Not wanting to work!

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This. Exactly this. Because other people have to work harder in order to provide for those that (can, but) refuse to work.

What is difficult to comprehend about this?

It might be a different situation all together if you simply chose a different system of economics, ie subsistence farming or living off the land - being self sufficient without a job or cash income.. because then you wouldn't be a parasite to anyone else' hard work or efforts.

When I couldn't work (due to strong ASD symptoms) I certainly felt like a parasite living off the charity of friends/family. But I always wanted to work - just couldn't for a while. I want to work because I have bigger better goals for myself (financial/business etc) as well as things in this life that I like to experience that cost money (sports/recreation, a vacation sometime, maybe a nicer car). While I love myself more and more as time passes, I'm not going to lie.. it's my love for others that motivates me to do what I have to in order to get what I want. When the going gets tough, and it has, I just think about my loved ones and what I'd love to be able to do for them in this life & the resources it's going to take to do those things... and it gives me the energy to carry on, even if it means working my hands to the bone 10+hours/day outside in the rain and snow. I don't care. With the motivation of love for others, I can endure anything. So far it's working out fairly well for me.. I've come a long way in the last year and a half or so of being back to work full time plus. I'm currently working part time at a job and part time on my own contracting & continuing to stack cash towards much bigger better business aspirations. I can't imagine NOT wanting to work in order to better myself, my finances, my physical fitness, experience and skills... and of course, my ability to better the lives of those I love with the resources I continue to amass.

Plus I have had a business plan evolving in my mind for the last 5 years that I'm ever closer to being able to launch and give it a shot. I would rather work hard for a few years to save the capital, then risk it all on said business project, to find out if it'll work vs. always wonder if I could have made a go of it. I'm confident it's going to fly & so are several others in my life. In part I'm motivated to work to make this happen just for the sake of self actualizing my own goals (Maslow style) & in part, perhaps even larger part, to make this happen in order to create opportunities for friends, family, and loved ones that this venture could benefit.. as well as the charitable things I'd do with money once I really "make it" in this world. It's nice having dreams and goals that are so much bigger than myself to work towards. Some people strive towards earning a lot of money for purely self serving reasons, but personally, I find those I love and some charitable causes to be much more motivational.

So harsh! I wouldnt use such a generalized statement though, if I were you. In many cases, it can be dead wrong.

People have this braindead idea that the ONLY way to do something that's good/productive/whatever is to have a job. But nobody really THINKS about this very hard. At all. Most believe it because it's what society tells them to; I suspect it's the case with many here, as well.

Me, I do not work. I have not done so in... ahhh, I dont even know anymore. It's been too long. Doesnt matter though. Why? Because there's other things I can do that are DRAMATICALLY more useful than having some damn stupid job. I help family and friends when they need it (which is a bit more frequent than I'd like, but whatever). My friend that lives nearby and does in fact have a job has no car, and sometimes the awful weather around here goes even worse than usual, and he cant walk there in that. His parents cannot get him there in bad weather; I suspect they are not good at driving in that, making it dangerous. I, however, have done it too many times to count, so I am able to go get him and take him where he needs to be, ice or whatever wont stop me from doing this. Without this, there would be trouble for him, and that cannot be allowed; with no transportation other than walking, if he were to lose that job, he'd be screwed.

I'm also good at listening, and helping others to solve bad situations. Could be absolutely anything; I've heard mundane problems, to the amazingly bizarre, to the downright terrible. There was one friend who came to me while feeling suicidal, which led to a very looooooooooong chat indeed. Eventually, the problem was dealt with, and he was fine after that (actual, proper counseling followed this, despite his original refusal to see a psychologist, he ended up doing it anyway). For whatever reason, people I know are CONSTANTLY coming to me with their problems. Every time, I do my best to solve them, and it's not exactly something I'm bad at. Sometimes, it takes more than just talking to do this, and I'm fine with taking action to accomplish something of this nature.

