I keep reading people who’ve quit their job in order to make a living as a blogger. There’s all this stuff about minimalist life, and freedom from routine.
Is routine so bad? Is stuff so bad? I like to live in different places, but I like to live there. And I like having stuff. If you own less than 100 items, what about skis?
I have no desire to start my own business.
I’m starting to think that’s weird.
The blogosphere is great, but lately it seems like there’s a consensus that working for a company is bad. Perhaps it’s just a change from grad school, but working for the right company is awesome. There’s access to resources and expertise that I wouldn’t have otherwise. There’s diversity of opinion that’s really helpful. There’s constraints that require creativity to work around – yesterday that led me to more deeply consider my solution.
I’m excited to go into work today. Not about the 25 minute drive, so much, although that’s good time to reflect. But to arrive, and work on my Most Important Task – collaborating to try and create something awesome.
10 replies on “Working for The Man”
I agree. Minimalism and entrepreneurship is all well and good, but there are SO MANY bloggers out there saying its The Solution. I thought it was the goal I should be aiming for, but recently I've figured out what you're saying here: the benefits of working for the man outweigh the benefits of working for myself. Thanks for saying so!
Minimalism means I don't even have to glance at my paycheques.
I've tried the unemployed route, but it's a case of “you don't know what you got 'till it's gone.” I had all the free time in the world, but I never went anywhere, and my bedtime was so strange that I had a hard time interfacing with the working world.
Variety sounds like the key. Change it up, and make sure you get to do different things every year or two.
I know I'm going to eventually miss the freedom to visit someone or go to the store at any time, but the simple truth is that I'd never use that gift when I have it.
Yeah there are gradations of minimalism – I try not to accumulate too much stuff, but I still have a lot of clothes and sporting equipment, and DVDs, and books… I'm trying to clear out, but the whole 100 items or less thing baffles me. Where are you at?
I have some flexibility in my work hours at the moment, but I don't use it much. Maybe I work late a couple of days so I can leave early to kickbox early one day. But really that's all the freedom I want – and not taking my work home with me? That's totally worth any restrictions!
Thanks for commenting! I was starting to feel really alone in this 🙂
Where am I at? I admit I'm kind of bragging, but I live on $5000/year.
Mostly, I have food. The other things I've bought are a computer, a netbook, two cell-phones, a monthly mobile data plan, a Nintendo DS (it's amazing how versatile that is), and a small pile of miscellaneous housewares.
It strikes me that I've never bought myself a DVD or any music.
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Crikey! That must give you a lot of flexibility. I'm trying to cut back on stuff now, but there's a lot of “if my life changes, I might want that” – I'm looking at scrabble and monopoly, when I have a wii. I guess the thing to do is, keep what you want for *now* and stop hoarding things for tomorrow?
I'm curious though – no DVDs, no music? Do you stream or just not watch movies/listen to music?
Movies are strange things. Once I watch them, I decide that my time wasn't wasted; yet there are few movies I actually want to watch before I watch them. (Despite this, I have a friend who constantly puts movies on in front of me.) I only watch movies once, so I'd be more apt to rent them for a dollar if I really wanted to see them.
As for television, I download Doctor Who and a political comedy from the states called The Daily Show. That's about it.
I do listen to some music, and could have that on while I work, but I swear it distracts me a bit. It depends what I'm doing, really.
My collection of songs I listen to is only about two gigabytes. Tchaikovsky, Enya, Powaqqatsi, Nightwish, Doctor Horrible, and hundreds of random tracks from here and there. The only CDs I'd ever buy would be maybe three of the Nightwish albums, and Doctor Horrible is on my Christmas list. Mostly, the tracks are assorted memories from times past.
I watch the most mindless movies; pretty much because I don't seem to watch them for fun, I watch them because I'm too tired to do anything else. Perhaps that's why I can watch them again… although the other thing I do is put movies on whilst marking or doing other boring stuff – it's like allocating a distraction, so I don't end up doing other stuff instead,