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So I've been thinking about this thing people often say in discussions about topics like What if I won the lottery? or similar things.

"I don't even want to not to have to work anymore. If I didn't have to work, what would I do all day?"

Every time I hear this, I realize again how sad this is. People need work to fulfill them - why? I know I myself would be perfectly happy if I didn't have to fulfill any obligations. I have enough ways to entertain myself and be happy. I do get bored, sure, but bored enough to resort to work to keep me busy? Surely not.

How about you?

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I'd be totally fine with winning the lottery and not having to work. I mean, there's lots of other ways to spend time. Being with friends, watching stuff, volunteering. Having money and not having to do anything for it? A+++

Hee, yeah. Besides, if I had the choice whether to work or not, I could pick the job I want. And that would be awesome. Especially since I could quit as soon as it starts to bore me. Yay \o/ xD.

Complete and utter workaholic, me! IMHO, if you're lucky enough to wind up doing something you love - something you really love - as "work", the idea of quitting just because you don't need to earn money anymore becomes absolutely ridiculous. Because it's a sort of pathology with me (hee!), I find it completely incomprehensible that some people don't enjoy work! ;)

But no, that's not really what you meant (and, um, I don't think it's entirely what I meant!). And yeah, there are lots of people who can only make it through the day by doing work - doing something they really dislike, even - because they need the routine (heck, I've lived with someone like that for nearly three years now - she hates school and work and has no hobbies because school and work are everything for her).

Personally, I'm too ambitious to be able to function without a workplace environment, as long as it's a positive experience overall - it's not so much a question of filling time or not having stuff I'd rather be doing, but, well, in a research/teaching-based career path I've still got this idea that I can do some good on the whole. I like having a framework in which I can make little differences that gradually grow into bigger ones, where I can set down foundations and build myself a future with set goals.

Granted, it'd certainly be nice to have more time to volunteer!

(Not to mention to write fic! :D)

if you're lucky enough to wind up doing something you love, the idea of quitting just because you don't need to earn money anymore becomes absolutely ridiculous
Well, yeah. That's when you're lucky enough to end up doing something that strikes your interest and stays compelling over several decades. But most people aren't that lucky, and they still would rather work in a sucky, boring job than have their days all to themselves.

But yeah. Not what either of us meant xD.

I agree, if the job is something one enjoys, as much as (in my case) writing fics, making vids etc, then it's not really work. Then it's more like a spare time activity. And making money by practising your hobby, well, that's really awesome xD.

I've been out of job for two weeks now and I definitely miss it. It's not so much actually doing something that I miss (because I'm as lazy as they come :P )but having that retreat of mindless routine to fall into when things are unstable elsewhere. Even if I had a terrible night, I still had to wake up in the morning and go to work and generally be pleasant and productive. If work hadn't forced me into that frame of mind, mostly likely I wouldn't have reached it until much later.

It's also a matter of pride -- at least to me. To be able to do something and say, "Look here, I am a valuable member of society, just like every other workhorse in the world" is important to me. It's a nice feeling to have.

Hmm. I don't know, I've never been big on the whole idea of society. It's too complicated to go into the details of it (unless you got a couple days spare time, lol), but basically, I'm sort of an anarchist at heart. But I do see how it would be something that could be a motivation to keep working in an otherwise unpleasant job. I guess it's a good way of motivating yourself, too, since it strengthens the self-confidence.

It's the same thing about routine. I get very antsy when there's too much routine in my life. It makes things interesting, but also rather complicated at times.

I guess it's a question of personal preference and ideals :).

wow, that is sad!
kinda reminds me of my mom actually. she likes her job. and we hate when she's on holiday cause she's around the house a lot telling us how to do everything. especially when she was single. now she's dating this guy but he's from out of town so when he isnt around she is still annoying.
mom never takes long vacations, she likes to spread them out throughout the year cause she knows she'd get bored if she doesn't do anything for too long. shes does have some hobbies, but she gets restless quickly.

i'd love to win the lottery
first thing i'd do is buy a ticket to england.
i'd go to college there. (just because i don't have to work doesn't mean i don't want a degree) and i'd take up classes of things im interested in, like photography and psychology.

i'd get a nice flat, then in holiday i'd travel around europe, asia, the world

so many plans.
i'd find good charities to help, not just with money but do volunteer work as well. help schools,too. probably spread the word of things that aren't as known as they should be. start a scholarship program. probably for devoted fangirls.

i'd buy presents for friends, buy a kickass laptop for me.

i'd keep writing, cause rich or not, i would still like to be a published author. good thing is, i could pay someone at the BBC to quit so i can have their job.

after all, you're supposed to do something you love, not for money but because you enjoy doing it. you couldn't pay me enough to stop writing.

but she gets restless quickly
Yeah, but why not use all the free time to do all those things work never leaves any time for? That's what I don't get... xD

Hee, I love your plans for what you would do if you won the lottery. They're very cool. College in the UK = FTW, same as kickass laptop. I'd probably buy a kickass stereo to go with it, lol.

you're supposed to do something you love, not for money but because you enjoy doing it
I think that's the whole point. If you manage to turn your hobby into your job, yay for you. But wanting to work in a job you hate or even only dislike just because you wouldn't know what you would do with yourself all day otherwise? Whut?

