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Work/life balance should be difficult

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Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#151

Post by sonofhans »

paulstovell wrote: post #114

Thank you for sharing this Kent, I got a tremendously valuable insight from it. I run a company and I love my work. And I recognise that this puts me in an extremely lucky minority. And my business has been successful enough that I could even quit working, but I enjoy it too much to. I also love my family. But there are never enough hours in the day. I could spend 16 hours a day with my kids and it would not be enoug…

I feel like you’re the only commenter so far to understand Kent’s point. I agree with you: if the balance isn’t hard it means you’re doing some things you don’t love. Correcting that will likely lead to more happiness, even if it makes the balancing harder.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#153

Post by JoeAltmaier »

jodrellblank wrote: post #132
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah if he knew even one person back in America, he could arrange to return. Heck, just because he's American he has in his head the idea that he could go anywhere. He went there after all; he could go back. Pick at the verbiage all you like; an American playing at being a poor subsistence farmer is theatre. The guy gave a TED talk after all. Did he do that from his 3rd-world farm?

He isn't American. Come on, read something or watch something about him before replying like this. > " Jon’s world view, from his upbringing in the rural fields of Northeastern Thailand " > " Jon has over 30 years experience of being an organic farmer " That's more than "playing".

Sorry, I gave a knee-jerk reaction to what seemed a typical TED talk - all enthusiasm.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#154

Post by edanm »

romwell wrote: post #126
nostrademons wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that was the author's message at all. Rather, I think that this post is about balance , and about being emotionally present. He's saying that it should be a constant struggle to balance off things that you care about, because that shows you care . The only way to avoid the struggle is to cease caring, and that means you push something out of your mind that you really should be paying attention to becaus…

>He's saying that it should be a constant struggle to balance off things that you care about, because that shows you care Yay, survival should be a struggle, because it shows you care (about increasing the ROI for the shareholders you'll never see)! "We need work" is justified by "we need shelter and food". The only thing a constant struggle shows is that you don't have the freedom to choose how you spend your life.…

> The only way to avoid struggle is to be rich - and that's because the rich had set it up that way.

Ummm, no? Not really? You think "the rich" could just magically end the need for work if they chose?

We live in an age of abundance relative to the past, but not to the point where we don't have to struggle for our existence, at least somewhat.

(Though to be clear, I am personally incredibly well placed in this society, and though I have to work, my profession is way easier than many other people's and my compensation far greater, as is true of many people on this forum)

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#155

Post by disambiguation »

supernovae wrote: post #105
disambiguation wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're also doing a trick here. While it's not necessary that everyone works, some work is necessary. If people stopped showing up to the farms, or the water treatment plants, everyone would die. So, someone has to work. Labeling "we need work" as only a social fact is a misguided kind of relativism. "Society has created arbitrary weights and values on which work gets rewards, therefore we only need work if w…

I've always wondered why we don't switch to a 20-30 hour work week or 4 work days a week... And not in some bs "part time vs full time" but that we have enough humans on this freakin planet that you should only need to work 30 hours a week to live a healthy, balanced life.

Also our regular work schedule, but people can retire earlier would be another nice form of balance.

IMO it's simply that money is a better motivator than equality. Money is tangible with easy to understand value, while equality is intangible and dubious in value, according to some.

Once you realize you can beat the guy working 20 hours a week by working 40 hours a week, you quickly find yourself optimizing for productivity over anything else. The rest of us get swept up in the current of the people that want it the most.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#156

Post by DarylZero »

edanm wrote: post #154
romwell wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He's saying that it should be a constant struggle to balance off things that you care about, because that shows you care Yay, survival should be a struggle, because it shows you care (about increasing the ROI for the shareholders you'll never see)! "We need work" is justified by "we need shelter and food". The only thing a constant struggle shows is that you don't have the freedom to choose how you spend your life.…

> The only way to avoid struggle is to be rich - and that's because the rich had set it up that way. Ummm, no? Not really? You think "the rich" could just magically end the need for work if they chose? We live in an age of abundance relative to the past, but not to the point where we don't have to struggle for our existence, at least somewhat. (Though to be clear, I am personally incredibly well placed in this societ…

We don't struggle "for existence" because high tech manufacturing has made production highly reliable and regular and abundant.

We struggle for _inclusion_ in the institutions that allow is to consume from this fountain of wealth. Production is reliable, but inclusion is always precarious.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#157

Post by DarylZero »

amw-zero wrote: post #27
kelseyfrog wrote: post #24

> We need work. Not sure I follow. It's amazing how these little bits of social knowledge ferment the flavor of the story. It's a lot like learning to taste beer or wine. Once you take the time to sit down and learn to pay attention to your senses, you can identify things like acetaldehyde, diacetyl, and mercaptans. It's fun teaching people how to sense things they weren't aware of before. The author seems to have do…

Work is generally a proxy for survival. Do you agree that you need to eat in order to survive?

Work is not a proxy for survival. Sometimes have to take time off work to keep your baby alive. Taking care of the survival of your family isn't work. Changing diapers isn't work. Work is a social relation.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#158

Post by DarylZero »

blitz_skull wrote: post #122
kelseyfrog wrote: post #24

> We need work. Not sure I follow. It's amazing how these little bits of social knowledge ferment the flavor of the story. It's a lot like learning to taste beer or wine. Once you take the time to sit down and learn to pay attention to your senses, you can identify things like acetaldehyde, diacetyl, and mercaptans. It's fun teaching people how to sense things they weren't aware of before. The author seems to have do…

I disagree that it's a social construct. I'm not saying that we all need to work for hyper-capitalistic machines. Or even anything remotely resembling a "business". But humans need to do semi-regular things that approximate work. Whether it's something like running a farm, coding programs, or passing lessons on to the next generation—we all need something semi-recurring, with some perception of value. I do agree that…

That's not what work means. Productivity isn't work. Hence why people take time off work to take care of their kids or house. Work is a social relation. If you don't have that social relation, then nothing you do will be recognized as work.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#159

Post by DarylZero »

mfer wrote: post #16
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #5

The sum total of your life at any period of time should be fulfilling and each part of your life should be rewarding. If you don't have that, then you probably need to be doing something else.

Our society needs people to haul garbage away. I would bet many of them don’t do it because it’s rewarding. It just gives them money to pay for things they care about. Should all those people leave hauling our garbage?

It should be rewarding.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#160

Post by systemsignal »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #24

> We need work. Not sure I follow. It's amazing how these little bits of social knowledge ferment the flavor of the story. It's a lot like learning to taste beer or wine. Once you take the time to sit down and learn to pay attention to your senses, you can identify things like acetaldehyde, diacetyl, and mercaptans. It's fun teaching people how to sense things they weren't aware of before. The author seems to have do…

It’s not a social fact, it’s a fact of thermodynamics.

Every system breaks down, unless it is maintained through energy/work.

At the most basic level, we need food to maintain our system. How will you get it without work?

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