
Don't waste life - munchor
http://danielflopes.com/lifewaste/
======
onion2k
If your working time is spent doing something you don't really enjoy that
sucks, obviously. It'd be great if we could all spend our lives doing
creative, enjoyable things. Realistically though, if your work facilitates a
happy life outside of your job then it could still be well be worth it - my
parents have led full, happy lives (or so they tell me) raising their kids,
doing their hobbies, seeing their friends, and yet they worked jobs that
weren't that they both claim weren't much fun, and I'm certain that neither of
them look back with any regrets.

The expectation that you can carve out a lifestyle where everything is
worthwhile is unrealistic, and while a few outliers might actually achieve it,
most people aren't going manage to get anything like that. Don't tell people
that they're wasting their life because they fail to pass a ludicrously high
bar. A life spent doing fulfilling things is not a waste even if it also
includes lots of things that suck.

tl;dr Grow up, take responsibility for yourself, and make sure that on
balance, after you're dead, you've done more good stuff than bad, even if your
job falls in to the 'bad' category.

( _This was posted earlier and then deleted for some reason. This is just a
repost of my comment from the first time._ )

~~~
EC1
>The expectation that you can carve out a lifestyle where everything is
worthwhile is unrealistic, and while a few outliers might actually achieve it,
most people aren't going manage to get anything like that.

I've managed it, but it's taken a lot of hard work. I finally have enough
money from side projects and clients to quit my job and go full time. I have a
few friends who are also looking for work and to quit their jobs, so when I
quit, I'm going to join my developers office (they have an office for free in
a building their parents own). My few friends are going to live with my in my
apartment and we're going full steam. Right now I work between 90 - max 110
hours a week. If I'm not @ work, I'm managing clients and juggling multiple
projects, while doing UI for all of them.

I almost have a sweet professional portfolio online, and the moment I do, I'm
quitting.

It's taken a lot of time and sacrifice but it's worth it and definitely
doable. Also, being 20 years old, no debt, no GF, no obligations makes this
infinitely easier.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> It's taken a lot of time and sacrifice but it's worth it and definitely
> doable. Also, being 20 years old, no debt, no GF, no obligations makes this
> infinitely easier.

Definitely. Its much more difficult when you're 30, have a mortgage, a wife,
possibly kids, etc.

~~~
benjohnson
Conversely for me, it's easier with the wife, kids and mortgage: these
responsibilities forced me to "grow up" and shocked me out of my protracted
childhood.

------
bsirkia
All true ideas, none particularly helpful. No one reads this and thinks:
"Wait, I can be happier if I work on something I'm passionate about and get
paid for it?! I had no idea!"

The problem is that its really hard to 1) identify what passions you have, 2)
filter those by which you want to pursue for the rest of your life and 3)
figure out a way to make money on that passion. Most people I know my age (mid
20's) are happy to "waste life" and make money for a couple years while they
answer those decisions.

~~~
pachydermic
I think a lot of people our age are just happy to have a job in the first
place. Young people are flocking to big cities (especially the Bay area, NYNY
and DC) just to get anything. I feel really lucky to have the nice "real" job
I have now, and given a lot of what's going on right now I don't think it's
realistic or responsible to expect that even your job will be balls to the
wall awesome. I mean... presumably they're _paying_ you for a reason, right?

Of course, I agree with the sentiment as you do. Just pointing out that there
are difficulties in trying to make this happen in addition to the three
problems you mentioned.

~~~
bsirkia
Right, I think it's worth it to take a job that pays you, and you can use that
money to develop your passions.

------
steven777400
Another issue is balancing great passion with higher cost. For example, I quit
a previous job (that I had some passion about) for my current job, which is
... ok ... but pays twice as much.

As a result, I'm able to fly more, which is something I'm very passionate
about.

Sometimes hobbies that we're very passionate about can also be very expensive.
There's ways to reduce cost, but in the end, sometimes the best way to have
more opportunities to enjoy that passion is to take more "non-passionate"
hours that generate the funds.

I'm not saying my choice was right or will always be right. I still struggle
with it. I guess the point is, optimizing for happiness is not as simple as it
appears, especially for someone who is not independently wealthy.

------
jvehent
I saved 15 minutes by not reading this blog post :)

~~~
EC1
Why do you come into threads and make comments like this? Genuinely curious.
Do you have something against the author or..?

