spending time

i don't think you guys know where i'm coming from.

i'm not talking about "dicking around" -- i'm talking about doing the only things that seem MEANINGFUL to me -- i.e. my actual LIFE -- which is not to be found within the four walls of nine to five drudgery, but that is ALSO beside the point of this thread. the question is still: do you think you have enough purpose in life without work that you could live without it and not be bored? i interpret both of you as saying "no" because you seem to think that spare time is wasted time, even if enjoyable.

Spend time with people I like, walk around in forests, drive things faster than what is safe, rock out with my cock out, chill out with my willy out... Stuff like that. Learn fuckloads of stuff, maybe most of all. I've always liked learning but when the brain gets tired from other shit, it just never gets done. I seriously can't rebember when I last had nothing to do - the days just aren't long enough

That's not a "no", but shit is as it is. Gotta go now cya
 
as long as you enjoy anything in life ... fucking do it ... no matter how others see it.

work should bring you satisfaction and make you feel good (granted for 85% of people it does not)

Exactly.

The key is to try and have multiple things you are passionate about and love. If you can transition from work that you thoroughly enjoy to your free time the rest of the day where you can do other things you enjoy doing, that is perfect.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, doing too much of anything will eventually get tired/boring, regardless of how much you enjoy it.
 
I just scanned this thread because I don't have much time before I need to GET READY FOR WORK.
But I don't really understand what Erik is asking in general. To answer his question posed in the second paragraph: no, because my time is filled with various duties which include work, family, jerking off, etc. Yeah, sometimes when I am alone, like say, when Anders is in school and the wife takes the baby somewhere AND I don't have to work, I *do* find myself a bit confused over what to do. But that's not for lack of creativity but more because it so rarely happens. If it happened today, I'd surely take the bike to the trails because it's dry and 56F. That would satisfy me completely.

At my job, I'm pretty bored. That's because I went into the "wrong" field and it's fairly routine. Yet, it's an awesome job for an RN. It's sterile. I'm alone 95% of the time (except for the patient but who's counting them?) and it pays well.

I don't have the opportunity to return to school to pursue a PhD in math like I dream about but I am going to get my masters in nursing so I can get a Family Nurse Practitioner certificate. I'll at least be *furthering my career* as they like to say.

I always remind myself that 100 years ago I'd be either a farmer or working in some stinking factory for 16 hours a day. So would my children. LOL. The fact that I have a high-paying, mildy rewardng career and happen to live in this era is purely circumstance. Purely zeitgeist.

I've also said somewhere in this forum that it is incredibly vaildating and rewarding to have children and that for the first time in my life, I had meaning to my life and a "real" reason to live. I actually feel sorry for people who can't or don't want to have children.

Finally, it's my opinion that living off $1500 a month to pursue lifestyle choices is just plain fucking lazy. Not that there's anything ultimately wrong with that. I'd probably feel the same if I were in my early 20s. But, wait, that's the problem. I *did* feel that way. If I had felt the opposite - say, with some ambition, or had one ounce of guidance from my hillbilly parents, I'd be finishing my surgical residency right about now about to embark on a very satisfying career making $300,000 to $400,000 a year. And if you don't think money is important, tell that to my 58 year old Dad who is about to get laid off from his factory job he's been doing for the past 30-odd years.
 
work should bring you satisfaction and make you feel good

I completely disagree.
You sound like my mother-in-law who thinks there is some perfect job out there and that her current one (regardless of what it is) is somehow incredibly boring. That's when I ask her if she'd like to work in a coal mine. I imagine it's only white Americans who think they are entitled to some wonderful job. Work is work. It sucks. It's only been since the demise of the industrial revolution and the advent of the service industries that we have jobs where we don't have to worry about something caving in on us..or exploding..or whatever.
I'd rewrite your post as "If you have the means and are willing to work for it, or if you are already privileged to begin with, then, by all means, pursue work that brings satisfaction and makes you feel good"
 
longest dorian post ever ... lock thread :loco:

good one though ... yeah I agree about the importance of money especially if you are responsible about others and not just yourself.

