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Comment by nsoonhui

4 days ago

When I started my company, we suddenly found that we were in a good small fortune, not enough to be millionaires or billionaires, but enough to get people to run the business semi automatically with very minimum input from the founders.

I took a semi retirement approach to the business, there really wasn't a lot of things to do, my role was sort of just "managing" programmers. I got so much free time that I could even start a second business on the side.

Despite my best ability to stretch my work, I couldn't even fill up half of my working hours. One would have thought that this is heaven. But the time I was most free was also the time I was most miserable. I wasn't happy, I was gaining weight, I was perennially asking myself why the business couldn't be bigger and I couldn't sell it, so that I can be real millionaires and billionaires with financial freedom!

Then fate intervened, the sudden fortune disappeared and I no longer had the luxury of just "managing people"; I have to do hands-on. And it was this activity, the feeling that I was contributing to something, that I was writing code again and actually building stuffs, that made me happy again.

Today we are bigger than what we once we were, but still, I am writing code and pretty much hands-on.I vow that I will never retire, even though if I could. Because it's the meaningful work that sustains life and provides happiness. Being able to work on it is a luxury that I will never want to give up, ever.

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nsoonhui

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readthenotes1  4 days ago

"Because it's the meaningful work that sustains life and provides happiness."

For you.

For me, it is having the time to do what I wish. Currently helping a friend with recovery after a major surgery. Next month, who knows?

No, it's not at all the same as "meaningful work".

At least in part, I do not need the attaboys or regular 'sense of accomplishment' that one get from plate-spinning or other meaningful work.

  • chuliomartinez  4 days ago

    You agree more than you disagree. Meaningful might be something else for you. But I bet deep down it is doing something for others (clients, coworkers, friends, family, even strangers) that gives meaning.