Two key questions, in life, to ask oneself:

#1 yes I’d still be turning wrenches. I have too much fun at it. Though I might change the type of wrenching. I’d have gone from public transit and heavy duty to upper end restorations of antique engines. Being retired I’m doing just that with VWs.
#2 lost 1st wife to leukemia. 3 years later wife #2 and I are happy campers. She’s been with me for fun times and my liver transplant. Now I support her as she’s fighting the effects of MS.

 

Two yeses & I realise how fortunate I am.

 

question 1: is i was very wealthy i would setup a home for mental disabled persons i now work with, and make it more human than it is now where i am working.
But i am happy with working for/with those cliënts, but they could live a better life than now.
question 2: if i wanted to have another partner when i would have financial wealth, than i would have a great problem.
Did is marry this partner for honest reasons?
if not, than this is not a relation but a lye, and that is never a good bond between 2 souls.

if wealth can get the best out of you not to gain more earthly things, than it can be a road to never have enough.
if wealth can get the best out of you for gaining more piece for your soul by doing good thing for others, than you get inner peace.

and we see a lot of people that drive for more have no inner peace because they always think they mist some fortune ore product and get frustrated.

but that is my personal opinion and experience. ;-)

 

If you had 24 hours to live:
1. Who would you call?
2. What would you say to them?
3. What are you waiting for?

 

You know everyone's momma used to tell them to put on clean underwear in case they had an accident. I submit to you, if the accident were bad enough, the underwear would probably be...Uh, well, 'em, not a pleasant thought is it?

 

1 No
2 Yes.

 

Are we talking filthy rich or just mildly obscene?

(1) Yes and No—I like my full-time secular job...but if I were independently wealthy, I’d be doing my (current) part-time volunteer work on a full-time basis.

(2) Yes. Period.

 

You make one HUGE assumption: Having a sudden change of Fortune would not effect how my Employers and Spouse feel about me!
Trust me, how it effects them would drive my decesion as to my plans to stay or go.

Job? I could drop them as fast as they would drop me.
Spouse? If anything happened to our relationship, that would hurt.

 

Great Wealth and Great Happiness seldom are great bedfellows
the wealthy are so obssessed that they think everyone wants it...hence become far stingier with their wealth
no happiness there...those that think a million would make them happy....if theyre a miserable git before they just become a miserable git with money...and maybe buy a nicer home to miserable in
ive had to work for the odd month with no wages,...sometimes you have to in family employment to help it stay afloat...i have been hungry but never have i starved
life lessons are seldom easy...the road to happyness is usually rocky treacherous and uncertain...and thats the fun bit...the journey ..these are the memories we pass to our descendants...in the hope they learn...not that they do...life is a lesson best self taught...but with guidance and wisdom...not heaps of money to fritter
wealth can be a blessing to those content and mature enough to enjoy it for what it is...oil of life...not life itself...just watch the wealthy man at table...he eats enough for 2...for tomorrow he may have to become a beggar in his own mind...whilst the truly sensible and lesser of wealth eat heartily and sup deeply whilst mocking his avarice...but never to excess
the greatest of wealth may be found in the hearts of the poverty stricken..
Skol
Wulf

 

everytime i read followups in your threads i begin digging into myself
thought invoking never dull and always relevant and interesting points you do raise...and always with Good Humour
Many Thanks
Skol
Wulf

 

In my case I would remove Blues in that list since Rock n Roll, in great part, is coming from Blues, the happy one at least.

 

Yes and yes. Life always has challenges, but those are the foundations for me.

 

than this is my wrong in misunderstanding the English writing

 

I think there were a couple different ways to read the question--and different ways to think about how to respond, some of which assume different ways to think about one's work.

I answered the question earlier as if I had enough investment income to replace my current salary (and maybe a little more) without eating into principal.

But I might have answered it differently if I'd read the question as "what would you do if you suddenly had investment income equal to 10x your current total income?" If, for example, I had bought Amazon stock early. Or if my parents had been very wealthy and left me a fortune.

Because at that point new options might be available to me that are not available now--maybe even inconceivable now. For example, because I can live on my current income, what would I do with the additional dollars? Would I set up trusts for my kids and grandkids? Would I give the money away? Would I set up a foundation to manage the money and distribute the income, while paying myself something to manage it and the charitable distributions? Would I keep doing some version of what I'm doing now, maybe for a church or other non-profit that couldn't afford a full time person at market rate? I have many friends who in "retirement" have made that sort of decision, working or volunteering for a charity they couldn't have afforded to work for when they were younger and needed income from employment. Or would I buy a house at the beach and one in the desert, and split my time between them while taking up golf and surfing?

I also think there are different ways to think about our relationship to our work life.

Many of us at least sometimes for some purposes assume that we have a purpose, an end, what the Greeks called our "telos." In some religious traditions this is referred to as a calling or a vocation. Some of those religious traditions teach that everyone, not just "religious professionals," has a calling or vocation, which may change from time to time over the course of one's life.

In non-religious terms, pursuing that purpose would include developing a set of skills and character traits that allow one to be a functional, contributing member of the communities of which one is a part. The skills would include developing the ability to make good moral or ethical decisions in the context of those communities. People who think about ethics differently than I do might describe this in terms of learning to follow "the rules," contributing to others' happiness, or "doing unto others" in a way that invites reciprocity and provides order for the community in which they live, for example.

None of these necessitate that a person's primary purpose be lived out in his or her work life. My late wife became the executive director of a non-profit that did land conservation work. But she had a ten year hiatus in her non-profit career when our children were young. Her primary purpose at that point had nothing to do with a job outside the home. In fact, she only began working full time again a couple years before she became the director.

I have also known many people who do much to make the world a better place, while their employment simply provides income to keep the bills paid and allows them to do what they want to do with the rest of their time.

Our purpose and fulfillment doesn't need to come from where we get a paycheck.

 

There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who can read binary and those who can't.