ASU2003

New Jersey residents wish 'Jersey Shore' would disappear - CNN.com

Now, I have never seen this show, but I would image it is about 20-somethings drinking, going to clubs/parties, having sex, and going to the beach everyday. And about the 'normal' people that get upset because their lives are nothing like that. They don't make as much money, they don't have time to work out, they are too stressed out and tired to even have sex. I wonder how many of the upset people are just jealous that they didn't live like that when they were younger?

It all comes down to the work-life balance (Work?life balance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), and I think that this has gotten tipped too far in favor of work for the majority of people that it is causing problems. And since people have to work in order to 'keep up' with their neighbors instead of being happy, and that the vast majority of jobs with benefits require you to work 40+ hours a week, things aren't going to get better anytime soon.

As I was hiking in Zion National Park last weekend while taking a break from partying in Vegas*, I realized that my proper work-life balance would be 2 days working, 5 days off. With a month off in the Summer to travel the world. The question is what would you do with 5 days off a week? Would you be productive? Would you hang out with friends more? Would you travel more, have better relationships, work out? Do you think you would be more focused on work during the two or three days you were there because your personal life wasn't on your mind that you could be more productive?



Home - Work Less Party
Take Back Your Time

These organizations have a pretty good idea of how our lifestyles need to adjust since we are so much more productive now, yet don't have enough time to do much. I think a lot of our problems could be fixed if people were happier and by working less, and having companies hire more people would do this.



*I am planning to write about how to visit Vegas and not spend a lot of money, yet still have a good time.

Eddie38

Money=happiness...duh. So why would anybody work less? Less work means less money. You do the math.

ASU2003

I was pretty damn happy hiking and checking out Zion National Park last week. Had I had more time and had a bicycle, it would have been even better.

For the most part, any major improvements to my life will be from things that are free, but aren't easy to get.


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And less work only means less money if you are the only person working less. If supplies and natural (and man-made) resources are abundant and aren't being manipulated by investors and the flow of 'big money', then shifting the decimal point of everyone's money won't have a major impact.

And it doesn't get into using technology to do your job for you 24 hrs a day. I went to Jack-in-the-Box and used the ATM type order entry terminal. I use the automated checkout machine at the grocery store and hardware store. And countless other machines now do the work that people used to get paid for. Us computer people are creating a situation where we are eliminating lots of jobs, yet not giving the people who lose those jobs a easy path to another job.

Wes Mantooth

Well money is only so important once the bills are paid and some is set aside for a rainy day...why do you need more? I never understood the whole keeping up with the neighbors thing, I couldn't care less what the jackass next door is driving or what he watches the big game on every week. As long as I'm happy and content with what I have why would it matter what others have?

If I had 5 days off a week...well I kind of set my own schedule so...but if I could take 5 days off a week I'd probably still work a little for the fun of it, because I really enjoy what I do but I'd definitely have a lot more time to actually cultivate some sort of life. I'd love enough spare time to really get a relationship going or just fuck off and go fishing, well you get the idea. If I only worked 2 days a week I'd probably more productive as I wouldn't feel so burned out all the time (which has surprisingly disastrous effects on your relationships) and working would feel more like a treat then something I do to pay the bills...but then again.

I've spent time without having any work and, well money issues aside, it kind of sucks. Weekends don't feel so special when they are 7 days long and trying to find things to do to kill the time gets really boring after awhile, you can only go so many places and do so many things before everything just starts feeling really...stale. What makes fucking off and going fishing special is that I can't do it every single day of the week and the rare times I do get to do it I try very hard to appreciate it.

I don't know, I guess the secret is just striking a balance. Working enough to stay ahead and be comfortable but finding enough spare time to not only do but cherish the things you enjoy doing.

The Jersey shore folks can go piss up a rope, that's just not reality.

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dlish

wes, you need to post some of the spoils of your fishing trips bud.

My ideal lifestyle? Tully's!

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An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy

LordEden

QFFT.

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Vice-President of the CinnamonGirl Fan Club - The Meat of the Zombiesquirrel and CinnamonGirl Sandwich

Plan9

I generally think this:

Which leads to this:

And in the end:

But I'm thinking more facial hair, more toys that go bang, and more girls in bikinis.

...

