If You Didn't Need Money, What Would You Do?

permaculture had this simple but philosophical query to run by you all, today: "I was once asked this question: 'If you didn't have to work for money, what would you do with your time?' I've put that question to many people since I first heard it, and got a lot of different answers. It seems to me that the answer to this question is what you should be aiming for even though you do have to spend most of your time earning a crust."

Comments

Does this mean I have all the money I need?

[roachmotel3]

If I had functionally endless money, I'd do the following:

I'd give lots and lots to charity -- I don't want to leave any money to my kids -- they need to earn whatever they get in the world

I'd buy a farm -- 1000 acres or more, build a sweet house, build barns and outbuildings, raise horses, and grow and harvest my own hay.

Yeah, that's about it.

We've had this discussion a few times at work

[GregWebb]

Last I recall, two musicians and a fisherman.

Speaking personally, I love performing. I love jamming music, I love writing music, I love listening to music. I even enjoy the physical act of playing (I'm a trumpeter). The idea of being able to dedicate myself to that properly is immensely tempting. Heck, when writing music I've got many challenges similar to writing software.

I'll probably always write a little software for personal amusement but it's not exactly a relaxing discipline, as I'm showing by posting this from the office in the UK and I've been here at or around this time for most of the last week.

If I wasn't a musician, I'd teach. Infant or lower primary, so probably the under 8-9s. I do a bit of voluntary work with that age group in my spare time and it's immensely rewarding, but quite frustrating in that you just don't get to see that much of the kids' development.

Equally, I know that there's a strong theory going round in the UK now that says part of the reason we have significantly lower educational attainment in boys than girls is that most primary school teachers are female. The girls have teachers to look up to - the boys have footballers, TV presenters, parents (who, statistically speaking, aren't likely to be models of educational attainment) ... and so tend to gravitate towards a culture of success in sport being good and in class being bad, almost social death. Not good. If I could help turn that around for just a few kids...

(Yes, I know teaching's hard work and it wouldn't be an easy ride after software!)

If it were up to me...

[j-turkey]

If I didn't have to show up at work, and I still got paid, I would do the following

• Sleep later
• Get a part time job (or contract) to supplement my income
• Probably smoke alot more pot
• Get serious about my music...learn to play better and put a real band together
• Read
• Chill with my friends
• Devote more time to amateur auto racing
• Watch more TV & movies
• Do more fun computer stuff (ie, not the stuff I do all day at work)
• More sex
• Masturbate
• Ski
• Write angry letters to politicians
• Excercise more
• Work on old cars
• Possibly experiment with some new (to me) psychoactive/hallucinogenic drugs -- such as DMT and peyote
• Cook better food
• Start a business
• Maybe get married and start making babies
• Basically, do all of the shit that I fantasize about while I'm at work all day

Why are you asking? Are you looking for the best answer and then giving that person a stipend to quite their job? If you are...I can come up with fifty other things I'd rather do.

--Turkey

Raising a family

[trentfoley]

I'm not certain that I would have necessarily chosen this path, but it happened. And, I really like it. About two years ago, I got fed up with cubicle life. After 20+ years of "hacking for the man", I was burned out. Fortunately, my wife's law practice was doing well, so I quit my job and began to look for a career change. I have two (4 and 7 yrs old) boys. I ended up pulling my kids out of day care and have not looked back. I have had one of my best summers ever. My 7 yr old just stated back to school (2nd grade) and I've been teaching my youngest his letters and numbers in preparation for Kindergarten next year.

But, the number one reason I enjoy it so much: I get to play with Lego's every day!

Re:Raising a family

[ealar dlanvuli]

Taking a couple years and just spending them on the kids-- no problem

Actually I would recomend against doing *nothing* but caring for the kids. Be sure to do some community service or volunteer work that will count as "experience" to a future employer. My father did this for 10 years after my brother and I were born, he spent almost 5 years after reentering the workplace to get a reasonable job, and the first 2 years were actually as a telemarketer because he couldn't find a better job.

If nothing else, offer to be a jr. coder for a larger non-profit group (volunteer). Explain your situation clearly, and say that your family currently comes first in your life. You will find in the long run it's far more productive to volunteer 15hr/week (or whatever) than to play catch up in a few years.

R1

[BigBir3d]

that is too easy. buy an R1, and big chunk of land in a semi-hilly region, build a F1 spec race course, and ride ride ride. then, when i get bored, promote as many races as possible, of all types (car, truck, bike, go-cart, tank, snowmobile, lawnmower etc), on that very track.

likelihood: zero

*sigh*

Here is what I want...

Re:Perhaps,

[psicE]

Uh, thanks for your political rant, but you did an excellent job at missing the point.

The question has nothing to do with politics. It is not, should everyone receive a living wage without working, or should everyone be given a living wage while they're finding work, or anything like that. It's a philosophical question: *If you didn't have to work, what would you do?*

Anything about politics is missing the point (unless, of course, you'd go into politics with your free time). Anything about money is also missing the point; that's why I put in the bit about assuming not infinite money, but the same amount of money you make now.

Whatever you may wish to be true, the fact is there are many people who take whatever job they can get, because they need a reliable source of income, and those people would much rather be doing a different job. And there are other people who simply can't find a line of work the enjoy. So the question is directed at those people: *What would you rather be doing?*

Re:I would...

[BitGeek]

Aquire a Sail boat

IF you live near water, I say, start now. I've gone down this path. This is my retirement dream.

You can get a small old sailboat for $2,000 to learn on and get used to sailing, and then get a bigger better one when you retire.

The years of sailing on the weekends will come in handy when you're island hopping and will make you happier in the interim than you would be otherwise.

Sailing isn't somethign you stop work one day and go do the next... so start early.

There are those who say "if your dream is to sail around the world, just do it. You don't need money, you don't need nothing. I did it, I get by on odd jobs". And they are right. I'm not "just doing it" in part because I want more sailing experience and to get my lovers up to speed so that they can sail well too... but if you want to sail around, mostly hitting third world countries to dock (Say the pacific, the carribian, south america, etc.) you can do it very cheaply.

Say, $5,000 a year. And a little work getting a skill can make it free-- one couple knows how to repair sails and goes to antigua for regatta week-- spends the whole week repairing blown out sails working 24x7 and then has enough money to fund the rest of their year!

Don't dream it, be it. :-)