Look Ma! No Politics!

Do you live to work or do you work to live? There’s nothing inherently wrong with either concept, just as long as you know what you’re doing and why. Living to work should only be for those who are in a field that they are passionate about. The geeks I know and work with (and live with) love technology and love working with it. My friend the radio talk show host loves what she does. My teacher friend is passionate about education.

It’s certainly fine to work to live as well. People who do that, and do that well, have other higher priorities and their work is merely a means to that end. But what if you’re a live to work person in a work to live job? That’s where the priorities get screwed up. You end up working working working with the only real reward being a big paycheck so you constantly look to find new and creative ways to spend it. In the end, if you are living to work but work isn’t what you want to live for, you (actually I) end up with a lot of shoes, and not a lot of fun.

Don’t get me wrong, I love pretty shoes and I don’t regret a single thing I’ve been able to buy. But once you hit a certain pay scale and accumulate a certain amount of stuff, it gets boring. So you look around and realize, I don’t particularly care about what I do but it’s such a demanding job that I don’t have time left over to pursue what I really enjoy doing. And when you’re someone like me who doesn’t have or want children (which I am given to understand is highly motivating to work to live rather than the other way around), you realize you’re throwing away valuable time for high-priced goodies that you don’t even have the time to properly use!

I realize that in the current economic clime it’s pretty perverse—even stupid on the surface–to risk a solid respectable pay check. But I can’t care. That’s the type of thinking that kept me from doing what I wanted, whatever in the world that is. Obama winning isn’t the magic bullet that makes this less risky (though I don’t know that I’d be feeling so risky under a McCain/Palin administration). But change is good, productive, and now a slogan and way of life. I don’t want to miss this ideological band wagon. You talk about a guy that lives to work!

I almost made it through a whole post without politics. Sue me, I’m going to have to wean off that slowly.