I wanna be 50, hopped up on Viagra, and annoying my distant neighbors with .338 cracks.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

snowy

I like making enough money to pay my bills and meet my needs. The "stuff" I do buy tends to be stuff that lasts a long time and doesn't need to be replaced often. About 35 hours of work a week would be sufficient for me.

As it is, once I'm totally done with school, I'll be working 8 hour days, but the idea is that I've picked something that I love so much that I won't mind being there for 8 hours a day. And I do get a month off in the summer to travel the world My hope is that my SO will also be able to get a job with substantial PTO or flexible work options and so he'll be able to take some time off when I have time off.

I think once we're all done with school, we'll be comfortable, and I like being comfortable.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

telekinetic

I like my profession (well, most of it). I love problem solving. I love making things more efficient. My ideal life would be traveling all over the world, working with companies for a month at a time as a lean six sigma consultant, and having the money to comfortably travel my family with me.

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twisted no more

G~man

"The Master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both."---James Michener

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☻/ G~man.........
/▌ "Life may not be the party we hoped for----
/ \ but while we're here, we might as well dance ! ! ! "

ASU2003

It sounds like that is what the Jersey Shore people are doing. And they are making more per episode than I make in a year...

I understand that you need to enjoy what you do, but I'm not sure the majority of jobs will do that anymore. Self employment seems like the only reasonable solution, but it takes a lot of money and/or time to start a company.

But, we should be thinking long-term when it comes to looking for work or coming up with a money making job for yourself.

G~man

You correct, most jobs tend to not be so enjoyable. I am lucky in that I do enjoy my job, albeit a completely different lifestyle to most. I live in hotels for about 9 months each year, but get to travel primarily to 3 different states, but could really go anywhere.

There are also jobs which can be totally flex time also---for example, video editing could be done on a lap top at your own pace while travelling.

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☻/ G~man.........
/▌ "Life may not be the party we hoped for----
/ \ but while we're here, we might as well dance ! ! ! "

CinnamonGirl

Ideally, I'd be working a job where I'm either surrounded by books, or surrounded by animals. If that were the case, I wouldn't mind working more hours, but where I am now, four days on and three days off (in a row) would be excellent.

What would I do with the extra time? Go camping & hiking. Take my boyfriend, my dog, and my tent, and disappear for three days in the wilderness (or at least somewhere forest-y.) I'd also read more, and dedicate more time to stocking my personal library.

During the colder months, I'd be hitting up all the museums, stage productions, concerts, aquariums, and science centers within the two-day-travel-radius as possible

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"...for though she was ordinary, she possessed health, wit, courage, charm, and cheerfulness. But because she was not beautiful, no one ever seemed to notice these other qualities, which is so often the way of the world."


"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Wes Mantooth

I would if the sad little fish I usually pulled out of the lake didn't closer resemble minnows then trout...the bait is usually more spectacular

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Pearl Trade

I must admit a guilty pleasure, I watch the Jersey Shore. Those punks are entertaining and that's all I think of them. I have the unique ability to seperate reality and fantasy, so it all works out in the end.

My ideal life would be working a job I love, with people I can stand, and a boss I could get used to. And making enough money to support myself with a little extra on the side to buy some good stuff and travel. A job that would require a bit of traveling would be nice too.

Perfect quote, G~man.

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Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.
Give me convenience or give me death!

cadre

It's pretty hard to be unhappy in Zion, that's one of my favorite places! I just wish it was less crowded.

My ideal lifestyle is working 3-4 days a week and playing the rest of the time. I'd love to be able to disappear into the mountains some days and spend time with my family other days. And of course, I'd love to be in a career where I'm developing people and enjoy my time at work. Money is important only in the sense that I could afford to live comfortably and help the people around me when they need it.

Unfortunately right now I work six days a week and when I go back to school I'll be busy seven days a week. I'm not quite sure when or how I'll get to that 3-4day work week.

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My life is one of those 'you had to be there' jokes.

amonkie

I don't mind long work days when I can condense the amount of days I'm actually working.

I would love to be able to do 4-10's every week, and have a little more full days of downtime.

I love spending as much time as possible away from urban structures and in the middle of nowhere.

I currently live in chicago without a car, so this desire is one that I cannot easily fulfill right now. I'm doing my damnedest to change that.

