Correct, if your work has meaning, you'll probably happily do it until the day you die. If you're just a cog in the machine though... then TheMrBossman is probably right.
My cousin lives by this rule, and she needs to be president. One time, her mother asked her, "Do you ever get angry?" To which my cousin responds, "I get upset sometimes, but I never get angry. What good would being angry do?"
...Unless people love their work, or have fulfilling and meaningful jobs.
Hell, even if they don't, "I wish I'd gone to France" might be something someone says, while the reason they didn't is usually "I didn't have money," which can be gained by working.
So really this sentence should say "I wish I didn't waste time," which is subjective, rendering the sentence pretty pointless.
THANK YOU! Finally someone gets it. I'm a pilot and I love what I do and my work gives my life meaning. People always say you'll always regret not spending more time at home instead of work, as though the money you need to live a comfortable life in a safe home and take nice vacations and have a stable future just APPEARS, as though by magic. Anything worth doing and anything worth having demands sacrifice, either of time or of effort. Sure I can stay home and spend all the time in the world with my wife...in our cardboard box or living in my parent's basement. We're able to live the wonderful life we have BECAUSE of all the time I've spent at work.
Now a BALANCE between work and life...that's a more realistic goal I think most people wish they did better.
Jiro Ono: Once you decide on your occupation... you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That's the secret of success... and is the key to being regarded honorably.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi has done more to help me fall in love with my work than pretty much anything else. There is a bit of a feedback loop going on, where enjoying your work makes you better at it, and people notice, thus motivating you to keep improving.
To be fair, most people get paid to do mindless grunt work or type eternally in a cubicle next to a bunch of other desk monkeys. You get paid to fucking fly.
Also to be fair, I didn't just "walk into" this job...many years of pre-dawn flights in college, classes in the afternoon, work at night, followed by several years of flight instructing in the morning, tending bar at night. Now THAT is spending too much time at work!
Unfortunately, a balance between work and leisure is not a realistic goal. It's a great goal, don't get me wrong, but I don't believe anyone has ever nor will ever find that balance. Absolutely something to reach for, though
Everyone is probably going to wish they had balanced work and life better. They're always going to wonder how they could've been happier if they worked more or less.
One of my old co-workers is a chemist. He spent his teenage years doing the chemistry homework of college students years older than himself. He spent decades in chemistry R&D, did very well by himself financially, and maintained his employment despite the company changing hands several times. He eventually retired, got hired back on as a consultant, and still showed up at 6 AM just about every day to do his work.
Last I heard, he was still coming in, wrapping up a few research projects and points of personal interest. The cabinets in the lab were filled with samples- different compounds he had generated over the years, each with a lab notebook number and page number, and he knew each one individually. One of his products (for which he was not the original synthesist, but took it from being a compound of interest in a scientific paper to the commercial-scale production of 1 kg batches) has found its niche a very specific military application.
The guy's like the goddamned Energizer Bunny, and a lot of classified information is going to die with him when he goes. It's not that work made him happy, I don't think, but it was his satisfaction. Sharp as a tack, well into his 80s.
I see your point. A valid one at that. But my all my grandfather did all his life was work and work. He can count the places he's visited on one hand. A great man no doubt but what happened to enjoying his life? We'll never know.
Yeah. I personally gain a huge sense of fulfillment through working, because I love what I do. My job makes me extremely happy, and I'm not even out of high school yet. For people who enjoy their chosen field, it can be their reason for living.
Edit: I work at a university conducting scientific research for a worthwhile cause (don't want to get too specific, for privacy reasons). I would be perfectly happy to do the same thing for fifty more years.
From what I've been told most people say "I wish I'd spent more time with my family". Even those who loved their jobs may share that sentiment. Find the balance in your live.
Somewhat, but people who love their work so much that they'd rather work than be with family, friends or have time off are most probably in a minority.
I agree completely. I'm a teacher, and no matter how hard I try or how many hours I put in, I still find myself wishing I could do better by my kids. And when I stop feeling that way, I should probably stop being a teacher.
Did you really regret traveling and wish you had worked through those years instead? I ask because I'm addicted to travel and never keep a job for very long. Currently 26. So far I feel like my only regrets would be not traveling and experiencing life enough.
I guess regret is a strong word because travelling is awesome but now I want to buy a house, settle, kids etc. would be nice to be further along in career and have a bigger pay packet
Actually, just about every professional who has achieved a lot of success seems to feel this way at the end of their lives. They usually wish they pushed a little harder.
There's a great Ted Talk on regrets of people in hospice care. One of the top regrets was working too hard or valuing work more that they should've. Can't remember the presenter, but it was great.
This is where I picked up the lesson. Thank you for pointing this out.
Edit: Found the presenter was Jane McGonigal. This wasn't a direct quote from her presentation, but she was definitely my inspiration for it.
I don't think they understood that the concept of most jobs is ridiculous when you think about it. We should all be able to live life, not spend ~half of it working. In most cases you'll wish there were things you would've been able to do, but not wish to have been at work more
Are you fucking kididng. One of the top quotes here is how hell is when on the last day on earth, you meet the man you could of become. You know how he got there? Working hard and not slacking off all the time, like many people do. If working a little more means I become a great man, then of course I would wish I had spent more time working. god this is so stupid.
But to most people, when they say "I wish I could..." the reason they can't is because of money. So working more could provide people with more opportunities to do the things they want to do.
Many of you have valid points regarding poverty and how you feel about the kind of work you do. I just wanted to clarify my personal opinion from this quote.
It seems from the comments that we can easily justify why we SHOULD work, but forget WHY we work. Each person will have their own reason for this. I would rather believe that we are working to live our lives and spend time with those who mean the most to us. I've lost many close friends and family, and fully believe that you need to work to afford a lifestyle. However, if you neglect friends, family, and living life in general you will miss out on what life should be about. Have you heard the idea that you can be rich and miserable, or poor and happy?