I can do productive things as well. My hobby is gaming, and I have a particular interest in indie development. There are a number of developers that I have gotten to know, and I do testing for them. And I dont mean like MMO testing; that's not actual testing, that's just getting to play the game before it comes out. No, I mean *real* testing, the kind that requires 10 bazillion bug reports, each of which needs to be very detailed and submitted in the proper way, often followed by direct conversation with the developers, either giving more info on the problem, or suggesting things that could be done about it, particularly since not all problems are actual glitches. There are usually other testers involved, but most of the time, I'm one of the most prolific. Hell, one of the most recent projects was a game that was essentially divided into 2 halves, each of which needed to work with the other. I got into the testing, and after some initial time, wrote up a long, rambly post about all of the huge problems I thought it had. In extreme detail. Development completely halted, and despite there being many others giving their own thoughts, mine was cited as the reason for the sudden stop. That aspect of the game ended up being changed around completely, and as a result, the whole thing got much better. It's gone alot further than that, too. These developers are making these games for a living; it's how they earn their money, making it important. I tend to spend *alot* of time doing what I can to assist (and none of this is paid, mind you) to make the end product as much better as possible. Alot of that time is very frustrating, as I do NOT like dealing with bugs/glitches and such and get easily aggravated by them. I bloody well do it anyway. The same goes for diagnosing balance issues and coming up with suggestions, which is alot harder than dealing with glitches.


There's more I can list beyond that, but you get the point.


Do you SERIOUSLY think that me working at a damn supermarket, being yelled at by customers who have been angered by the fact that the sky is blue, would be more useful or productive than any of this?

And that can apply to SO many others. Applying that label as you have is just.... ugh. You dont know the person in question. You dont know what their life is like, you dont know what they are like outside of this forum. Yet because "ZOMG NO JOB", you instantly assume that they are useless baggage. And you consider this to be a fair way of viewing things? Good grief.

It amazes me, really, how many people are so willing to just lump someone into some damn stupid arbitrary category without even KNOWING that person. And they're usually mean about it. It's even worse when it happens on THIS forum, as so many of us have already experienced this as the targets of it.

@Misery: Are you independently wealthy or does someone else finance your life of leisurely pursuits in your early retirement?

Best described as "family wealth". My father is in control. I aint talking like, "oh I feel like buying a helicopter today" wealth, but within the range of sane pursuits, I can do as I like. Gaming, travel, conventions/cosplay, (and fixing everyone's damn computers, if you can call that a hobby) are my hobbies, so within those, I just do whatever. It wasnt always like that though, there was a time when I definitely COULDNT do that, and I went though a great many different jobs back then. Most of them were basically useless things (cashiering, stocking) that I sure as heck wouldnt consider to be "contributing to society"; only maybe one or two out of who knows how many actually seemed to have a purpose. Those 2 jobs also being the only ones that involved actual THINKING.

What I discovered when it changed, is that money sure as bloody hell aint everything.... including the money gotten from any job. I dont sit still very well. I need to DO things to keep from going crazy. It's one of the reasons why I visit friends and relatives alot; it gets me out of the house, gives me somewhere to go, and I can go spend some time with them, and theoretically make their days better (usually). Typically I visit my mother every day, visit my grandmother sorta at random (unless she's tired and goes to bed early), and my friend on days that he's off. Unless he needs a ride, then I'll be at his place awhile before needing to take him there. The visits being another non-useless thing I can do. And THAT was one thing I *didnt* have a chance to do back when I did have a job. I couldnt go visit ANYONE on many nights, which is yet another thing that gives me the thought that a job isnt all it's cracked up to be. Those things are also NOT brain-meltingly boring, unlike job-related tasks.

I do end up spending an awful lot of time in that damn car as a result though. Relatives/friends are all at least 25 minutes away (fortunately all in the same general area though). It's all country roads in the middle of nowhere though, so the drive is at least peaceful. Usually.

