[Closed] Feeling a succes?

 However, part of me does not feel like a success, which another part of me says is ridiculous.

Listen to the second part. It's struggling to overcome decades of programming which says that salary and job prestige is the most important measure of self-worth.

If it helps, I have a reasonably well paid job (that I don't enjoy) with a fair amount of responsibility but I still don't feel a success, nor do I have any savings :p Anyone that enjoys their job and still makes enough so they aren't struggling financially is a success IMO

Well, I don't have a job at all, so that impacts feelings of success.

Though I did feel successful out cycling yesterday afternoon, stopping to enjoy the peace and views and thinking about other people in their offices???

I stepped down to become a humble class teacher a few years ago for the same reason you describe. Sometimes I feel the way you do but then I spend time with my family and have free time. Most of my friends earn more than me and are more successful but as recent threads show they just have more stress and bigger debts in the main.

I have a degree, masters and a PhD and often feel I should have done more with them but then I only dud them because I enjoyed the subjects so I try and look at them as fun things I did with my life, they were never a career choice.

By the way a 15k pay cut and working in the charity sector seems like you have done well tbh.

My work life has very little significance on how much of a success as a person i feel i am.

My wife and son, they're a measure of my success and i'm more successful than 99.9% of people on the planet.

I see people in pointless marriages, with kids that hate them, don't talk to them etc..... But they're rich.... Yeah, not in my mind.

^^^^^^^ very much this

Yes, I gave up a well paid job and alternate between thinking I've wasted my talents Vs celebrating that I've got a great relaxed part-time self-employed gig with none of the usual job bollocks.  It's hard to get over a lifetime of programming!

Ask Kryton 🤣😜🤪🤔

I know exactly how you feel OP but just ask yourself whether more people secretly wish they could do have the life you now have or the one you used to have. I bet most would give up some material goods for more time for family friends and hobbies and less resposibilty any day of the week.

Nobody* looks back from their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time at work and disappointed that their life wasn’t more stressful.

if you enjoy what you do, have time to do the things you want to do with the people you want to do them with and aren’t starving then you’re more successful than most of the people on the planet.

Had a circular conversation with a chap at work this week, he’s leaving to go to a better paid job (doing the same thing), he’s over the moon cos “it’s a step up” as he’ll be earning an extra ~£5k, but he’ll have to spend an extra ~2hrs a day commuting to his new job. I told him I thought that made him worse off overall. He disagreed as his measure was monetary, mine was time, I guess we are both right just using different criteria to measure.

* well there’s probably someone...

Try to ignore it. We are told that we need to be promoted and paid more to be 'successful' but i've yet to work in a company that needed 500 CEO's and only 1 or 2 workers.

Are you happy?

Yeah generally really happy. Live in a lovely house, only made possible by my years teaching, but while teaching I kind of knew my career direction where I was going etc. Now, I feel kind of rudderless.

I would not go back to teaching in a mainstream school, as I value my evenings and weekends too much now. I get to walk the dog every evening, pop to the pub with him and the OH, go fishing, a ride, bake bread etc. All the things I struggled to do regularly while teaching.

Just a kind of odd feeling working out where I go from here I think. Hope that makes sense.

We are so strongly programmed to judge ourselves on career success. For me, dismantling this is the thing - still working on it.

My old boss used to say that if you are deriving you success and life satisfaction from your job you are doing it wrong.

a job is an enabler

Have kids 😉

[ONLY JOKING - DO NOT DO THIS]

Haha, Wallis is enough trouble for us at the moment!

English teacher?

(I know it's probably a trap...)

Job satisfaction peaked for me about ten years ago when increasing H&S paranoia meant I was no longer allowed to get involved with the R&D function of my job, reducing me to just a business manager. So for ten years I've been on a downward slide, wondering how I would disentagle myself from the job and the life that goes with it - great salary, good car, business class travel and a boss who doesn't bother me. Now my employer is about to be sold and it has all become clear and I can't wait.

Whenever people question me as to why I gave up working in a stressful job in a city centre I usually tell them the parable of the Mexivan fisherman. In case you have never heard it I have copied and pasted it below.....

