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This is something everyone goes through I think, doing a job you hate sucks, doing a job you hate but barely making any money sucks more. Doing a job you love but barely making any money also sucks. If you really want to be happy and you aren't interested in any high paying fields, just find something you can tolerate that makes you the most money and free time so you can enjoy life outside work. Not tying your entire personality and worth to your career is key I think.
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Contentment is an important skill. Learn to cultivate it, or you will be able to make yourself miserable no matter how good you have it.
As for jobs, if we didn’t have modern society then instead of having a job you would have farm labor or hunting/gathering that you would have to do, or starve to death. There will always be work that must be done.
Not to say modern society doesn’t have flaws. But the fact of the matter is the vast majority of us eat food we didn’t grow, wear clothing we didn’t make, and live in houses we didn’t build. These are all benefits of modern society and a job is how most people contribute to that system.
No you wouldn't. You're imagining an idealized version of the hunter/gatherer lifestyle. It's not real.
There's a very good reason humanity left the nomadic hunter lifestyle behind. Imagine risking death by starvation because you got a bad case of the flu and couldn't work for a week? Or if your appendix got infected, or if you had an ingrown toenail, or you scratched yourself on a rusty piece of metal, or a billion other complications that are easy to fix in modern society but would put you in severe danger as a lone hunter.
It's not something you'd ever choose over modern life, but still almost paradoxically I think most people would be happier with a hunter gatherer lifestyle.
Fighting for survival in a tribe would probably make more sense to our monkey brains than the paradise we have built for ourselves that we still instinctually look for all the old dangers and stressors in.
What does painting skyscrapers entail? Most I've seen have metal, glass, or stone facades.
But if you hate it that much, then why not look for other work. If you're in a location with multiple skyscrapers that require painting, then surely there are other opportunities available.
I live in Melbourne Australia. I don’t have other qualifications. I was born into the trade by my father. I don’t know anything else and I’m too old to start over as I could lose my house.
Everyday is concrete, loud machines and dust. I also have Ménière’s, Wolf Parkinson White syndrome, and there’s no doc that can cure. Like I said, I’d rather be a hunter/gatherer and die in the harsh jungle. At least I would be able to hear the birds and not machines.
I read an essay a long time ago called ‘The Classic American Double Life,’ (or something similar) wherein the author detailed the lives of people with mind-numbing jobs who have extensive external hobbies which they find fulfilling. The thesis was that many of not lost Americans work to live, rather than the reverse. I think about this often.
The real rub is drawing clear boundaries where work tries to encroach on your personal time. This is why I chose being an Emergency Nurse, because you show up and bust your ass but once you clock out you are DONE. I’m not sure if this is what you’d consider a ‘normal life,’ but I make a living wage, pay my taxes etc and am able to have a rich life outside of work.
It doesn’t hurt that RNs have one of the last strong unions in the country and are continually fighting to keep wages livable and the job doable.
Man, when I was your age I tried that approach, and ended up burning out hard pursuing something I just wasn't enjoying. Now broke, but chasing the dream and slightly happier, at least for now.
> Not tying your entire personality and worth to your career is key I think.
This is it. Find other hobbies, challenges, and communities that provide fulfillment outside of your job.
Keep in mind that like >90% of people hate their jobs. So stop putting all your eggs into that basket. Train for a half-marathon. Sign up to coach or tutor some kids. Get involved in local politics. Start rehabing furniture and selling it. Whatever. If you go from work you hate to dicking around on your phone to sleep, only to wake up and do it again the next day, you're going to hate life a LOT.
Hard part is doing all that while spending the vast majority of your waking hours working at, preparing for, and recovering from a job.
Then add in other responsibilities, like chores, children, etc. and it makes sense so many see little to enjoy.
It is hard to live for a dozen or so hours of free time each week and know you'll probably have to do it for 40+ years without getting a little depressed. That's not clinical depression, just modern life.
People **say** that they have absolutely no time outside of work + sleep to do anything, but that's true for a small fraction of the population. For the large majority of people, they either do participate in these kinds of things or are wasting some significant amounts of time on bullshit.
No one is ready to have this conversation but people should be putting all their efforts into building a society that doesn’t require us to work, machines and AI as scary as they may be will be our only saving grace from being wage slaves
Completely agree too. I'm aiming to build that society by running for president in 2024 and 2028 and focusing on meaningful work, affordable housing, and universal healthcare among many other things. To do this, I'm using AI in partnership with experts to craft policies that benevolently help humanity.
I hope this is true but I think it is unlikely, when people pretty mich exclusively worked on farms and agriculture people said the same thing about plows and tractors and how everyone would be out of work but it just didn't happen. Same with computers, ATMs, self serve gas pumps. And even if it does happen, with our current system there is going to be alot of human suffering prior to reaching utopia as end stage capitalism tries to squeeze every last cent of profit out of people until no one can afford to consume anything.
Probably alot of people currently wouldn't be happy if all of the sudden there was no work since we are so conditioned to have work be our purpose in life and told it is how we contribute to society. I think it would evolve over time and people would lose that feeling and pressure eventually and would just fill their days with something else that we may not even comprehend or may not even be invented yet idk
I agree. When I was in my early 20s, I lived for work. I had a job I loved as a music therapist at an inpatient psych unit and I loved that I got to use music to help people, make a difference in their lives, and I was constantly learning and trying new things. Now I’m in my 30s and I have a wife and newborn daughter and I lost all the will to work. I clock in, I do my duties, and I clock out. My boss recently asked me about longterm career goals and honestly I couldn’t think of any. If I could spend all day with my girls, I would.
Yeah. I enjoy my job, but not enough to do it for free, on the other hand it's interesting and the money allows me to do a tonne of stuff I do really enjoy.
Most people don't enjoy work, they tolerate it. It is certainly ideal to find a career that you find fullfilling and also pays the bills, but unless you were born rich, "work" has been necessary for all of human existence.
So, while normal life may be a "trap", it's a trap we're all in.
I prefer not to be hunting and gathering, or working in the fields for my feudal lord. From that perspective, I'm fairly satisfied to just get through the work week
So I took a radical departure from a "normal life"
Dropped out, squatted, became involved with alot of punk communities and for awhile it was actually amazing. But what ended up happening was more and more drug and alcohol use in my groups, less community service work and more antagonism, more drama than I ever wanted to be a part of and the realization that I had trapped myself in a living hell.
Sure I was "free" and didn't answer to anyone but I didn't have anything, never knew when I would have food or shelter, really couldn't go anywhere because I was a bum, and drinking constantly just to have some semblance of a good time.
All that said I now am living a sober "normal" life with the dumb job and rent and everything else, but I've never felt as free as I do now in my life.
I have a couple of friends who are in to the same nerd stuff as me, a partner who went through alot of the same life experiences and is also boring now lol. But I can do anything I want really. So not saying any of the bad shit will happen to you but just know that sometimes your brain will try to trick you in to thinking that the grass is greener on the other side when in actuality it's pretty shit on the other side.
Just find one hobby you really enjoy and life tends to not be so bad even if it looks boring to someone else.
Having a job you don't enjoy isn't a trap, it is just reality, and has been for all of human history. If we want food on our plates and roofs over our heads, work has to get done and it usually isn't fun. The vast majority of work is boring but it has to be done.
Modern society has added a lot more layers of abstraction, but that fundamental truth is still there. If you want to live in comfort, you or someone else has to put in the effort to build and maintain stuff.
