# Work to live, not live to work Created: 2022_11_06 17:30 Tags: [[Advice]] Living to work means going through the [[Rat-Race]], do your job for a fixed 8 hours and go home. Sure, sometimes you leave _early_, get some vacation days _off_, and if you are lucky, you might even like _being_ your profession. With this sort of language, it is presumed that work _is_ your life, that it is the default, assumed to be applicable to all. But isn't most of your life outside of work? For some, work is about chasing status, that next promotion, making it "big", to _impress_ others. What does any of that have to do with you? Does it move the needle on your goals? Make you more happy? Fulfill you in some way? I posit it does none of those things, all it does is make you feel like you rank higher when compared to others. You might be keeping up with the Jones', but can you ever catch up with them? Then what are you chasing them for? To make yourself feel better? Work is what it says on the label, the effort that you have to put in to get something to move. But what are you moving? Ideally, the needle on your goals, towards fulfillment & happiness, yourself forward however you define it. But in reality, is that ever the case? Sure, you can fall short, but the framework should be in place to allow you to slip up and not fall down. ## References -