Comment by arjonagelhout
4 days ago
Speaking as a person who can’t see themselves stop working, I think an important factor is how one derives meaning from their life. For some it might be living amazing experiences, and for others it can be in helping others (which could qualify as work). The healthiest seems to be a combination of the two, with a different ratio depending on the person.
Here in the Netherlands it’s common to see retired people do volunteering work, as it can bring great pleasure and satisfaction to help people. There’s of course also the communal aspect of it.
It’s also common to see business owners for example in family businesses to keep working at the company after the official retirement age.
So I’d argue work does not have to be a chore and can be a source of meaning and purpose. But if it is just a means to an end, it makes sense to not want to work your entire life and good labor and retirement laws should protect people from having to work their entire life.
"Work" here I would define as exchanging time for money.
Volunteering is not work.
For me personally, I make a distinction between "working" and "creating". I will always want to create (a very broad term), but I will not always want to work. In fact, I don't want to work now; I only want to create. The best is when I can exchange my creation for money -- then it is no longer work.
You might enjoy a fella named marx. Labor is labor, my friend. It should be mostly devoted to things that enrich the lives of us and those around us. It is normal to want to work. It is the alienating nature of selling our labor for a pittance that ruins our lives.
Then sell your labour for more than a pittance, if you're just haggling over the price.
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No, work is effort expended to achieve a result. Whether it's paid or not is irrelevant, and many people work harder for free than they ever do in employment, because the incentives are right.
> Whether it's paid or not is irrelevant
When someone contemplates the wisdom of an entrepreneur who says he’s going to work until he dies, they’re not worried he might volunteer too much.
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> No, work is effort expended to achieve a result
By this definition, going to the toilet is "work". If that's the case, I never want to get to a point where I stop working.
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This is a useless definition, especially in this context. Washing my dishes is not work, because it's ultimately irrelevant whether I do it or not, although I'm doing it still because I have a result in mind.
It also comes across as very out of touch and privileged, because unless you have a relatively cushy job, you would definitely not see the difference between being paid or not as irrelevant. There are plenty of people who have to work very hard just to make ends meet, be it physically exhausting work, or repetitive and monotonous work. And they will not have the capacity to work even harder once they clock out of work, no matter the incentives, because they'll be spent and unable to.
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"I work at a nonprofit"
"I worked on my yard today"
Your definition is arbitrary and goes against the established use of the word. Work can be many things. When people say they don't want to stop working, they are just saying they want to keep changing the world in big or small ways until they die.
I wish I could do unpaid volunteer work and still afford live. By which I mean, I really hate that certain kinds of work are not deemed worthy enough of financial compensation, yet are still beneficial to people and society at large.