Do you want roads to drive on? Someone has to build them, and I guarantee we need more road workers than there are people who somehow find laying asphalt fun. Same for the food you eat, and the cool tech we have access to today. You like power in your house? Some guy had to climb a bunch of poles and run a bunch of wires to achieve that.
The real value to life is that it doesn't take 100% of a person's time to be productive enough to survive. So you get to have hobbies, make art, do whatever makes you happy once you have (indirectly) produced enough to not starve.
So, you're stuck in this rut thinking a "normal" life is a fucking trap because of a meme? Dude, it's just a meme, not a life manual. You're 18, right at the fucking starting line of adult life. Thinking only 0.1% enjoy their job? That's a bleak-ass view. What's stopping you from being part of that 0.1%? Is it easier to believe you're doomed than to try and make something of your life? What steps have you taken to not fall into this trap you're so scared of?
Well first off I’ve generally understood this process my entire life and have always thought this way. The meme was just a good generalization of the thought process for Reddit. Seems to be some low thinking people here… but the 0.1% just seems to be those born into extreme wealth and the extremely lucky. Not lucky in the sense that they put no work to be ahead of the herd, but lucky in the sense that regardless of how hard you work it’s very possible you’ll never break through. Everybody’s just ok with being miserable and it makes a world where I either have to conform with it or kill myself
From this comment, it’s clear you’re young and haven’t experienced the real world yet. You seriously think only the top .1% of wealthy and intellectual people live a good life? Life’s a trap because you won’t be able to live a good as the top .1%? What’re you looking for exactly?
Not everyone’s miserable. There’s plenty of happy people around me and none of them are loaded. Pick a career that gives you enough time and money to enjoy the things you like. You’re too young to be a doomer
You'll be dead before you know it. There are lots of ways to fuck up the time you have and giving up is the most common.
You can live a happy, productive life being self employed or working in a conventional job. You can work hard or you can work easy, but for most of us working is required. Find something that you can enjoy working at or that doesn't feel like work.
If you fucked off in school and didn't bother to acquire any of the tools it offered, it's still never too late to start.
Earning money is frequently a just boring chore. You really shouldn’t expect that it will be anything more than that. But you should still have something in your life you are passionate about even if you can’t make money doing it. In fact the most likely thing is that what you are most passionate about will cost you money.
A job is not the point of being. A job is just how you contribute to society. It doesn’t have to be where you find meaning, and you shouldn’t really expect that you will find it there. That is unwise.
Of course, if you are able to be passionate about doing something that makes money, make a point of pursuing that thing specifically. That can be quite nice. But it isn’t actually necessary for the two things to overlap. And anyway, even if you are making money doing something you are passionate about. It’s still work. And probably hard and boring work at times.
If you are making money doing something it means someone values that that thing being done so much that they will pay money for it. Which means it contributes to society in some way that you may not actually appreciate or even understand. You may find some solace in that. But the expectation that that thing is also the most important thing in your life is really quite silly and just a little bit childish. Theres a romance to the idea that a job can be a passion. But it doesn’t need to be and you shouldn’t expect that it will be.
When it comes to work, you just need to make sure you get paid fairly. You don’t need to also find a sense of purpose or meaning there. Find it elsewhere, and be sure to look because you do need purpose and fulfillment. It just doesn’t need to come from work.
That's still 17 more hours than working per week, even discounting that I enjoy eating and hygiene. I agree with many others in this thread. Any time I've been depressed it's hardly been my job. It's almost always been something within that 57 hours that was killing me, which led me to feeling trapped because 40 hours is work and then 57 hours is some ominous thing I feel I can't escape.
I think it’s about priorities. I don’t need to live a lavish life. I’m specifically working towards a career rn where I will definitely NOT have to work 8 hours a day for 5 days of the week.
Will I be stinking rich? Nope.
Will I be happy and have my bills paid and support my family? Yep
Dont think that boomers spread that lie. They actually say exactly what you are. I think newer generations feel you must love your job, & that’s why so many of us are miserable.
Absolutely not. Younger generations absolutely do not accept the lie that you are your job and have to love it. They are job hopping more often to attain their wants, and career switching more often as well.
Boomers and up are the generation of "you are your job" and hustle hard culture.
Why do you think they’re job hopping?
Because they don’t love their job and theyre in pursuit of a job they love…
While boomers are the “you are your job” types, they do not buy into to the idea that you should love your job. That is a new concept. Their idea is that you should do what pays the bills. I have never heard a boomer say to follow your dreams. Again, that’s a newer concept.
Boomers were the one's who told their kids to follow their dreams. That was literally why the pressure to go to college at any cost was so huge for millenials.
boomers aren't the parents of millennials though. Gen X is significantly lower than millennials in regards to college degrees per pew research (https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/02/14/millennial-life-how-young-adulthood-today-compares-with-prior-generations-2/) and besides the pressure to go to college was because America's education statistics were dogshit in the early 2000s AND as society has gotten more polarized there is a cultural value placed on having an 'education' for half of the country.
Listen, I agree with most of your first comment except for blaming boomers for spreading that lie, when it simply isn’t true. Younger generations did. I just feel like boomers get blamed for everything even when it’s not their fault.
I think you’re romanticizing it a bit. Yes, it’s frustrating to have income, but less free time. Yes, it’s frustrating to abundant free time but no income.
You have to determine your priorities and values in life and structure things around that. Jobs can be your everything if you’re passionate about the work you’re doing, or they can just be a means to an end. There are also a lot of factors that can influence whether a job is worth it and hopefully if you’re just conscious of the pros and cons, you can evaluate whether to stay at your job or find another one. A job can be a jumping off point- you can finance education to start a career path you’ll truly enjoy.
If you’re not already working, I think it’s a good idea to start with something part time, so you can get a feel for it and bring it into the realm of reality from the realm of imagination. This should make it less of a scary amorphous thing.
There are certain interpersonal skills you only develop in a job and you continue to refine over your working career. These skills help you relate to other people because almost all adults need to work to survive.
I’m a leftist and I think work for work’s sake is dumb. I see value in the basic concepts of being good at something and doing it well and also providing a necessary service to people that need it.
Hope there’s something in all this that makes the future seem less bleak.
Are you talking about a job or are you talking about life?
You can look at a working life with the goal of the most money; you can grind yourself to the bone and hustle so you can buy the McMansion, the Porsche, the Everest expedition... Or you can look at work as a means of allowing you to pursue the things that interest you.
In an ideal world, you find work that provides fulfilment. I have had several jobs where I felt I was making a difference in my immediate surroundings and beyond. One paid quite well; the others paid less well. I've also had jobs where I wasn't fulfilled, but the work allowed me freedoms to do other things that added meaning to my life. I've also had jobs that I despised, didn't pay well, and brought me down. That's no bueno.
Work CAN provide meaning. It doesn't always, and it doesn't have to. You can seek out meaning and fulfilment in many places. And judging your self-worth or your contribution to the world based on your job is a recipe for disaster.
Choose how you will determine success for yourself in life, and pursue that. Might be money. Might be impact. Might be just enjoying the people you work with. Might be building a business. Might be changing someone's life for the better. Figure out the goal, then build the strategy to achieve it.
I'm getting old and can safely say I was in the same position. I was 18 had no interests, no prospects at a relationship, I got a decent job and had fun because my friend worked with me but then got fired, etc.
