One of my mottos in life was, to work just enough to pay my bills and put a bit of money aside.
Because I have always been looking at how I can work less, and earn more, I found ways to leverage my time and money. For the past 10 years or so, my investments in real estate and the stock market made more money for me than what I could have earned working as an employee in any company.
I think people work too much. They make a crappy bargain of working for somebody else, selling their time and creativity for money. They spend part of their lives going to someone else’s office to do someone else’s work.
We all know that working too much has adverse physical, mental, and social consequences, yet many people brag about working too much as a badge of honor.
Studies claim that working 55 hours or more can nudge you closer to death. Today, working too much is one of the biggest occupational hazards there is. Even if a person doesn’t die on the job, they can always die of the secondary effects of overworking, such as poor eating habits, lack of sleep, heart disease, or a number of other causes. Or suffer secondhand consequences such as obesity or depression due to social isolation from family and friends.
The pandemic had created a huge bifurcation where some people have lost their job and are just sitting at home feeling useless. And those who are working from home, long hours, with nothing else to do but to do more work.
In Japan, long working hours are so common that “karoshi,” translated as “death by overwork,” is a legally recognized cause of death.
The economist John Maynard Keynes once wrote an essay titled “Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren.” It was 1930. And in the essay, he made a prediction. Keynes figured that by the time his children had grown up, people might be working just 15 hours a week.
That didn’t work out as Keynes predicted. People continue being suckered into buying more things, bigger houses, bigger cars, more luxury items, etc., so the need to earn more money is always there. Once we get on the hedonic treadmill, it’s hard to get off. And we continue falling victims of the comparison bias, people want to have what their neighbors have.
North Americans work longer hours, have shorter vacations, get less in unemployment, disability, and retirement benefits, and retire later, than people in comparably rich societies.
However, the less educated seem to lack ambition. I can understand someone working as a Walmart cashier, or waitressing for one year or two, while they look for something better to do, but not for 10 years. A person must find ways to advance in their jobs. By staying and competing for low-paying jobs they bring the salaries even lower.
When I came to Canada, as an immigrant, with no connection and no language skills, I worked as a janitor for two years, then I found other opportunities to improve my life. I continue thinking: If I can do it, anyone can do it.
With so many opportunities for free education from Coursera and many other free education venues, there is no reason for people not to get additional training.
On the other side of the overworking spectrum, wealthy, college-educated people actually work far more than they did decades ago, and the richest 10 percent work the most.
People who have the skills and the higher salary, continue working more hours because they have tied their identity to their work. For example, Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, all have enough money to stay home and rest, but their whole identity is tied to the work they do, so they work crazy hours.
Rich people in earlier eras demonstrated affluence by ostentatiously not working. They wore white togas or fancy hats or clean gloves. No more. Today, wealthy Americans show off by working all the time and bragging about their project.
Why? One explanation is that people like working, at least in the kinds of jobs that they feel “passionate” about.
I am part of this group of people who enjoys working to nourish my creativity and my social life. I have a photography business that allows me to go to a different party every weekend, and a dance school business that allows me to dance with beautiful women almost every day of the week. In short, I figured out a way to get paid for having fun.
This desire to continue working, for people who enjoy their jobs, is like a religion. For many of us, work has shifted from jobs to careers, to callings; from a necessity to status to meaning.
How about you?
Are you working too much? Do you feel that you are fairly compensated? Are you working on a job or are you following your passion?