What's your dream?

[Agent Of Fortune]

Agent of Fortune: I'm a bit like you. I would also like to not have to work or worry about money. Work is a huge stress factor in my life and sometimes it's also what makes me depressed and anxious, it also steals alot of my energy that could've been better spent on something else. I hate that it has so much power over my life. There are so much fun "work" one could do but those that would give me the most meaning is the kind you can't make a living on.

Volunteering for non-profit organizations or even start a new one or just devote my life to helping others both humans and animals is also a dream of mine. Sure you can help alot without having tons of money but having alot of money is definitely a way to really make a change. I even have a project I'd love to pursue. It would be great to be able to do something and not have to care about it generating any money.

Yep, exactly. I have so much stuff that I'd like to create, but work, and the stress from it, just suck away so much of my energy that I don't end up getting any of it done.

I used to feel that I really didn't want to do anything I love for money, becuase I think that it would cheapen it, and the work aspect would destroy the purity of it. But I really don't know, anymore. I see my friends AJ/Bee King of Zombies and Neal/Deadpool both doing what they love and being happy, and I wonder if I missed teh bus somewhere. Like Bay said about not working a day in your life; I used to think I'd rather just put some time in at some mediocre job and then do what I want in my free time, but now I'm not so sure.

[darkly]

But, on the stress factor issue, life wise... it's worth getting out of. Like the saying goes, "If you like your job, you haven't worked a day in your life." It's f'ing true. I've always believed it, now I know it's true. When you have a chance of doing something you love, there's nothing better, as far as jobs go. There can still be stress, a lot of stress, but it's not the same. It's just not.

You are quite right. But even so bad working conditions could create alot of negative stress.

I used to feel that I really didn't want to do anything I love for money, becuase I think that it would cheapen it, and the work aspect would destroy the purity of it. But I really don't know, anymore. I see my friends AJ/Bee King of Zombies and Neal/Deadpool both doing what they love and being happy, and I wonder if I missed teh bus somewhere. Like Bay said about not working a day in your life; I used to think I'd rather just put some time in at some mediocre job and then do what I want in my free time, but now I'm not so sure.

If you could make a living of it it's a good thing but if it's something that you can't make a living of that's when you'll have a problem. I used to think like that anyway but sometimes I feel that maybe allowing work to be the biggest source of your happines is kind of like putting your happiness in someone elses hands. It's just to easy for someone else to take that happines away from you and I'm not talking about someone just beeing evil but rather the money issue. Which of course wouldn't be an issue should you be having lots of it anyway
So maybe your way isn't so bad, in a way by doing the thing you love not for a living but for yourself you can ensure that you can always continue doing it. You wouldn't have to stop doing it should you get fired or have to rely on good working conditions in general. But yeah it depends on what it is that you love doing. Bay here is a teacher I think? Teaching is an excellent way to make a living.
Just to further confuse you: sticking to a mediocre job that causes alot of stress isn't good though and working with something you love if there is a possibility to do so, if you yourself feel that you could really do it is something you should go for. But if that mediocre job is alright and not making you depressed , well it´s not wrong either.
But I don't really know. I get confused. Alot.

[Bay]

@AoF: Missing the bus... it's never too late, I think.

But, on the stress factor issue, life wise... it's worth getting out of. Like the saying goes, "If you like your job, you haven't worked a day in your life." It's f'ing true. I've always believed it, now I know it's true. When you have a chance of doing something you love, there's nothing better, as far as jobs go. There can still be stress, a lot of stress, but it's not the same. It's just not.

You are quite right. But even so bad working conditions could create alot of negative stress.

I hope I'm reading this right... If you're in bad working conditions doing the job you love, you're not doing it right. It's not really the job you love, then.

It's never that rosy, though. Do what you love, and pay the price with the hobbies you love. It's a touch balancing act. Something that I've never had to deal with before. Hobbies always won before, but now it's pretty much a hobby vs. hobby where one of them pays my rent. It's damn tough.

So maybe your way isn't so bad, in a way by doing the thing you love not for a living but for yourself you can ensure that you can always continue doing it. You wouldn't have to stop doing it should you get fired or have to rely on good working conditions in general. But yeah it depends on what it is that you love doing.

Yeah... If got I got fired now... would be quite different what happened last time. Thankfully the industry respects skill more than paper and bad working conditions in this case usually means that people just f up, which is never really that bad and there's no guarantee that nobody notices anyway.