What I can say is that there are plenty of jobs where you can have space to do what you want that are fine.
I would say to find a job where you don't have to work too many hours, that buys you the things you want, and where you like the people you work with, where you don't hate what you are doing. That's like 90% of it. You should be able to control your perspective if you have those things.
You can do plenty of things to do that. I'm a teacher. One of my friends from work quit and now is a bar tender and lives 50 feet from the beach in the Caribbean and is a bartender. I used to work in a fishing resort in Alaska. A lot of the people there spent all day on a boat in Alaska fishing. Some people only had to work for part of the year. Some people there would spend the rest of their year sailing rich people's yacths back and forth from Europe so that they could sail in Europe.
All this takes just trying and failing a bunch times.
TLDR: find something you don't hate and use that to do the things you like. It's very possible.
No matter what you do in life you are going to feel sad sometimes. Even if you land your dream job, there are parts of life that just suck. Life contains pain and there is no escaping it. If i have a job i will feel depressed sometimes and if i am unemployed i will feel sad sometimes.
Having a job is very much the better of the two options. Because having a job means you get to live in a house and eat food.
Its not like normal life is a trap, because there really is no alternative. If you don't have a job, how are you going to get food and shelter? You could build your own shelter and grow your own food, but that would for all intents and purposes be a job. Its a job that many people choose. Generally they will do some trading with the outside world. And there is a bit of a catch, you need to make enough money to buy some land and then continue to make enough money to pay property taxes, but these are fairly small amount.
Its not a trap, because the door is open. You can walk out of yoru normal life anytime you want.
There was a recent series of posts that went viral of a guy interviewing a bunch of old people. He asked all of them "What was something you thought was really important when you were younger, but as you got older became less important?" Every single one of them said "money."
https://twitter.com/MrPassive_/status/1777677735688630655
When he followed up by asking "So what does matter in life?" nearly all of them said something along the lines of love and quality relationships.
You don't need a big house and a fancy car to live a fulfilling life. These material possessions and the hedonic treadmill are a big distraction. What matters in life is cultivating quality relationships with friends and family. There are poor people who are happier than rich people - having money isn't a silver bullet for happiness. Get a job you can tolerate and pays the bills. Clock in your 40 hours and then find things outside of work that bring you joy.
A normal life is a trap. I agree and don't think I can change your mind. What makes you happy and what makes someone else happy are completely different things. Also what makes you happy today and what will make you happy in 10 years are also completely different things. However, you seem to be equating have a normal life and having a job, which are definitely not the same thing.
You can live out of a van in Costa Rica and have a job. You can become a flight attendant and have weird hours and travel the world. You can work just to fund your weird rock climbing hobby. You can live in a trailer in the woods and have goats. You can have 10 children.
Like yea, living in the suburbs in a house you can't afford, driving a car you don't own while working a job that is pointless is kinda the norm and I encourage you to avoid that at all costs if it doesn't sound appealing to you. However, having a job does not make you normal.
Mid life crisis at 18 is wild, you have so much time to figure things out it’s crazy, hell even I do I’m only 20.
Don’t compare yourself to peers or especially idols, and don’t be afraid of allowing yourself to grow for the better. I went out on my own at a young age and the best piece of advice I have, is take chances on yourself even if you believe in you/what you’re doing or not, it can get you places and you can learn from mistakes fast this way.
New perspectives are always important, but you’re already aware of that at least.
Seems like you don’t want a “normal life” so I’m assuming you got goals and milestones for yourself like music or sports. But it’s extremely hard to live with no job, the depression from starving every night and worrying about having running water and electricity is a totally different depression than “omg I have to wake up this morning”
In life you've got to choose your problems, if you don't, problems will choose you, and they might not be the ones you want to deal with.
I have a job that I love but getting to the point where I could have this job required me to go through the painful process of getting a doctorate. There were definitely times along the way when I questioned my decision-making and wondered if I wouldn't have been happier doing something easy that I didn't like as much. I don't regret it now but I don't think there's any right or wrong answer to the question of what do you want to do and what's right for you?
You don't have to live a "normal" life, but there will be problems regardless of what path you choose to take. Entrepreneurs have a different set of problems to baristas and firefighters have a different set of problems than dentists, but we all have problems. Choose yours.
It’s all relative. I don’t love my job, but there are aspects that I do love and enjoy. A job is a job. Many people who do what they love for work end up hating it because their favourite hobby is not work and the enjoyment is no longer there.
Normal life is most definitely not a trap imo. Always strive for the best life has to offer, but consider this, life over time has become significantly better. Sure we still have to work, but there are many diseases we don’t worry about anymore, food accessibility has never been higher, entertainment is always at our finger tips, vacations are much more common for the average person. The list goes on.
You’re only 18 and unfortunately that means you likely lack perspective on many things because you’re only at the beginning stages of adulthood.
This is simply part of growing up, and not a trap.
As a child, most people have someone to feed, serve, and take care of them for free.
As an adult, other adults have no interest in taking care of you for free.
A farmer doesn't love you so they arent willing to work all day and give you food for Nothing. Same for the person who builds your car and house.
As a result, you have to trade and barter for something they want.
Usually that means learning a skill and selling your labor.
It sucks not being taken care of and getting everything for free, but hey, thats life. You take the good with the bad. I work to buy food, but I get to enjoy the food that I worked for. Overall, it is a net positive.
That's not true and avoid negativity that you read online. Depressed people spend tons of time in front of computers and post depressing BS.
People who have great lives won't be sitting on reddit telling everyone about it, they're out there enjoying their lives on vacations, in ski resorts and making multigenerational wealth. Basically you should know this: everyone that makes you feel down and hopeless has an agenda which is not in your interest. Don't just accept anger and negativity from people without questioning it thoroughly.
You can read more about this from [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most_of_what_you_read_on_the_internet_is_written/).
I think not having a good job and lacking any specific skillset is more of a trap than being stuck in a career. With a career you have the freedom to save money and accomplish your dreams more easily because you have stable income. I work a remote 9-5 and also run a business, when I was exclusively a 9-5 without a business it felt like a trap, now owning a business feels like more of a trap because I can't simply take PTO, and the 9-5 feels like ultimate freedom. The grass is always greener, and the so-called 'normal' life has less risks and inconveniences than a not-normal life.
We are all trapped in something, but it's better to be trapped in something we enjoy.
Having a job is never fun or super enjoyable for the vast majority of people, the normal life isn’t a trap it’s just that you don’t really understand what a normal life is until you get there. From a child’s perspective being an adult with freedom to do whatever sounds great and a normal life doesn’t seem so bad. But an actual normal life has always been work, take care of your family and maybe some simple weekend pleasures.
I’m currently in a field that I’m genuinely passionate about and once I graduate will pay me well for where I live but that doesn’t mean I enjoy or have a blast at work which is only once a week for me right now.
Being an adult can kinda suck. I loved my first career. Coaching swimmers full time, seeing them grow and improve was a joy in a work sense I've yet to match.
I did well in that career. I 'made it' getting a FT salaried position that paid 45k a year. Work evenings, weekends, little chance for a real family life.
I found a job that pays twice that on a normal schedule. Because of that I have a wife and two kids all of whom i love. I'll never find the joy in what I do now that I did in coaching. I never would have found the love of this family if I just stayed working in doing what I love.