The only time when things really slow down is when the weather goes really bad; right NOW, that's an issue, and it's frankly driving me up the wall (if I seem even more irritable than usual, this is why, as I do not do well at all in cold weather). Whole area has been frozen for a good month now, and I'm getting stir-crazy. Country roads: NOT good places to be when ice is around.

Because there are people who WANT to work (to be self-sufficient, to take care of themselves, to not have to depend on a handout, to make a contribution to society) and CAN'T. They lack the ability or, more likely, they lack the outlet that will allow them to make a contribution and earn some percentage of their own living despite whatever "disability" they happen to have.

Those people NEED THE SYSTEM. They need it to be there, they need it to work, they need it to not be depleted by the second group-- people who "don't want to work."

That's the subset (I think it's relatively small) of people who refuse to grow up and acknowledge that, sometimes, you have to do stuff that you just aren't in the mood for. People who want to spend all day, every day, "doing their own thing," having fun and engaging in whatever the mood seizes them to do. People who refuse (as opposed to "don't know how" or "don't have the wherewithal" or whatever) to confront their deficits, learn to find work-arounds for them, put their impulses on a leash, learn skills they don't naturally have, and generally learn to cope.

MOST PEOPLE "don't want to work." I don't know very many people who get up in the morning all like, "Ye-ay, I get to go to work today!! !" I know Hubby and I don't. We drag ourselves out of bed, pour coffee down our throats, stuff ourselves into appropriate clothing, and march ourselves out the door/into the kitchen (he's classically employed as an engineer; I'm a homemaker-- and anyone who thinks that means I do whatever I want all day needs whacked across the back of the head with a full laundry hamper, because if I spend just one day "doing whatever I want," all Hell breaks loose around here!!).

Therefore, we resent the living s**t out of those who find a way to bilk the system-- because, in some rotten little corner of our brains, we'd ALL like to win the Powerball/make a really killer investment/marry money/learn to bilk the system and NOT HAVE TO DO IT ANY MORE.

It's just that most of us get out of bed, make some choices we don't exactly love (say like relocating 500+ miles from everyone we care about, because that's where the work is), and DO IT ANYWAY.

Because if those of us who CAN earn our own way don't, the system will cease to function. Things that need done won't get done. If Hubby doesn't march himself to work, gas stations and hospitals and municipal buildings and labs will not be properly ventilated, and pretty soon he won't have a paycheck. If I don't march myself off the couch, laundry won't get done and meals won't get cooked and cat pans won't get scooped and bills won't get paid, and pretty soon we'll be smelly, naked, and hungry in a filthy house with no heat and no lights (and then we'll be homeless).

If those of us who CAN earn our own way don't, the system will cease to function.

And then the supports that keep the profoundly autistic adult whose parents are too old to do it anymore/dead in a group home, and the 30-something single mother dying of cancer under a roof with food for her kid and pain medicine while she dies, and the middle-aged Aspie trying to recover from a severe depressive episode in therapy, and the mother of the 20-something with severe CP home to meet her needs, and the 20-year-old who screwed up and got pregnant at 16, quit school, got married and got a minimum-wage job, and the guy turned out to be abusive, and now she's on her own, going back to school and trying to get out of poverty because vouchers have her kid in daycare, HUD has them under a roof, WIC/SNAP is putting food on the table, and a Pell grant is paying tuition (all people I know or have known, by the way)-- those supports evaporate, because they're finite resources. And THOSE people, the most truly vulnerable people, who really can't take care of themselves right now (and some who will never be able to) are on THEIR own in a world that just got a lot more hostile, all because of the 100 (hypothetical figure) jerks who decided it was too hard to deal with their relatively minor issues and they'd rather play video games/read books/smoke weed all day.