We've talked about this thing before, I think, so you know my opinion, but on a totally related note, ahaha, I finally found out why the boyfriend is coming over every night right now: He stopped smoking, so he also stopped smoking pot, so right now he can't lie around and get high in front of the TV - which means he lost the last and only thing he can do to entertain himself without the help of other people.. LOL. Oh extroverts, how they baffle me.

But, yeah, I think this is part of the answer to that whole thing: It's maybe one of the extrovert/introvert differences. Most introverts can entertain themselves all the time, but other people to entertain the extroverts aren't available all the time, so they need work to fill those moments where the alone-time gets to be too much.

(Of course then there are also the people who just plain love their work, lucky bastards, and the ones who actually feel the need to contribute to the good of the world, which makes them better people than me, I guess, although probably not happier.)

Ahahaha, poor BF! You should give him a big cardboard box full of chips and chewing gum. He can eat that while watching TV xD.

Yeah, really extremely extroverted people (like that friend I told you about, the one who nevar evar shuts up) need other people to entertain them. But I don't think that it necessarily means that they need to work. That friend, for example, would be perfectly happy not to be in a job and to use the lottery money to travel the world and meet as many people as possible. And talk to each single one of them for hours on end, lol xD.

I could entertain myself with a lot of senseful (maybe just in my own opinion) things if I haven´t to work.

I wished I would have the time to do all the things I want to do. Unfortunately (but no, wait: fortunately) I have a full-time-job. I mean it´s great I have it but .... if I would have enough money I won´t do my job. I mean the job is okay, the annoying dwarf is ... well annoying but there are other things they let me do what I do *sigh* every day. *smile*

Hm, I would do a lot of things and some of them are work for other people.

I guess the point of view is counting. Maybe learning another language or study at an university is like as work for somebody and for another person it´s their dream to do that.
I would like to learn (some of them to study) and to read a lot of things. Maybe if I can reach an age of ... hm ..... 150 years -perhaps- I would have a bit more time to learn a few things I want to learn but than I would need the same time to read all that stuff I want to read. *lol*

I told about my wishes to learn something (I said a few examples) to one of my friends and she glared at me (completly surprised) and said. "You are completly nuts! Be happy that you don´t have to learn any longer." It´s the hell for that girl when she has to learn something. She don´t understand why I´m learning Netherlands. She don´t understand why I read books in Netherland or in English or in German. As I told her I want to know much more about photography (I love photography and I´m still learning with my camera and with every foto) she shakes her haed and said: "Whoa what do you want to know more about that. You know your camera and nobody is listen to you if you tell them the details about the foto." *lol* OH Yes I know that *lol* I also know that nobody really want to see my foto´s.
Another of my friends told me that I have to be satisfied with playing guitar with chords. But I´m not!!! My voical cords are not healthy (I can´t sing and my voice disappeard after a few words if I´m droning through a song *lol*) and I want to learn playing guitar with notes (KLASSIK!).
I want to write a book. I´ve done it a few years before (a fantasy-story for kids) I had a lot of fun while I´ve done that. Susanne (one of my friend -best friend-) read it and her comment was (it was the only one *lol*): "Wow! What´s in your mind? How you can write something like that?"
Kurt (not a good friend but I know him a long time) read it and said: "It´s a great story, exciting and fantastic but it´s not stuff for adult reader." Well, what should I do, if I hear that?? I mean, this story was written just for kids and I told that before I gave it to him.
I beg for constructive critic (from both of them) but I don´t get anything. I asked and I told them that I want to hear their judgment and their thoughts but they (both of them) haven´t any thoughts to the story. The story was bad I guess and I never touched it again. And I never will.

See, I have a lot stuff to learn and I haven´t enough time to do that.

But well, I have a job, I do that job for living. I can live my life and I have my hobbies. But my job isn´t my hobby and it will never be.

I also know that nobody really want to see my foto´s
That is so not true! I love your photography. You should start posting the ones you like best on your journal. People love pretty photographs, and here on LJ, you'll easily find enough people who'd love to hear every little detail about every single photo of yours :).

About your writing; you shouldn't listen to them. The one person apparently had no idea what fiction is all about, and the other one didn't even bother to listen to you when you told him what your story is about. You should try again, write some more stuff, and then find people who are qualified to judge your works. You'll find people like that here on the internet; not only for fanfiction, but also for original fiction. And they will tell you what you're doing right, and what you're doing wrong, and with practice, you'll be able to get better and in the end maybe produce something you yourself are satisfied with, too. Don't give up after one try!

And yeah, your situation is the exact situation I was talking about. Someone who's working a job because they need the money. Imagine someone who doesn't need it, but still wants to work in that job, because otherwise they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. That's sort of sad, isn't it?