~~~
debacle
Because some people are of the opinion that there is entirely too much of this
fluff on HN, myself included.

~~~
bshimmin
Some day I'm going to go into a pub, strike up a conversation with a stranger,
and when they inevitably ask me what I do, I'll say, "Why, thank you for
asking! I write about optimising our lives for happiness, integrity, and
success."

And then I'll hope that they murder me.

~~~
herokusaki
Is there anything wrong in principle with writing about optimising our lives
for happiness, integrity, and success?

~~~
unclebucknasty
Just that the posts are seldom insightful or helpful in any meaningful way.
And, they are frequently ultra-redundant.

I mean, truly, who here (or on the planet) hasn't thought it would be ideal to
earn a living by pursuing a passion?

And, how many forms of this _exact_ article have we seen?

~~~
EC1
That's fair.

------
q845712
when i clicked on the link the page came up blank and i thought it was a
brilliant critique on reading blogs. I hit reload to make sure and was
disappointed to find a "do what you love" article, uncritical and un-self-
aware of all the problems with that line of thinking. Rather than reprint
them, here's the best exploration of "do what you love" i've read recently:
[https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/in-the-name-of-
love/](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/in-the-name-of-love/)

~~~
steven777400
Wow, your link should have been the article instead! That was one of the
better reads I've had in a while. Thank you for posting it.

------
IvyMike
'I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell
you different.' \- Kurt Vonnegut

------
dreamdu5t
Want to be happy? Please subscribe to my newsletter.

------
unclebucknasty
It's like every kid has this epiphany, "Aha! There are only so many hours in
the day. If only I could make my work enjoyable, life would be so much better.
I must share this insight with the world!"

Welcome to the club of people that includes anyone who has ever had a job or
simply thought for more than 15 minutes about the eventual need to support
one's self.

------
steele
Before you put on your snark hats, note that the author explicitly claims that
he is working on "advice for people in their 20s". Actually, I bet the
audience this would resonate with is even narrower.

Hoping to read articles about how to cope with finding career fulfillment in
"sanitation engineering" or "making-ends-meet".

------
gdw2
A favorite quote by Mormon church leader David McKay: "...no other success can
compensate for failure in the home."

------
TenDnal
Yeah, do what you love and love what you do. And when you really do it, work
stops being just job, it's life as well. And there's no separation between you
at home and you at work. Simple yet, very important idea. You can't get tired
of work if you really love it.

~~~
Loughla
"And when you really do it, work stops being just job, it's life as well. And
there's no separation between you at home and you at work."

That is the single most terrifying sentence I've read in some time now. No
thank you.

------
Gepser
What if I have many passions and I can't decide?

I like programming but I really love breakdance, videogames, traveling,
cooking and others.

Right now I'm working as a software engineering because in my country is a
little hard to live working on the others things I like.

That does it mean I'm wasting my life?

------
luckyno13
If everyone followed this guy's advice, I feel like we would all be pumping
our own shit and serving our own food when we go out for dinner. I guess we
would be more well rounded individuals huh?

------
grouphugs
I like the idea of the article. However, I don't think you understand free
will or the idea of choice. Not everyone gets to have this perfect little say
in what they want to do.

~~~
a3voices
Free will doesn't exist anyways. Your brain is deterministic like a biological
calculator.

~~~
abledon
I'm not so sure...

[http://thebaffler.com/past/whats_the_point_if_we_cant_have_f...](http://thebaffler.com/past/whats_the_point_if_we_cant_have_fun)

~~~
a3voices
Brains and calculators are both made out of molecules and their operations are
caused by physical interactions of matter and energy. Just like any machine.

~~~
unclebucknasty
People keep saying stuff like this, but I wonder about the molecular structure
of sentience.

------
angersock
Flagged. Can we please keep this kind of non-technical fluff and non-
newsworthy fluff off the front page?

Failing that, can we at least hold ourselves to a higher standard of fluff?

------
a3voices
You can only do one thing at a time. 1000 other things are being neglected. So
this means your time is wasted anyways.

~~~
ajkjk
That hardly follows..

~~~
a3voices
Doing one meaningful thing is still insignificant compared to the Groundhog
Day scenario of repeating each day over and over and doing 1000 things.

