Kate Hackett
This question hit home so hard — bless you, u/69motherducker420, for hopping on Reddit and asking:
“How can you work a 9-to-5 job with only the weekends and 4 weeks per year off without getting the feeling of wasting your life?
“I(16m) have been looking what I could do after graduating school and realised that this all is shit how can somebody be ok with Working a 9 to 5 job sitting in a office coming home just to do this pointless shit the next morning again. Always do what your Boss says only having the Weekends and 4 weeks per year Off and wasting your life doing the same shit over and over again. I mean thats One of the most depressing things i’ve ever heard of.”
I hear you, friend. And some of these answers really, really help. Enjoy!
1. Be a person
Make sure to have a life outside of work, with hobbies that encourages you to grow instead of being stagnant.
2. Work is not your priority
Biggest mistake of my life was listening to an older mentor at the time who told me I need to let work be my main priority in life. I still respect him a lot as he was a good dude besides that piece of advice. I ended up getting burnt out with none of my usual hobbies for quality of life. I got better once I brought the fun stuff back in to my life as a priority.
3. It’s not all like that
Flexible jobs are becoming more common. I work a 4/10 week, 4 days a week, 10 hours a day, so I have every Friday off.
Things like working from home, flex time (work more during the week and take time off elsewhere) alternate start times (I work 6am – 4pm) give better work life balance.
Also being smart about time off helps stretch it, taking time around certain holidays can get you a week for one or two days in my company.
That all being said, working with people you enjoy working with is the top metric in my opinion. I could do almost any job with a great team of people.
No matter how “good” the job is, if the people are terrible it will negatively affect your physical and mental health.
4. It’s only meaningless if you have nothing else to live for.
This is it, really. You can’t expect to always love your job, but need to aim for one you don’t hate. Then you need to have a hobby that you do live for. Rarely do people get to marry the two, and get paid to do what they love. Those that do often wind up hating it anyway. That’s why so many kids want to make it as musicians, or YouTubers.
I’ve survived by finding cool jobs most people have never heard of and doing those. Those kinds of jobs bring me enough joy to survive.
5. Love Parts
Even if you don’t love your job, you can love parts of it. As someone who spends time outside of work playing a decent about of simulation, strategy, and puzzle games, the fact that roughly half my job revolves around technological problem solving is a joy. The other half of staff management, budget requirements, some meetings, and when extra pressure on a particular problem is applied, not so much. When I spend a whole day really working, I’ve satisfied the puzzle piece of my mind and end up doing something else with my evening, but a day full of meetings leads to a night full of Cities Skylines.
6. Enjoy it
It’s hard to imagine after doing years of school and what your told to do, but eventually you find something, it can take awhile or doing things you don’t enjoy, but eventually you stumble upon something that you enjoy doing and pursue that as a career and then it brings enjoyment and fulfillment and it always you to do other things in your free time that you enjoy and bring you happiness and comfort.
7. Don’t work full time
Well, if you’ve got a decently paid, middle-class job and no family to support, you don’t have to work full-time. For example my brother works as a secondary school teacher (7th-9th grades). In our country, teachers are a well-respected profession and earn a good, above-median income. My brother is 38, has a girlfriend but no children. He is a fairly humble person, which means he doesn’t need tons of material goods to be happy. This combination of factors allows him to work only 2 days per week and stay free on the other 5 days. This way he’s got plenty of time to enjoy his hobbies, meet friends, do activities with his GF or simply chill out at home (in other words, enjoy his life). He even manages to save enough money to go on vacation to another country once or twice a year.
8. Just don’t do office-work
Find a job that not in an office. It’s not for everyone.
9. Get outside
I had the same existential crisis and it lasted through college. My answer was to not get an office job. I am going into environmental conservation and spend my day getting paid to play in dirt outside. Find something you enjoy and think outside the box.
10. Money
For me, it’s the dump truck of money I get paid for enjoying what I do, and how that money lets me afford the house, the vacations, and the fun I have with my wife and family.
My life isn’t wasted, I’m happy, have everything I need, and even stuff I want is within my grasp.
11. Think ahead
If I were you I would start seriously looking at aiming for a job that you like/could tolerate, where you could save at least half of your salary.
No commute time (close to where you live so you don’t waste your life on traffic). Invest 20 to 30% of your monthly salary on any stock/crypto you think it’s good or has a good future. Endure this for 5 years and take no debt (or at least not unecessary debt – maybe you’ll need to borrow a couple grand to buy a car so you can get to work). After 5 years, unless something catastrophic happened, you’ll have several times your investment, and MAYBE you can be a little more free with your future choices.
Just for the love of god, if you value the little freedom you have, don’t fall into the buy a house / get married and work till you’re 70 trap.
Remember, if you’re in debt, you have no choice but to work and you need to accept whatever is thrown your way.
Others will tell you that you need to get out of your parents house asap and get a wife and kids, but for me that’s a trap. Take your youth and think ahead. Enjoy the rent free house while you can and definitely don’t get married (when divorce hits, half of your shit is gone) or get kids (they’re expensive af) while youre still figuring shit out.
12. Find something you enjoy
Marry a smart woman, get a job that you kind of enjoy, life fills in the rest. I never imagined I’d amount to shit. Carpenter, always boozing, no real direction. Now I’m 45 and I have everything I ever dreamt of. A shop, house, kegerator, a kid, even got money to burn. Don’t stress yourself out. Life’s not that hard.
13. Save money
My advice is to live with your parents as long as you can, work really hard for a while, save up, and go travel as far and wide as you can. Try and gain some perspective and find out what you really want out of life. Always remember to be grateful for the little things and be mindful. That’s what helped me.
14. Make sure it’s NOT awful
How do you know it’s all pointless? You’re taking a very pessimistic view of all jobs, and I’m guessing you have not worked such a job. Do awful office jobs exist? Yes. I’m not sure it’s the norm, or atleast there are places that do care about their employees, and where bosses are not just evil people. You have to look for those good places, or try and make where ever you land a good place.
I work in an office, hours are pretty flexible, people (bosses included) are nice, and we’re doing work that does help people (it’s fulfilling).
15. Retire early
Save and invest a huge portion of your pay and then retire early with “Fuck You” money and many of your years remaining.
16. Way to get money to live life
Because if I didnt do that 9 to 5 I personally wouldnt be able to afford my house or 2/3 holidays a year to see the world.
Work isnt life, its just the way to get money to live your life.
17. My own boss
I run my own business so I’m my boss. I ‘work’ way more than 40 hours a week, and I have less than 4 weeks ‘off’ a year. But I’m never at ‘work’ or ‘off’ I just live and do what I do, sometimes I’m making money, sometimes I’m not. So find a way to make money doing something you enjoy (you don’t have to love it) and you’ll never work a day in your life again.
