Is Work All Bad?

A lot of my posts focus on pointing out that we only have a limited time here and do we really want to spend what little time we have on work. But sometimes you gotta work and sometimes you like work and sometimes you'll work at the same time as living out your dreams. I've had jobs that I absolutely loved and I adored running our consultancy, Steve had to pull me out of that one! The point that I'm trying to bring out is that work should be a thoughtful, considered action - not something you just do because that's what you've been told to do and that's everyone else does. To put it really simply, I think there is good work and bad work.

Here's an example, I knew a man from New England who worked in a retail store and hated it! He hated it for the 17 years that I knew him. Can you imagine, going into work every day for 17 YEARS and counting the minutes until you were done? In 750,000 Hours terms, that's 37,000 hours wasted doing something you don't like - a huge amount of life time spent which could have been spent on something this man liked to do. Steve knew people in the service who were 8 years away from retirement and were counting the days until they were done. That's a heck of a long time to be counting down the days!

That's bad work.

Good work is a job you love, you really get a lot out of doing it. You might even do it for free, you're having so much fun (but don't tell your employer that!). You get up every morning looking forward to the day and it flies by, before you know it, it's time to go home. That's good work.

There is a caution here about the good work though, sometimes we fall into it and are having such a good time that we never raise our head above the parapet to see if there is anything else that we might like more. Even though you enjoy good work, make sure that you are still living out your dreams or working to live out your dreams. You still need to take the time to think about what you want out of this life and to make sure you get it. It may very well be that your work is so good that that is exactly what you want, but often times when embroiled in good work people forget to consider all of their options and they may have other things they want to do in this lifetime. Even in good work, make sure it is a conscious choice after evaluating ALL your choices!

If you think about the 'Book of Your Life' that you'll be looking back over when you're 85 (or 90 or 95...), you'll enjoy reading about the good work and be really sorry you spent all that time on the bad work.

Key points here - stay away from bad work and if you're in bad work, don't stay there - those hours will be spent, you won't get them back! And even if you're lucky enough to have good work, make sure it is a considered choice after looking at all your options - not just the one you were pushed or fell into!