I've had this belief recently that everyone loses about 5-10 years of their life floundering about not knowing what to do and asking questions ... and it could happen at any time in your life. For some in their teens, for others it could be in their 50's. Just some weird thought I had. :loco:
 
I completely disagree.
You sound like my mother-in-law who thinks there is some perfect job out there and that her current one (regardless of what it is) is somehow incredibly boring. That's when I ask her if she'd like to work in a coal mine. I imagine it's only white Americans who think they are entitled to some wonderful job. Work is work. It sucks. It's only been since the demise of the industrial revolution and the advent of the service industries that we have jobs where we don't have to worry about something caving in on us..or exploding..or whatever.
I'd rewrite your post as "If you have the means and are willing to work for it, or if you are already privileged to begin with, then, by all means, pursue work that brings satisfaction and makes you feel good"

I disagree with that ... :loco:

been doing what I set out to do for the last 6 years with pretty much no money to start and minimal family support. I gave up a lot to be able to be my own boss but it now feels good sleeping at night and being able to tell people to fuck off if I don't want to deal with them. And honestly I don't even look at it as work as I enjoy it too much (we do web development/marketing btw) ... but at the same time, don't feel this is what I want to do forever and am sure will stumble onto something more interesting in my entanglments with all the diverse companies I deal with daily.
 
We all must live by the decisions we made, without regret, whether or not we would have change things differently or not. Personally, I would have got my shit together directly out of high school, rather than meandering through life as an idealistic dreamer, content with minimum wage, and the hopes of a better tomorrow. As we all agreed, there is no hope without ambition, there is no easy path to self fulfillment. It sure the hell doesn't come by way of partying like a fool. I honestly wish that there had been somebody to kick the shit out of me at an early age. Perhaps I'd have my own corner high rise office on the Westside, rather than some $20 an hour job that needs to be heavily padded by overtime to satisfy me.
 
The key is to try and have multiple things you are passionate about and love.
this is a very good point
people who only like or are passionate about one thing are the same people who are likely to get bored in their "spare time"
when you start to find the world BORING, that's it, kill yourself

i have basically nothing to say because you see the world from so completely and utterly the other side that nothing i say will make sense to you just like your post reads "blah blah blah" to me

and don't take that as an insult because it's not... whatever works, man, whatever works

oh yeah ... so what do you enjoy doing Erik that brings you pleasure daily?

i'm a fucking musician or i'm a really shitty photographer who wants to get out and take more pictures
i like to look at walls and things, trees
i like to play drums really fast and record a 7"
is it okay to build lego cars and airplanes when you're 23 cause i just did
i'm listening to in flames as well and what the hell are you gonna do about it punk
no but seriously i have a real good idea of what i want to do with my life
 
@ Erik: No worries. If I may offer a word of advice though even if it doesn't or never will apply...it's something to think about: your early-20s are the time to start planning the rest of your life. You will be working in some form or another for another SIXTY YEARS. It becomes increasingly difficult to reach a desired level of success (whatever that may mean to you) as you age. Don't rule out the possibility that you might wake up one day ten years from now and think, "hey, I REALLY want to be an aerospace engineer". Good luck starting that at age 30 or whatever. It's do-able sure. But not as easily as it would be right now.
 
especially if you are responsible about others and not just yourself.
this is why i don't ever want kids (partly)

call me an egoist but i need to put my own fucking mental health first, i'm not even close to being comfortable enough with my situation that i can suddenly start worrying about diapers, dolls and daycare

also i really need to be able to live on $500 a month and noone is going to ever fucking tell me that's not enough
 
i've been in mildly heated discussions about this sort of thing with some of my friends. the "single life" thread got me thinking a little bit more about it.

do you find it difficult to find worthwhile things to do with your time if you're alone, no girlfriend, no job, no school, no obligations? are you easily bored? can you think of exciting things to do every day by yourself or do you actually prefer to kill 8 hours a day by working?

i said to some buddies that if i was promised $1500 or so a month for the rest of my life with the condition that i could never work again, i would take that offer hands down, because i REALLY ENJOY being alone and doing random things. everyone else was like "no, life is boring if you don't work, all i do with my time if i have no obligations is play world of warcraft/watch tv/masturbate"

do you need to be a creative/artsy/slacker sort of individual to find the notion of having your time to yourself very attractive? i'd walk around randomly and take pictures of nothing, listen to a bunch of music and record some music, read a boatload of books, honestly there's NO END to the things i would do if i had infinite time. every hour of pointless work fucking TORMENTS me.

