How Will I Measure My Life?

This man is quantifying his life into two things, money and freetime, nothing about quantifying the quality of your time at work, nothing about happiness, and nothing about being an ethical person. What's the point of having all the money, and all the free time in the world if you're an unhappy jackass who hates his job?

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#5

Post by ealexhudson » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 11:22 AM UTC

There are a few metrics other people have considered that he seems to have overlooked; daylights, sunsets, midnights, and cups of coffee are all highly quantitative.

Qualitative measures are probably to be preferred though, e.g. Love.

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#6

Post by sjcsjc » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 11:22 AM UTC

enkid wrote: post #4

This man is quantifying his life into two things, money and freetime, nothing about quantifying the quality of your time at work, nothing about happiness, and nothing about being an ethical person. What's the point of having all the money, and all the free time in the world if you're an unhappy jackass who hates his job?

How can you have a) all the free time in the world and b) a job you hate?

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#7

Post by fimdomeio » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 12:06 PM UTC

I measure my life in a very abstract way. How much my existence is positive or negative to the world and to the people around me. Can I make people around me happier / have better lifes? How much of an environmental footprint am I creating? These are all impossible things to measure and I know that I might even contradict myself in how a feel about some of the things that I do but for me it's good enough for me to know what direction I would like to be heading.

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#8

Post by ljoshua » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 12:09 PM UTC

The book, "How Will You Measure Your Life," by Clayton Christensen is easily on my list of Top 5 Most Important books, I cannot recommend it enough.

Interestingly, Kent seems to have focused in on hygiene-motivation factors more than anything else, while the large takeaway I brought from the book is more about relationships than money/freetime options. While it is important to be locally maximizing the balance of those two, I found the message of the book to be about focusing outward, more away from one's self and career, and more towards others in ways that you can positively effect them.

Not saying at all that the content is wrong (because it's not, it's a fun engineering way of looking at it), but for those curious it also represents a subset of the book.

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#9

Post by terminalcommand » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 12:14 PM UTC

enkid wrote: post #4

This man is quantifying his life into two things, money and freetime, nothing about quantifying the quality of your time at work, nothing about happiness, and nothing about being an ethical person. What's the point of having all the money, and all the free time in the world if you're an unhappy jackass who hates his job?

I don't know if it is good to love your job. Anything that you do professionally has a tendency to get boring after a time. If you're working for someone else, that also constitutes a blow to your happiness.

I think finding a sustainable balance should be sought after when looking for a job. Does the job let you disconnect? Does the job feel satisfying to you? Do you like the office environment? How much does it pay? And how does this job affect your career?

If you have sufficient money, you can quit at any time and find a suitable less-demanding (both physically and psychologically) job.

I like to think that, I can provide value to a company. If they don't appreciate that and try to take advantage of me without compensation I am always free to look for better opportunities.

Once I did an internship working crazy hours. The people I worked with also worked non-stop. A couple of them slept in the office, a guy slept in the gym. Everyone there was telling us to evaluate our options, think carefully before committing to that firm. And we were thinking that once we got in, our lives would be on hold for the next 10 years. While we were discussing this in the middle of the night another employee looked at us and said "You can quit at any time. See this job as an opportunity to learn things while making good money. Once you stop working, they take the firm cellphone away. All notifications stop. Everything will be back to normal." That talk stuck with me. Whatever the circumstances are a job is a means to make some money. You are free and nobody's slave.

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#10

Post by coverup » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 12:49 PM UTC

ealexhudson wrote: post #5

There are a few metrics other people have considered that he seems to have overlooked; daylights, sunsets, midnights, and cups of coffee are all highly quantitative. Qualitative measures are probably to be preferred though, e.g. Love.

You left out the most quantitative measure of all: 525,600 minutes.