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Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

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Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#71

Post by digi_owl »

tluyben2 wrote: post #61
ensiferum wrote: post #60

I despise the use of the word "work" here. Basically any activity that you find rewarding and that keeps your body and mind moving will have the same effect. I.e. getting out of the bed and doing stuff helps you not to become a senile cretin. It doesn't have to be work

Indeed. But for some reason people connect work with self worth. I have that the same with my hobbies but apparently a lot of people do not; it needs to be work to get that same feeling.

The proverbial "protestant work ethic". It may not be codified, but it seems to exist to some degree.

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#72

Post by deepGem »

chubot wrote: post #66
deepGem wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. If your finances are sorted out, it's good to take a break from work for 2-3 months and do absolutely nothing. What you once craved, 8 hours of sleep, hanging out with friends, traveling, spending time with family etc, once you experience them for a long enough time, will start hurting and you will start craving for work. I think it's a myth that one can just chill out forever, which is why I also believe that UB…

As a counterpoint, I've been off on a sabbatical for 4 months now, and I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do. I honestly thought that I would be bored and craving work at this point. But it turns out that I have enough open source ideas that 3 months can fly by with pleasure, and I extended my sabbatical for another few months. I also have neighbors who I'm friends with, which helps tremendously. And I get to…

Great points. To me, any act of creation or any act that aids in creation = work. Programming, gardening, reading, investing, polishing shoes - anything that makes you feel like you've done something. Rest is all consumption. Chill out = consumption, which I think has some limits.

I meant to say 10 hours of sleep, but hey 8h is the new 10h :)

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#73

Post by DominikR »

tajen wrote: post #62
andyjdavis wrote: post #33

>“You go from working 50, 60, 70 hours a week to zero,” Moen says. “And it very much affects your identity. Who am I? For men, the answer usually is their job.” I feel like this is a problem our whole life however it is only once we retire that we are forced to confront it. Until then we are able to avoid dealing with a lack of fulfilling activities outside of work, limited social connections and a weak sense of iden…

I recognize I'm in this situation, but I have no idea what one could do to make a life meaningful, outside of good work or raising great kids, hopefully with a loving partner. I have already tried many things: Living in 3 other countries for 4 years in total (but I was missing family and friends support), being self-employed (I do B2B software like P.McKenzie), learning to dance (3 times, but I feel crap at it), musi…

> Only having a girlfriend once fulfilled me (until she dumped me like "you don't have leadership with your life") but you didn't count "partner" among things that fulfill your free time, did you?

Please don't try to find this there. It makes you dependant on a person which isn't healthy for both of you and you are not going to find this idealised love in a relationship.

The main reasons that I see for men slowly losing their social life is because of work and obsessive fixation on a relationship.

I'm not saying don't have a relationship because it's great, it's just that I don't believe it should ever be the sole purpose of your life.

> So what do you mean with "structure and accomplishment"? Do you have examples?

For me at least this is having a great social network of friends. The fact that there's every day something to do for me outside of work together with friends. That's at least what I've been focusing on.

I'm in a happy relationship but I'm not going to give up my social life for her as so many of my friends did.

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#74

Post by DominikR »

Continuing to work is probably good for a man's health if he has no (physical) activities he enjoys and no or very few friends. I agree with this.

That men end up in such a situation is probably due to the fact that too many of us focus obsessively on a single relationship to one person and then give up in the process their social life, their activities and hobbies.

And when the relationship ends for whatever reason you'll have nothing left in your life. That seems dangerous to me.

Instead I try hard to keep my social network alive and meet new people just as hard as I try to keep my relationship alive.

I believe this is what most women are doing anyways. It's also telling that this article is only about men. It's as if men are following subconsciously some kind of misguided role model that will get them to a point where it is most likely even better to continue working into their 70ties or 80ties than retiring.

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#75

Post by jasonkester »

A better takeaway from this is to make sure that your Job is not the most important thing in your life.

If your Job is the thing you do as little of as needed so that you can afford to spend time doing the really important things that give your life meaning, then having your Job go away isn't anywhere near as devastating as this article suggests. It's only because people tend to put so much of their identity into their career that this is an issue at all.

I "Retired" from the 9-5 world last year, and my quality of life has seen a noticeable spike ever since. I have always prioritized climbing and other outdoor pursuits, travel and (more recently) raising kids over working, so dropping work down to near zero just let me turn all those other knobs up to where I think they should naturally belong. There's still a "work" knob in the form of the product businesses that bring in my income, and it too is dialed way down to where it belongs. Just enough to keep the mind sharp and diverted with a few hours of geekery each week.