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Calling from deep in the heart, from where the eyes can't see and the ears can't hear, from where the mountain trails end and only love can go... ~~~ Three Rivers Hare Krishna

MSD

Fuck work. Our society is brainwashed into believing that it's OK for your employer to own your life from Monday morning to Friday afternoon. Fuck them. My ideal lifestyle is being independently wealthy so I don't have to answer to anyone and living life by my terms. I would go to grad school for the sake of learning, donate to charities because I want to see them succeed, and party like hell 24/7. I'm talking nice house with a moat around it on a huge lot with an underground party bunker accessible only through an old school bank vault door where I could throw parties for hundreds of people without disturbing the neighbors. And a pool full of penguins in the front yard because if people drove by my house and saw that, they'd know everything there is to know about me. And I'd hire guards to beat the shit out of any punk-ass kids who tried to fuck with the penguins.

ZombieSquirrel

I like the 4days of 10 hours with 3 days off idea. Get my work done and have more consecutive me time.

I just need enough money to pay my bills and afford a little extra for fun time. PTO is helpful to be able to survive the working years. I live comfortably now and don't have any extravagant desires. More time and money for travel would be nice.

I would like to be able to save enough money to retire early. My parents worked their entire life and died before they could retire. That would just be awful. Having the genes my parents had and already sharing similar medical problems, an early death by cancer is inevitable. I should probably smoke, drink and whore around more. Sounds like fun.

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Attack ZombieSquirrels

powerclown

You could get Emperor Penguins they're 4 feet tall beaks are like scalpels and they like to fight. Party on, Garth.

levite

OK, I'll admit freely: I would like to be very wealthy. Not because I value money for the sake of money, but because money lets you purchase the most valuable thing in the universe: time.

I would love to be able to teach just one class, just to keep my hand in. To spend the rest of my "work" time-- say, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and maybe Thursdays-- writing and studying Torah and reading and doing a little charity work...maybe even taking classes for more grad degrees, just for fun...all at my own pace, taking whatever breaks I wanted, whenever I wanted.

And for the rest of the time, I'd like to be able to travel. To take road trips all over the US and Canada, to take long extended cruises on the Cunard line (all other cruise lines pale before it), to go all over Europe and stay wherever I liked. And I'd love to be able to keep a house here in Venice CA, plus three apartments or small condos: one in New York, one in London, and one in Jerusalem.

I'm not talking about huge ostentation in the lifestyle. No mansions, private jets, fleets of cars, gala parties, and such. Just enough to work when I felt like, on what I felt like, and to go where I want, when I want, for however long I want, without ever having to worry about cost. And have some left over for charity and sending the kids to college....

Doesn't seem like too much to ask....

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Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)

uncle phil

i'm livin' mine...

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"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done."
- Robert S. McNamara
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"We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches...
We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
- Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message"
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never wrestle with a pig.
you both get dirty;
the pig likes it.

genuinegirly

12 hour work days are incredibly fulfilling for me. I enjoy working a few hours on weekend mornings as well. Heck, I wish my body would let me work from 4 am to midnight every single day. That would be my ideal - my mind never tiring, my body never breaking, no risk of repetitive stress injuries and ultimate immunity to disease or illness. But alas, I am human.

I prefer vacations lasting precisely 2 weeks. Any more and I start worrying about my plants.
I remember in junior high, when I really started loving school, I became frustrated with weekends. I did not understand why they existed. I wanted to wake up the same time every day, and experience that structured learning environment. I found such fulfillment with tests and assignments. I guess it's no wonder that I am now a graduate student.

Yet I do have a dream of "retiring" early and living a self-sufficient family-centered lifestyle. Owning our property outright and spending every second of every day focused on creating a nurturing environment in the home, and the community. Growing our own food, running a small farm selling seasonal fruits and vegetables, keeping my own hydroponic greenhouse with tomatoes all through the snowy winters... In this scenario, my work-aholic nature would be exercised with a labor-intensive home.

Baraka_Guru

I'd be more than willing to work 60-hour workweeks under the following conditions:

1. I'm good at what I do;
2. I love what I do;
3. I take pride in my results;
4. I have autonomy;
5. I'm appreciated ;
6. I have a measurable impact on my company, clients, and/or industry;
7. I'm compensated fairly; and
8. I have between 3 and 4 weeks' vacation per year.

I see the value of enjoying life while you're young; but at the same time, I don't want to be living off of cat food on crackers when I'm in my eighties.

I see satisfaction in a life of productivity. It's all about finding something you enjoy and value.

