I don't want to work very hard

Great quote.

http://books.google.com/books?id=dJMpQagbz_gC&pg=PA31&#3...

The pre and postamble to that quote is particularly apropos:

I was originally supposed to become an engineer but the thought of having to expend...was unbearable to me. Thinking for its own sake, like music!

Have you considered that it's the lack of challenge and the fact you aren't actually working much that's the issue? Have you tried to embrace a project that involved a skill set that you didn't have?

On the issue of starting your own business:

There's a reason entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship: there is risk involved. It may work, or it may not. You may build something people want and sell it, cashing out - or you may fail or may only be able to get it into a state where it brings profit - but not into a state where you can walk away from it, wealthy. You can then move on and do something else (with higher chance of success) but now that's eight years of working longer hours vs. four and so on.

That's not to say you shouldn't start a business (I certainly want to start my own at one point or another), you just can't hope that it will magically solve your problems.

I've been reading Thoreau's Walden, where he mentions a Native American basket salesman who would argue when selling his baskets: "if you don't buy my basket, my people will starve"; Thoreau then argued that it isn't "how to better sell a basket" that the salesman should worry about but how to avoid relying on selling baskets not to starve.

Likewise, instead of thinking "how can I generate passive income for myself so I don't have to work" start thinking "how can I structure my work/life that I don't need a passive income to be happy and productive" (it could be reducing your living standards down to the basics where only consulting/part-time work is needed, it could be finding an area in which you're more excited to work - and if you can't find a job in that area, create one for yourself).

I guess I also get pretty bored with jobs after a year or two. It's funny, though, I have been running this business for quite a bit longer than that, and it's not boring. I think the boring parts of the dayjob are the stupid that I can't change. I mean, sure, there is stupid at my company, too- sometimes a lot of stupid. but it's my stupid, and I'm allowed to figure out how to fix it.

I think most of us are working towards a point where we can choose what we spend our time on. Me, I'm currently working a full-time contract gig for the money, and then coming home, working on my book and my hosting company. The book is winding down, and the hosting company, well, I might not be an awesome manager, but I do seem to be pretty good at finding and hiring underemployed people who turn out to be quite good. (as confirmed by the salaries they command when they leave my company.) so I do have good help.

Obviously, I'm not to the point where I have less 'forced work' - in fact, I'm doing the opposite. Right now, I'm working way more hours than would provide maximum effectiveness (I think it's been more than a month since I've had a week with less than 80 hours.) I keep my productivity from going negative by switching tasks often and outsourcing many things normal people do themselves (for example, I pay someone to clean out my house once a week. It costs me $15/hr, and she's much faster than I am. Being as I bill out north of $70/hr even in my current state, it's a good deal) but it's still completely unsustainable, and there's one guy working for me that I lean on way too much. If he quits before I expect him to (usually people stick with me for around a year) I am so fucked.

I don't see these 80 hour weeks as a good thing; they are, in fact, really stupid. I'd almost certainly get more done if I could cut it down to 60. But the book needs to get out soon... the publisher is getting antsy, and already Xen has changed so much we have to rewrite parts. And the hosting company, well, that's kindof the point here. that's why I'm putting up with this other crap, so I can't put it on hold.

I figure after the book is out (assuming the hosting company keeps improving as it has been) I'll be able to cut my consulting hours, relying on the credibility of being published to reduce some of the marketing effort.

If I had to do it over again, I would have set things up so that I could support myself on a part time job, and grown the hosting company more slowly, so it could also be supported by that part-time job.

But I do find work, even work for other people to be pretty interesting for the first 6months or a year. This actually works out pretty well for me as a contractor. I mean, if you want someone for longer than six or twelve months, you shouldn't be using contractors anyhow, so nobody get's bent out of shape if I want to leave around that time.

If I didn't have the entrepreneurial bug, I'd probably work as a contractor for three to six months out of the year, and read (or write) the rest of the time. Especially if you spent your working time in the bay area and your relaxing time somewhere cheaper, you could live pretty nicely that way.

snap

Do you think so?

Do you think Western Europe and the US will be able to get through the next fifty years without a radical and extremely painful forced upheaval of its energy infrastructure, and the knock on effects on industry and transport that that would entail?