Bay here is a teacher I think? Teaching is an excellent way to make a living.

Nah. All teaching I've done was just martial arts for kids and that's not professionally (pun intented). But, If I wasn't doing what I'm doing now, I'd want to be a teacher. Most important job in the world, if you ask me. It's just sad that most teachers, especially at schools, don't seem to know this. Or they forgot.

Just to further confuse you: sticking to a mediocre job that causes alot of stress isn't good though and working with something you love if there is a possibility to do so, if you yourself feel that you could really do it is something you should go for. But if that mediocre job is alright and not making you depressed , well it´s not wrong either.
But I don't really know. I get confused. Alot.

Yeah. I think it's also an issue of perspective really. You might be able to view the job from a perspective which makes it tolerable if not even exciting, be it through co-workers, hobbies, or whatever, but it should be possible. It's all the same, in the end, I think. Cook or a president of the free world, it's all the same. I wasn't able to do it, but I believe this is true. Once again for emphasis: I believe.

[Bambi]

I've spent the last few years working a sales job I didn't really enjoy, it paid pretty well and like some others here I thought it would be enough to just enjoy my free time but it's not. It's really not. It's pretty depressing actually. At the moment I'm sort of at a crossroads in my life, I quit my job and moved back home, trying to work out where to go from here and what I want to do. I think my problem is that I'm inexorably drawn to "being realistic" and I shouldn't concern myself with that.

Sorry for the rant, it's not even that on topic really.

[Agent Of Fortune]

^Yeah, you can do something like that for a little while, but after a bit it really starts to burn you out.

Sometimes I feel so selfish that I even have the ability to be sick of my job. I think about how farmers pretty much work all day, then go to bed and get up and do it again. Or how people in other countries are forced to work in sweatshops for pennies a day. Or how families during the depression would have to share shoes because they couldn't afford shoes for all the kids. When I look at all that stuff, my petty problems don't seem all that big.

Speaking of dreams, I really need to get the Calvin and Hobbes books for when I have kids. I want them to grow up seeing what it's like to have imagination. Ahh calvin and hobbes. So awesome.

[darkly]

I hope I'm reading this right... If you're in bad working conditions doing the job you love, you're not doing it right. It's not really the job you love, then

hehe nah that's not what I meant. I was referring to reorganizations, cutbacks and such. The last place I worked at was good until it ran into some problems from there on there where constant reorganizations, cutbacks and people got fired all over the place, it lasted for quite some time. When the majority of the people gets fired one after another people tend to get rather depressed and grumpy and for a while everybody was like that, it get's to you. It was the kind of place where most people had been working for 10-20 years. It's hard to be happy when sitting at a place for 8 hours where everybody is going through some collective depression. That's what I call bad working conditions. But it doesn't have to go that far to be bad though. But yeah alot of reorganizations and cutbacks creates a bad working environment. A really bad boss is deifinetely another "bad working condition factor".

[darkly]

At the moment I'm sort of at a crossroads in my life, I quit my job and moved back home, trying to work out where to go from here and what I want to do. I think my problem is that I'm inexorably drawn to "being realistic" and I shouldn't concern myself with that.

I've been unemployed for 5 months now and all I do is trying to figure out where to go from here. I just feel like I have the chance to do something completely different now and maybe try and find something that will make me happy. If only I could figure out what that is and how to get it
I wish you good luck, I'm sure you'll figure it out.

[tao]

^Yeah, you can do something like that for a little while, but after a bit it really starts to burn you out.

Sometimes I feel so selfish that I even have the ability to be sick of my job. I think about how farmers pretty much work all day, then go to bed and get up and do it again. Or how people in other countries are forced to work in sweatshops for pennies a day. Or how families during the depression would have to share shoes because they couldn't afford shoes for all the kids. When I look at all that stuff, my petty problems don't seem all that big.

I also feel there is a disconnect whenever someone (including me sometimes) starts griping about how annoying or boring their job is. I think the reason how people in such bad working environment like sweatshops and coffee plantations or even single mothers working overtime can force themselves to work is because they have the drive to try and make their lives better somehow. If there is no drive, there would be no urge to seek work and you would just slip into some existential void. So perhaps the real reason why so many people complain about their jobs is that they do not feel as if they are going anywhere with their current occupation. Because if there is something you really want, you would work hard for it and never complain about how difficult or tiring it is.