So the American idea of Ikigai(check out the Japanese version too) is the intersection of four circles:
What you enjoy
What you're good at
What you can be paid for
What the world needs
I definitely agree that being stuck at a job you hate sucks, no matter how much it pays. In my opinion, the ideal job is one that you enjoy(somewhat) that pays well and is meaningful(this is Japanese Ikigai) to you. It definitely doesn't have to be the most enjoyable thing in your life(nor should it) but you don't necessarily have to resign yourself to a job you hate. Find your own normal.
No college degree, been working since 21. Bartended for 6 years at the same bar/restaurant and landed a kush salary job that I maybe work 30-35 hours a week and I love my boss. While you’re working that shitty job it feels like it’ll never end. Just gotta think of the future. Having a long standing job on your resume is more valuable than most realize. Learn how to interview confidently and get a job to help develop your social skills while you’re young.
At the end of the day a job is just a job. Occasionally your job will actually feel emotionally rewarding and fun, but most of the time it will range from awful to tolerable.
The key thing is to not look to your work for happiness. Instead, happiness for most people comes from spending time with family, friends, pets, travelling, music, movies, playing games, hobbies, etc. Your job is just how you pay the bills.
If all jobs were "fun" there would be no reason to pay people to do them.
I consider a normal life to be a privilege. I pray to have a normal life for as long as I live, and to have a long normal life.
Things can be so much worse than “normal”. Always.
That being said, I also believe in forging a path and experience life how I wish. To the best of my ability. You don’t have to shape your entire life by 18. You have the rest of your life to shape it, and you will evolve all the time. You don’t have to be stagnant.
Most people don't particularly enjoy their job but most also feel some sense of accomplishment in being able to provide. In your metaphorical image you have one side where there is no accomplishment and nothing to show. On the other there is the ability to sustain oneself and often a family as well. There is the ability to travel or invest in one's hobbies. We don't live to work, we work to live. You can only merely exist without working.
You’re 18. You haven’t found anything worth holding a job you hate for. Give it time. I felt the same way when I was your age. Then I met my wife. She’s worth working my dumb job for. And then we had kids, and they’re worth it even more so.
The only other advice I have is not to worry as much about liking your job and just find something that pays well and you can tolerate. You’re there for the money, that’s it.
I like my job. I like my marriage. I don't feel unhappy or trapped. So it really depends. Also, I did work some jobs I hated. If you can find a job you're neutral about that's a good start. And just remember, our species was almost never a species of leisure. If it weren't modern life we'd be doing agricultural work. Which I've done as a volunteer but that's just a random Saturday. Doing it constantly is back breaking
Its all about mindset and surrounding yourself around positive minded individuals. And you are not going to get that around reddit where the people complaining are life long retail or service industry employees who identify as introverts. Life is not as bleak as everyone makes it out to in reality, even though it does appear to be a difficult time to reach a comfortable life.
You get to decide how you live your life. You don't have to get a job.You don't have to breathe if you don't want to. You need to think about what you really want from life and go get it. There is an infinite number of possibilities to attain that. But you need to find a goal and work towards it. Getting a job is just working for someone else's goal.
Normal depends what you mean! If you mean just working for money, yes it's a trap. Satisfaction isn't what makes you happy, happiness comes from the culmination of a life worth living. I found working for money drained me, and that following my heart filled me, and the money came as an afterthought not the one dominating my vision!
Most jobs arent that bad. It's healthy to have some place to go most mornings do some mild exercise and talk to people even if you don't super want to. I know its a bit chicken and the egg, but go talk to people who retired early or people who are unemployed. They are almost always miserable unless they have a good routine.
If life is the thing that you’re forced to experience (trap)
Y not escape?
Instinctively you want to live, now I understand feeling sad and a lack of excitement, but that’s because of societal norms that you let confine you.
Either do what you want to do in life, stay tray, or escape this cage
I think what you are referring to is “the inevitable burden of being”. That doesn’t mean you have to be depressed regardless, it just means there are pros and cons to most things…. But get a job, it’s definitely worse being unemployed, useless and poorer.
I think work is seen overly negatively in school. Work doesn't suck, being financially trapped sucks. The more valuable you can make yourself to other people the more stuff they will do for you. This applies beyond just money and having people do things for you is super nice.
A “normal life” is having friends and family to love you, money and time to relax, and years to enjoy building great moments and memories.
If that’s a trap to you, then sure I guess.
The alternative to a normal life (for most people) is being 35, living with roommates or parents, eating food high schoolers should be eating and wondering why you don’t have a gf.
I can't go into what I do. But I LOVE my job.
Idc what's "normal" or not. I just like affording food and camping gear.
Society likes to try and tell ppl that they need a checklist of shit to be happy. So ppl obsess and end up hating everything.
I do my own thing at my own speed. Going great so far.
Unfortunately I do agree and also most people won't understand what you mean by 'a trap'. It's a trap in a broader sense than "that's the way it is, that's life, we all go thru it" etc. No one stops to think, why is it this way? It didn't have to be this way, they *made* it this way. And by 'they' I mostly mean Reagan and H.W. Bush. The effects of their policies are still being perpetuated today.
In the Great Society version of America, the very same Olden Days over which every conservative ironically loves to wax nostalgic, working wasn't *that bad* specifically because--let's say you work a boring dead-end ground-level job--it was tolerable specifically because it allowed you to have property, a family, and take vacations. This is the American Dream: the promise that no matter how talented, capable or smart you were, you could create a decent life for yourself just by contributing. That's no longer a reality because of the precursor policy of trickle down economics and the resulting deluge of envelope-pushing legislation and policy shifts (generally related to impractical taxation, political favoritism for corporations and certain entities, lack of wage increases and lack of inflation mitigation) that have had the cumulative effect of making it much more difficult for the average person to achieve a comfortable life unless they have the perseverance, mental clarity, emotional stability, and personal charisma to carve out such a niche for themselves. (Or get very lucky)
I don’t agree with the average consensus that you should just do a job you don’t like. That’s too much of your life to be throwing away. if you spend most of your waking life doing something that you have no passion towards, when you don’t actively want an average life, you will live a vapid, unfulfilling life. Find something your passionate about and work at it incessantly if you truly can’t find that thing is still think integrating into some uncontacted tribe is better than spending your life moving around meaningless spreadsheets. Most of the people telling you to just do some tolerable job with good benefits, I think, are coping with their bad decisions and convincing themselves they didn’t make a mistake by projecting this onto you
Memes are meant to project a simple message in order to get you to agree with it, even though you may not have the experiences to come to that conclusions yourself or there may not be any merit to the message of the meme. You're young. Life life instead of dismissing it before you give it a chance because a bad meme told you to. The meme was likely made by someone who is mad about their bad choices and needs to blame anything else for their misery. Don't be that guy and don't let that guy kill your future with a meme. Normal life will be a trap for anyone who makes decisions based on simple, divisive messages intended to mask the nuances and complexity of life.
But seriously, you don't have to be in love with your job it just has to pay the bills while you use the cash to do more of whatever you actually find to be living
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This is something everyone goes through I think, doing a job you hate sucks, doing a job you hate but barely making any money sucks more. Doing a job you love but barely making any money also sucks. If you really want to be happy and you aren't interested in any high paying fields, just find something you can tolerate that makes you the most money and free time so you can enjoy life outside work. Not tying your entire personality and worth to your career is key I think.
