121–130 of 200 posts
Life is hard, man. It's easy to find a way to waste your time and get by. But there is no easy way to make a bankroll and get out. To make enough to live off of for the rest of your life, you need to provide as much value to the marketplace in a short period of time as an average man does over the course of his whole life. You think that's easy?
Look, I appreciate your candor and all but I can't help but think if I was your coworker then I'd be pissed at having to carry your sorry arse. Shit or get off the pot.
Difficult to tell. Our most highly respected individual contributor in our department comes in at 11:00, leaves at 5:00, and basically works on whatever catches his fancy whenever he pleases (Which, thankfully, usually results in a reduction in labor for our and other departments each time he releases some new code/product) When particular tasks are placed on his plate - he is so overwhelmingly competent, that he sim…
Does the person you described sound like the submitter?
Several quotes came to mind when reading this: "If you win the rat race, you're still a rat." - Anna Quindlen, Harvard Commencement speech "No man on his deathbed ever said, 'I wish I had spent more time at the office.'" - The late Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, speaking at another Harvard Commencement There's another quote that also springs to mind, but I can't remember who said it. It is "time is the ultimate…
> "No man on his deathbed ever said, 'I wish I had spent more time at the office.'" - The late Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, speaking at another Harvard Commencement No, but I bet a lot of men have said, at least to themselves if not out loud, "I wish I'd had sex with a lot more gorgeous women." cf. Little Miss Sunshine. Spending more time at the office is a fairly reliable way of upping your odds when you're n…
American cultural assumption? Because I don't want women to be attracted to my money. Better ways to get women: learn to perform music, take up physical exercise, practice your confidence game.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh. Somehow it had not occurred to me to try to make this cycle explicit. That's a really interesting idea, thank you.
I'm not sure where you live or what your interests are, but this is the way contracting at Microsoft works. Every year contractors have to take a ~100 day break. Some contractors take that time off to relax / do hobby things, others take short term temp contracts or other part time work to fill the gaps.
Are these workdays? This would be the equivalent of 5 months. Or are they calendar days, which make it a little more than 3 months?
Do they have to take the break after 12 months of work? Or do they take it every year, making them work 9 months per year (assuming you count the break in calendar days)?
Another question. It sounds like Microsoft contractors have to take a break if they like it or not, so the point is probably not to keep them motivated. What advantage does Microsoft get from this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh. Somehow it had not occurred to me to try to make this cycle explicit. That's a really interesting idea, thank you.
This reminds me of something I often forget: if I want something out of the ordinary, it's very unlikely anyone will give it to me unless I ask.
A couple of years ago I wanted to go on a holiday for a month in a busy time. I notified my employer about half a year in advance and we planned around it. In the end, the planning didn't work out, I moved my holiday a couple of weeks and my employer paid my airline ticket in return.
As much as I sympathize with your sentiment, I'd just like to point out that the real benefit of a larger-than-necessary paycheque is being able to actually save money for when you are too old or technically outdated to continue working. It's certainly enjoyable to switch on and off from work and live off savings, but then you eventually get to the point where you can't find a job to switch back on to, and your savin…
Saving for the future conflicts in part with the desire to live a full life today.
Taking sensible care of your money is wise, spending a bit less than you make is wise. Trying to get lots and lots of money and giving way too much to your work now in hope that you can then, at some time later, retire and finally start living for real is an illusion. Because you never know what's in the future and you never will.
If you haven't learned how to live and let go before you retire, you sure don't know how to do that when you actually do retire -- in fact, you're going to spend most of your remaining days learning just that. Most people seem to fail in that, because transitioning from a "drone" to live a full life is hard. Really, really hard.
Living now doesn't mean careless, extravagant spending and ending up broke. But all the work you've put into your savings needs to be periodically extracted out and enjoyed by yourself because that's what life is.
You can never control life to the extent that you could be certain you won't run out of money, even if you try. (Well, one way would be to kill yourself as soon as you have lots of money -- then the money and security has outlasted your own life.)
I've learned that the only thing you can do is force yourself to trust that you will always get enough money somehow, somewhere, for everything you really need in your life at the time. If you try to think something else, it's an illusion. Life is at stake in many ways, all the time, there are endless ways it could change or end each day and each hour. And you won't have a say about it should something happen.
You can only trust that your life finds its own way and that's all. The rest you can choose to learn to enjoy.
I try to maximise the part I really love, coding in a flow and creating and making stuff (which counts to most of the "productivity" anyway), and minimise the rest of the stuff that would just get me more entangled and drowned in work.
I spend little and I live a small life, giving me more leeway -- something I've been very grateful for to myself. But I'm still not entirely happy because I can see the potential in myself to do something that's great in terms of where I feel I should be going in life.
I've considered starting a company as well because I might find a way of working that gives me what I think I want. Something small, I intend to make a small living, not a fortune -- given the amount of money associated with programming and IT services, I might be able to do it with less hours.
I think that time is the wealth that separates the rich life from the poor life. And you don't have to be rich to live a rich life. Few people can afford time for their life these days.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Albert signed a letter urging for the creation of an atomic bomb. If you think someone that intelligent could not have realized that an atomic bomb would be used to actually kill people -- then you are sorely mistaken.
In the letter he suggested that it might be used to cause significant damage to a port. He had no idea that it would be (1) anywhere near as destructive as it was, or (2) small enough or light enough to drop from aircraft rather than only being used in either naval warfare (where death tolls would be much less) or as a fixed weapon acting as a disincentive to invasion (building them along some border so that an overl…
Wait, you said you've read The 4 Hour Work Week, WTF else do you need to know? Get some brain supplements and get out on them thar internets! In all seriousness though, most businesses require a lot more work than a job. If you don't want to work just find a super easy job (government maybe?) and do as little as possible.
Wait, you said you've read The 4 Hour Work Week, WTF else do you need to know? Get some brain supplements and get out on them thar internets! In all seriousness though, most businesses require a lot more work than a job. If you don't want to work just find a super easy job (government maybe?) and do as little as possible.
A stereotypical government job where you spend all your day playing the Tower of Hanoi with stacks of "important" papers isn't likely to hit that sweet spot of yours.
What the right place is depends on what you desire but your work should support the way of life that you can't help thinking about.