Now if only I'd do what I say instead of what I do.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

ASU2003

That is a good list. I would only change 3 to 4 weeks to 3 to 4 months of vacation. 2 off in summer (June/July to see the world), 1 and a half off from Thanksgiving past New Years to relax and visit family. And a week off in Spring and Fall to catch up with things.

With the idea I had today about a product I could start a company around, this doesn't seem as far-fetched as it used to.

Wes Mantooth

Yeah I've always thought if you can just find a place that you're happy with in the world life will never be too miserable...but then again I think people take the little things in life for granted and don't take the time to appreciate them for what they are. I was talking with my brother last week about something similar to this topic, we were discussing how much we work and feeling like we can't always do the stuff we want to do, anyway he told me he doesn't mind working the hours he does because when he comes home and sees his two kids in a comfortable bed, lots of toys to play with, a fridge full of food and a roof over their heads it just makes it all seem worth it.

I think when you're just in it for yourself its much harder to justify the time you spend working and making a living but when you're doing it for much bigger reasons suddenly that summer trip to Europe just seems silly.

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Baraka_Guru

I hear entrepreneurs work as much as 80 hours per week....

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Shadowex3

Future lawyer/judge here; Quite possibly one of the few professions where I will have LESS free time after graduation than before... then again i also have no interest in ever retiring. I'm working towards this because it's what I WANT to do with my life and I figure I'll keep going to work until I fall over dead and then call that retirement. At most I wind up trying to start up some kind of law class in highschool so they can have more than maybe three electives that don't suck.

I'm pretty good at the whole "make time" thing though so hopefully I'll be fine.

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Iliftrocks

I still don't know what I want to be, if I grow up...

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bill hicks - "I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out."

sweet release

my ideal lifestlye would be to have my own peaceful island somewhere far from land, where i can live as if i'm the only person on earth.

locked away and relaxed

Shadowex3

I had to change that to "how do I want to live when I have my own place" for the obvious reason.

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roachboy

my ideal situation is kinda simple, really.

i would like resources enough to maintain myself in things like food and shelter and a modest way of regular life and to fund making sound and/or text and/or performance-based projects. and i would like to have the time required to work on larger, denser pieces/scales than i am able to now. rather, to move by degrees into them.

in a super-ideal situation, all that plus a boat that pays for itself that i can float around on and think grand thoughts that i forget almost as soon as i have them. because that's what floating around on a boat is for.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ring

Introduction to Ceresco (Fourier had loopy visions of utopia entrenched with a.....I just listed this because many of us have utopian dreams.)

I'd be very lonely if my computer perished,
for I have only one person in the flesh world that I see or touch.

Hermitage has its perks & its curses.

MSD

I don't want penguins that like to fight, I want the friendly, sociable ones. I'd also have a few cats, but they and the penguins would stay separated for obvious reasons and some that I probably am not thinking of off the top of my head. Imagine if you could wake up every day knowing all you had to do was lounge around reading a good book with a couple of cats curled up in your lap, go for a swim with the penguins in the afternoon, and have a few friends over for the evening.

CinnamonGirl

Oh, man....swimming with penguins? I need to reevaluate my goals now.

__________________
"...for though she was ordinary, she possessed health, wit, courage, charm, and cheerfulness. But because she was not beautiful, no one ever seemed to notice these other qualities, which is so often the way of the world."


"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

ring

Samuel Beckett once proclaimed:
"All I want to do," he told a friend, "is sit on my ass and fart and think of Dante."

Charlatan

If I didn't have to work the 60 hours a week that I do, I would be very happy. My work/life balance is currently way out of whack.

I look at the lifestyle of teachers and am very jealous. They work very hard for periods of time and then have lengthy breaks between sessions. Teachers here make a decent living and have great lifestyle.

In the short term, I would just like more time off and shorter working days.

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Vodka

like Uncle Phil, i'm living an ideal life also

i work 10-15hrs a week, tues-thurs, yet earn a full-time salary that allows a solo mortgagee living alone to play hard

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Vodka TUWUF
The Untamed Wild Ukraine Fiend

Lindy

My great-aunt, now 83 and a teacher from the 1940s to 1994, always said that there were three good reasons to be a teacher: June, July, and August. An oversimplification, true, but that was her take on it.

Lindy

Tully Mars

I'm with Phil.

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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club