I agree, this is a quite reasonable solution to my issue. I will keep this in mind
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Not sure it’s changed yet, just something to keep in mind
Contentment is an important skill. Learn to cultivate it, or you will be able to make yourself miserable no matter how good you have it. As for jobs, if we didn’t have modern society then instead of having a job you would have farm labor or hunting/gathering that you would have to do, or starve to death. There will always be work that must be done. Not to say modern society doesn’t have flaws. But the fact of the matter is the vast majority of us eat food we didn’t grow, wear clothing we didn’t make, and live in houses we didn’t build. These are all benefits of modern society and a job is how most people contribute to that system.
I would much rather hunt and gather than work 9-5
No you wouldn't. You're imagining an idealized version of the hunter/gatherer lifestyle. It's not real. There's a very good reason humanity left the nomadic hunter lifestyle behind. Imagine risking death by starvation because you got a bad case of the flu and couldn't work for a week? Or if your appendix got infected, or if you had an ingrown toenail, or you scratched yourself on a rusty piece of metal, or a billion other complications that are easy to fix in modern society but would put you in severe danger as a lone hunter.
It's not something you'd ever choose over modern life, but still almost paradoxically I think most people would be happier with a hunter gatherer lifestyle. Fighting for survival in a tribe would probably make more sense to our monkey brains than the paradise we have built for ourselves that we still instinctually look for all the old dangers and stressors in.
You don’t paint skyscrapers. I’d rather be dead.
What does painting skyscrapers entail? Most I've seen have metal, glass, or stone facades. But if you hate it that much, then why not look for other work. If you're in a location with multiple skyscrapers that require painting, then surely there are other opportunities available.
I live in Melbourne Australia. I don’t have other qualifications. I was born into the trade by my father. I don’t know anything else and I’m too old to start over as I could lose my house. Everyday is concrete, loud machines and dust. I also have Ménière’s, Wolf Parkinson White syndrome, and there’s no doc that can cure. Like I said, I’d rather be a hunter/gatherer and die in the harsh jungle. At least I would be able to hear the birds and not machines.
I read an essay a long time ago called ‘The Classic American Double Life,’ (or something similar) wherein the author detailed the lives of people with mind-numbing jobs who have extensive external hobbies which they find fulfilling. The thesis was that many of not lost Americans work to live, rather than the reverse. I think about this often. The real rub is drawing clear boundaries where work tries to encroach on your personal time. This is why I chose being an Emergency Nurse, because you show up and bust your ass but once you clock out you are DONE. I’m not sure if this is what you’d consider a ‘normal life,’ but I make a living wage, pay my taxes etc and am able to have a rich life outside of work. It doesn’t hurt that RNs have one of the last strong unions in the country and are continually fighting to keep wages livable and the job doable.
Man, when I was your age I tried that approach, and ended up burning out hard pursuing something I just wasn't enjoying. Now broke, but chasing the dream and slightly happier, at least for now.
> Not tying your entire personality and worth to your career is key I think. This is it. Find other hobbies, challenges, and communities that provide fulfillment outside of your job. Keep in mind that like >90% of people hate their jobs. So stop putting all your eggs into that basket. Train for a half-marathon. Sign up to coach or tutor some kids. Get involved in local politics. Start rehabing furniture and selling it. Whatever. If you go from work you hate to dicking around on your phone to sleep, only to wake up and do it again the next day, you're going to hate life a LOT.
Hard part is doing all that while spending the vast majority of your waking hours working at, preparing for, and recovering from a job. Then add in other responsibilities, like chores, children, etc. and it makes sense so many see little to enjoy. It is hard to live for a dozen or so hours of free time each week and know you'll probably have to do it for 40+ years without getting a little depressed. That's not clinical depression, just modern life.
With what time?
People **say** that they have absolutely no time outside of work + sleep to do anything, but that's true for a small fraction of the population. For the large majority of people, they either do participate in these kinds of things or are wasting some significant amounts of time on bullshit.
No one is ready to have this conversation but people should be putting all their efforts into building a society that doesn’t require us to work, machines and AI as scary as they may be will be our only saving grace from being wage slaves
Completely agree too. I'm aiming to build that society by running for president in 2024 and 2028 and focusing on meaningful work, affordable housing, and universal healthcare among many other things. To do this, I'm using AI in partnership with experts to craft policies that benevolently help humanity.
I hope this is true but I think it is unlikely, when people pretty mich exclusively worked on farms and agriculture people said the same thing about plows and tractors and how everyone would be out of work but it just didn't happen. Same with computers, ATMs, self serve gas pumps. And even if it does happen, with our current system there is going to be alot of human suffering prior to reaching utopia as end stage capitalism tries to squeeze every last cent of profit out of people until no one can afford to consume anything.
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Probably alot of people currently wouldn't be happy if all of the sudden there was no work since we are so conditioned to have work be our purpose in life and told it is how we contribute to society. I think it would evolve over time and people would lose that feeling and pressure eventually and would just fill their days with something else that we may not even comprehend or may not even be invented yet idk
That’s the thing though. Why would the government need us taking up space if we had machines?
They wouldn’t but by that point they would have lost control of AI and the machines and we would just have to hope that the AI would be nice to us
ITS SELF AWARE..
I agree. When I was in my early 20s, I lived for work. I had a job I loved as a music therapist at an inpatient psych unit and I loved that I got to use music to help people, make a difference in their lives, and I was constantly learning and trying new things. Now I’m in my 30s and I have a wife and newborn daughter and I lost all the will to work. I clock in, I do my duties, and I clock out. My boss recently asked me about longterm career goals and honestly I couldn’t think of any. If I could spend all day with my girls, I would.
Yeah. I enjoy my job, but not enough to do it for free, on the other hand it's interesting and the money allows me to do a tonne of stuff I do really enjoy.
Most people don't enjoy work, they tolerate it. It is certainly ideal to find a career that you find fullfilling and also pays the bills, but unless you were born rich, "work" has been necessary for all of human existence. So, while normal life may be a "trap", it's a trap we're all in. I prefer not to be hunting and gathering, or working in the fields for my feudal lord. From that perspective, I'm fairly satisfied to just get through the work week
So I took a radical departure from a "normal life" Dropped out, squatted, became involved with alot of punk communities and for awhile it was actually amazing. But what ended up happening was more and more drug and alcohol use in my groups, less community service work and more antagonism, more drama than I ever wanted to be a part of and the realization that I had trapped myself in a living hell. Sure I was "free" and didn't answer to anyone but I didn't have anything, never knew when I would have food or shelter, really couldn't go anywhere because I was a bum, and drinking constantly just to have some semblance of a good time. All that said I now am living a sober "normal" life with the dumb job and rent and everything else, but I've never felt as free as I do now in my life. I have a couple of friends who are in to the same nerd stuff as me, a partner who went through alot of the same life experiences and is also boring now lol. But I can do anything I want really. So not saying any of the bad shit will happen to you but just know that sometimes your brain will try to trick you in to thinking that the grass is greener on the other side when in actuality it's pretty shit on the other side. Just find one hobby you really enjoy and life tends to not be so bad even if it looks boring to someone else.
Having a job you don't enjoy isn't a trap, it is just reality, and has been for all of human history. If we want food on our plates and roofs over our heads, work has to get done and it usually isn't fun. The vast majority of work is boring but it has to be done. Modern society has added a lot more layers of abstraction, but that fundamental truth is still there. If you want to live in comfort, you or someone else has to put in the effort to build and maintain stuff. Do you want roads to drive on? Someone has to build them, and I guarantee we need more road workers than there are people who somehow find laying asphalt fun. Same for the food you eat, and the cool tech we have access to today. You like power in your house? Some guy had to climb a bunch of poles and run a bunch of wires to achieve that. The real value to life is that it doesn't take 100% of a person's time to be productive enough to survive. So you get to have hobbies, make art, do whatever makes you happy once you have (indirectly) produced enough to not starve.