The only problem with that explanation is that, from the outside, sometimes it's really hard to tell those who CAN'T (or CAN'T RIGHT NOW) from those who SIMPLY WON'T. And sometimes there are people, like my FIL, who are just bitter, nasty, self-righteous as*holes that are going to spit on anyone and everyone they see as "having it easier." So sometimes, people who need the system and are using it properly are still going to get spit on. And that's a shame.

@Misery

Feel free to except yourself from the "useless baggage" category. I have to remind myself to do so all the time, because I also am not "classically employed."

There is a concept that we in the Western world (or the States anyway) do not seem to be terribly familiar with any more called "social capital."

This is the contribution made by the frugal and/or independently wealthy person who chooses not to hold a paying job but instead to be active in their family/social circle/community by volunteering or helping to care for others more vulnerable. This is the contribution made by the SAH spouse who, instead of finding work when the last kid goes to school, choses to continue being frugal with the working spouse's paycheck and to volunteer in the school, family, or community. Ad infinitum.

We don't value this contribution because it does not generate capital for shareholders, put income tax money into the system, or cause/facilitate the consumption of manufactured goods. We ignore the fact that it frees someone else up to work, prevents someone from having to rely on the system of institutional supports, or makes unnecessary the consumption of additional manufactured goods (with their attached social and environmental impacts).

We SHOULD value this contribution, however. It is what has, so quietly and efficiently that we've taken it for granted, helped keep our society humming along in multiple varied facets ever since we were living in skin tents gathering wild plants and chasing large ruminants across the prairie.

I think there needs to be a bit more of a definition to this "dont want to work" idea.

Now, I'm not sure just what the OP meant, exactly. But my take on it is this: "Dont want to work" doesnt mean "Dont want to DO anything at all". The way I'm seeing it, is that "Dont want to work" means "Dont want to work AT A PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT". This is the way that I've *always* viewed it. I personally do not work.... AT A PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT. As I said in my earlier ramblings, I can do a variety of other productive things that help those I care about, and that accomplish various goals. NONE of these things are things I could do through any employment around here. What I dont want isnt "to do stuff" that is work or just helpful or blah blah blah. What I dont want is to be constantly bossed around, told by some jerk how to do my braindead little cashiering job (which helps nobody), while not even giving me tasks that require me to THINK, and forcing me to wear some damn stupid uniform that sets off all of my physical sensitivity alarms all at once the entire goddamn time I'm wearing it! THAT is what I dont want. THAT may be similar to what the OP meant, despite the phrasing (the OP can correct me if I'm wrong here).

There's plenty of damn irritating tasks that I end up HAVING to do. Sometimes they are as simplistic as boring ol' grocery shopping. Sometimes it's fixing the accursed internet setup/network/modem/router/ARGH for about the 85th damn time. Or fixing YET ANOTHER computer problem that someone is having, because nobody other than me learned to use the stupid things.

Or sometimes theres tasks that ARENT so damn irritating. I had gotten a contract offer from one of the developers I'd been testing for, to do some specific design/programming work for them on an aspect of their project that they wanted made, but wasnt their forte. I did this. It was grand. Because it wasnt some damn stupid normal job with some simple corporate structure and some boss shoving around a pile of employees, *I* was able to decide how I wanted to do things, *I* was able to come up with the ideas that I thought would fit the whole thing, *I* was able to figure out, for myself, how everything should best be balanced. And I could choose when I wanted to work on it (so long as it was done by the deadline). While constantly conversing with the devs so they could keep track of how my part was going. It turned out WONDERFULLY. According to them, there's likely going to be another, larger blob of contracted work (that's paid work, too, mind you) in April or May for me to do. But it wasnt "a job" by normal standards, so it's worthless, right? That seems to be the idea that most people have, and that's what bugs me so damn much. Despite that most jobs are brainless, useless affairs.

