It occurred to me recently that I have no idea what I would do if I were rich. I used to think about it from time to time, whenever work was especially frustrating, and the daydream usually included lots of sitting on the beach and margaritas.
But I realized that sitting on the beach would probably not keep me happy for very long. I think doing nothing, I would quickly get bored and depressed.
Even if you don't have to work, you still have to do something. There are a lot of hours to fill between breakfast, lunch, cocktail hour, and dinner.
I'd probably at least continue programming as a hobby. But I feel like I might just as easily want to try something else. You only go around once, and it seems like a shame to waste it all on one occupation. But I don't have anything in mind, either.
It's a weird feeling realizing that even though work sometimes sucks, and having to work definitely sucks, there isn't anything in particular you'd rather do instead.
Edit: In typically boodman style, I kept editing this post obsessively after posting it. Tessa shared it and quoted an earlier version of the last paragraph:
It's a weird feeling realizing that even though work sucks, you don't even know yourself well enough to know what you'd rather do instead.
Poll: which version is better?
I think the version Tessa quoted is more along the lines of what I originally meant, but I pulled it back a bit at the last minute.
7 comments:
I think I would continue to hack but I'd also spend more time working with my hands (wood working, glass blowing, ...)
Some day...
I think you'd make a fine saloon-keeper.
I have often wondered what I would be doing if I wasn't writing code. It's tough since I love it so much. There are not too many occupations in this world where you can leave a job and go home and do the same thing for enjoyment.
I used to think that meant I didn't know myself, but I have come to realize the exact opposite. I am doing exactly what I should be doing. Because it's not about laying down lines of code.
It's about solving problems and inventing. Creating. That's what I love.
So, the real question then isn't "what would I be doing?" but "how can I keep doing that same thing...just in a different way?"
Just my $0.02
I think being rich is a choice. It's all about what you compare yourself to.
You and I are richer than about 99.99% of the human race. We just redefine "rich" to mean "as rich as the richest people we could have conceivably become".
For a lot of people, being rich would mean not working hard labor. Being paid to be creative. Being able to travel. For some, being rich could even be defined as havin access to water free of infectious diseases.
So, this is the thought experiment I run with myself now: what if I decide that I am rich now? And that I have the freedom to do whatever I would be putting off otherwise?
It's almost too scary to contemplate being completely free.
I am always envious of Googlers' rich average salary over $90K http://www.salarylist.com/all-real-jobs-salary-at-google-inc.htm
Neil is right. Thinking of "if we were rich", as some hurdle we haven't already jumped, is not all unlike near-anorectic super models worrying that they are fat. (Which they purportedly often or typically do.)
Somewhere, we get a perception about rich meaning "having vastly more $$$ than we do now" (same, but reverse, with the super models and their weight). As we organically grow (financially) richer, we'll never really cross that boundary; we can always get vastly more $$$ than we have now.
It's faux reasoning.
A more interesting thing to ponder than what we would do if we were rich might be what amounts to value to us, and how to optimize what we do and how we live towards that end.
Amusing; reading reader comments set me astray from my original trajectory of answering your question.
I found your first take far more profound (overtly being in touch with oneself is one of those cues that instantly makes someone rise in esteem with me), whereas the polished variant variant sort of fell to the ground as half truism, half closed question that didn't really invite a reflective mood.
Quite the contrary, actually -- the tail of it sort of posits and cements a state of not really knowing what one would rather do, in one fell swoop.
...I wonder how conversation systems that encourage and discourage following tangents would differ from each other, design wise.
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