Comments on: Work To Live or Live To Work?

By: cdiver

cdiver — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:50:06 +0000

me want to be mexican fisherman too.

By: jessie

jessie — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:27:08 +0000

couldn’t have said it better myself

By: jessie

jessie — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:25:58 +0000

what if you die at 30?

By: Jool

Jool — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 10:57:05 +0000

Life is about living – NOW. Why ‘bust our guts’ to retire/slow down from working when in 5,10,15 years we may not be here anymore to enjoy the ‘fruits of our labour’?

Work is good, work gives us purpose. When we do something we enjoy, or at least do what we do with passion, then work is a pleasant and beneficial past-time. Just don’t fill our day/week/years with work – take time for relationships, relaxation, and for our souls.

Don’t ignore tomorrow (not saving, etc), but don’t fear tomorrow – it’s much more likely than not that it’ll all work out anyway!

Enjoy today. Living is in the journey.

By: FlyFisher

FlyFisher — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 03:44:05 +0000

Great insight and much needed step back from it all.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:07:36 +0000

Why do you like to travel? Is it because you home community lack cultural, social, and environmental richness? Is it because you don’t know how to pass time enjoyably without spending money

By: aua868s

aua868s — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:05:08 +0000

my ambitions keep me going at work!

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 02:52:36 +0000

The trick is to do both! that is bust your hump for 5-10-15 years. Find a high-paying career or business (probably high stress position) , be super frugal , save an invest aggressively, then if you had luck on your side (luck does play a part, good health, no marital discourse, no tanking economy, etc.) retire at 40, 50.

The key is to live to work for the shortest amount of time until your financial goals are met. The concept of working till your 62 is silly, you should only work (hard) as just as long as you need to and no more, get your financial freedom (which is different for everyone.) then savor life.

By: TR

TR — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:22:29 +0000

Jim

Fantastic commentary. This is something I think about all the time. I work about 70-80 hours a week and make more money than I ever expected I would make but I keep wondering if I am doing what I should be doing with my life.

By: Workersusa

Workersusa — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:21:29 +0000

Life is not simple. As my Zoology professor said many moons ago: “life, at the core of it all, is nothing but a constant struggle for survival in order to make useful that which is in between your legs just like any other organism. Everything else is man’s attempts to hide that raw reality.”

WORK TO LIVE has its own problem. Care to guess? One has to “work to live” even when one gets to her/his golden years when one is less mobile, less flexible and less pretty/handsome! Americans do have it best as long as they have the discipline to keep a decent work-life balance.

By: Captain Rob

Captain Rob — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:33:31 +0000

Ahoy mateys,

The “Mexican Fisherman” story, more correctly titled – The Good Life Parable

was written by my friend, Dr Mark Albion when he was a professor at Harvard. You may google his name to find out more….

Rob

By: DDFD at DivorcedDadFrugalDad

DDFD at DivorcedDadFrugalDad — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:51:57 +0000

Very funny joke! Ah . . . the rat race!

By: Moneymonk

Moneymonk — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:11:19 +0000

I’m like JJ, health insurance and traveling is what keeps me working

By: bert

bert — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:38:04 +0000

This is a great blog entry. Thanks Jim for posting this!

By: ming

ming — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:04:31 +0000

I think it should be live to work, if you are really passionate about your work and work to live otherwise together with be happy on less.