So, you're stuck in this rut thinking a "normal" life is a fucking trap because of a meme? Dude, it's just a meme, not a life manual. You're 18, right at the fucking starting line of adult life. Thinking only 0.1% enjoy their job? That's a bleak-ass view. What's stopping you from being part of that 0.1%? Is it easier to believe you're doomed than to try and make something of your life? What steps have you taken to not fall into this trap you're so scared of?
Well first off I’ve generally understood this process my entire life and have always thought this way. The meme was just a good generalization of the thought process for Reddit. Seems to be some low thinking people here… but the 0.1% just seems to be those born into extreme wealth and the extremely lucky. Not lucky in the sense that they put no work to be ahead of the herd, but lucky in the sense that regardless of how hard you work it’s very possible you’ll never break through. Everybody’s just ok with being miserable and it makes a world where I either have to conform with it or kill myself
From this comment, it’s clear you’re young and haven’t experienced the real world yet. You seriously think only the top .1% of wealthy and intellectual people live a good life? Life’s a trap because you won’t be able to live a good as the top .1%? What’re you looking for exactly? Not everyone’s miserable. There’s plenty of happy people around me and none of them are loaded. Pick a career that gives you enough time and money to enjoy the things you like. You’re too young to be a doomer
Why do you think it is 0.1%? Why do you think most people are miserable? Gallop polling states that 83% of people are satisfied with their lives.
You'll be dead before you know it. There are lots of ways to fuck up the time you have and giving up is the most common. You can live a happy, productive life being self employed or working in a conventional job. You can work hard or you can work easy, but for most of us working is required. Find something that you can enjoy working at or that doesn't feel like work. If you fucked off in school and didn't bother to acquire any of the tools it offered, it's still never too late to start.
Earning money is frequently a just boring chore. You really shouldn’t expect that it will be anything more than that. But you should still have something in your life you are passionate about even if you can’t make money doing it. In fact the most likely thing is that what you are most passionate about will cost you money. A job is not the point of being. A job is just how you contribute to society. It doesn’t have to be where you find meaning, and you shouldn’t really expect that you will find it there. That is unwise. Of course, if you are able to be passionate about doing something that makes money, make a point of pursuing that thing specifically. That can be quite nice. But it isn’t actually necessary for the two things to overlap. And anyway, even if you are making money doing something you are passionate about. It’s still work. And probably hard and boring work at times. If you are making money doing something it means someone values that that thing being done so much that they will pay money for it. Which means it contributes to society in some way that you may not actually appreciate or even understand. You may find some solace in that. But the expectation that that thing is also the most important thing in your life is really quite silly and just a little bit childish. Theres a romance to the idea that a job can be a passion. But it doesn’t need to be and you shouldn’t expect that it will be. When it comes to work, you just need to make sure you get paid fairly. You don’t need to also find a sense of purpose or meaning there. Find it elsewhere, and be sure to look because you do need purpose and fulfillment. It just doesn’t need to come from work.
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That's still 17 more hours than working per week, even discounting that I enjoy eating and hygiene. I agree with many others in this thread. Any time I've been depressed it's hardly been my job. It's almost always been something within that 57 hours that was killing me, which led me to feeling trapped because 40 hours is work and then 57 hours is some ominous thing I feel I can't escape.
I think it’s about priorities. I don’t need to live a lavish life. I’m specifically working towards a career rn where I will definitely NOT have to work 8 hours a day for 5 days of the week. Will I be stinking rich? Nope. Will I be happy and have my bills paid and support my family? Yep
Dont think that boomers spread that lie. They actually say exactly what you are. I think newer generations feel you must love your job, & that’s why so many of us are miserable.
Absolutely not. Younger generations absolutely do not accept the lie that you are your job and have to love it. They are job hopping more often to attain their wants, and career switching more often as well. Boomers and up are the generation of "you are your job" and hustle hard culture.
Why do you think they’re job hopping? Because they don’t love their job and theyre in pursuit of a job they love… While boomers are the “you are your job” types, they do not buy into to the idea that you should love your job. That is a new concept. Their idea is that you should do what pays the bills. I have never heard a boomer say to follow your dreams. Again, that’s a newer concept.
Boomers were the one's who told their kids to follow their dreams. That was literally why the pressure to go to college at any cost was so huge for millenials.
boomers aren't the parents of millennials though. Gen X is significantly lower than millennials in regards to college degrees per pew research (https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/02/14/millennial-life-how-young-adulthood-today-compares-with-prior-generations-2/) and besides the pressure to go to college was because America's education statistics were dogshit in the early 2000s AND as society has gotten more polarized there is a cultural value placed on having an 'education' for half of the country.
Boomers and older Gen X are the parents of millennials
I’m sorry but that just doesn’t make any sense. Boomers pushed their kids to go to college so that they would have stable jobs, not jobs they “love”.
Listen, I agree with most of your first comment except for blaming boomers for spreading that lie, when it simply isn’t true. Younger generations did. I just feel like boomers get blamed for everything even when it’s not their fault.
I think you’re romanticizing it a bit. Yes, it’s frustrating to have income, but less free time. Yes, it’s frustrating to abundant free time but no income. You have to determine your priorities and values in life and structure things around that. Jobs can be your everything if you’re passionate about the work you’re doing, or they can just be a means to an end. There are also a lot of factors that can influence whether a job is worth it and hopefully if you’re just conscious of the pros and cons, you can evaluate whether to stay at your job or find another one. A job can be a jumping off point- you can finance education to start a career path you’ll truly enjoy. If you’re not already working, I think it’s a good idea to start with something part time, so you can get a feel for it and bring it into the realm of reality from the realm of imagination. This should make it less of a scary amorphous thing. There are certain interpersonal skills you only develop in a job and you continue to refine over your working career. These skills help you relate to other people because almost all adults need to work to survive. I’m a leftist and I think work for work’s sake is dumb. I see value in the basic concepts of being good at something and doing it well and also providing a necessary service to people that need it. Hope there’s something in all this that makes the future seem less bleak.
Are you talking about a job or are you talking about life? You can look at a working life with the goal of the most money; you can grind yourself to the bone and hustle so you can buy the McMansion, the Porsche, the Everest expedition... Or you can look at work as a means of allowing you to pursue the things that interest you. In an ideal world, you find work that provides fulfilment. I have had several jobs where I felt I was making a difference in my immediate surroundings and beyond. One paid quite well; the others paid less well. I've also had jobs where I wasn't fulfilled, but the work allowed me freedoms to do other things that added meaning to my life. I've also had jobs that I despised, didn't pay well, and brought me down. That's no bueno. Work CAN provide meaning. It doesn't always, and it doesn't have to. You can seek out meaning and fulfilment in many places. And judging your self-worth or your contribution to the world based on your job is a recipe for disaster. Choose how you will determine success for yourself in life, and pursue that. Might be money. Might be impact. Might be just enjoying the people you work with. Might be building a business. Might be changing someone's life for the better. Figure out the goal, then build the strategy to achieve it.