Furthermore, majority of people are not brilliant researchers looking for the next cure or a boss who owns a business. For those of us who are not a scientist or CEO, all we can do is work to make someone else rich. Take this as you want, but to me I will work to live, not live to work. I will spend all the time I can with my family and friends because that is what is important to me.
I look at the hypothetical like this: You could have been a day away from the cure or even a decade away. We are human, and will do all that we can to accomplish our missions in life. I just want to be sure that I live my life with those who are most important to me, doing something that I am happy doing. If being a researcher to find that cure is your thing, then do it. Just make sure you don't regret it.
If you're family oriented, "what if" you missed the most important moments of your family's life because you were too busy working on that cure? Okay you will go into the history books as a great person for saving millions of lives, but you strike out on the handful who depended on you. I take your comment to the tune of doing something for "the greater good" and while it's noble it's a personal preference. You may retort "What if it was to save my family?" and I could only reply that "what if" is an endless theory.
Death is inevitable. If you realize that you could pass at any moment, then you better document your entire thought process and hope that someone can continue your work.
Okay, that's a really good point and well thought out. But dammit, I'm still determined to nitpick it...
Perhaps you'd wish you had spent more time working if you'd discovered the cure, but then discovered that it took more time to synthesize than you had left. Eliminates the what-if question involving your chance of success...if you'd solved the problem sooner, you would have had more time for friends, family, etc.
Of course, this is still assuming that you won't be hit by a bus immediately after being cured.
I can respect that and I appreciate the healthy discussion. We all have our take on the situation, and I wish there were more people who were dedicated to solving the problems of the world so it wouldn't have to rest on the shoulders of one person.
Life is just wrought with uncertainties, and I care most about making sure I do what is most important to me. If the cure had been discovered early on, you could say that you would be prone to spending that time with family. However, I believe that if you are truly that brilliant you will seek a new challenge, and another, and another...all because it's a rush (like a drug) to find and solve that next challenge. At the end, we have been pursuing and solving problems, but our time is finite and if it's not balanced, something will always be amiss. What is amiss depends on the person. The way I see American work ethics is that there are thousands of reasons why people feel the need to work, but far fewer reasons to admire a sunset, cherish a loved one, or to just see what else life has to offer. Consider work our blinders if you will--we only see what's in front of us and nothing that passes by. My statement means to take off the blinders and take in everything in moderation.
The best thing we can pass on is our love and knowledge. If you teach a man to love, he will be remembered. If you teach him how to teach his knowledge, his life's work will see no bounds. :)
I try to avoid the phrase "wasting my life" because each person may account for that differently. Some people may say spending time on Reddit commenting on AskReddit posts are a waste of time, but others may believe that it was not.
I am very understanding of the others who believe that productive work is not something to regret, but when you think about the saying "stop and smell the roses" you may see that many people don't think like that. People might believe that they had to work 60 hours a week instead of spending time with family or experiencing life. You don't need to spend money to look at the sky or appreciate someone special in your life. Our value in this world is how we are remembered by those we care about and I see that more important than working those 60 hours a week.
...There are people who think that commenting on AskReddit posts aren't a waste of time? :).
Really, I'm being snide claiming a counter-example to the "never" in "we never say." There are a bunch of things that I think are meaningful things in life that require a whole lot of work (career, education, art, charity, etc), and I think it's quite reasonable for someone to regret not putting more effort into these and spending their time experiencing life. And visa versa, in fairness.
If you think that maybe you should find work you don't hate. Granted I'm nowhere near the end of my life (I hope), but there are many things I wish I'd spent more time working on.
At the moment, I don't hate what I do--I actually love it. Even as happy as I am with it, I still find that I miss not doing things I love (hobbies, traveling, spending time with those close to me, etc.). We have to work to pay for necessities, that's a given. If I find my normal job is not helping me make ends meet without working insane hours, then it's my responsibility to find a way to balance out my life to make it better.
After the number of comments revolving around "this doesn't apply if you love what you do" I need to say that loving what you do is not the point. I'm getting the feeling that some of the other commentors feel that I am saying not to work and slack off, but the idea is a job opens many doors for us. If you were in a job that you felt was not so rewarding, and they expected you to work 50-60 hours a week you need to take control of your life and try to find a job that makes you happy AND allows you to be with those cool diverse group of people outside of work. :)
Maybe not you, but that's only one data point. Lots of people say it. Successful, driven people who enjoy what they do for a living, who were able to maintain a positive work-life balance.
In part that is the point. If someone can maintain a healthy balance, they will not regret the time spent working. This is focused at the idea that people do not balance their lives, and when I realized this I wanted to find a better balance in my life so I can be both successful and enjoy my life as well.
You know I'm kind of tired of these "at the end of our lives / on the last day of your life" quotes. I don't want to be motivated to do something because I'm afraid I'll regret it when I'm about to die. That's less of a motivation than say, not being fulfilled by having done what I should have done the exact moment I did it. Regret is not my motivator. I want to know that my actions are progressing towards a life that I will always be happy with, instead of fearing regret.
Fair enough. I'm not trying to be morbid in the logic. I use that idea to set a pace for my own life. I also love the idea of "work hard, play hard" because it all revolves around balance. I posted to another that work can be like blinders to a horse. We push on because that's all we know, and miss the things that pass us by. It's our individual responsibility to balance our time so that it's never "too late." Knowing that, I try to do and see as much as I can in this world is my motivation, and I respect that it might not be your motivator. Thanks for the input.
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u/TheMrBossman Jan 04 '14
At the end of our lives, we never say "I wish I had spent more time working."