Thanks a lot for your encouragement. You are really a wonderful one. And honestly the behaviour from the people around me is really okay for me. I accepted it a long time ago.
And you are completly right: It´s more than sort of sad that people don´t know what to do with themselves. I´m always thinking that those people are being poor people.

I have to respectfully disagree with the person above me that this is an extrovert/introvert thing...because I'm just about as introverted as it's POSSIBLE to be, but I can't imagine not working!

In order to be happy, I must:

1) Be continually "working" on something that ultimately will improve myself, or something which at least has the potential to do so.
2) Believe myself to be a useful, contributing member of society (whether or not I get paid for what I do).
3) Believe that what I do will ultimately improve humanity (it's possible to be "useful" without necessarily being "helpful" on a grander scale, i.e. working in customer service).

Now, 3) is the most ambitious of those three requirements, so I'm not broken up if it's not happening right now...but if it didn't happen EVENTUALLY, I'd really feel that my life was a waste.

Now, this view could be partially because I'm an NT. (I don't have to define this difference in perception with Myers-Briggs, but as usual, I find it a useful and convenient lens.) Keirsey has (rather insightfully, I think) observed that of the four temperaments, NTs are often the WORST at "play." We approach virtually everything with the grim determination to improve upon our last "performance." We manage to find ways to rate, rank and test ourselves in nearly every aspect of our lives.

I've generally found that to be true. The very few activities I think I actually relax for include: watching TV/movies and listening to music. Not sure what else, but I might be missing something.

SPs, by contrast, are the very best at true "play." Lucky bastards all, they may improve FASTER than NTs at many activities simply because they approach so many things AS "play," and improve through the sheer joy of doing, rather than the conscious self-examination that Rationals employ. (Another thing I've generally observed to be true.) And so things that an NT might consider "work," an SP might not.

[Not to say anything about the types of all the people who have responded: I couldn't begin to guess. I'm including the two opposite type-related views of "work" here to show what sort of spectrum views of "work" could fall along, i.e. everthing worth doing is work vs. everything worth doing is play.]

And SO, here's where I differ from [most of] what was said above: many of the things people have mentioned wanting to do "instead" of work are things I consider work!

Isn't volunteering work? My answer: yes!

Fanfic? Work. Your websites? Work! Layouts? WORK!

Icons, fanvids, modship? Work, work, work! Leaning a new language (work), researching cool things that interest you (work), and posting about them (work)...the list goes on.

Other things that I could come up with to do myself in the case of lottery winning - play a sport! Learn a musical instrument! It's all work! *maniacal grin*

I really, truly believe that humans are WIRED to require work. We NEED it. But I don't think work needs to be defined as something you get paid to do, as something you support yourself with, etc.

In fact, freedictionary.com lists this as its FIRST definition for work here (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/work):

work (wûrk)
n.
1. Physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something.

*throws confetti*

Well, yeah. I was rather unspecific about my definition of work in my post. Partly that's because I wrote it at, like, 3am xD.

You're right, of course, if you're going to define work as anything worth doing, then people need to work. I'd need to work, if I defined work like that.

But I tend to define work as things I don't like doing but which I have to do anyway to get money or achieve goals etc etc. The people I was talking about in my post - those that would want to work even if they didn't have to - I considered the type of people who would prefer working a job they dislike over having the freedom to decide what they want to do, because they wouldn't know what to choose if they had that freedom. And that, I think, is worrisome. Especially since there seem to be quite a lot of people who feel that way.

Well, I'm one of those people that always say they would keep working even if they don't have to.
But I would only work on/in things that I find interesting/pleasing. I would not go to the trudgery of a damn job, just to have something to do. Because I have lots of other things to do too.

I've thought about this a lot lately (with the end of uni approaching) and I think if I could, I would keep studying for the rest of my life, instead of work. Because I love learning new things and once the pressure of having to get credits is gone, it's actually fun to go to the seminars and lectures.

So, maybe it's just the idea of having nothing to do at all that's frightening people. Because we need to keep busy, that much is true. If we don't we just get bad ideas...

*goes back to bed*

maybe it's just the idea of having nothing to do at all that's frightening people
Well, yeah. I'd hate not having anything to do all day, but I don't necessarily need a job to give me something to do. I have ways of entertaining myself and keeping myself busy without needing a counter I can stand behind, or an office with a computer on which I can play solitaire all day xD.

Of course I'd do something if I didn't have to work. I'd find myself some sort of project, be it studying or volunteering or running a huge online archive financed by the interests of my lottery money account xD. But with some people, you get the impression they wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they had the freedom to choose what they want to do. And that's sort of scary, I think.

You're obviously just like me... I wish I did win the lottery, I'd quit my job the same day. My job basically keeps me from doing things I like! I just know I could amuse myself forever if I had no job anymore.

Hee, yeah. No job without the money worries issue, ftw. But I guess it's a question of what type of person you are.

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