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Comment by fullshark | Hacker News Reader

The premise that your life should be work until 65 and then you can finally do what you want is so depressing to me. I have goals beyond just doing what I want, but it all just seems like an endless rat race i can never win as I chase money/prestige in order to accomplish those goals or those things serve as a nice but ultimately meaningless byproduct of accomplishing those goals while my life slips away.

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The system wouldn't work otherwise and your overlords won't like it. We already had the pandemic and people had a slice of that taste. Came back with harsh interest rate hikes and tightening of the job market to get everyone back in line.

And the continued punishment of RTO (return to office).

I actually enjoy my job (well, mostly anyway). I would probably do it for free tbh (except for some of the BS parts)

At this point I think most jobs have good days and bad days and there's some enjoyment/pride in being productive and valued in a job environment. I'm not full r/antiwork or anything but when you take a 10k foot view and realize almost no one on their death bed wishes they had spent more time working / on their computer it's hard to not feel like it's all a big miscalculation on our parts.

> almost no one on their death bed wishes they had spent more time working / on their computer

And old age isn’t needed to figure this out. Even middle age will do. When I reflect on my life, I almost never think about past work.

(Yet, I remain mostly working.)

On my deathbed I probably won't wish I had spent more time at the gym either, but that doesn't mean the gym is not good for me to engage with more often now.

I've retired early and gone back to work voluntarily. I find the first 10 to 30 hours per week are good for me, and I genuinely enjoy employing people and working on projects with them. Not every week is exhilarating. Lots of weeks are dogshit and make me feel like going back to 100% life again. But over time, I feel more fulfilled when I try to contribute through work. I will surely reconsider that position when I become the Buddha, but likely not sooner if I keep my health and stay childless.

(do go part-time as soon as you can, it's great)

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

What you cherish on your death bed is often enabled by plain old hard work. You may not love the work, but for most of it is the path to those happy death bed memories().

Skip the work, and for most of us it will be a short, miserable life scrabbling for food and shelter.

() The big asterisk of course is tech salaries are completely out of whack with effort and complexity. There are a lot of us out here who get enormous salaries for doing comparatively little in the grand scheme of things. These lucky folks are skewing the narrative for the rest of the world.

For me, I will always cherish memories of vacations, my son’s first varsity touch down, my daughter’s vocal solo for a Christmas show, hanging out with friends in the woods with little more than tents, firewood and beer. I will also be quite honest that it’s been enabled by a lot of luck at work and the incredibly high salary I earn in software - which is less than half of the FAANG salaries I see mentioned here.

Life isn’t about living in the now. Or in the tomorrow. Or ignoring the long term, or short term, or whatever term.

Life for most of us is finding balance that works in our situation,

Scrum, Agile and management in general have beaten the fun out of me. I can imagine doing some coding for fun when retired. But I don’t want to work for a corporation.

The only people with that premise are those that want a higher defined benefit pension via Social Security, perhaps because they don’t have sufficient wealth otherwise. That age is going up to 67 in 2025.

Nobody with sufficient passive income to satisfy their desired quality of life works longer than they have to.

My parents did. They were academics and their work and life were largely one and the same. Both worked until 70 and neither saw 75.

Sorry, I meant the type of work where one would rather not. Of course people who like their quality of life at work will choose to continue it as long as they can.

Really? There are a lot of people who love their work. They work because they enjoy it.

You can work and achieve goals. No one said you can't.

In terms of prestige, I would float this thought: Can you name the CFO of Home Depot (or, another major company of your choice)?

I can't and I loved Home Depot. That CFO has C-suite privileges and prestige beyond what most will achieve, but they still aren't known even to people who like their product.

Also, stop worrying about prestige because no one else really cares. We don't. We don't care if you drive a Mercedes-Benz or live in a tawny neighborhood. We have our own stuff to deal with, just like you.

In fact, you'll probably get the worst side of people of your looking for clout. That's when folks will try to take it away by any means necessary. Be nice to yourself face while screwing you in the rear.

Worry more about what you love, not what everyone thinks.

Prestige/class matters as much as we want to think we are above it. It opens a lot of doors for you and your children. Money seems to open almost every door though, but only if you are willing to drop ungodly amounts of it.

Yeah likewise. I get no satisfaction from any full time work. It might be nice for a few months but then it always turns into drudgery. I think most of this stems from the fact that I absolutely hate working with people and on teams, which is very different from the active social life I lead away from work. I don’t think it’s my coworkers but the very structure of a work place that makes it impossible for someone like me to make friends and enjoy my time there. On the other hand, I can spend hours and hours on my hobbies over decades and still always look forward to them.

Don't accept that premise!

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