TheGuyFromThere Posted September 26, 2005 Share Posted September 26, 2005 So I was just thinking the other day about achieving goals in life, and what truly is the right decision to make? The decision of 'Should do' that gets you that good job and good lifestyle, or that 'want to' that gives you happiness and what a human should have. And I thought up of this hypothetical situation, that really made me think what the right one is. The point of the story is, you don't know the outcome. You could try and try and try, and then all of a sudden your trying gets turned to sh*t, and you've wasted a lot of time that could have been spent having fun. I told someone it via MSN, so this has been edited out of that convo. Apologies for lack of paragraphs. I tried throwing in the right punctuation here and there. This might not have the same effect, but it has really made me reconsider what I want to do with my life. Do I want to have a nice job but working tirelessly, or have an ok job but have fun? A man works all his life to get that good job, the job of his dreams, earning hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. As a judge in the supreme court of Great Britain. From the first time he heard of it age 5 it's all he wanted to be. So all through his schooling years, in primary school he didn't go outside and play with the other kids on the street. He stayed indoors, read his books, done his homeworks. He finishes primary school with an A* now he gets accepted to the best grammar school of the country and he spends every single second of every single day working hard. Just working not taking a break, just to eat, sleep, and sh*t. He doesn't go on any holidays, spend any weekends with any friends - because he has none. All his life is - is working. So he gets through grammar school and he's off to college now. Before he gets accepted to law school he has to do a lot of hard work but his hard working in grammar school paid off and he gets accepted to a top college. So he spends some 4 years working on getting the A-levels and Diplomas to get him accepted into law school. And that's great he gets accepted to Oxford Law! Now there's already a good 25-30 years of his life gone from working. Now he finishes oxford and now that he's done uni he's age 30. Still has no friends still working hard so now he gets a job as a lawyer. Everything is going peachy he's working his way up the ladder and he's spend about 30 years of just plain working not taking out any time to make friends he's not married never even had a girlfriend. It all pays off and he gets the chance to go for the High Judge of the Supreme Court of Great Britain. He's working tirelessly to try and get to the judges seat. He's 60 now he's worked HIS ENTIRE LIFE For this one moment and he's in tough competition with another guy to get to the seat and it's looking good it's looking great he's pretty much got it. looks like every second of working hard in his entire life is about to pay off. He's aimed for the bulls eye, and he's about to hit it. But oops. he's had a heart attack. He's missed his target. He's dead. What has he done with his life? inactive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yuck Fou Posted September 26, 2005 Share Posted September 26, 2005 (edited) He's pissed it away. Working to live is one thing, but living to work is stupid, in my opinion. A lot of people piss away their High School and College experiences working their asses off so they can make more money. Ah, the allure of money. Money and things. That sound so nice, doesn't it? Piles of cash and lots of shiney things in your house. But what if you're the only one in your house? What if you look at all your things, and then realize that you have no memories... the kind that everyone else can share until they're old and gray. Stories about doing stupid ass sh*t with your friends, getting in trouble. Your only memories are work. Your things surely don't look as shiney when you realize that they're only there because you discarded your childood, your "dorm experience", and maybe even your life. That's the sh*ts of being a Workaholic... and I for one am glad I'm not. My life will never be based on money. Or how far I go. Success these days is based on how much green you have in your wallet, and how high up you are on the corporate food chain. Some people might like this, but I for one don't understand it. Success should be weighed by happiness. Some of the happiest people in the world just get by... the people that have time for their families, their children, and the ones they love. People living meager life styles like this are even looked down upon... but f*ck it, they're happy. Who cares what you drive? Where you live? Whether or not you've got several 500 dollar italian suits in your closet? Goals should be based on happiness, not money. Money can not buy happiness, and neither can things. True f*cking story. Edit: Oh, and to answer your question, in case you didn't get it. It's "want to". Edited September 26, 2005 by Yuck Fou Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGuyFromThere Posted September 26, 2005 Author Share Posted September 26, 2005 He's pissed it away. Working to live is one thing, but living to work is stupid, in my opinion. A lot of people piss away their High School and College experiences working their asses off so they can make more money. Ah, the allure of money. Money and things. That sound so nice, doesn't it? Piles of cash and lots of shiney things in your house. But what if you're the only one in your house? What if you look at all your things, and then realize that you have no memories... the kind that everyone else can share until they're old and gray. Stories about doing stupid ass sh*t with your friends, getting in trouble. Your only memories are work. Your things surely don't look as shiney when you realize that they're only there because you discarded your childood, your "dorm experience", and maybe even your life. That's the sh*ts of being a Workaholic... and I for one am glad I'm not. My life will never be based on money. Or how far I go. Success these days is based on how much green you have in your wallet, and how high up you are on the corporate food chain. Some people might like this, but I for one don't understand it. Success should be weighed by