_____________________

An American investment banker was taking a much-needed vacation in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. The boat had several large, fresh fish in it.

The investment banker was impressed by the quality of the fish and asked the Mexican how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The banker then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican fisherman replied he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman replied, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos: I have a full and busy life, señor.”

The investment banker scoffed, “I am an Ivy League MBA, and I could help you. You could spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats until eventually you would have a whole fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to the middleman you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You could control the product, processing and distribution.”

Then he added, “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City where you would run your growing enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then?” asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You could make millions.”

“Millions, señor? Then what?”

To which the investment banker replied, “Then you would retire. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

.

Not everything in life boils down to the financial and material possessions. While they can be nice to have, spending time with someone you love costs little and makes you feel better than any material item likely would.

Spend some time looking at what you view as 'success', look on your days and think of the parts of them you enjoyed and the parts you didn't. Focus on doing more of the good and less of the bad. Speak to someone who can help give you some perspective, it may be that they view the way you live as better than the way they do.

There's all sorts of things you can do to help you realise how good you have it, we all need reminding of this from time to time.

My job pays the bills and enables me to pay for the kids to do stuff (just). I don’t associate success with work. Must be the way I’m wired, but as long as my family are okay I’m good and don’t worry about such things.

It sounds like you’re doing something you enjoy, for a great reason and providing education too. I don’t know about successful, but it sounds like your job is worthwhile and fulfilling. That kicks the shit out of perceived success any day of the week.

You’re a drain on society, lazy, not hard working, should only be in work if you’re determined to be in the highest possible pay grade within your chosen field and don’t pay enough tax though. At least according to some ****ing idiots on the budget thread.

That parable is all very well until the local commercial port buys up the dock and turns it into a marina for investment bankers, the Mexican is refused a fishing permit and his children get ill but unfortunately there is no health service to cure them.

Money doesn't only buy goods and services, it gives a level of control and it gives you (some) options. It also pays (via taxes) for community services like healthcare and roads etc.

There should of course be a happy middle way.

If it helps the OP, I took a 60-70% paycut and though I'm not stressed through work, I am getting worried about lack of cash!  So it looks like back into the rat race for me.

Mexican is refused a fishing permit and his children get ill but unfortunately there is no health service to cure them.

If there is no health service surely everyone is a bit knackered regardless of money?

People get in touch with me and commission me to draw their favourite places for the people they love

I've two healthy happy kids and I'm married to an amazing woman who for some truly inexplicable reason loves me

Thats success to me

I don't need owt else. I'm truly as happy as a pig in shit. #winningatlife

😀

Sounds like lots to be happy with. I would just enjoy the time as you can’t buy that.

I’ve a stressful job and could work all hours if I wanted to but I try to balance.

There are people in our company working 80+ hour weeks. They earn well but no time to spend it, what’s the point?

 I am fairly happy, healthy, more spare time, live and work in a great area.

that.....focus on that, sounds like success to me

OP, did you feel successful in your last job? And how did that sense of success (or not) play out in the overall balance of general life satisfaction?

Thats success to me

Yeah I felt successful in my last job, I was a HoD, great results completed an MA and  professional qualifications, but it did come at a price. For me there were too many peaks and troughs, no life mid-week or Sunday afternoons. I had to take one or two mental health days as pressure was immense at times (knob head Principal at the school and spineless line manager).

On behalf of all women in the workplace, diddums. At least you got a fair run at it.

I'll echo what a lot of others are saying above, money and a high flying career does not always equal happiness.  If you're happy, can meet all your financial obligations and your family are looked after then you're winning.

I could take on a lot more responsibility at my work, climb the career ladder etc and earn another 10-15k on top of what I do now but it would mean me having to go back up to working 5 days a week, lose a lot of flexibility over what days I work, increase my stress levels from virtually zero and seriously curtail my enjoyment of the job.  Every year at the annual appraisal meeting I get asked if I'm interested in moving up but I always say no. Why would I give up a stressless working life that earns me a decent wage (£30k) that allows me to pay my bills comfortably, pick up overtime when I feel like it, only work 4 days a week and have plenty of time to go biking and see friends and family?  So I can have a big mortgage or a flashier car on the drive?  Nah, staying where I am thanks.