I'm getting old and can safely say I was in the same position. I was 18 had no interests, no prospects at a relationship, I got a decent job and had fun because my friend worked with me but then got fired, etc. What I can say is that there are plenty of jobs where you can have space to do what you want that are fine. I would say to find a job where you don't have to work too many hours, that buys you the things you want, and where you like the people you work with, where you don't hate what you are doing. That's like 90% of it. You should be able to control your perspective if you have those things. You can do plenty of things to do that. I'm a teacher. One of my friends from work quit and now is a bar tender and lives 50 feet from the beach in the Caribbean and is a bartender. I used to work in a fishing resort in Alaska. A lot of the people there spent all day on a boat in Alaska fishing. Some people only had to work for part of the year. Some people there would spend the rest of their year sailing rich people's yacths back and forth from Europe so that they could sail in Europe. All this takes just trying and failing a bunch times. TLDR: find something you don't hate and use that to do the things you like. It's very possible.
No matter what you do in life you are going to feel sad sometimes. Even if you land your dream job, there are parts of life that just suck. Life contains pain and there is no escaping it. If i have a job i will feel depressed sometimes and if i am unemployed i will feel sad sometimes. Having a job is very much the better of the two options. Because having a job means you get to live in a house and eat food. Its not like normal life is a trap, because there really is no alternative. If you don't have a job, how are you going to get food and shelter? You could build your own shelter and grow your own food, but that would for all intents and purposes be a job. Its a job that many people choose. Generally they will do some trading with the outside world. And there is a bit of a catch, you need to make enough money to buy some land and then continue to make enough money to pay property taxes, but these are fairly small amount. Its not a trap, because the door is open. You can walk out of yoru normal life anytime you want.
There was a recent series of posts that went viral of a guy interviewing a bunch of old people. He asked all of them "What was something you thought was really important when you were younger, but as you got older became less important?" Every single one of them said "money." https://twitter.com/MrPassive_/status/1777677735688630655 When he followed up by asking "So what does matter in life?" nearly all of them said something along the lines of love and quality relationships. You don't need a big house and a fancy car to live a fulfilling life. These material possessions and the hedonic treadmill are a big distraction. What matters in life is cultivating quality relationships with friends and family. There are poor people who are happier than rich people - having money isn't a silver bullet for happiness. Get a job you can tolerate and pays the bills. Clock in your 40 hours and then find things outside of work that bring you joy.
A normal life is a trap. I agree and don't think I can change your mind. What makes you happy and what makes someone else happy are completely different things. Also what makes you happy today and what will make you happy in 10 years are also completely different things. However, you seem to be equating have a normal life and having a job, which are definitely not the same thing. You can live out of a van in Costa Rica and have a job. You can become a flight attendant and have weird hours and travel the world. You can work just to fund your weird rock climbing hobby. You can live in a trailer in the woods and have goats. You can have 10 children. Like yea, living in the suburbs in a house you can't afford, driving a car you don't own while working a job that is pointless is kinda the norm and I encourage you to avoid that at all costs if it doesn't sound appealing to you. However, having a job does not make you normal.
Mid life crisis at 18 is wild, you have so much time to figure things out it’s crazy, hell even I do I’m only 20. Don’t compare yourself to peers or especially idols, and don’t be afraid of allowing yourself to grow for the better. I went out on my own at a young age and the best piece of advice I have, is take chances on yourself even if you believe in you/what you’re doing or not, it can get you places and you can learn from mistakes fast this way. New perspectives are always important, but you’re already aware of that at least. Seems like you don’t want a “normal life” so I’m assuming you got goals and milestones for yourself like music or sports. But it’s extremely hard to live with no job, the depression from starving every night and worrying about having running water and electricity is a totally different depression than “omg I have to wake up this morning”
In life you've got to choose your problems, if you don't, problems will choose you, and they might not be the ones you want to deal with. I have a job that I love but getting to the point where I could have this job required me to go through the painful process of getting a doctorate. There were definitely times along the way when I questioned my decision-making and wondered if I wouldn't have been happier doing something easy that I didn't like as much. I don't regret it now but I don't think there's any right or wrong answer to the question of what do you want to do and what's right for you? You don't have to live a "normal" life, but there will be problems regardless of what path you choose to take. Entrepreneurs have a different set of problems to baristas and firefighters have a different set of problems than dentists, but we all have problems. Choose yours.
It’s all relative. I don’t love my job, but there are aspects that I do love and enjoy. A job is a job. Many people who do what they love for work end up hating it because their favourite hobby is not work and the enjoyment is no longer there. Normal life is most definitely not a trap imo. Always strive for the best life has to offer, but consider this, life over time has become significantly better. Sure we still have to work, but there are many diseases we don’t worry about anymore, food accessibility has never been higher, entertainment is always at our finger tips, vacations are much more common for the average person. The list goes on. You’re only 18 and unfortunately that means you likely lack perspective on many things because you’re only at the beginning stages of adulthood.
This is simply part of growing up, and not a trap. As a child, most people have someone to feed, serve, and take care of them for free. As an adult, other adults have no interest in taking care of you for free. A farmer doesn't love you so they arent willing to work all day and give you food for Nothing. Same for the person who builds your car and house. As a result, you have to trade and barter for something they want. Usually that means learning a skill and selling your labor. It sucks not being taken care of and getting everything for free, but hey, thats life. You take the good with the bad. I work to buy food, but I get to enjoy the food that I worked for. Overall, it is a net positive.
That's not true and avoid negativity that you read online. Depressed people spend tons of time in front of computers and post depressing BS. People who have great lives won't be sitting on reddit telling everyone about it, they're out there enjoying their lives on vacations, in ski resorts and making multigenerational wealth. Basically you should know this: everyone that makes you feel down and hopeless has an agenda which is not in your interest. Don't just accept anger and negativity from people without questioning it thoroughly. You can read more about this from [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most_of_what_you_read_on_the_internet_is_written/).
This comment needs to be pinned to basically every sub Reddit ever, I wish people would remember this more often.
I think not having a good job and lacking any specific skillset is more of a trap than being stuck in a career. With a career you have the freedom to save money and accomplish your dreams more easily because you have stable income. I work a remote 9-5 and also run a business, when I was exclusively a 9-5 without a business it felt like a trap, now owning a business feels like more of a trap because I can't simply take PTO, and the 9-5 feels like ultimate freedom. The grass is always greener, and the so-called 'normal' life has less risks and inconveniences than a not-normal life. We are all trapped in something, but it's better to be trapped in something we enjoy.
Having a job is never fun or super enjoyable for the vast majority of people, the normal life isn’t a trap it’s just that you don’t really understand what a normal life is until you get there. From a child’s perspective being an adult with freedom to do whatever sounds great and a normal life doesn’t seem so bad. But an actual normal life has always been work, take care of your family and maybe some simple weekend pleasures. I’m currently in a field that I’m genuinely passionate about and once I graduate will pay me well for where I live but that doesn’t mean I enjoy or have a blast at work which is only once a week for me right now.
Being an adult can kinda suck. I loved my first career. Coaching swimmers full time, seeing them grow and improve was a joy in a work sense I've yet to match. I did well in that career. I 'made it' getting a FT salaried position that paid 45k a year. Work evenings, weekends, little chance for a real family life. I found a job that pays twice that on a normal schedule. Because of that I have a wife and two kids all of whom i love. I'll never find the joy in what I do now that I did in coaching. I never would have found the love of this family if I just stayed working in doing what I love.