happiness. Some of the happiest people in the world just get by... the people that have time for their families, their children, and the ones they love. People living meager life styles like this are even looked down upon... but f*ck it, they're happy. Who cares what you drive? Where you live? Whether or not you've got several 500 dollar italian suits in your closet? Goals should be based on happiness, not money. Money can not buy happiness, and neither can things. True f*cking story. Bloody well said, mate. I've got a lot of people trying to convince me to not join the Marines right now, and to tell me to work harder and get a good job. I couldn't quite figure out why I wanted to, really. But you took the words from my mouth, and I'll be sure as hell to remember what you just said for as long as I can. I guess I owe you a thank you. Thank you, sir. inactive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barbaneez Posted September 26, 2005 Share Posted September 26, 2005 (edited) ... Edited December 15, 2008 by Barbaneez Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spoof Posted September 26, 2005 Share Posted September 26, 2005 One should be very careful not to judge the happiness of others based solely on our own interpretation of the concept. Look at it from an alternative POV: Everything the man had ever wanted, dreamed of, aspired to be - he achieved / was about to achieve. I don't know about you guys, but if I could turn around and say that I'd achieved everything I'd ever wanted, I'd be bloody ecstatic. You're assuming the guy wasn't "happy", merely because he wasn't a party animal. Perhaps he found happiness through working hard, learning knew things and achieving his goals. He may have been the happiest man in the history of the world if you would have asked him, but you've only judged him on your understanding of happiness. Happiness is a subjective perception, not something that can be defined or judged by others. Only we as individuals can ever know whether we are truly happy at any given point in our lives. Let us also remember that what makes us happy today, will not necessarily make us so tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jheath Posted September 26, 2005 Share Posted September 26, 2005 Well said, spoof. In the hypothetical example of the lawyer-want-to-be-judge, he had a goal and he devoted himself to its pursuit. Would he have been better off setting less challenging goals and taking time to relax occasionally? Perhaps. Perhaps on his deathbed he might regret a few of the sacrifices he made along the way, like never taking the time to chase girls or just take care of his health. But by and large he did something most people don't: he set his own goals, and he devoted himself to achieving them. So what if he failed? 'Tis far better to regret that than to regret never pursuing his dreams at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jizzyman Posted September 26, 2005 Share Posted September 26, 2005 yeah he pissed lis life away, but he can buy lots more guns than you and when civil war comes, he will be prepared! We need a private army or our seed will not survive! And if you dont agree then you will die in the revolution that will be televised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGuyFromThere Posted September 27, 2005 Author Share Posted September 27, 2005 yeah he pissed lis life away, but he can buy lots more guns than you and when civil war comes, he will be prepared! We need a private army or our seed will not survive! And if you dont agree then you will die in the revolution that will be televised. Uhm..yea. Exactly my point... @Everyone who actually posted sense: Thanks for your contribution. Well said spoof, ones perception of fun is defined by one, not by another. inactive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jizzyman Posted September 29, 2005 Share Posted September 29, 2005 yeah he pissed lis life away, but he can buy lots more guns than you and when civil war comes, he will be prepared! We need a private army or our seed will not survive! And if you dont agree then you will die in the revolution that will be televised. Uhm..yea. Exactly my point... @Everyone who actually posted sense: Thanks for your contribution. Well said spoof, ones perception of fun is defined by one, not by another. Hey, im just saying that my seed will be preserved and you'res wont, you see I have lots of guns at my house, a mighty arsenal of guns This guy knows whats coming yo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuff_luv_capo Posted September 30, 2005 Share Posted September 30, 2005 yeah he pissed lis life away, but he can buy lots more guns than you and when civil war comes, he will be prepared! We need a private army or our seed will not survive! And if you dont agree then you will die in the revolution that will be televised. Uhm..yea. Exactly my point... @Everyone who actually posted sense: Thanks for your contribution. Well said spoof, ones perception of fun is defined by one, not by another. Hey, im just saying that my seed will be preserved and you'res wont, you see I have lots of guns at my house, a mighty arsenal of guns This guy knows whats coming yo I think the internet just farted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGuyFromThere Posted September 30, 2005 Author Share Posted September 30, 2005 yeah he pissed lis life away, but he can buy lots more guns than you and when civil war comes, he will be prepared! We need a private army or our seed will not survive! And if you dont agree then you will die in the revolution that will be televised. Uhm..yea. Exactly my point... @Everyone who actually posted sense: Thanks for your contribution. Well said spoof, ones perception of fun is defined by one, not by another. Hey, im just saying that my seed will be preserved and you'res wont, you see I have lots of guns at my house, a mighty arsenal of guns This guy knows whats coming yo I think the internet just farted. Sharted* inactive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jizzyman Posted September 30, 2005 Share Posted September 30, 2005 So I was just thinking the other day about achieving goals in life, and what truly is the right decision to make? The decision of 'Should do' that gets you that good job and good lifestyle, or that 'want