What would you do if you didn't have to work?
Like if you had zero obligations and money wasn't an issue, how would you spend your time?
I work with a lot of older guys who are all coming up on retirement age soon, and some that are well past that but refuse to move on because they "just don't know what they'd do."
Is that how meaningless life is these days? So many people insist on working until the day they die because they can't think of anything they'd rather do than be a cog in the machine. I'm not trying to sound deep or like I'm better than them, but Jesus Christ that's depressing.
One guy here has been collecting his full social security benefits for three years and still works 50+ hours a week, rather than collecting his massive ESOP checks, because he's afraid he would just wither up and die if he didn't have the structure of sitting behind a desk on someone else's terms every day.
Not even joking, a few years back there was an 80-something year old manager who was found by a customer face-down at the sales desk because he was alone and had a heart attack.
That's not how I wanna go out.
I could think of a million things to do if I didn't have to spend the majority of my life in a showroom convincing customers to buy things from me.
For example, I'd smash my alarm clock with a cartoonishly large wooden mallet and forget about structure and routine for a while. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I stayed up until 6am and slept in until my body physically couldn't take it anymore? Sometime around 2009, I think.
I'd spend weeks writing and recording music, not giving a shit about what's going on outside until I come up with a double album full of mediocre bullshit that only I enjoy.
I'd drive out to the middle of nowhere, shut my phone off, put it in the glove compartment and remember what it was like to just exist in nature for a couple weeks.
I'd learn another language, maybe Chinese. I'd take a road trip with zero planning just for the hell of it. I'd play through the entire Super Nintendo catalogue. I'd go down some weird rabbit holes, maybe write a book.
I know I can do a lot of this shit right now if I really wanted to, but money is always an issue and time is an even bigger one.
Maybe my problem is bad time management and impulse control, but it's hard to find the time or motivation for anything meaningful when you're away from home 12 hours a day. Then when you finally get there, there's all this shit you have to do around the house, but it never gets finished. Then the next thing you know, you've spent all your money on bills and you realize the night flew by and you're only going to get like six hours of sleep before it all starts over again.
This got kind of dark lol I'm a happy person and I don't hate my job. I kind of like it, honestly. But if my generation is ever able to actually retire one day, I won't think twice. First chance I get, I'm outta here. Maybe I need to buy some scratch off tickets tonight 🤪