To me, a life that is in content and has meaning trumps all those whatever higher trajectory means. I mean.. isn’t achieving those higher trajectories the goal of being content and having achieve the meaning if it exits at all?
It's only a problem if they aren't actually content. I've known tons of people working minimum wage who sneer at "elites", don't seek higher things, and get high all the time, but really resent the fact that they never did anything with their lives. They don't build their hobbies, they don't seek higher levels of employment or skill, and they constantly talk about how they want to do great things that they never do.
There will always be an infinite amount of achievement that you never accomplished. There will always be an infinite number of things you never did. The best thing you can do is prioritize, accomplish the things that you really want to accomplish, and try to do your best to be happy with what you are able to do. Live your life happily, and make the people around you happy.
I mean, you can certainly argue that the meaning of life is entirely arbitrary, and there is indeed nothing wrong with that if that's what someone wants to do. But I feel like the world is generally a better place when people in it strive for more than mere contentment. And for me personally, a couple of the key things that give life positive meaning are building relationships with other people, and striving to better myself—learning things, building skills, etc. I'm glad I do these things, rather than living an alternate life where I was equally (or maybe even if I were somehow more) subjectively happy, but less active.
I'd be happy for them. I wouldn't be proud. An infinite amount of possible achievements is no excuse not to strive for anything.
If they're striving for happiness and they are happy, mission accomplished right? I assume they'd still have their own goals and hobbies outside of work or things which bring in money. Why assume those things don't matter?
I can't even imagine what a life of passive, mindless, consumption without any creative outlet would even be like. It's frankly depressing to think about!
I honestly don't know how anyone (good person or not) can properly take care of themselves on a Taco Bell hourly salary.
Really dumb take.
That said, I think the argument of “stepping stone” job salaries is less crazy in the context of people who are dépendants of other adults. If you’re a teen and you live with parents who provide food and housing and basics like that, you’re needs from the wages are different. Plenty of jobs make sense as “silly shit teens do for spending money” that would also be considered “awful life for full time adult worker”. Some of these jobs only exist because there are short term employees willing to do it for low pay. It’s fine IMO that they exist but it’d be wrong to assume that an adult should have to live of it.
I think we should push for livable wages and ensure everyone can be happy and healthy from their salary. I don’t know if it’s even possible to protect the adults in “low skill” jobs without making it hard to have “stupid summer part time jobs” for teens. If it is possible, then we should allow those teens to have their dumb low pay jobs and not raise too much of a fuss.
35 million Americans are on snap. 53 million Americans used a food pantry in 2021 (thesev groups don't always intersect)
Whether it's urban, rural, or suburban (high percentage shift since 2008), the percent of Americans that have parents that can provide food, shelter - much less plan for education and their own retirement is not a very high number for this phrasing.
Imagine if the expectation was that a part time fast food job could pay even half of college expenses.
Why not just limit some jobs or minimum wages to teens who can demonstrate that they're already financially supported? Most people earning minimum wage are adults, but we could require companies to pay adults or teens supporting themselves higher wages. We could also set age limits on certain types of work, but then you run the risk of not having enough kids looking for work with everything else they've got going on.
Those same jobs definitely only operate outside of school hours, to help promote their employees growth, right?
The harder the achievement, the harder it is to automate that achievement, the prouder I will be.
Working at Taco Bell is not that hard to obtain and may very well not exist in 10 years.
I say this as someone with at least a little experience, not to be judgmental.
There are moments in later life where everyone feels that way.
Statistically, some paths might be show up in studies as more reliable in terms of late life contentment, but on an individual level, we all end up noticing that we left a lot of doors unopened, and can find ourselves stuck wishing we made different choices or had different opportunities.
Innumerable careerists and dedicated parents and globe-trotters find themselves stuck discontent, bitter, or resentful. And innumerable people of all paths look back, wonder what could have been different, and reconcile themselves to contentment again. And heck — some people just die before reaching their goals at all.
There’s no point speculating whether the chill dude at the Taco Bell is doing it right. They know themselves better than any of us do, and may easily end up more durably content than any of us.
old Successful Career guy: should have spent more time with family and friends <starts sobbing>
old Poor Artist guy: should have worked harder and more conservative then I could have afforded a house, now I have to rent <gets all whiney>
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the question is the mental state developed. are you somebody who regrets everything and is never happy with what you have because you alwaya need more? or are you able to be grateful and enjoy calmly small things and accept how life is?
I agree, but I think there is value in speculating whether the contentment we feel on weed is really just distraction from discontent. This applies to far more than just weed, of course, but my own experience is that weed is particularly tricky in this regard.
I don't have the insight to guess whether George should prefer to be skinnier and hornier but too depressed to meet his career goals, any more than it's my business to guess that Jane should put down the blunts and be more tuned in with all the drama in the news.
I'm busy enough trying to make those choices for myself.
That's a big rabbit hole right there. Ancient wisdom says that there's nothing in the material world which can give you true happiness/contentment/satisfaction. The world is transient and so is the happiness you get from it. Moksha/Nirvana/Samadhi is the only way to become truly happy, forever.
Weed invariably leads you to such questions. No wonder it's the gateway drug to spirituality.