Sounds like you're near the equilibrium point that is happiness / contentment but not quite there. The last job was rewarding but too stressful but this one is rewarding but not stressful enough. The good news is that you're in a far stronger place now as you have way more control.

You can't change the entire structure of teaching on your own so you had to just roll with it, but now you have more options to set your own agenda. You can look for more challenge, leadership etc at your work or you could leave that as it is and look for something else outside. Getting awesomely strong on the bike is a sort of obvious thing to suggest but really anything in your personal life. Having a decent job that you enjoy but is not too taxing gives you a lot of choices.

You’re a drain on society, lazy, not hard working, should only be in work if you’re determined to be in the highest possible pay grade within your chosen field and don’t pay enough tax though. At least according to some **** idiots on the budget thread.

Lol, I'd love you to link where someone actually said that.

Anyway.  Success means different things to different people. The fact that we lucky enough to have a roof over our heads, two children and we eat every day means to me, I'm successful.  Outside of that I'm not really happy, and we are currently researching an alternative lifestyle/direction.

I could take on a lot more responsibility at my work, climb the career ladder etc and earn another 10-15k on top of what I do now

I just turned that done a month ago because my happiest times are at the side of my kids rugby pitch on a Sunday with my daughter cheering my son on, not crunching a spreadsheet for a Monday morning meeting.

At the OP - I'd say as above focus one this, there's a lot of us searching for it yet you've found it, congrats!:

I am fairly happy, healthy, more spare time, live and work in a great area.

Lol, I’d love you to link where someone actually said that.

I’m reading between the lines Kryton 😀 it was all getting very Tory in there. Not used to it with this place normally being very leftist 😉

Not used to it with this place normally being very leftist

There are quite a few Tories on here, always pop up in money or politics threads...

I found it very hard to recondition myself from that metric of success. Four years of a much better life-balance, seeing how much more time, energy, fun and love I was able to give my children was the biggest factor - they've had a pretty awesome childhood as a result of my career change (and have no idea how hard I struggled financially, so more or less money clearly has no effect on them. Helps they like dhaal and rice tho) - coupled with having so much more fun and social times/hobbies than any of my more career-focussed peers and friends.

'Career success' always strikes me as perpetually elusive anyway, it seems folk are only happy when they're moving up, meaning they're never happy with where they are.

You define your metrics, but don't expect that to come without effort - make perception change a measure of your success!

I do

It took me a long time to reconcile this as I set out in my career 40 years ago to achieve certain things and discovered that I did not have the aptitude to do so.  Id rather be a good shop floor worker than a bad boss / business owner and go bust.  I have a great work life balance

I am now content in a job I enjoy mostly, that I am highly skilled in and respected for and where I can pass my skills on to less experienced folk

I measure my success by my simple mantra

Do as much good as you can, do as little harm as you can. have as much fun as you can

We used to have a CFO who when anything went wrong e.g. upset customer, order lost etc would say "Did anyone die, no, in which case can't be that bad."

I really like that attitude as it put work in perspective....

I'll admit to inner turmoil about.

10 years and some months ago I left the Finance Industry and vowed never to return. The 10 years previous I'd been well paid, at some points VERY well paid, well looked after but was a complete mess mentally, the stress and strain was hard to take at times.

My life has changed completely, I was a single person, now I'm a husband and father.

I work in a completely different industry now, I accepted when I first left that I wasn't going to earn what I did, and I was okay with that, but over the next 5 years I clawed my way up a bit, when we had kids I accepted that flexibility was more important than earning a few extra quid because my Wife's job was completely inflexible and she was at the start of her career and I wanted to support her.

That was 5 years ago, my Wife's career has come on leaps and bounds, she's brilliant at it, she's changed roles, got promotions, learned new skills and is flying high - to do this I've had to take a back seat. Even though I'm 6 years older and 20 years into my career and she less than half that, she's catching up to me, which is great.

