this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Are you working 80+ hours a week or something? If you have zero free time outside of work, I guess there's no room in your life to find any kind of meaning or purpose outside your job. Then you're left trying to find meaning in a shit job.
Trying to find a job that is "meaningful" that also pays the bills are few and far between. Most meaningful things in life don't pay well or at all, or have very few job openings, or are extremely unstable (self employment or startups). Otherwise you're left with your life "purpose" in a corporation, which only means "make more money", which is pretty shallow at best.
Work-life balance is important, and I think keeping work and life separate is a huge part of that. Forcibly mixing the two only causes more stress, either from one adding to the other, or from severely limiting your job prospects overall. Making your job = life severely limits both.
Please don’t take the following the wrong way as it’s not meant to be judgmental.
The fact that you can’t even imagine being employed somewhere AND having a fulfilling job at the same time shows quite some narrow-mindedness IMO. Maybe it’s from bad experience or some kind of ideological antiwork standpoint, I don’t know. But those jobs definitely exist, and it’s never as black and white.
Every job has its downsides, but I would argue there’s always potential to find something better than what any person currently has going for themselves.
Even with only 40 hours a week, a bit-fulfilling job would drain me too much, but I may be rather sensitive in that regard. As a result, I changed my career a few times, and for the first time in my life I feel like I’ve arrived in a place I can imagine doing for the rest of my life, while it also pays the bills.
It's not that I can't imagine it. It's just that it's so rare and difficult to find a job that also perfectly aligns with personal fulfillment that I consider it terrible advice.
Like, there's a reason there is a "starving artist" stereotype. The chances of "making it big" as an artist are pretty slim, and if I told an artistic kid to simply follow their passion and it'll work out, I'd be lying. I know some professional artists actually, and they said 80% of the job is basically marketing themselves and negotiating contracts, not making art... so even if they end up (technically) doing what they love, the job might not be what they expect.
You can consider yourself lucky that you managed to find something that works, but I would never advise a kid in high school to severely limit themselves at the starting line or to set unrealistic expectations.
Yeah but you see… it doesn’t have to be perfect, and it probably never is, especially in the beginning of one’s career.
Also, while it’s clear that artists have rarely ever had a good income (only post mortem), it’s not too hard to find meaning and joy in non-artistic jobs that would bore others to death. Be it a trade or theoretical physics. Maybe even working with customers in some way although it’s hard to imagine.
I just don’t like the fatalistic approach to life that because chances to find great work are supposedly slim, you shouldn’t even strive for that, and I hope you will find something good for yourself as well. Life is like a box of chocolates (sorry, cheesy LOL).