I feel like there's a strong argument to be made that the person working at Taco Bell and is satisfied with their life is better off than a random cube dweller slowly losing their soul in the name of material comforts.
Nowadays software development is so meeting heavy that nothing gets done but you're "working" all the time.
The best part frankly was that there was so little I actually needed to do. I filled out a few forms, I walked the whole site X times of Y period (usually once every 1-2 hours, but depended on the site). Beyond that I was largely just expected to be at my post, reasonably alert and professional looking. My time was my own to do homework, study, read, program, or whatever. I realize that a job without anything to do is a nightmare for some people, but I've never had a problem filling my own time.
Other pros:
* I knew my regular sites almost like my home. Sure during they day there were tons of people, but by the night/weekend when I took over, I was basically the only person in the building and it felt like it was mine.
* Eating lunch on the roof overlooking the city.
* Some of the chillest co-workers I've ever met, from the maintenance crew to the other guards.
* 12-hours shifts meant I was usually only working 3 days a week.
* On holidays me and the maintenance guy would have private movie showings in the building auditorium.
Cons:
* 99% boring, but when things get exciting they get real exciting. Only time I've had guns pointed in my direction, and they were cops.
* I think getting off work and going to bed a 7 a.m. for years has permanently kind of borked my sleep.
I'm reminded every day that my decision to never work with my hands again was a good one. Nobody respects people who provide for you, that's slave's work, mother's work(, teacher's work, nurse's work.) The ultimate CEO-guru would lie on a cushion all day, being washed and shaved by his VPs, periodically emitting syllables in an unknown language that would be interpreted by other VPs as commands to direct the people who actually do the work.
If the answer to all of those questions - especially the first - is yes, then I am happy. Of course I will push them to strive for more than that, but what they do with their lives when they leave the house is up to them, and at a bare minimum, I just want them to be happy with whatever they choose.
Billions across the world would be incredibly happy with their kids getting to do something like this.
If you aren’t happy with a content child, sounds like you had children for all of the wrong reasons & would be a horrible, potentially abusive parent.
I'm not here to psychoanalyze you, but food for thought.
We forget that a job where you get free food and a low wage for simple work is (historically speaking) extremely luxurious.
As we all know (and frequently discussed here on HN), a minimal wage job results in limited housing options, limited healthcare options, limited educational options, etc. As a parent, it is my responsibility to prepare my children to become self sufficient beyond the minimum wage job. For the sake of themselves and their children.
Millions of people will never rise above minmim wage jobs.
Why fix that for one person ,and not for all?
A Taco Bell worker probably has more free energy and intrest for tackling big problems like protesting against the oligarchs.
Just met a guy last month that spent 5 years working at a carwash at minimum wage. He saved up money the entire time. Got himself a van decked for mobile cleaning. He still works hard, but is making some serious money now.
Seen far more that just collect welfare checks, smoke pot and play videos or watch tv for 16 hours a day, while blaming "whomever" for their situation.
And, the comment that millions of people will never rise above minimum wage jobs is laughable. With the amount of free/low-cost education (community college, free on-line classes, military GI Bill), and the huge shortage of skilled trade workers [0], anyone in the US can do better than minimum wage. It just takes effort.
[0] https://resources.skillwork.com/why-is-there-a-shortage-of-s...
That's the whole point of the matter though, isn't it, that if you don't have ambition, then you voluntarily get yourself stuck in a rut of your making. "I'm content in that my life is shitty in X or Y way, but cannot do anything about it".
There was a time when I found comfort in thinking that I would grow up to be "comfortably middle class". My parents disabused me of that notion, and now that I am at that stage, I feel as though there is so much more I can learn and do, instead of clocking in and out day after day.
But hey, if you find happiness in working at a gas station or something, maybe you are more enlightened than I am.
Discounting the counter productive condescension required to be the one putting the other guy down, we should all be honest with a simple fact: any typical software dev (just talking about what I know) can succeed at a gas station job while the reverse is not true. This obviously does not afford the software dev the right to be a jerk to anybody (up or down the ladder).
Intelligence is only one of the many variables needed to succeed in certain occupations.
Although you have zero supporting evidence for this fatuous assertion, you're perfectly fine with passing it off as empirical data. If you actually took the time to speak to your average software dev particularly in America, you would find that it's more likely that they've worked customer facing retail when they were younger. These are pretty much the only types of jobs that are available during high school. I myself have worked at Walmart, Blockbuster video, Chick-fil-A, and as a landscaper during the summers. None of it was particularly taxing - although it was extremely tedious at times and often boring.
And while we're on the subject of anecdotal data I would say on the order of at least 60 to 70% of software devs that I've worked with in the past were actually in relatively good shape physically and usually were very conscientious about their diet and maintaining regular exercise.
We really need to be filtering people back to Reddit.
But I do think the world is a better place with more "CEOs" running independent taco joints, and less Tacobells.
Nothing wrong with working for someone, that wasn't my claim.
What is “shitty” in this context?
It is much easier to accomplish a universal perspective when you have much less 'self' to suppress. That's been the nature of monks of all variety for all of human history. I don't think it's a coincidence or disadvantage that cannabis enthusiasts have a less-selfish mentality.