I'm at a real cross-roads now, progression in work is hard, I gain skills, get better at what I do, work really hard and sometimes the stress level is back where it was all those years ago. I carry a lot on my shoulders in work and people expect a lot from me, but the rewards are non-existent, not a penny in pay rise in years, promises broken and frankly, my 'reward' isn't a priority for anyone bar me.

I'm in a position where I'm offered jobs fairly often, some good, most bad, but the offers are there, but I don't want to leap because despite it all, I enjoy my work for the most part.

To add to my post.  I did climb the ladder to the point where I had 130 staff reporting directly to me, reported directly to the board, budget measured in millions etc - manager of a 3rd sector care home

I hated it and was not good at it.  so I took a big step down and worked part time on zero hours contracts for a decade and now am back full time in the NHS as a staff nurse.  My commute takes 10 mins by bike. I am the happiest I have been for a long long time.  I am good at my job and valued for my skills and no longer have to do the stuff I was bad at and hated.

Work to live, don't live to work

No! my career and life have been a series of disappointments and disasters and I absolutely hate threads like this that make me think about it. So stop it. Now!

You’ve gotta laugh though eh? 😆😂😢

My boss recently handed his notice in, I've discussed this with colleagues, friends and clients.

I've been asked by almost all of them if I'll be applying for the job. Whilst that's flattering as I think (hope) they see some leadership skills, integrity and backbone in me, which is nice, I haven't actually got the experience or qualifications for the job.

But my reply to all of them is the same - no. And not because of the above, because even if I was in a position to apply, I simply wouldn't!

It probably pays £10-15k more than my job, but I'm saving quite a bit of money as I am, it's nearly all office based, managing budgets and attending meetings whereas I'm out and about on site for over half of my time with practical people. I have nobody reporting to me, and my boss largely leaves me well alone, managing my own workload. So sod the manager's job, I'd be better off for sure, but I'd also be stressed and miserable mostly confined to a hateful open plan, air conditioned office. Nah mate.

Success isn't about work and money.

Someone above I think quoted the line about "No one ever lies on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time at the office". I guess that can never be proved (short of having a rather bad taste survey) but I strongly suspect it's the second best bit of advice you'll ever get ().

Pretty much everyone has said the same thing, and as you get older you realise the essential truth. Money does buy you happiness but only up to a point. Once you have enough to enjoy a reasonably comfortable lifestyle there's no point in spending long hours doing a job you hate. Much better to spend time with family, friends, your bike or whatever.

You get one shot at life and that's it. No second chances. Once it's gone it's gone. If you want to waste it being a sales director or a management consultant then fair enough, but don't complain when you look out your office window at all the people having fun in the fresh air.

And for those folk claiming to have "stressful jobs" well really. If you're a policeman, nurse, pizza chef or something useful like that then yes, but for the vast bulk of folk (including the job I did) the harsh reality is that your job really is of very little importance in the bigger scheme of things.

and the best bit of advice you'll ever get............never ask a starfish for directions.

The whole point of working is to buy you time to play. Do just enough of the first to have as much of the second as you need.

Success is not having to work and having as much time as you like to play.

When you're dead no one comes round to look at your headstone and say, "Oh, he was good worker and corporate slave".

My dad was obsessed with telling me to earn as much money as I could, but that's mainly because he grew up very poor and despite all the cliches about money not equalling happiness, it isn't very fun being potless either.

To the OP I'd say you are in a very good position, your own house sorted, which is the big factor facing a lot of young people, it sounds like you are not being challenged, in which case try to move up the ladder or find a challenging hobby out of work.

On behalf of all women in the workplace, diddums. At least you got a fair run at it.

"we have it worse, so your situation doesn't matter?

I'm pretty sure someone has it worse than you...

Does no-one on here actually enjoy their job?

I have well paid job, spend time away from home but get plenty of time off.

It can be very stressful at times. When in the thick of it, it can be exhausting. However, when we are successful the level of job satisfaction is immense.

I do intend to scale down my work in a few years, go self employed and only work a few months per year. However, I can't imagine not doing it anymore.

