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> Considering how much of your life you dedicate towards working, why the hell aren't you making damn well sure it's doing something that gives you at least a sense of fulfillment, if not outright joy.

Yeah. That's what "The Man" wants you to believe in.

Back in the day, people used to be largely self-sufficient, filling their time with tasks for themselves (farming, weaving, building things), profiting by selling the surplus or charging to do something they were good at, and using the money to buy the things they needed.

As you know, industrial revolution and large scale monoculture changed that. People would sweat all day, and because there was no time (or energy) left for anything else, they couldn't build anything for themselves, making employees heavily dependent on their jobs. That power player had two important effects: because the employer has the upper hand, it can command lower wages; in turn, those lower wages drive credit, creating an entire economy based on debt, which reinforces the importance of securing a job, again driving wages lower, in a feedback loop.

So, why that "find a job that you love" is utter bullshit then? Because, ultimately, every job is bad. Every job is an asymmetric negotiation where the employee exchanges his lifetime to a monetary reward that is, guaranteed, smaller than the value he adds. Not to say that it isn't useful, but is certainly a sub-optimal way of using oneself's limited time on earth.

"Passive income" strategy is the exact opposite of that, since the rewards are not bound to how much you can charge your hour, and more to how valuable your work is. Historically, that's how writers, artists, inventors and such have made money. Nowadays, though, the potential is enormous given the cost of automation and reproduction of creative work is ever decreasing.

If you stop and think, this is mind-blowing. Of course, Forbes doesn't want you to realize that.

Of course the passive income bootstrappers are getting slammed all day today on HN, the VCs don't make any money off of them.

So hey, maybe you had an awesome idea and some ambition to build a company, you can be your own boss! Nah, just sell your soul to some investors, then you can have a master all over again just like you wanted.

While I agree with your general sentiment, I think you need to check your historical facts.

Up to the industrial revolution the vast majority of the workforce was in agriculture, namely either in serfdom or working somebody else's land for a pittance. Not many were really self sufficient.

Secondly, artists, scholars, inventors where either nobles, priests or depending on the local court for their income.

>Up to the industrial revolution the vast majority of the workforce was in agriculture, namely either in serfdom or working somebody else's land for a pittance. Not many were really self sufficient.

Depends on the country -- not all places had feudalism. In freer places, people were self sufficient for millenia.

Heck, people were self succicient even in the US mainland in the 17th-18th century, and that was far from any "industrial" landscape.

You don't really need to have feudalism to have servitude, if you're working somebody else's land and you're allowed to keep just barely enough to eat, that'll basically turn you into a serf (and it's still the case in many places around the word, seasonal tomato pickers in Italy is one I know of).

On the other hand you are right that in the colonies the situation was somewhat freer — at first -, that's how they got people to move from the old world, but I'm pretty sure that the situation got back to inequality pretty quickly.

The point I'm trying to make is that this Arcadian paradise that conservatives like to call 'back in the day' is really more of a myth.

>The point I'm trying to make is that this Arcadian paradise that conservatives like to call 'back in the day' is really more of a myth.

In some parts of the world yes. In others no.

But not for the reasons the progressives put forward (toil, lack of progress, etc). For political reasons: people being in command of other people.

There were villages and regions all over Europe that such was not the case, and people were free. Sure, you had to work, but that's just as it is now (minus the modern conveniences).

Actually, even in medieval Europe, agrarian societes had so many festivity days that almost half the year was off.

>So, why that "find a job that you love" is utter bullshit then?

Those things are not related. So what if you get paid less than the value you add? That doesn't mean that suddenly its not a job that you love.

>Nowadays, though, the potential is enormous given the cost of automation and reproduction of creative work is ever decreasing.

I'd argue the opposite actually. Because its so trivial to make a copy of something. Income based off of royalties can be sustainable for a very small minority. And this has always been the case.

>Of course, Forbes doesn't want you to realize that.

Why not? Large corporations - music producers, book publishers, movie producers, pharma companies, manufacturers, etc all run on the assumption that they will find enough people with passive income on their brains...

>Those things are not related. So what if you get paid less than the value you add? That doesn't mean that suddenly its not a job that you love.

For some the cognitive dissonance that comes with such alienation doesn't sit well.

>Why not? Large corporations - music producers, book publishers, movie producers, pharma companies, manufacturers, etc all run on the assumption that they will find enough people with passive income on their brains...

Forbes has vested interest in maintaining a populace that ultimately doesn't have a choice in whether they have to undersell their labor to survive, nor question their employer-employee relations. Again, this comes back to the cognitive dissonance that being forced into an unequal relationship elicits.

>For some the cognitive dissonance that comes with such alienation doesn't sit well.

Well duh, its only cognitive dissonance if you accept the premise of the argument. I am challenging the premise itself ! The claim that unless you are paid a certain amount you cannot derive enjoyment from your work is silly.

