Work and LifeFri, 21st Jan '05, 10:25 pm::

My eye hurts a bit now but I'll survive. So anyways, I was reading Paul Graham's article What You'll Wish You'd Known from this Slashdot post and it got me thinking. Almost everyone I know has a life that's so closely related to their work. After all, most people spend 8-10 hours a day working. There's so many theories about the 'work' part of your life. Don't work so much that you don't enjoy your life. Don't give up on your ambitions (meaning spend all your free time working). Fight Club quote: "You are not your job. You are not the money in your bank account." And yet, all people talk about is where do you work? What do you do? Are you getting a promotion?

So where exactly does your 'work' fit into your 'life'? Of course, almost everyone will agree that your job is not your life. There's a lot to life than just working all the time. But think back to high-school, when everything you did was supposed to be towards your future job/business. We are taught from birth that work is work, play is play and work basically sucks. Unless you get a glamorous job, you're basically screwed. But is work really necessary? Do we really HAVE to work? There's some that say, we should abolish work. And then there's some that say, once we have progressed far enough, we can let the robots do the work. Well till we get to that stage, somebody's gotta clean the restrooms and somebody's gotta design the new system that'll run the manufacturing process. You gotta work to pay the bills. That's the reason why 99% of the people probably work.

And yet, at some point in everyone's life, they are told by someone wiser and older, that you gotta find what you love to do and find a way to make money out of it. I'm sure the guy who re-issues my driver's license at the Department of Motor Vehicles was told by his high-school counsellor that he must look deep within himself to find what he loves. And I'm even more sure that 're-issue driver's license' wasn't in his list. So I think most people just fall into the jobs they have, most of the times, not by choice but by the need. But it's those 1% that end up launching probes to Mars and Saturn's moon Titan, and building the world's tallest bridges. Of course, to love your job, you don't necessarily have to do something heroic, you could just as well be a happy tax accountant who loves helping out her clients.

Uh so what's my point? My point is, if you think you have a good job that you sincerely look forward to every morning, then you are by far amongst the luckiest people on this planet because hating something you do for 8 hours a day, 300+ days a year is not a good way to live. I, for one, am lucky as hell to have a job I love. But of course, there's strict rules about having a job you love. Do not under ANY circumstances, bring it home with you. Work is work, home is home, and the twain shall never meet. Ya, I think that's it from me. I should really go to bed. My eye still hurts...

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