I have been in jobs I have hated and that feeling of dread about having to go back to work, is soul destroying. The reality for most of us, is that we have to spend a lot of time at work, so you really need to enjoy what you do.

Does no-one on here actually enjoy their job?

Yep, I do. I spent a lot of time when I'm not at work thinking about it as well (mainly working out solutions to problems). I get a huge amount of fulfilment from it and a large amount of my self worth is derived from it, which I realise is a big risk if I ever lose it...

I think people have hit the nail.on the head. I need that little bit more challenge in my role, which I can do with my eyes shut currerntly. It was an amazing feeling to start with but I do need that extra challenge. I love learning and need a challenge to motivate me. I'm going to have to book in a conversation with my manager in regards to learning and responsibilities etc.

Your post reminded me of this Alan Watts quote...

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”

I can completely relate to the OP as many here probably do. If you go looking for something to make you feel successful you’ll probably end up feeling disappointed. I’ve found reading about philosophy has helped me overcome this vicious evolutionary programming.

Sometimes we don’t know what we’re looking for, because we already have it. Learn to appreciate all the simple things we have taken for granted.

Does no-one on here actually enjoy their job?

sometimes.  it's pleasant enough. outside of work i spend 0 minutes per day thinking about it, i get 7 weeks a year holiday, there are some attractive women in the office and the work isn't difficult or stressful. i get paid close to the average wage, and i have no desire to be a high flyer so i basically just coast.  it's fine.

Mrwhyte- A good way to learn stuff is to drop yourself in it,big time.

When we had our business, me and my partner were in a meeting with a potential customer who asked if we could do a fully animated website for them.

’Yes’ said I, full of shit, as ever.

We got the contract

”Well then, smartarse, you need to start learning how to do animation, don’t you?” Said my business partner, quite legitimately.

So I did

There was a lot of swearing. Along the lines of “why the **** has it just done that?!!”

Since then I bloody love doing animation. It makes me immensely happy and it’s multi-layered format suits my OCD nature. Would I have done it without chucking myself in at the deep end. Possibly. Maybe not (probably not!)

I don’t know who the quote came from originally, but...

”do something you love, then it never ever feels like work”

I absolutely bloody love my ‘job’!

Go and do something you fancy doing, and you think you’ll really love fella 😀

I am one of the small percentage of people who really enjoys their job. It really suits me. It's well paid and I get a lot of time off to enjoy the things in life that make me happy! Not a brag I promise but it took a long time for me to get to this position. What would I miss most of it all changed?? The time off for sure. So enjoy it while you have it buddy. Life is fleeting. Family and friends define your success in my opinion. Work just makes the cogs spin a little easier but it shouldn't be the main focus!

Amen to that!

I think this a cultural issue. Success is often equated with money and status in advertising, films, and tv shows. Sometimes it is an overt statement but if not it is instead illustrated by the way that charcters dress, the homes they live in, the cars they drive, the things they do and the places they visit - which are often way beyond the means of a real person with that job. These associations reinforce the myth that money and status equals success. Newspapers and magazines reinforce this these perceptions by glamourising the benefits of money and status.

It strikes me that thinking of success in these terms serves only to benefit shareholders and those above us in the organisation hierarchy as it encourages us to sacrifice our own happiness, time and health in pursuit of these fickle rewards, while the real profit from our endeavour is accrued by others. Got a promotion? Earning an extra £15k? Not happy? Then you need to work harder and earn more...and repeat...

The way out of this is, if there is one, is to first take responsibility for living and aspiring toward our own definition of success and happiness - one that serves us and our family. It is not easy to do because it goes against this prevailing culture and a lifetime of indoctrination that has shaped our thoughts and beliefs.

TL;DR OP - your life before was not a success on your terms, your new one is. I admire you for what you've done. Sounds to me like you are living the dream.

I worked for charities for years, doing all kinds of websites, digital marketing, databases etc

Got paid pretty well (no wife, kids or mortgage) but was really phoning it in tbh. Did good work, but not learning anything, no inspiration.

Ended up quitting and doing a full time MSc in Brewing and Distilling. Now, that was a challenge- post graduate science with no scientific studies since highers 20 years ago!

