this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Nah, it's much better that way. I go to my job to get money, not to find purpose in life. My boss and employer does not get to dictate my fulfillment.
My job is my job, I use money from my job to go do stuff that has actual meaning to me.
You do you, but it would drain me too much to work a job just for the money if it doesn’t fulfill me in some way directly. I’d compare it to working a shit job your whole life with the goal to finally retire and enjoy life.
Only then, you’re too tired or have health problems, so you can’t enjoy life after all.
Are you working 80+ hours a week or something? If you have zero free time outside of work, I guess there's no room in your life to find any kind of meaning or purpose outside your job. Then you're left trying to find meaning in a shit job.
Trying to find a job that is "meaningful" that also pays the bills are few and far between. Most meaningful things in life don't pay well or at all, or have very few job openings, or are extremely unstable (self employment or startups). Otherwise you're left with your life "purpose" in a corporation, which only means "make more money", which is pretty shallow at best.
Work-life balance is important, and I think keeping work and life separate is a huge part of that. Forcibly mixing the two only causes more stress, either from one adding to the other, or from severely limiting your job prospects overall. Making your job = life severely limits both.
Please don’t take the following the wrong way as it’s not meant to be judgmental.
The fact that you can’t even imagine being employed somewhere AND having a fulfilling job at the same time shows quite some narrow-mindedness IMO. Maybe it’s from bad experience or some kind of ideological antiwork standpoint, I don’t know. But those jobs definitely exist, and it’s never as black and white.
Every job has its downsides, but I would argue there’s always potential to find something better than what any person currently has going for themselves.
Even with only 40 hours a week, a bit-fulfilling job would drain me too much, but I may be rather sensitive in that regard. As a result, I changed my career a few times, and for the first time in my life I feel like I’ve arrived in a place I can imagine doing for the rest of my life, while it also pays the bills.