People do in fact often do OTHER THINGS that are useful/helpful/whatever that arent a basic "part of the system". Now of course, that's not ALWAYS true; there are those that literally do NOTHING. Dont even leave the house, dont even go see friends or whatever, dont go to the store.... that sort, yes, I can see a problem with. But someone simply "not wanting a job" could be doing all sorts of other things, and as such dont need to have that bloody stupid label just chucked at them without you (or whoever) even knowing anything about them in a personal sense.

While I am unemployed, I am not unwilling to work. I just seek a job that rewards effort and my last job wasn't like that. You only were rewarded for being there all the time, even when you were sick. If you got sick at my last job, the boss tried to guilt trip you to come in for work. I would prefer a job in a single office with no one to distract you, with no one to judge you for who you are, with no boss that checks on your work every 15 minutes, with no American work ethic (more progress = more efficiency and it will try to be obtained even though employees are at their limits) and no damn colleague that only complain but do nothing about it! So best a job from a home office or the ability to come to work at night when no one is there!

Case in point: My aunt. She's an intelligent woman, has an associate's degree in business administration, is in no way truly disabled, yet she hasn't held a job since 1976. Notwithstanding, she'd be about the last person I'd class as "useless baggage."

Why?? Well, in 1976, she put her 19-year-old head together with that of her 28-year-old husband and said, "Honey, the world's going to Hell in a bag. That GI Bill you signed up for school on ain't getting us anywhere. You're working full-time for minimum wage, I'm working full-time as a secretary, and we're still living with my mother. We need to change something."

So they took their savings and bought ~60 acres and a dilapidated trailer out in the boonies. They went to her uncle, who was the supervisor at a coal mine out there, and asked him to give my uncle a chance at digging coal. He dug coal on the afternoon shift. She spent her days building up a homestead and making his pay go as far as humanly possible. In 1977, they had a baby that she stayed home to raise (and they both taught skills to). In 1980, they had another one. In 1985, they had another one.

She COULD have gone to work...

...but her time was worth more financially tilling the garden, establishing an orchard, chasing kids and goats, hanging clothes on the line, hunting mushrooms and ginseng and stuff in the woods, providing the labor that eventually built and finished a three-bedroom house on a shoestring, et cetera ad infinitum. Social capital. Today, the fruits and berries are productive and they've cultivated patches of all kinds of wild plants and they've got kids to haul, chop, and split fire wood and the house is paid for and they can live on his miner's pension and his vet benefits and, at 60 with a bad back and arthritis, she doesn't HAVE to raise a garden and chase goats any more. She can cook from scratch and chase grandkids while her kids do the heavy labor. Social capital, well invested and paying dividends.

The last kid went to school in 1990. She could have gone to work-- but someone still had to run the homestead. The house was up and they were living in it, the trailer had been converted to an outbuilding-- but someone was going to have to lay the flooring and paint the drywall and hang the cabinets and... and... and...

It would have been POSSIBLE, had it been necessary, because by then her mother (who put them up when they were young and getting started, and helped with the down payment on the farm) was partially retired and building her own house on the end of theirs. Grandma would have been there to get the kids off the bus, feed us, start us on our homework, and keep us out of trouble until someone got home (US because, by then, my mother had died and I'd moved up the holler next door with my dad). SOCIAL CAPITAL again-- without Grandma, it would have been impossible for her to get a job had it been necessary. Her whole paycheck would have gone to after-school care for three kids, and a chunk of Daddy's would have gone to after-school care for me, or we would have been three adolescents up a holler with a grade schooler and no one to call if the poop happened to contact the propeller.

It was still more efficient for her to stay home. Six years later, we were awfully glad she did-- my uncle had a massive heart attack (had she not been there, he probably would have died on the floor), grandma started developing significant signs of dementia, and the 18-year-old firstborn knocked up his 16-year-old girlfriend.