So the key, in my mind, is to arrange things so that you honestly don't miss your job once it comes time to give it up. It's cool to work hard and all. But there's a lot more to life than just work. If you wait until you're 65 then are suddenly forced to go find out what those other things are, it's going to be a lot less fun than if you start introducing them at age 25 and have them ticking away ready to take center stage as soon as the opportunity arises.

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#77

Post by greggman »

saiya-jin wrote: post #69
andyjdavis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it's a myth that one can just chill out forever Absolutely. My wife and I spent a few years traveling full-time, mostly SE Asia. I worked remotely while my wife was busy with various projects. In particular, tropical islands are incredibly damaging to your motivation and general happiness. We arrived grossly overestimating how much we would enjoying hanging out on a tropical islands and met a great many peop…

well, staying at one place makes no sense if you want to have ultimate experience. one can easily spend 10-20 years travelling from one exotic location to the next, if cash is present. even just tropical paradise hopping can be done for 1-2 years. best setup i've seen is to travel around the globe maybe 2 years, through all possible locations. enjoy given country for few weeks/months if it's a big one and move. after…

For me at least this isn't didn't work. As just a small example I went to Europe for 3 months. Helsinki->Stockholm-Antwerp->Brussels->Berlin->Copenhagen->Tromso->Amsterdam->Koln->Dusseldorf->London. Seeing each city was great but the actual things to do start to get very similar. Each city has 2-3 churches. A bunch of art museums with many of the same artists. Yet another farmer's market or marketplace. Shopping centers with the same brands. etc..

I think it was "Happy Money" by Elizabeth Dunn that claimed their studies indicated that long vacations are not as effective as short vacations because most people get used to it quickly and the novelty wears off. That certainly fits my experience.

If her research is true then it would suggest taking a short trips every once in a while (a week or less?) would be more rewarding than a long trips.

Of course everyone is different. I'm sure some people love infinite travel.

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#78

Post by clentaminator »

somethingsimple wrote: post #26
ams6110 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if everyone is this way, but at 50 I am losing a little of the starry-eyed excitement. I've seen a lot of the same ideas come around again and again as a new great thing. And yet the pace of change is so fast, if you try to stay current you feel like you never really become an expert in anything. You get jaded. If and when I "retire" I would not see myself not working, but I do think I might do somthing…

I'm 28 and have lost all the starry-eyed excitement :( I was top of class in college, then advanced in huge strides in the first years of my career; now I just want to go home and read a non-technical book. I might be burnt out.

27 and I feel the same way, in that I don't feel much excitement around technology for technology's sake anymore. The latest version of macOS? Neat, but unlikely to be as "game changing" as Apple might have you believe.

The rate of change in some areas of technology can make you think that you're missing out on some kind of important development, however if things are changing that fast then perhaps nothing is really changing at all.

Mostly it's important that in whatever you're working on you're applying technology to a problem or area that you find interest in, otherwise the only "fun" can be found in the tech stack, which is not (in my not-too-humble opinion) a good place to find enjoyment. You can enjoy your tools, sure, but it shouldn't be the case that "We're using X, Y and Z" is more important than "to make Foo".

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#79

Post by cko »

tajen wrote: post #62
andyjdavis wrote: post #33

>“You go from working 50, 60, 70 hours a week to zero,” Moen says. “And it very much affects your identity. Who am I? For men, the answer usually is their job.” I feel like this is a problem our whole life however it is only once we retire that we are forced to confront it. Until then we are able to avoid dealing with a lack of fulfilling activities outside of work, limited social connections and a weak sense of iden…

I recognize I'm in this situation, but I have no idea what one could do to make a life meaningful, outside of good work or raising great kids, hopefully with a loving partner. I have already tried many things: Living in 3 other countries for 4 years in total (but I was missing family and friends support), being self-employed (I do B2B software like P.McKenzie), learning to dance (3 times, but I feel crap at it), musi…

I'm like you, but I'm 30 and don't want a family or kids. And travel sounds incredibly boring. I've been investing 90% of my income the past five years. When the article or any coworker says "enjoy your hard earned money" it makes no sense to me. What does spending money have to do with happiness? And yet, more money is all I want. If you gave me a billion dollars tomorrow my first thought would be "how do I turn that into two billion?" I might become a monk. Serious. Ever thought of that?
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