Does anyone wish that they didn't have to work?

[blackdot]

Without a job, I would have no social life.

 

[lonelyfairy]

Yes. Still waiting for that winning lottery ticket.

 

[EmilyFoxSeaton]

Every day of my life. I don't know if I can take it much longer.

 

[IceCastles]

Interesting posts especially the ones that say that they actually enjoy working.

Instead of driving and being at the office about 10+ hours a day; I can definitely think of 100+ things and hobbies I'd rather do instead!
I'd much rather spend the day taking art classes, going for coffee, travelling, spending time with family etc. instead of working. Of course, this is an unrealistic dream because all of these things cost money.

I am just venting...not like this dream will ever happen but it's nice to get the feelings out.

 

[TheSkaFish]

I guess it's a moot point thinking about it, but I do wish that we were more free to find and choose our own purpose in life, instead of being forced to make money. I feel like the need to make money forces a lot of people to study things that they otherwise wouldn't, and it's unfortunate that we have to spend so much of our lives doing things that aren't really connected to our goals, dreams, desires, values, and our real selves, or the selves that we would like to be.

I do wonder sometimes, if we didn't have to work for money, what would we all do, who could we become?

I guess you're supposed to want to do the thing you're best at, which it makes sense would be the thing you can do that would make you the most money. But sometimes those things don't always match, and it doesn't always match what we're most curious about, or what makes us feel the most alive.

 

[Sarah G]

I hate working and I'm even glad that I'm too sick to work. From 2014 to 2019 I only did voluntary work (compulsory here if you're unemployed) and I didn't really enjoy that most the time either.
Most jobs have been an interesting experience (pharmacy, theatre, animal sanctuary, foodbank, organic farming) but I feel too depressed and anxious to ever enjoy working. Customers and colleagues can be so rude and mean, I just don't have time for that

Edit for clarity: My family are people who think they should work as much as possible. I had my first (weekend/holiday) job at 13 (as did my sisters) and left school to start full time work age 15. My dad worked full time shift work and ran a business. He retired when he was 80. Work is religion in my family.

 

[Finished]

I quit working 12 years or so ago. I'm glad I did it too. I very much like not working. I get to work on my hobbies, travel, or whatever at my own pace. If my health starts to fail I may go back to work to increase my retirement while getting health insurance. Otherwise I'll ride the no work wave until I can officially retire and get on medicare.

 

[Colster]

I was brought up with a very strong work ethic, I enjoy working, hard work at that. It was always important for us to have earned our money. And, as it was back in the day, that weekly wage packet, reminded us of our place in the world, and our self value.

At this present time, I am 48, and consider myself retired. There have been various career paths, and often I have run small businesses simultaneously. As many of you know, I have developed a bit of a hatred for people, and as such, everything has just sort of stopped.

I would like to work again, I would like to be productive, and have purpose. But for the moment, I remain utterly directionless. To be honest, even if I had a notion of what I wanted to do, I doubt that I know how it's done these days.

My Grandfather owned Smith's Crisps here in Merseyside. He was also on the development team for the Napier Deltic engine, amongst many other achievements. Yet, he was never happier than when he was working. He all but lived for engineering. These values still run strong within the whole family, my brother being the only known exception.

I'll also admit to being heavily torn by conscience. Work is what we do. But then there are the numerous legal matters still at hand, causing distraction and considerable consumption of my time. Somehow, I have become the family Secretary. However, the biggest issue is that I have accepted my resignation from society. A veritable hermit in metamorphosis.

Truthfully too, I cannot recall having had a whole entire week of doing whatever I wanted to, for the past umpteen years. Dad duties always came first. Work, family, even the dogs came before me in terms needs and responsibilities.

Nothing would actually give me greater pleasure than building another van, and driving off into the sunset, no plans, no direction, and no connection with anything, well maybe YouTube and PornHub.

Ok, not PornHub, there are better sites, X Hot Heffers, etc. Seriously though, most days feels like I'm swimming in treacle. I plough through the paperwork, calls and emails. And even if it's a quiet day in those aspects, it exhausts me. Hence, my slightly mitigated desires to also do nothing with myself.

Sorry for the rambling. Feedback would actually be welcome.

*enclosed pic is my grandad, outside his factory in Aintree. Most of my family were also born in that same factory, and the building still stands to this day.

 

[CenotaphGirl]

I have mixed feelings about the luxury of knowing I do not "have to" work...I remember begging my dad to let me work, he was so dead against it. He had the idea that a woman should never ever work. I wanted to work to prove I could do it, but as I didn't really have to.. I'd swan in and out of jobs, asked to do anything I dont like I'd just leave. I started realising that I still wasn't experiencing things from the working class reality, I had a choice, that choice made me entitled... unfair to other colleagues and that choice allowed me to be picky.

The one hand, never working would make me feel like I couldn't understand my future husband if he works... and the reality is I don't think no matter how much I throw myself at the working world, having "no choice" is something I'd never understand.

 

[NoxApex(N/A)]

Work was pretty much ingrained into me from childhood.