Because of SOCIAL CAPITAL, my uncle lived through it (and worked for another 10 years, and retired with a fully funded 401k and benefits-- if she hadn't been able to care for him, they would have been screwed). Because of SOCIAL CAPITAL, Grandma didn't have to hire a nurse, an assistant, and a bunch of other people (on the government's dime, because you don't earn enough to pay for all that stuff by managing the girls' and women's departments at Hills' for 30 years) and ultimately go into a nursing home on Medicaid-- she ultimately died at home, with all of us (mostly my aunt) taking care of her last year. Because of SOCIAL CAPITAL, my cousin didn't have to quit college and his girlfriend (now his wife) didn't have to drop out of high school (and they didn't have to choose between that, giving the baby up, or getting an abortion). They got married, she moved in, and my aunt took care of the baby while he finished a degree in resource management and forestry and she finished high school and got certified first as a CNA and then as an LPN.

The boy who knocked up his girlfriend at 18 now supervises a crew drilling gas wells. He now manages the resources existing on that 60+ acre homestead. The teenage mother is now a 34-year-old school nurse and mother of two who changed an awful lot of Grandma's diapers. Their baby is now 18, about to graduate from high school... and who do you think chops firewood??? SOCIAL CAPITAL, well invested and paying dividends.

Because she was home, the baby of the family (cousin born in 1985) was able to get out of an abusive relationship with two toddlers tied to her back, out of a disability fraud scheme (the same one I got caught in) that had her grossly over- and mis-medicated and back on her feet, and is now preparing to send her kids to kindergarten and preschool respectively and get her own ass in school to become a nurses' aide. Instead of spending a lifetime drawing disability for ADHD that got misdiagnosed and mistreated into severe depression, generalized anxiety, and PTSD, she's going to learn to give meds and change diapers, become a home health aide, and help other elderly folks age in place instead of having to go into nursing homes. Had she not been able to turn to her stay-at-home mother, none of that would have been possible. SOCIAL CAPITAL, well invested and paying dividends TO THE WHOLE DANG COMMUNITY.

We are guilty, in this culture, of completely ignoring the value of social capital. That is, IMHO anyway, a large part of the reason that our society is circling the drainpipe.

You can also except yourself from "useless baggage." Right now, you lack the outlet that will allow you to become a contributing participant. Keep looking-- when you manage to find or make a niche, you too will contribute. Just don't let yourself give up entirely.

And please read, if you can parse my syntax, what Misery and I have said about social capital. There are more ways to carry your weight and to contribute than just by earning a wage. It's deep stuff, but it ain't rocket science.

The reason is pretty simple, I think everyone is fed up with having to pay for people to live off their own tax money. People abuse and rig the system and who hurts from it? Who else, the middle class. Everyone has to get an income somehow and if it's not done legitimately and honestly, it's going to piss people off and it should. When you see people on food stamps wear fancy jewelry, buy lobster, and drive a Lexus, I mean how else are people suppose to react?

Last edited by Homer_Bob on 24 Feb 2015, 11:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Good luck explaining and convincing most people of this though. I swear, it aint rocket science, but sometimes the way people think of or react to it sure makes it seem that way!

I do think it can be hard to explain though. Heck, I got frustrated trying to come up with the phrasing for what I wanted to say just in my random rant about it just a bit ago. I ended that rant in a state of not being entirely sure that I was actually making sense. The term "social capital" is a new one to me, for that matter. I must try to remember that one.

Trying to explain it on this forum is one thing though.... the worst is trying to explain it in person to an NT, I think. The sort that seriously just cannot conceive of the idea of not having a job, even if you are doing some sort of work at home or whatever. I cant count the number of times I've heard "Oh you're just making excuses!" or sometimes even just "You're so useless, you dont even have a job!". Nobody stops to think about any of that other stuff. It gets old, fast. And for anyone that IS trying to get employment, or if not that, trying to find something useful/interesting/whatever to do, it REALLY doesnt help.

Heck, even from friends I get this sometimes, which just.... uuuugh. And these are people who know what my situation is (and thus the autism as well), yet still, they'll get that way sometimes. That's even more aggravating. But what can be done about that? Nothing, usually. Feh.