I don't intend to sound like an ass but in addition to working part time at a redundant office job (that I am clearly not cut out for,) reading everything in this topic has further reinforced my pigheaded pursuit for a career I love and would willingly sweat and labor for, over picking something "practical" and doing hobbies on the side. The latter path has been suggested to me rather snidely (but politely, which is all the more irritating) to me and I have had people look down on me for being too naive, idealistic, and inexperienced to know what I "really" need . If experience means always putting money and drudgery over personal dreams or goals, and simply doing the same damn things for decades then I don't want any part of it. The job I have isn't terrible and I have no right to complain, yet I can certainly feel how doing something you don't have any interest in can really suck the life out of you. I've heard of a metaphor once and however cheesy it sounds, I think is pretty true: that life is more or less a train station, and it doesn't matter if you miss the train because there's always the next one. What really matters is when you choose to get on the train.

[Axm]

My dream is to take me and my wife back to Japan. Start up our life again there with kids.

This is the first real post ive made in forever.
And its crazy that now I can say im both married and looking forward to kids.

[Agent Of Fortune]

I'm too tired from homework/drunk from being done with homework to post anything more concrete right now, so I'll post more tomorrow. I just wanted to comment on this:

This is the first real post ive made in forever.
And its crazy that now I can say im both married and looking forward to kids.

Me too man. I've been married 3 years from yesterday and have loved every minute of it. I can't wait to have kids, but right now our finances are just really not in order where it'd be a good idea. Can't wait though.

[Agent Of Fortune]

I don't intend to sound like an ass but in addition to working part time at a redundant office job (that I am clearly not cut out for,) reading everything in this topic has further reinforced my pigheaded pursuit for a career I love and would willingly sweat and labor for, over picking something "practical" and doing hobbies on the side. The latter path has been suggested to me rather snidely (but politely, which is all the more irritating) to me and I have had people look down on me for being too naive, idealistic, and inexperienced to know what I "really" need . If experience means always putting money and drudgery over personal dreams or goals, and simply doing the same damn things for decades then I don't want any part of it. The job I have isn't terrible and I have no right to complain, yet I can certainly feel how doing something you don't have any interest in can really suck the life out of you. I've heard of a metaphor once and however cheesy it sounds, I think is pretty true: that life is more or less a train station, and it doesn't matter if you miss the train because there's always the next one. What really matters is when you choose to get on the train.

I think that's great. My wife is trying to be a teacher, and is currently a substitute, but recently had a bad incident with a principal from one of her schools that really shook her confidence. I eventually told her that if she has something that she really has a passion about doing, she should fight for it no matter what. I wish I had that kind of passion about something, but as of right now I haven't found anything.

[Bay]

@darkly: Ah... so you're pretty much in the same position I was in about year and a half ago, but things can turn around fast. Hopefully, it's just around the corner.

@tao: The train metaphor... very good one. I stood 10 years at that station, then got on the train almost by an accident. Sort of. It was worth it. I'm not entirely sure what would've happened if I hadn't stayed there, though, for those ten years. What wouldn't I give to see a glimpse of a parallel universe.

@Axm: Japan... sounds ike a good plan to me. Always wanted to go there, had a few chances, but not the ones I'd like.

@AoF: Calvin and Hobbes, yes, I wholeheartedly agree. It's one hell of a comic. It's funny and surprisingly philosophical--in a successful way. And I hope your wife gets her confidence back, it's the most important thing for a teacher. Kids are like animals, they smell it, if isn't there. And I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for as well.

Love all around. Very good thread.

[Agent Of Fortune]

My goal at this point has become to become an independent game developer. I'm starting small... working on a Tic Tac Toe game right now.

My main roadblock right now (besides time ) is my lack of skills in the art department. I really need to get past this if I'm ever going to make anything. I have so many story ideas that I think would make great games.

[Ryudo]

I want to move to japan. Get my gaming website going and keep collecting gaming.
I am collecting at a slow rate due to being broke and slowly getting the website ideas going. Yukio been kind enough to make a prelininary logo.
I don't want anything exciting. I'm excited out. I just want to relax and do what I do.

[Mr. Frozen]

Honestly I'll just be happy in life if I have enough money to live comfortably and enough tasks to keep me busy.

If someone gave me like 10 billion bucks right now, I would probably use it to buy a mansion, travel to any random place that desire to visit, and earn new degrees in subjects that always interested me (but not enough to actually pay for the education).