Right, like the majority of my millennial friends also work to live, not live to work, it’s just that living is so damn expensive that after we’re done working enough to pay rent, there’s not many hours left in the week to live.
I’m incredibly privileged. I have no debt, no loans, and housemates to split bills with. I only do 20 hours of paid work per week, and my hourly rate is pretty damn decent for my industry (I’m a coordinator in a community centre, I make $32AUD an hour).
I enjoy my work life balance and I wouldn’t have it any other way, I have time to care for my chronic illness properly, and time for friends, and family, and to volunteer in my community for passion projects that could never in a million years pay the bills.
But being in your mid thirties and splitting rent with other people is tough, I fortunately don’t want marriage or kids, but I can’t see how I’d make it work if I did, babies can’t help me split the rent, and most housemates don’t want to live with a crying baby that isn’t theirs.
So when my friend leaves his fun job for a grind company we know sucks our your soul, but it pays 8x as much and it’s “just for 2 years until the deposit is saved for and the baby is born” then it’s completely understandable why the next 24 months of my friends life is consumed with work. Because he needs that work now, so that he can live later.
But 2 years becomes 5 years becomes 10 years because first it’s the GFC, then it’s the housing bubble, then it’s the mini recession, then it’s covid, now it’s whatever the fuck times were living in.
And at some point for millennials (and many younger Gen X’ers) living became surviving and we work to survive, we don’t even know what thriving looks like.
Percentages don’t scale well into the billions, you will still need brackets.
A billionaire can give away 98% of their wealth and still comfortably be a multi millionare.
A full time cashier on the minimum wage can barely even survive on 100% of their wage. When it comes to living a healthy fulfilling life, If they contribute just 5% of their wage to tax they are sacrificing far more a billionaire paying 98% tax would be.
It depends on the industry but if the work is not time sensitive, I’d tell employees to start whenever, and finish 8 hours (or the appropriate shift length for the type of work) after that. I’d plot the average start and end times in a chart and I’d schedule any required team meetings to catch the largest overlap of employees (within reason, aiming to keep that overlap between 8am-6pm, unless we’re all somehow on night shift)
I have a circadian rhythm disorder and shift start and end times not lining up with my natural sleep pattern is honestly the worst part of working. There’s got to be a better way to do it. Humans aren’t designed to start and stop work based on a clock, but some of us also don’t work with the sun.
Traditionally, retiring entails leaving the workforce permanently. However, experts found that the very definition of retirement is also changing between generations....
And this is why I’ll “waste” money on gyms and travelling to interesting places to hike, fresh produce and over-hyped barely scientific superfoods … because I want more quality years.
There’s a genetic condition running through my family, and it’s a dice roll. I’ve had cousins die at 17-25 from this condition, most of my uncles passed at 50-60 from it, a few aunts passed in their 40s, a huge chunk of my cousins died in childbirth in their 30s because of complications associated with this condition.
And yet my grandmother, who passed this down to us made it to 94, and she was still going at full speed with all her wits until her last day. On my dad’s side, there are autoimmune issues, which reduces quality of life, the men die in their 60s and very early 70s, but all the women are still kicking at 85+ but their cost of living is astronomical because they’ve been disabled for the last 30+ years of their lives.
I’m one of the oldest in the family that was young enough to get a diagnosis and get some early intervention (the condition wasn’t fully known until the mid 90s)
I really don’t know what my medical future holds.
Maybe I’ll get an AAA and die at 35.
Maybe I’ll have a CVA in my 40s, and live another 30 years severely disabled. (I had a series of TIAs in my late teens before I was diagnosed and properly managed, so I know I’m a high stroke risk)
Maybe I’ll be running around in my 90s like my nan.
If I saved every single cent of my income from the day I got my first job until I turn 67 (current retirement age in my country) , I’d still only truly be able to afford one of those above scenarios… Why “hard save” when hard saving will achieve nothing long term, but soft saving can achieve a miriad of important short term goals, and possibly even give me a better chance of making a living long into life.
Gen Z is prioritizing living over working because they've seen 'the legacy of broken promises' in corporate America, a future-of-work expert says ( www.businessinsider.com )
A future-of-work expert said Gen Zers didn't have the "promise of stability" at work, so they're putting their personal lives and well-being first.
One Mississippi ( lemmy.ml )
xkcd #2846: Daylight Saving Choice ( imgs.xkcd.com )
xkcd.com/2846...
What the hell is this shit? Instead of pushing for the return to traditional pensions, capitalism is celebrating the idea that Millennials and Gen Z may simply never be able to stop working. ( www.cnbc.com )
Traditionally, retiring entails leaving the workforce permanently. However, experts found that the very definition of retirement is also changing between generations....