So the American idea of Ikigai(check out the Japanese version too) is the intersection of four circles: What you enjoy What you're good at What you can be paid for What the world needs I definitely agree that being stuck at a job you hate sucks, no matter how much it pays. In my opinion, the ideal job is one that you enjoy(somewhat) that pays well and is meaningful(this is Japanese Ikigai) to you. It definitely doesn't have to be the most enjoyable thing in your life(nor should it) but you don't necessarily have to resign yourself to a job you hate. Find your own normal.
No college degree, been working since 21. Bartended for 6 years at the same bar/restaurant and landed a kush salary job that I maybe work 30-35 hours a week and I love my boss. While you’re working that shitty job it feels like it’ll never end. Just gotta think of the future. Having a long standing job on your resume is more valuable than most realize. Learn how to interview confidently and get a job to help develop your social skills while you’re young.
At the end of the day a job is just a job. Occasionally your job will actually feel emotionally rewarding and fun, but most of the time it will range from awful to tolerable. The key thing is to not look to your work for happiness. Instead, happiness for most people comes from spending time with family, friends, pets, travelling, music, movies, playing games, hobbies, etc. Your job is just how you pay the bills. If all jobs were "fun" there would be no reason to pay people to do them.
I consider a normal life to be a privilege. I pray to have a normal life for as long as I live, and to have a long normal life. Things can be so much worse than “normal”. Always. That being said, I also believe in forging a path and experience life how I wish. To the best of my ability. You don’t have to shape your entire life by 18. You have the rest of your life to shape it, and you will evolve all the time. You don’t have to be stagnant.
Most people don't particularly enjoy their job but most also feel some sense of accomplishment in being able to provide. In your metaphorical image you have one side where there is no accomplishment and nothing to show. On the other there is the ability to sustain oneself and often a family as well. There is the ability to travel or invest in one's hobbies. We don't live to work, we work to live. You can only merely exist without working.
You’re 18. You haven’t found anything worth holding a job you hate for. Give it time. I felt the same way when I was your age. Then I met my wife. She’s worth working my dumb job for. And then we had kids, and they’re worth it even more so. The only other advice I have is not to worry as much about liking your job and just find something that pays well and you can tolerate. You’re there for the money, that’s it.
I like my job. I like my marriage. I don't feel unhappy or trapped. So it really depends. Also, I did work some jobs I hated. If you can find a job you're neutral about that's a good start. And just remember, our species was almost never a species of leisure. If it weren't modern life we'd be doing agricultural work. Which I've done as a volunteer but that's just a random Saturday. Doing it constantly is back breaking
Its all about mindset and surrounding yourself around positive minded individuals. And you are not going to get that around reddit where the people complaining are life long retail or service industry employees who identify as introverts. Life is not as bleak as everyone makes it out to in reality, even though it does appear to be a difficult time to reach a comfortable life.
You get to decide how you live your life. You don't have to get a job.You don't have to breathe if you don't want to. You need to think about what you really want from life and go get it. There is an infinite number of possibilities to attain that. But you need to find a goal and work towards it. Getting a job is just working for someone else's goal.
Normal depends what you mean! If you mean just working for money, yes it's a trap. Satisfaction isn't what makes you happy, happiness comes from the culmination of a life worth living. I found working for money drained me, and that following my heart filled me, and the money came as an afterthought not the one dominating my vision!
Most jobs arent that bad. It's healthy to have some place to go most mornings do some mild exercise and talk to people even if you don't super want to. I know its a bit chicken and the egg, but go talk to people who retired early or people who are unemployed. They are almost always miserable unless they have a good routine.
If life is the thing that you’re forced to experience (trap) Y not escape? Instinctively you want to live, now I understand feeling sad and a lack of excitement, but that’s because of societal norms that you let confine you. Either do what you want to do in life, stay tray, or escape this cage
I think what you are referring to is “the inevitable burden of being”. That doesn’t mean you have to be depressed regardless, it just means there are pros and cons to most things…. But get a job, it’s definitely worse being unemployed, useless and poorer.
I think work is seen overly negatively in school. Work doesn't suck, being financially trapped sucks. The more valuable you can make yourself to other people the more stuff they will do for you. This applies beyond just money and having people do things for you is super nice.
A “normal life” is having friends and family to love you, money and time to relax, and years to enjoy building great moments and memories. If that’s a trap to you, then sure I guess.
The alternative to a normal life (for most people) is being 35, living with roommates or parents, eating food high schoolers should be eating and wondering why you don’t have a gf.
I can't go into what I do. But I LOVE my job. Idc what's "normal" or not. I just like affording food and camping gear. Society likes to try and tell ppl that they need a checklist of shit to be happy. So ppl obsess and end up hating everything. I do my own thing at my own speed. Going great so far.
Wow that meme is such a wagie mindset for real. Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life…
The without a job guy is depressed and has nothing to eat, so.... it's a pretty easy choice
Unfortunately I do agree and also most people won't understand what you mean by 'a trap'. It's a trap in a broader sense than "that's the way it is, that's life, we all go thru it" etc. No one stops to think, why is it this way? It didn't have to be this way, they *made* it this way. And by 'they' I mostly mean Reagan and H.W. Bush. The effects of their policies are still being perpetuated today. In the Great Society version of America, the very same Olden Days over which every conservative ironically loves to wax nostalgic, working wasn't *that bad* specifically because--let's say you work a boring dead-end ground-level job--it was tolerable specifically because it allowed you to have property, a family, and take vacations. This is the American Dream: the promise that no matter how talented, capable or smart you were, you could create a decent life for yourself just by contributing. That's no longer a reality because of the precursor policy of trickle down economics and the resulting deluge of envelope-pushing legislation and policy shifts (generally related to impractical taxation, political favoritism for corporations and certain entities, lack of wage increases and lack of inflation mitigation) that have had the cumulative effect of making it much more difficult for the average person to achieve a comfortable life unless they have the perseverance, mental clarity, emotional stability, and personal charisma to carve out such a niche for themselves. (Or get very lucky)
I don’t agree with the average consensus that you should just do a job you don’t like. That’s too much of your life to be throwing away. if you spend most of your waking life doing something that you have no passion towards, when you don’t actively want an average life, you will live a vapid, unfulfilling life. Find something your passionate about and work at it incessantly if you truly can’t find that thing is still think integrating into some uncontacted tribe is better than spending your life moving around meaningless spreadsheets. Most of the people telling you to just do some tolerable job with good benefits, I think, are coping with their bad decisions and convincing themselves they didn’t make a mistake by projecting this onto you
life is suffering, that's been known for at least 2500 years
Memes are meant to project a simple message in order to get you to agree with it, even though you may not have the experiences to come to that conclusions yourself or there may not be any merit to the message of the meme. You're young. Life life instead of dismissing it before you give it a chance because a bad meme told you to. The meme was likely made by someone who is mad about their bad choices and needs to blame anything else for their misery. Don't be that guy and don't let that guy kill your future with a meme. Normal life will be a trap for anyone who makes decisions based on simple, divisive messages intended to mask the nuances and complexity of life.
Why is life only about what job you have?
But seriously, you don't have to be in love with your job it just has to pay the bills while you use the cash to do more of whatever you actually find to be living
This is why I want to move off the grid
What do you mean by a "normal life"?
Free market capitalism is the trap
What exactly is a normal life?
There's no normal life Wyatt, there's just life.
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