My grandparents ran a produce market when I was a kid, and so at 7 years old I was catching full size watermelons being tossed to me in an assembly line out of the back of a trailer at 4:00 A.M. and helping set up the tent etc. On my weekends I'd go out of town with my grandfather for one of the days and spend the whole day buying and loading up produce. Tomatoes, corn, grapes, strawberries, potatoes, onions, eggplant, green beans, black-eyed peas, and peanuts. Which doesn't seem like that much until you consider that it was a 20x10 canopy, we had multiple types of each type of produce, and overstock for when we'd run out. Roughly a 16x7 ft. trailer's worth that had to be tarped and strapped down during transportation.

Likewise, very quickly as a child I got to learn the seasonal rotation of fruits and vegetables.

I'd no drive to work as a teen, in part because the women I'd dated I didn't really want to live with, because the dynamic was predominately me taking responsibility, aaannddd the last thing I wanted to do was make my life harder than it was by default by taking up the slack for some irresponsible brat. But, because I was young and dumb, I eventually did anyway in my later teens.

A struggle that's very common with young people is that it's difficult to get a job when you have no experience, but you can't get experience without having experience, either. That actually made it a difficult thing for me, and so with where I work now, we hire in rookie kids with no experience every now and then purely to contribute to their future. Likewise, I try to be the manager I always wished I'd had in those years than the managers I did always have. I try to be the fun and caring boss, instead of the overbearing, work beneath me under my thumb kind of a boss.

I didn't actually develop a personal drive until I was 24, because my longest relationship was from 16 - 24, and most of my work during that time was solely for the relationship I was in and I didn't really care about business otherwise.

I still don't care about business, nearly 10 years later.
I just have a better understanding of it now with more experience.
I have drive, but no meaning. I can get things done successfully, but without a cause.

This tends to intimidate my technical superiors at nearly every job I've had. I've developed weightless thought for operations. A lot of the time, people find that intimidating because that's difficult to compete with.

The irony is that I didn't develop it through competitive drive, I developed it through personal drive. I'm not a competitive person, I'm a creative introvert, I just happen to be good at detail work and it gets misconstrued easily.

Of course I don't want to work, I belong on a stage, not in an office or on an operations floor. But, music hasn't been a thing for hundreds of years, I'm a man out of time, the last time music was an actual mainstream career option was 300+ years ago, so I'm a man out of time.

So because I can't do what I know I should be doing, the rest doesn't matter and is just a means to an end to me. I see no point in being a provider because I was born into low class capitalism with an abusive family so I've always had to be the provider even against my will and had to unravel myself from the abuse, nor do I see a point in going on some business conquest to find fulfillment in the emptiness of financial wealth, because I've known and have worked for millionaires who've told me that it brings them no inner peace and happiness.

I work almost entirely by happenstance of where I was born and under what conditions and constraints I was born under. Humans are products of their environment, I'm no different as such.

I do find it somewhat ironic that I can find meaning in the meaninglessness of the mumbling metaphors of mysticism and the complexities of advanced physical sciences, but I cannot find meaning in the meaninglessness of the materialistic, vain and superficial. Perhaps it's the excessive amount of psychedelic drugs I took in my 20s, IDK.

I'm kind of just like "whatever, I'm just a guy." "There's like 8,000,000,000 people on the planet, ignore this guy in particular behind the curtain."

 

[U-122]

Very few around me actually work and earn honest living. Most wealthy middle and upper class are just careerists money grabbing scum. All "overworked" "underpaid." Never stop crying how they used to have it good and now not so good. I have nothing to work for. i get by with whatever little i make for myself. My goal is to grab from those who unethically illegally grab from me. When i was younger i worked 2-3 jobs at a time in addition to my side work. Because i thought it was cool. Especially when others did the same. I wanted to be like others. As a result i only stressed myself out and destroyed my health. I don't do that anymore. When i was 19 an older neighbor in his mid 60s took me to a casino. I was making minimum wage $5-7/hr. We sat down at a card table. No limits. One asian guy who looked and dressed like a homeless bum played $5k-15k. That's when i lost interest in work.

 

[Colster]

Very few around me actually work and earn honest living. Most wealthy middle and upper class are just careerists money grabbing scum. All "overworked" "underpaid." Never stop crying how they used to have it good and now not so good. I have nothing to work for. i get by with whatever little i make for myself. My goal is to grab from those who unethically illegally grab from me. When i was younger i worked 2-3 jobs at a time in addition to my side work. Because i thought it was cool. Especially when others did the same. I wanted to be like others. As a result i only stressed myself out and destroyed my health. I don't do that anymore. When i was 19 an older neighbor in his mid 60s took me to a casino. I was making minimum wage $5-7/hr. We sat down at a card table. No limits. One asian guy who looked and dressed like a homeless bum played $5k-15k. That's when i lost interest in work.

Yeah, I get this. It frustrates me to see people with so much, basically bitching about nothing. Oh, like you only got 5% raise this year, not 10%. But you still get healthcare, BMW, and business class flights. Oh the suffering.