Obtaining financial security while giving up the additional value of your work to your employer is the basis of every single company under a capitalist model. Also keep in mind that this is all theory. I doubt anyone can accurately quantify the value their individual work brings to the company. This value will fluctuate from month to month, week to week, year to year. And if the company briefly goes into loss you might be adding negative value ! So does that mean one week you love your job, next week you hate it? I mean.. seriously.. the argument as it stands does not pass the smell test.

Peter Gibbons: Our high school guidance counselor used to ask us what you'd do if you had a million dollars and you didn't have to work. And invariably what you'd say was supposed to be your career. So, if you wanted to fix old cars then you're supposed to be an auto mechanic.

Samir: So what did you say?

Peter Gibbons: I never had an answer. I guess that's why I'm working at Initech.

Michael Bolton: No, you're working at Initech because that question is bullshit to begin with. If everyone listened to her, there'd be no janitors, because no one would clean shit up if they had a million dollars.

Only if everyone ended up having a million dollars :)

Jobs like that are supposed to be transitional, for students, etc, and they tend to be automated away. There isn't a real need for every human on earth to work, so it's feasible that everyone could focus at least part-time on what they really want. That's what tends to happen in advanced societies (more time spent on voluntary activities vs employment).

Too bad the U.S. is stuck on 40hrs/week, every week of the year and funneling profits up to the top of the corporate food chain.

>>Only if everyone ended up having a million dollars :)

If that actually happened, it wouldn't be that great. A million dollars would just be worth a lot less real fast.

You're fixating on the dollar amount. Other formulations of the concept:

* What if everyone had the purchasing power of one million 2013 US dollars?

* What if there were such an excess of capital that every human being had the equivalent of a $25k - $35k minimum yearly income?

Isn't the first point pretty much the same?

The second one... come to think of it, wouldn't it also have the same effect, but just take a bit longer?

Because not everyone can do what they want to do and support their lives? I've hated every job I've ever had. I still have to do it. edit: Why is it that you associate work with meaning in your life? What if someone find meaning in spending time with family, or whatever?

Those aren't mutually exclusive. You can find meaning in work & in spending time with family, etc.

No one thinks it's bad to find meaning in relationships, or whatever.

That is true but the original post seemed to come to the conclusion that if you don't find a job you like you will never have meaning in your life.

Why is it that you associate work with meaning in your life?

It's a common sensibility in the US and Western Europe because that's the Puritan Work Ethic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

I don't think that's the OP's mindset, on the contrary: look for a way to do something you really want instead of taking a mindless job.

Well, I read it more as "if work is going to provide the meaning of your life, might as well have it be something you like to do." However, aside from the PWE, centuries of history tell us that liking your job is a luxury.

Thousands of years of history tell us that toilets are a luxury too.

I find meaning in work because it's what I leave behind once I'm dead. What I create, build, and put out into the world is part of my legacy. That's pretty important to me, perhaps not the same for others.

I always feel sorry for people who make statements like, "my work isn't my life"

We don't want your pity. I enjoy my work, but it isn't my life, because you know what? Aside from sleep and work, I have another perfectly good 8 hours a day that I elect to spend on things completely different from my day jobs.

So while work is half of my life, work is not my life, and I do not intend to let it become my life.

The world still needs janitors, ditch diggers...etc (at least for the moment), it's simply not realistic that everyone should like their jobs. Is it then logical that everyone should pursue fulfilling jobs? Perhaps, we do have a competitive economy after all but for those that "work-to-live", is that not a healthy outlook for our society's janitors and ditch diggers?

For a sufficiently large salary/light workweek I will dig ditches and like it.

I feel sorry for people like you, who feel sorry for others because they don't want to live their lives exactly like you think they should.

Your last sentence suggests that 1) not finding real meaning to your life is a tragedy and 2) work is the only way to ever achieve that. I'm the one feeling sorry for you now.

Or how about we stop feeling sorry for people who obviously place value in different things than us?

> I always feel sorry for people who make statements like, "my work isn't my life" or "I work to live, I don't live to work". [...] And if your mindset is always that all work is bad,

The first part is not inherently hateful towards working while the latter one is.

> Considering how much of your life you dedicate towards working, why the hell aren't you making damn well sure it's doing something that gives you at least a sense of fulfillment, if not outright joy.

Maybe they are. But people that say that they don't "live to work" seem to be more in opposition to the mindset of viewing everything through the lens of productivity and utility. They are against the idea that free time is chiefly about "recreation", ie about recharging your batteries/not burning out so that you can go back to being a fully productive worker bee at 9 am the next morning. In this "recreation" view, free time serves office time. In the view of "I don't live to work", work chiefly is about survival, and free time is about actually living.

Does that mean they are necessarily against finding fulfilling work? No: work can be life-affirming (though I realize that some people might have such a chip on their shoulder towards work that they will never see it that way). But it certainly means that they refuse to delude themselves into thinking that working 60 hours a week at a job they at best feel lukewarm about is their grand purpose in life.