But it pushed me, and I surprised myself by responding well and working hard. Just graduated in top 5%, with an A grade.

Having no income other than AirBnB from my spare room sucked and has wiped my savings (already depleted after a divorce), but it's been a great learning experience. Makes a good answer for the "tell me more about yourself" interview question.

Not that I have a job yet, which is stressful in its own way. Loads of time, no money to do anything fun.... Thank god for cycling!

So, yeah.... Get divorced, give up everything and do something totally different and then be unemployed.

That'll sort ya

I enjoy my job- to a point. It’s interesting, but sometimes it’s stressful and occasionally requires long hours (with no overtime pay). The head of our team resigned recently and I had the opportunity to consider his job but after giving it a lot of thought, I decided that I’d only be doing it for the status and pay rise, not because I would enjoy it. So I’m staying put!

Having no income other than AirBnB from my spare room

...and the pants. You forgot about the pants.

Hate my job at the moment. Wildly stressful, brutal hours and morally challenging (basically I work in an episode of The Thick of It). A change of Government would help. I'm earning decent money as far as the public sector goes, but the housing market is so daft I still can't get somewhere "nice" (how funny that a three bed semi in a 'good' area is a ridiculous dream for my generation...) without committing myself to another 20 ish years of mortgage-based servitude.

Work is unsuprisingly having a disasterous impact on my relationship, and my partner has a similarly stressful job with the added twist of a commute so long she stays elsewhere a few nights in the week.

Life is a bit s***t to be honest 🙁 .

No-one seems to be happy in the south east of england these days, so Im moving out.

Thankfully remote working allows me to do this.

No-one seems to be happy in the south east of england these days, so Im moving out.

My sister and her husband are both London Meedya big cheeses. They've got the telephone number salaries, the 3 million quid Islington townhouse, the Times Sunday Supplement lifestyle, eating out at Michelin starred restaurants.

The hours they work to maintain this lifestyle are absolutely insane. They're both constantly travelling. The stress levels are off the scale. She never seems to be not working. If we go away for the weekend, she's constantly on the phone or answering emails, or having to cut it short to dash back to London. Madness. They have a full time nanny who sees considerably more of their kids than they do.

They've been in London that long, they think this is 'normal'. To me it looks like a living, waking hell.

Noone ever bought any of the pants. 🙁

We used to have a CFO who when anything went wrong e.g. upset customer, order lost etc would say “Did anyone die, no, in which case can’t be that bad.”

I really like that attitude as it put work in perspective….

We also used to have a CFO/FD who would say things like that... and just this weekend, she died of a brain tumour that went undiagnosed until a week or two ago, leaving behind a husband and two small boys. Absolutely awful... but you bet it's made everyone in the business wonder if the daily grind is worth it. Fortunately I work for a very good little company that looks after its people very well, and I enjoy working there, but she was only a year or two older than me...

Ironically I got congratulated for dealing with the situation in a calm and collected manner (there were two other fairly important business problems happening the same weekend which I was largely responsible for handling) but I didn't dare admit it was because some time ago I had learned not to get emotionally invested with work. I got caught up in it in my younger days, but having been around long enough to see how projects that seemed so important then are forgotten and irrelevant now, it's impossible to summon up that level of enthusiasm and energy to dive in again.

My Dad never got a retirement because he got ill before he could, and worked right up to the end anyway because he was an academic and loved his job. My mum had a stroke at an early age and never got to have a pleasant, productive retirement either. I haven't left it until I retire to get some travelling done (in fact I've done quite a bit), but my wife and I are prioritising getting to a point where we can ease back on work and take more time 'off' to do more interesting things, hopefully in a decade or so.

Not having children definitely puts you in a different perspective bracket from those who do. I can understand why people flog themselves to work hard to provide for their family - I'm not quite sure how anyone could ever think they had done enough for their kids when you see the likely future they have ahead of them - but I can't really get why people would work themselves into the ground just to be 'successful' for themselves. It must take some Olympic-level mental gymnastics to look at the world, look at their jobs and lifestyles, and conclude it was a worthwhile investment of the only life they will ever get to spend their prime years grinding away primarily for the benefit of business owners and investors. If it's your own business then fair-dos... but that's not for me either!

