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Comment by jneen | Hacker News Reader

""" Spending 2 years doing something you don’t enjoy is a full 3.4% of your life. What are you getting back for that investment? Money? What are you going to do with that money that will be worth the non-refundable 3.4% of your life? An extra room in your house?"""

This is beautiful. In a world where everything has to be justified by "the bottom line", it's easy to forget why we're making money.

Along those lines, I also found "The Secret Fears of the Super-Rich" to be very eye-opening. (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/04/secret-f...)

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I was inspired and agree with most of this article but when I got to these last few lines I thought, "Sure, I am getting money back for my investment, but that money is supporting my family - putting food on the table, gas in the car and a roof over our heads". That's not a bad investment. It's very hard to drop everything and seek what it is that makes you happy when you have a family depending on you.

Well said. That's why I emphasized remembering why we're making money.

If I'm bootstrapping a company, for example, I can do it because I want to make a lot of money, or I can do it because I want to support my family. It's just a difference of emphasis really, but an important one.

3.4% of your life is not much if you get Facebook equity and end up with millions. The hardest part - I think - is that you are not assured at all to get rich. You might end up spend 3.4% of your life to buy you a new car and that's it.

Hm. So say I got Facebook equity and ended up with millions. My question is why? What can I possibly do with that money that will make it worth it?

Not spend the next 34% of your life working on something you don't love, for one. Even in our current technological state, a life of toil on things you don't love is the default state of a human being.

Or you could learn how to love the things you are already working on. That option is easily overlooked.

True, though that option is also a lot easier with a bunch FU money as a back up.

I wish I could up vote this more. Our society trains us from birth to constantly be wanting at the expense of ever being satisfied. It is possible to be very satisfied with what the rest of the western world would say is a "crappy life". And then life can only get better.

Then spend it on a good life. Give the rest. According to study, you only need $75,000 to live happy. http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/09/07/the-perfect-salary-fo... Btw, I am not sure why my first comment was downvoted.

1. Save thousands of lives by donating to charity (it costs about $2000 to save a human life: http://givewell.org/international/top-charities/AMF).

2. Do whatever you wish to do, every single day, such as spending a year studying philosophy while travelling the world, or deciding to learn salsa for a year and a half.

Thanks for the link, glad you enjoyed the blog post!

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