Let's see if we can address a few of the things in this thread. As erik mentioned, the thread is becoming more about work which wasn't really the discussion initially (but obviously it does come into play. Rather how can you spend all this time you will get by not having a job. From an American perspective idle time is seen as the devil. If you don't have a job you're doing nothing with your life, this is ingrained from early on. You're a bum and you're 'wasting' time. Part of the problem here (and everywhere really...more so here i might say) i think is, the anti intellectualism, and lack of drive for knowledge. To not only increase your own knowledge but as erik said 'self realization.' To many this is seen as hippie non sense and not as worth any 'time' The reason some (not all obviously) people woudln't know what to do with themselves is because really how much t.v/video games/shopping can you really do with your time? Let's not even address the massive never ending monster that is technology that serves us to wait... save even more time :loco:

For our hypothetical; 1500 is a bit low, but still doable. Like ca said, that's not enough for all the traveling that i would have to do. But yea, meaningful stuff like people have already mentioned reading reading and more of it. As someone interested in history...yea there's a lot. Science, i just read about science (especially the universe) for quite awhile. Not to mention all poetry and philosophy. This says nothing for all the wonderful fiction that is to be read. I don't think it's a question of 'needing' to be creative, but how creativity is seen as a wast of time. I mean i'm terrible at guitar but given enough time :oops: I would just spend years becoming a classical guitar guru and learning piano, and writing 239390 weiland's. I would teach myself multiple languages just because. I would hike hike and do more hiking, with my camera. After i got tired of hiking i would move on to mountain climbing (surfing!). Taking a cue from peters for some 'extra cash' (gasp!) i would spend days brewing my own beer. It would be a belgian ale of some sort. Perhaps volunteer at a national park/zoo for a few days out of the month. The question is more finding meaningful existence, for me it would be an endless thirst for knowledge. And not one, as vittra said, but many things. I would not be able to go for too long with out human interaction however. Being alone would be fine for months at a time, not years.

Moving back away from our little situation, yea work obviously sucks. Just tolerating it should be the best most of us can hope for. For those that truly enjoy their job more power to them. Some job's i don't know how you can really 'enjoy' it or more so you've 'forced' yourself to enjoy it. This is my life day after day i might as well look at it positively.

Dorian mentioned reminding himself how easy we actually have it. While true, this really isn't relative to what we're discussing. Absolutely like you said it's all random circumstance. Depending on social status throughout history work was everything...from teens until you die with brief respites in between. In terms of having kid's... thats like your opinion man. Perhaps it's become so a part of 'that's what you're supposed to do' that if you don't than you're wasting time. If that makes me selfish fine. I've seen many people with kids, if that's rewarding than you can fucking have it.

That's generally what it comes down to. So many people are just ingrained with what they're 'supposed' to do with their time, everything else seems wasteful. Or if they do have a brief respite...well that was ok, let's get back to REAL 'meaningful time.' Anyone who breaks away can't possibly do it for too long. They would get bored and eventually go back to the comforts of the quiet world.:puke:

i'm so slow typing that by the time i finished everyone already said what i said :lol:

meh i'm off to work :heh:
 
@ Erik: No worries. If I may offer a word of advice though even if it doesn't or never will apply...it's something to think about: your early-20s are the time to start planning the rest of your life. You will be working in some form or another for another SIXTY YEARS.
nah i'm going to kill myself at 33

It becomes increasingly difficult to reach a desired level of success (whatever that may mean to you) as you age. Don't rule out the possibility that you might wake up one day ten years from now and think, "hey, I REALLY want to be an aerospace engineer". Good luck starting that at age 30 or whatever. It's do-able sure. But not as easily as it would be right now.
i already know what i am (i'm berlin)

the problem is that ALL i want to do with my life is things that DO NOT make me any money. yes i'm the stupid cliché starving artist type only i'm too wimpy to walk around CHRISTIANIA (OSLO) starving to NEAR DEATH and SELLING MY COAT BUTTONS before GIVING IN TO THE MAN and working on a fishing boat or some shit. i just wanna "rock", as it were

the good news is i have a plan
 
Seriously, your outlook on life is really fucking admirable. Godspeed in your pursuits, good sir.

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