

Never get too busy making a living that you forget to make a life - jyothi
http://marquisweblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/never-get-too-busy-making-living-that.html

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addicttostress
I've always thought that I'll make a life after I make a living. My day to day
isn't all that rough but I've got a long way to go before I can really relax.

~~~
diego
Like John Lennon said, life is what happens to you while you are busy making
other plans.

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windsurfer
You're just trying to slow us down! ;)

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jyothi
:) I agree if its your own startup it probably demands as much attention as
your personal life infact there is no demarcation. I by nature never had that
demarcation even when I worked for others.

But you know when somethings go real bad, like in the above post or even in my
own case, with mental states, emotions and relationships because of this work
stress you would regret. So this is just a reminder to be on the back of the
mind.

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jyothi
Seems common knowledge to most of us but something we most always miss out
while we focus on winning the pseudo race.

A very candid post, an open book of life experience of a high achieving GSB
grad. Many of us would have gone through this disturbing phase personally, its
just a reminder to remember to live the life too. :)

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jcapote
No thanks. I'm sleeping on the office floor every night, broadcast.com style;
I hear it worked out great for Mark Cuban.

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edw519
Why do "making a living" and "make a life" have to be 2 different things?

Better yet: What would you do for a living if $ didn't matter?

I love to program and can't imagine doing anything else. Sure, there are
_times_ where I'd rather be doing something else, but not very often.

I often think about one of my sports heroes, Jack Lambert of the Pittsburgh
Steelers, who once said he'd play football for 50 bucks a game.

I'm not suggesting that anyone actually do that, but if you don't feel that
way, you may be in the wrong profession.

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jmtame
this is what I hear every time I visit my grandparents..

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octane
Sure, if you equate "making a living" to "working for some guy who's going to
get rich off your work", it's never a good idea to work so hard you forget to
live. Only a fool would work hard for someone else.

If, however, you're making a company and not a living, this nice little rule
doesn't apply anymore.

~~~
nostrademons
Man, that sounds familiar. I bet if you went back two years on this site, you
could find comments from me that say almost exactly the same thing.

Anyway, as someone who tried making a company and is now happily "working for
some guy who's going to get rich off your work", I want to say "Yes, but..."
It _can_ be incredibly rewarding to work flat-out on work that's worth doing.
I wouldn't trade my startup experience for anything - not even the chance to
have joined Google in 2005 and now be more senior than 85% of engineers there,
or the chance to be employee #2 at DropBox.

But you have to remember that the median startup outcome is zero. Zilch. No
value created. You're not "working for some guy who's going to get rich off
your work", because _nobody's_ going to get rich off your work. It just
disappears into the ether when you find out that nobody wants it. And that's
basically unavoidable, no matter how hard you work: you can certainly increase
your chance of success, but you're not going to bring it over half.

The people I know who are most bitter about their startup experiences are
those who are sure they're going to get rich. Because they don't, and then
they realize they "traded in their twenties for a worthless pile of tech
stock." Do a startup for the right reasons - either because you need to test
your limits and see just what you can accomplish, or because there's a product
that absolutely must exist and nobody else is making it happen. (The latter
case is also the most likely to succeed, financially.) Don't do it because you
"want to be an entrepreneur", "don't want to work for anyone else", or worst
of all, because you "want to get rich".

~~~
octane
What makes you think this is my first startup and what makes you think I
haven't failed before?

Not everyone gives up after one. Not everyone is forced to work after failure
because they weren't smart with their personal finances.

~~~
nostrademons
FWIW, I could've afforded to keep going 2-3 times as long as I did. The
limiting factor was ideas: all my ideas were lame, so I decided to work for a
company that was doing not-lame things, gain some experience, build some
contacts, and try again.

I don't know what you're working on or what your goals are, so I have no idea
how much this applies to you. But for _me_ , the idea of doing the same wrong
thing over and over again is more futile than just giving up. So I decided to
do something radically different, roll the dice in another way, and see where
it takes me.