to' that gives you happiness and what a human should have. And I thought up of this hypothetical situation, that really made me think what the right one is. The point of the story is, you don't know the outcome. You could try and try and try, and then all of a sudden your trying gets turned to sh*t, and you've wasted a lot of time that could have been spent having fun. I told someone it via MSN, so this has been edited out of that convo. Apologies for lack of paragraphs. I tried throwing in the right punctuation here and there. This might not have the same effect, but it has really made me reconsider what I want to do with my life. Do I want to have a nice job but working tirelessly, or have an ok job but have fun? A man works all his life to get that good job, the job of his dreams, earning hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. As a judge in the supreme court of Great Britain. From the first time he heard of it age 5 it's all he wanted to be. So all through his schooling years, in primary school he didn't go outside and play with the other kids on the street. He stayed indoors, read his books, done his homeworks. He finishes primary school with an A* now he gets accepted to the best grammar school of the country and he spends every single second of every single day working hard. Just working not taking a break, just to eat, sleep, and sh*t. He doesn't go on any holidays, spend any weekends with any friends - because he has none. All his life is - is working. So he gets through grammar school and he's off to college now. Before he gets accepted to law school he has to do a lot of hard work but his hard working in grammar school paid off and he gets accepted to a top college. So he spends some 4 years working on getting the A-levels and Diplomas to get him accepted into law school. And that's great he gets accepted to Oxford Law! Now there's already a good 25-30 years of his life gone from working. Now he finishes oxford and now that he's done uni he's age 30. Still has no friends still working hard so now he gets a job as a lawyer. Everything is going peachy he's working his way up the ladder and he's spend about 30 years of just plain working not taking out any time to make friends he's not married never even had a girlfriend. It all pays off and he gets the chance to go for the High Judge of the Supreme Court of Great Britain. He's working tirelessly to try and get to the judges seat. He's 60 now he's worked HIS ENTIRE LIFE For this one moment and he's in tough competition with another guy to get to the seat and it's looking good it's looking great he's pretty much got it. looks like every second of working hard in his entire life is about to pay off. He's aimed for the bulls eye, and he's about to hit it. But oops. he's had a heart attack. He's missed his target. He's dead. What has he done with his life? Did he "waste" his "life"? How do you waste something? Presumably the most common aplication is wasting money or wasting time - spending on things that are worthless. What is worthless in life? Is work worthless? Is fun worthless? Is politics, learning, philosophy, geography, theology... worthless? It used to be that westerners believed as long as you went to heaven you didn't waste anything, -the important thing was not going to hell. It seems most people have gone around it by asking: what isn't worthless? -and hedonistically responding -"fun" Survival seems lke a good enough goal for me. Immortality, some believe they are their beliefs, I believe I am my genes, I will go on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omen of Death Posted October 1, 2005 Share Posted October 1, 2005 We'll all be the same in the end: Naked on a stainless steel table in a morgue. Death equals out everything, you can't tell wether someone has "pissed" their life away through work or had many friends and spent it on all the "fun" things. Some people desprately want to attach their lives to something so they then can say they died with a purpose. No matter what you do, your body will be the same no matter what you did with it, so then does what you did in your life matter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clown. Posted October 1, 2005 Share Posted October 1, 2005 I have been thinking about this for a while now. I'm fourteen and have started my GCSE's, and we are starting to have to decide what kind of things we want to do when we are older. For a while, in fact for almost a year, i thought I wanted to become a lawyer and earn a sh*tload of money and getting a big bentley and a country mansion. But then I started to think more. To become a lawyer meant doing impossibly well in my GCSE's, then again in my A-levels, and then do a 7 year law school course. And thinking about it, this didn't sound like a good idea at all. It might be what i should do, after all I am fairly intelligent and get good grades (predicted A's in my GCSE's) but its not what i want to do. In all honesty I would much prefer something i enjoyed doing, even if it means a lower quality lifestyle. Although i think your example, as pointed out before, is invalid. After all, doing this work might be this mans idea of fun, of what he wanted to do. It may not seem the right choice to you, but to him it could just be that he is one of the lucky people who get to do what they want to do and what they should do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omen of Death Posted October 1, 2005 Share Posted October 1, 2005 In all honesty I would much prefer something i enjoyed doing, even if it means a lower quality lifestyle. I think you shouldn't confuse quality of life and someone's income. Quality of life is how much one values their lifestyle, if I hate someting then I could say my quality of life isn't all that good, but I could be poor but happy and enjoy what I do and could have a good overall quality of life at the same time. But if money, career and academic success defines your quality of life, then the man hasn't wasted it away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jizzyman Posted October 2, 2005 Share Posted October 2, 2005 I personally like the hindu version where this life is just part of the evolution of your soul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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