I wish I had"
I did this with having no kids.
"Ohh I'm not in a position to create a good life for an offspring."
"Ohh now I'm over 40 no kids for me, I guess it's better anyway. The climate catastrophe is real the World is on fire."
Here's the secret no one tells you and you have to learn for yourself. There is never a good time to have kids. Either you want them or you don't. If you want them you make it work. I have 3 and would have happily had 20. As soon as you have one your life is fucked anyways lol.
I like watching the changes. The world and everything in it, including me, isn't in stasis. People get old, I'm getting old, wild to look back at 'young me' or think of a close friend at a time when they were totally unfamiliar. My hometown is 10x larger and looks wildly different but I can still point out some unchanged spots when I go to visit.
I wish I could stop time and do whatever but I acknowledge that I was thrust into this with no say in any of it, so I just strive to be at peace with it I suppose
The truth here that many people won't get is that you can start your life anytime you want. Waiting for a good menu option to click on doesn't work. In my early 20s I was an introverted, anxiety-ridden computer geek. Then I took a community college acting class and discovered my passion for theatre - did acting, stage design, lighting, directing... it created almost an instant social life, tons of friends and looking forward to every day. My job became just a necessary detail, my real life was after work.
Anyway I encourage everyone to figure out how to get their life started. Doesn't matter what the economy is like or your personal history or circumstances - it's not you - nobody's life has ever cared if they lived it or not.
This quote really struck a chord with me:
Over the years as we all worked our way into time as if it were a field of sawgrass, cutting our ankles, a slog into middle age for me and a slow sunken decline towards death for the generation before me and my siblings. There were break-ups, fuck-ups, children and my own struggles with misty sorrow that has seemed to follow me like a sick-feral cat. A walking disappointment was what I felt like much of the time, even though I had enough confidence in myself to live the kind of life I desired. [...] In my mind I see the universe swirling like a giant whirlpool swallowing up everything all at once, and in this grand whirlpool people are smaller than a droplet of water rushing over Niagara Falls and then become mist. And when I die, my memories die with me and perhaps for one or two generations I will be remembered for a few things in my life but not for the mundane or what my daily interactions were like, not the cuddling of my dog nor the pride in my children or the laughter I was a part of, so much laughter that it caused people's head’s to turn.
The trick is enjoying mundane tasks or the simple things like your walk to work.
"Only in death does duty end."
Just hit my mid 30s. Feeling like working hard only gets your more hard work. Not that I’m in a bad spot but for real what does it all mean
Also known as the "protestant work ethic" by someone trying to sell protestantism probably
Many people saying 'live for the now', which is totally valid, but there's an alternative as well, which is the path I followed - devise a concrete economic plan for your life (5 year plan, 3 year plan, etc), and track ALL your spending until you have a strong grasp on how you like to spend your cash.
It's hard to make more money, so do everything you can to reduce spending in your life. No only will you increase how much can put away, but you'll need less to sustain yourself when you reduce how much you earn, due to the cultivation of a spendthrift life.
