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Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

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Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#191

Post by wollw »

sjclemmy wrote: post #166

When I was young and fresh out of college, I earned £8000 per annum and attempted to support a non-working partner and a small child. The idea of time vs money was irrelevant. I did not have enough money to live on. I would work as much as possible to get more money, and it still wasn't enough to live on. Fast forward to now where I have enough money not to bother about budgeting day to day and there is still enough…

    So, time vs money is a rich persons dilemma.
It's also a monk or nun's dilemma and a motivating factor in ordination for some.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#192

Post by sjclemmy »

seivan wrote: post #190
sjclemmy wrote: post #166

When I was young and fresh out of college, I earned £8000 per annum and attempted to support a non-working partner and a small child. The idea of time vs money was irrelevant. I did not have enough money to live on. I would work as much as possible to get more money, and it still wasn't enough to live on. Fast forward to now where I have enough money not to bother about budgeting day to day and there is still enough…

Is your job sustainable? As in will you be the first to go in a recession? Does your company make profit? Are you in a position where you're producing the value the company makes? These things bother me as you may be paid a lot, but your company might making $250M losses every year and has no plans on turning profit. Are you counting that your income might go away and never to return? In which case the threshold migh…

I contract. So if that dries up, I'm screwed. But luckily I have an interest in something that is highly valued in the modern world; software development. So it's incumbent on me to make sure I can get work, and, so far, it's been OK.

I think I said in my original comment that threshold is 'to support the lifestyle one expects' - I purposefully left it open ended. My expectations are a result of my upbringing in a middle class household etc. Also, my point is about low income earners - the majority of the world.

I agree that if your goals in the economic game are to be in a position where you don't have to rely on a salaried income then I'm doing it all wrong. I've made the decision that enjoying the things I can do with the money I have now is worth more than saving more of it for some other end. One has to make choices. I might die tomorrow. Who knows? That said I do make plans for the future.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#193

Post by EC1 »

dfc wrote: post #129
EC1 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something where you create tangible value. Video games, movies, collecting, etc are all consumer hobbies. Leather making, coding, music, knitting, etc, are instigative. The main difference is it's difficult to relate to other people about consumer hobbies unless you consume the same things. With instigative hobbies you can teach people and talk about them to others who know nothing about it. I'm not saying either is…

I take it that you coined this term all by yourself? This is the only use of "instigative hobby" that google knows about. I think you need a better adjective than instigative. Nothing about instigative makes me think the distinction is between the consumption/creation of goods. I don't agree with your conclusion but at the very least "creative hobby" seems like the obvious choice. I am not sure why I can more easily…

>This certainly does not match up with my experience with my hobby of book consumption or the experiences of my friend who is a wine sommelier

I could not think of someone I'd get along with less. You must be much older than me. This is exactly what I'm talking about. I'd never want to listen to someone tell me about the history of something, that's boring, that's regurgitation, I can google that. If you've made wine before though, that's definitely interesting.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#194

Post by fudgy73 »

sjclemmy wrote: post #179
lr4444lr wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But to be fair, and this won't be a popular comment, but I'm asking honestly, why did you take on a non working partner and child fresh out of college? You evidently have great character to overcome, and I don't know the UK system, but these would be impossible burdens for most middle class Americans before the age of at least 25, and likely put long term if not permanent damping factors on their career growth to be…

The pithy answer is 'life is complicated, confusing and difficult'. The slightly longer answer is; I was young, I was (and still am) in love, it's my child (and she's great btw. Aced all her exams, goes to a top University /brag) I felt it was the right thing to do, and, time has borne that out. I agree it has put a damping factor on my career, but, you know what? (and this goes for a lot of commentary on HN) life is…

Thanks for answering this.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#195

Post by mercer »

askafriend wrote: post #184
mercer wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I've gone for long periods working primarily for one or two clients, and 1) I made more working part-time than the employees did full-time, 2) I got all the 'fun' new projects while the employees spent a lot of their time doing maintenance and bug-fixing (which they only asked me to do occasionally once I was a 'trusted' contractor), 3) I could go on vacations pretty much whenever I wanted. There are plent…

Mind expanding on some of the downsides that you've experienced?

Finances (billing, quarterly taxes, yearly taxes), lack of colleagues (I feel at best a semi-colleague if I'm somewhere long enough), lots of costs, some hidden or vague (insurances, office space, travel, laptop, utilities, etc.), possible dry spells / less job security (not an issue yet, but still), no perks (paid learning, conferences, outings), proposals and discussions about how much things cost, even with longer-term clients.

And of course the fact that I can't rely on the more 'default' paths of promotions, specializing, etc. I have to choose to grow, or I just keep doing the same thing or risk falling behind.

I don't find all these downsides. For example, I'm rather happy to not have to be around the same group of people day in, day out. Or to feel forced to go to some work event and be a 'team player'. But still. Sometimes I think I miss it, at least.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#198

Post by sanderjd »

orthoganol wrote: post #50
sanderjd wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity: do you do contracting / consulting work, or have you found a stable 15-20 hr/wk job? I think the latter sounds excellent, while the former sounds stressful.

I have stable clients. I've only had 2 main ones over the last 3 years. I think there are maybe some misconceptions about what a consulting life must be like. I agree it does sound stressful if it were my long term goal, but it is not, it's primarily a type of life that keeps me as open as possible to finding something truly worth pursuing (IMO at least), which may or may not take the form of a startup. I have my can…

Thanks. I'm not sure it is as much misconception as it is wild variation in what the consulting life is like for different people. Not everyone has those one or two stable long term clients. In many ways, the wide array of different possibilities in the consulting world is both its blessing and its curse.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#199

Post by oneJob »

Let us define the Identity Property of Being as 'being at one with oneself'.

Given that: time = money

...and that 'Time is All We Have'. [1]

...we can write: time/time = money/money

Which is equivalent to: (time)(money) = (money)(time)

Dividing everything by money^2 give us: time/money = time/money

Since we know that: time = money

...we can write: time/money = money/money

Which is: time/money = 1

So, we have shown that valuing time over money results in the Identity Property of Being.

[1] https://youtu.be/IAqgvotGrsg

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#200

Post by seivan »

sjclemmy wrote: post #192
seivan wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your job sustainable? As in will you be the first to go in a recession? Does your company make profit? Are you in a position where you're producing the value the company makes? These things bother me as you may be paid a lot, but your company might making $250M losses every year and has no plans on turning profit. Are you counting that your income might go away and never to return? In which case the threshold migh…

I contract. So if that dries up, I'm screwed. But luckily I have an interest in something that is highly valued in the modern world; software development. So it's incumbent on me to make sure I can get work, and, so far, it's been OK. I think I said in my original comment that threshold is 'to support the lifestyle one expects' - I purposefully left it open ended. My expectations are a result of my upbringing in a mi…

Highly valued is temporary. Your consultant/agency job is tied to those billion dollar startups that suck up engineering without any profit. It's hard pill to swallow and I hope someone proves me wrong.

It's like the real estate bonds that mixed CCC and AAAs together. In reality, most S/E jobs are highly volatile and incredibly temporary. I don't see doctors in the same situation.

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