Comment by meowface
5 years ago
This is a very pessimistic long-term view, in my opinion.
Life is extremely, infinitesimally short. If it's at all possible for you, you should try to spend as much of it as you can doing things you love. I know many people can't, but it's bleak to just give up and permanently settle, I think. (Especially if you don't currently have any dependents who rely on you; it changes the equation if you do.)
I don't look at it that way at all. I'm choosing to conserve my finite energy for the things that matter most. It's all about priorities: of course I would like to have a job that I'm both excited about and not too stressed about, but I can be happy and fulfilled with one that simply doesn't dominate my life (in terms of time or energy, because those are separate things), because my job is not my life. And being uncompromising about having a job that really excites you can force you to make all sorts of other sacrifices (time, stress, risk, maybe even things like money and lifestyle), which is where the prioritization comes in.
This is a very western view on life.
Maybe. I'm definitely not necessarily saying it in terms of work or career or anything like that. Just in general, I get a little depressed at the idea of just slogging through most of one's hours for most of one's days in existence.