Once watched one of my associates, count out £96 in change, just to save himself handing over £100 for dinner. The guy owns several hotels and has numerous historic buildings in his portfolio. But yeah, saved £4 today!

Just me, but I feel like I have a better quality of life away from materialism. I would never want to give 40 each week, to those guys who want to save £4. Me, I would leave it, hope it made someone's day just that little bit better.

 

[U-122]

Yeah, I get this. It frustrates me to see people with so much, basically bitching about nothing. Oh, like you only got 5% raise this year, not 10%. But you still get healthcare, BMW, and business class flights. Oh the suffering.

Once watched one of my associates, count out £96 in change, just to save himself handing over £100 for dinner. The guy owns several hotels and has numerous historic buildings in his portfolio. But yeah, saved £4 today!

Just me, but I feel like I have a better quality of life away from materialism. I would never want to give 40 each week, to those guys who want to save £4. Me, I would leave it, hope it made someone's day just that little bit better.

The gullible ignorant here and maybe there too don't understand when they ask for more that more needs to come from somewhere else, which means somebody somewhere also needs to get more, and others need to give more, which means others also need to get more. It never ends.

 

[ewomack]

To stave off work miasma, I try to find jobs in places that have some meaningful connection for me. I'm very lucky to have portable skills that are (for now, at least) really in demand, so I've been able to more or less choose where I work. I've worked in many medical fields, including implantable devices, neurology, radiology, pharmacovigilance and blood/tissue donation. Knowing that the work I do sometimes contributes, even in a small way, to the alleviation of peoples' suffering or even the saving of lives can help make work more satisfying. That doesn't mean that all days are great, of course. Some of them still suck. And working in health care fields means being surrounded by death as well. I've been on a few calls in my career that dealt directly with dead or dying patients. I've had some one else's blood inadvertently spread on me at least once. I had to watch a pig get a tracheotomy (the pig lived!). I once had to wear 20lbs of lead padding to keep from getting over exposed to radiation. I've had to go into animal research laboratories (I can still hear the terrifying animal noises). If I were a nurse or a doctor, I would expect these things, but I have no medical background, so I never expected to have such experiences. Still, despite the downsides, it's helped to work in places that make me feel like the work I do does at least a little good in the world. But I realize that I'm really lucky to have these opportunities and I try not to take them for granted. But some days still suck.

 

[TheRealCallie]

Working at home seems to be getting harder and harder. Because one of the companies I work for isn't giving a lot of work right now, I'm forced to find another job. Trying to find another at home job, but I don't know...maybe it's time to go back out into the real world for work. I had planned to next year anyway, I suppose

 

[Finished]

Working at home seems to be getting harder and harder. Because one of the companies I work for isn't giving a lot of work right now, I'm forced to find another job. Trying to find another at home job, but I don't know...maybe it's time to go back out into the real world for work. I had planned to next year anyway, I suppose

Damn.

 

[4No1]

I wish I worked a little bit less and had more time for myself.

 

[TheSkaFish]

I was just looking at my to-read list last night....there's so many books I'd like to read, and CDs I'd like to listen to, and things I'd like to spend time thinking about, if I didn't have to work.

That's one thing that gets me about work - you have to spend so much time doing it, that it's hard to just take enough time to figure out who you really are or what you're about, what really makes you think and feel about anything, what matters to you - what you feel is significant and meaningful. I don't think that producing, for someone else's vision, gives me a strong enough reason to live. I need something more. But I don't know what it is.

 

[ringwood]

I've entertained the fantasy of, "Gee. . . If only I didn't have to work. . . " many a time, but when it comes right down to it, work keeps me grounded. Without it, I think I'd be too scatter-brained and head-in-the-clouds. It gives me a sense of reality and purpose. Don't get me wrong - I'd love to be retired and I have plenty of hobbies to keep me occupied but at this point in my life, I think work is a good thing for me.

I'm fortunate right now in the fact that I work from home. I'm a writer for a small media company and I spend my days writing articles and stories, interviewing people via email (occasionally phone calls, but not often), sitting in front of my computer and listening to music all day long while I write. I'm also lucky in that I can pretty much set my own hours, aside from things like planned meetings. The company I work for has an office but when COVID hit, we pretty much all transitioned to working from home and it's kind of stayed that way. Probably will for the foreseeable future as the editorial team is all a bunch of introverted homebodies, haha.

I've had plenty of jobs in the past where I've had to work with the public and really glad I`m not in that situation right now. If I had to deal with all the riff-raff and crap from the general public, I'd be entertaining the wish-I-didn't-have-to-work fantasy a LOT more often.

 

[Zorananda]

Depends on the job and the office politics but unfortunately we live in a world that places an emphasis on your position in the supposed meritocracy. We might also be intrinsically programmed to need to work or at least have a purpose by which we expend energies and manage some stresses. I always hated having to labour in any form but having lost in the game of life and ended up with no career whatsoever I can say that not working is a double edged sword with a very sharp blade. If you don't work because you can't find a job or never had a career path you succeeded in, your life is probably over.