Tell me about it. Sometimes I get angry and blame the "takers." They are not many (I have in my lifetime met four, and three were all in the same family), but they are so damn visible that they're what peoples' minds jump to.

Sometimes I get angry and blame the people that are too reactionary and self-righteous to LOOK and take a measure of what someone does or does not do. It's not too hard to tell the difference between a "taker," who is always asking (more like wheedling and demanding), and a "unit of social capital," who is generally doing something in the service of someone else.

Most of the time, I get floridly furious and blame the culture we live in, which participates in brainwashing, material excess, status-worship, and the idolatrous worship of the individual over the common good to the point of blinded bleating. "Wage labor goooood, all else baaaaaaad."

I'm rapid moving this into the purview of PPR, but here are some links you might find interesting:

http://www.rural-revolution.com
http://www.paratusfamiliablog.com

Don't let the mouthy, self-righteous, in-your-face conservatism of these two put you entirely off. OK, they're guilty of being part of the cadre of Christian-right culture warriors-- they still get the concept that there is such a thing as social capital, and that, while everyone who can work at something must work at something, work that is not for a wage can and does have high value.

http://www.theradicalhomemaker.net
http://www.rootsimple.com

Don't let the mouthy, self-righteous, in-your-face liberalism of these two put you entirely off. OK, they're guilty of being part of the cadre of socialist-left culture warriors-- they still get the concept that there is such a thing as social capital, and that, while everyone who can work at something must work at something, work that is not for a wage can and does have high value.

It's a damn shame that it seems this is something understood mostly only by the far-right and far-left fringe (and a handful of hillbillies who are secure enough in their own contributions and in themselves to not need to elevate themselves by putting others down). Sometimes it's enough to cause one to believe in conspiracy theories about the deliberate gradual erosion of the social fabric in the belief that individual units of "human resources" will be more portable, versatile, and easily controlled.

Especially after investing firms, catching onto the fact that people are starting to realize that our per capita income does not actually seem to be raising our collective standard of living, started co-opting the term.

GRRRRRRRRRR.

This world could use a few million good hillbillies.

@Misery:

Your case is different for sure. If your family is a-okay with the expenses and can easily afford them, then more power to you to do whatever you feel like.

I would have a different opinion if you said you were capable of working and chose not to and collected social assistance of some kind instead to enable you to live like you're retired, doing as you please.

But it's different when it's not public money financing your life.

I'm not sure if I would work a job or not if I were independently wealthy. Maybe. One or two guys at work still work even though they have a lot of money. And the owners still work even though they're all very wealthy. I suppose some people just get enjoyment out of work & the social interaction and something to do, and others have an insatiable desire for increased wealth and thus will never stop working.

I can dig big able to do whatever you want whenever you want to, though. While I was visiting a friend at one of his workplaces the other night I was talking a bit about some recent conversations I've had with others about my business plans. In a daydreaming moment, I told my friend that if I ever "really make it," he can have his dream job.. to which he replied "which is?" & I said "do whatever you want and make a lot of money." Heh, so yeah, I can relate to the concept of having real money & then not wanting to work, or not wanting friends/family/loved ones to have to work.. entirely - as I was serious when I said it, I would in fact bankroll my closest friend's life of leisure if I had the means to do so. It's kind of cool that you're in that situation, yourself. Enjoy it to the fullest!

I do. I really feel lucky to have gotten a decent IT job. To be gainfully employed requires more than just a willingness to work, even those willing to work must still compete against each other for jobs (I find it strange that people can be shunned for losing a competition where victory cannot be guaranteed).

For me working was a choice, not a necessity. I had enough income to live comfortably in my own place without working. Then I got a job offer. I was overjoyed. I like working. Why? Because I have more money? No. Because the job is fun? No. I like working because it improves my social status and self-image. No more getting shunned. Other people think better of me. I think better of me. I have less time for moping. It's a win-win scenario.