I like to think I'm an underachiever. I'm probably not.

I’ve provided my children with a life of unimaginable privilege where there’s never been a single day of their lives when they didn’t have everything that they need and most of what they want.

I’m nailing it.

never got to have a pleasant, productive retirement either.

Personally I'm not looking forward to retirement at all, I quite enjoy my day to day life as it is, so if I dropped dead tomorrow I'd have very few regrets.

I'm this guy

Made it to lunchtime on Friday - haven't killed anyone - great success!

The deathbed quote comes out a lot, I'm sure many wish they had worked smarter or got themselves into a better position when they were younger.

For me work takes up a decent amount of my time, that enables me to do what I want to but because it takes up that amount of time I have to get some enjoyment out of it, if all I did was attend somewhere I hated, endured people I didn't like etc. it would be awful.

the other part of it having done a few interesting things over my time so far is being able to deliver something, complete it or solve a problem is the rewarding bit. A bit of time helping a mate in a bike shop had those little wins as the day went on, at the moment I'm winning business and delivering stuff which does give me some satisfaction. If I was just plodding along I don't think I'd get that out of it.

Noone ever bought any of the pants.

How would one go about buying them?

Kudos for the Alan Watts quote!

Got two jobs, love them both. One ticks the feel-good/karma box but pays less than my bills, the other ticks the fun box and, these days, pays pretty well. My only complaint would be not enough time off (I work all my first job holidays and a lot of evenings/weekends to do the second job so the kids and us get enough bread and the odd treat), but then I'm about to reduce my days in job 1 to address this.

Neither provide a huge amount of challenge, which you seem to be realising is the source of your woes, so I started an MSc a few years ago - would highly recommend that! Hope to get back to that when I'm working less - which would of course ruin the new-found relaxation time, but I'm not very good at sitting around not doing much anyway so that won't be a huge problem for me! (Think I'm going to set up my studyspare around a turbo trainer so still getting the physical output I need)

I’ve provided my children with a life of unimaginable privilege where there’s never been a single day of their lives when they didn’t have everything that they need and most of what they want.

I’m nailing it.

You are. I'm getting that tattooed on my arse so when it goes tits up later my boss can read it when i suggest he kisses it.

Don't enjoy my job - in fact I realise that I've never actually ENJOYED a job I've had.
I enjoy some small parts of it but have never actually looked forward to going to work.

I've been relatively good at the jobs I've had, but very much fell into the different industries that I've worked in.
I would absolutely love to have a job that I enjoyed doing, that I felt made a positive difference to the world (or even one person's life) and that I looked forward to going into at least every so often.

Simple.  All I need to do now is figure out what it is and make sure it pays the bills.

Oh...

Si

I’m sat reading this in a moody pub on my own on my 39th birthday.

I earn north of 150k a year, have no kids, own a flash car, all the bikes I could dream of and a s****y flat. I’m utterly ‘Kin miserable and pretty lonely. My relationship is falling apart with my Mrs, I don’t see my family anymore and barely have any friends. I’m so knackered from work that I can’t face riding my bikes. When I do ride, I struggle to manage more than 20 miles.

Trust me, you’re doing the right thing...

Don’t enjoy my job – in fact I realise that I’ve never actually ENJOYED a job I’ve had.
I enjoy some small parts of it but have never actually looked forward to going to work.

I’ve been relatively good at the jobs I’ve had, but very much fell into the different industries that I’ve worked in.
I would absolutely love to have a job that I enjoyed doing, that I felt made a positive difference to the world (or even one person’s life) and that I looked forward to going into at least every so often.

Simple.  All I need to do now is figure out what it is and make sure it pays the bills.

Oh…

Si

I just copied the entire post because it sums up my working life quite well. Really like the people I work with and that, combined with a family and a work ethic, are what keep me going in every day. Would love a job that I’m proud of and that makes a difference. Sadly I think that ship sailed long ago.

www.splooshpanties.com

Fire in, make me rich and successful boys and girls