The best ways to spend your years before getting old?

[Above us only sky]

What are the best ways to spend your years before getting old so when you are old you will not regret?

From my observation on people around me, There are three options taken by them:

1. Pursue a career, put your youthful dreams aside,be a conformist in the company, please the boss, move up in the corporate hierarchy, get married and having children, make as much money as possible...

2. Abandon that career, escape from that professional life and travel around and just wander and wonder...

3. Pursue your passion (helping others, making documentaries, producing music, philosophy...), although your passion could not ensure you a good career and a worldly success.

like most people, I currently is in option 1, But like some people I have not much motive to stay a conformist and get married and having children, because this life is like a robot's life:
A robot acts according to the codes programmed in advance by a programmer, and in this option, a person is basically a robot; he goes to school once he reached a certain age, then he leaves school once he reached a certain age... he goes to work and get married and have babies once he reached more or less a certain age...He retired once he reached more or less a certain age...
The absurd thing is, in his mind, he thinks he is pursuing the happiness: He wants worldly success and a happy family, so he has to do A, B, and then C, but once he worked really hard and he has accomplished A, B, and C, his life is near the end, then he looks back at his life, found that his whole life is merely one marathon after another...

I think this is why some people choose option 2 and 3, but the problems about option 2 and option 3 is that we as humans naturally desire worldly success, we desire others' admiration and option 2 obviously will not deliver that to us, and option 3 will only deliver it if we are very lucky.

So I ask this question on behalf of younsters confused by the remaining journey of life ahead: What are the best ways to spend your years before getting old ?

[Stephen C Pedersen]

Man is never so authentically himself as when at play. The means of play is chiefly found through the productions of art. Just because we have a day job doesn't mean we have to give up our passion. We can't always find the job that aligns with our passion. We need to get by. For instance, I do construction. Yes, I have a college degree, but I don't mind construction really. Is that all I do? I also write to fill that void where my passion lies. I love to write. If I didn't write then meaning would cease to exist. It's the hope that one day I will make a meaningful contribution to the world. If not, I will die trying. I wont regret that.

So what are you prepared to sell your soul for?

[LuckyR]

What are the best ways to spend your years before getting old so when you are old you will not regret?

From my observation on people around me, There are three options taken by them:

1. Pursue a career, put your youthful dreams aside,be a conformist in the company, please the boss, move up in the corporate hierarchy, get married and having children, make as much money as possible...

2. Abandon that career, escape from that professional life and travel around and just wander and wonder...

3. Pursue your passion (helping others, making documentaries, producing music, philosophy...), although your passion could not ensure you a good career and a worldly success.

like most people, I currently is in option 1, But like some people I have not much motive to stay a conformist and get married and having children, because this life is like a robot's life:
A robot acts according to the codes programmed in advance by a programmer, and in this option, a person is basically a robot; he goes to school once he reached a certain age, then he leaves school once he reached a certain age... he goes to work and get married and have babies once he reached more or less a certain age...He retired once he reached more or less a certain age...
The absurd thing is, in his mind, he thinks he is pursuing the happiness: He wants worldly success and a happy family, so he has to do A, B, and then C, but once he worked really hard and he has accomplished A, B, and C, his life is near the end, then he looks back at his life, found that his whole life is merely one marathon after another...

I think this is why some people choose option 2 and 3, but the problems about option 2 and option 3 is that we as humans naturally desire worldly success, we desire others' admiration and option 2 obviously will not deliver that to us, and option 3 will only deliver it if we are very lucky.

So I ask this question on behalf of younsters confused by the remaining journey of life ahead: What are the best ways to spend your years before getting old ?

Old guy here. Happy to help out.

As you might guess life has more than three options. Before I answer your question I will first pass along a piece of advice from a lawyer friend of mine (who specializes in estate planning, BTW), "being young and poor can be OK, but being old and poor is really, really bad."

Here's the answer: if you can find something that compensates well and fulfills your passion, great, you have won the life lottery. Go to work every day in your sports car, smiling all day long. Failing that, if you can find something that compensates well and you like, yet does not fulfill your passion, take that option and fulfill your passion after work and on the weekends, you'll have the means to do so easily. Barring even that, if you can find something that compensates well and you hate, you need to ask: what are you other options? If you have something else that compensates less well, but enough and is your passion, then switch jobs. If your options only include inadequate compensation, then take the first job and build up walls during your professional life, in order to keep your sanity for your regular life. Also invest aggressively and get out of that situation long before retirement age into a better situation, perhaps one that compensates poorly, but that you love.

If no options compensate well (very common nowadays) then take the one that compensates the best and apply the strategy of the last of the previous paragraph.

Good luck!!

[Ormond]

So I ask this question on behalf of younsters confused by the remaining journey of life ahead: What are the best ways to spend your years before getting old ?

1) Find a lover.

2) Stop thinking about it, and actually do it.

3) Or I promise that when you get old, you will wish you had.

Surrender the illusion that you can somehow play it safe and avoid painful price tags. That is not possible.

If you find a lover, you will experience pain, it's true. But you'll also experience joy. If you don't find a lover, you will experience mostly only a pain which will gradually rot out your soul as the years proceed.

There are deep philosophical/psychological reasons why having a lover is so important and such factors can be endlessly analyzed, but in the end such analyzing is of little importance.

1) Analyzing while doing, ok, fair enough.

2) Analyzing instead of doing, very poor philosophy.

You keep asking questions, but you don't listen to the answers, which to be fair to you is very common.

In summary, the answer to your question is...

Stop asking.

Start doing.

Unless you have a plan for finding a lover on this forum, every question you ask here is wasted precious time, and a step backward.

The philosophy I'm using in my replies to you is as follows...

If the things we want to hear...
Could take us where we want to go...
We'd already be there.

There is a method to my madness. I'm not just getting in your face for the fun of it, hope you can understand that.

-- Updated May 18th, 2016, 7:42 pm to add the following --

But like some people I have not much motive to stay a conformist and get married and having children, because this life is like a robot's life:

Carefully type up all your theories about such things on high quality paper, assemble them in to an organized notebook with extensive footnotes, and then throw the notebook in the fireplace.

This isn't an insult. I'm trying to help you see that the next great leap forward for you on these subjects is to face the reality that you don't know anything at all.

Wipe the slate clean, and start fresh. Ignorance is your friend here, embrace it.

[Sy Borg]

I was about to start with: 'It's been said that no one ever said "I wished I'd put in more time at the office" on their deathbed' and started and deleted various advice until I realised that I have no advice. There was never much method to my madness; I've just muddled through. Often we don't have much control over our lives as larger circumstances buffet us about.

What makes me feel good about myself is resisting my usual selfish urges and behaving in a temperate, peaceful and kind manner to humans and others. It doesn't happen often, but when it does I feel centred and content.

[Misty]

So I ask this question on behalf of younsters confused by the remaining journey of life ahead: What are the best ways to spend your years before getting old ?

1) Find a lover.

2) Stop thinking about it, and actually do it.

3) Or I promise that when you get old, you will wish you had.

Surrender the illusion that you can somehow play it safe and avoid painful price tags. That is not possible.

If you find a lover, you will experience pain, it's true. But you'll also experience joy. If you don't find a lover, you will experience mostly only a pain which will gradually rot out your soul as the years proceed.

There are deep philosophical/psychological reasons why having a lover is so important and such factors can be endlessly analyzed, but in the end such analyzing is of little importance.

1) Analyzing while doing, ok, fair enough.

2) Analyzing instead of doing, very poor philosophy.

You keep asking questions, but you don't listen to the answers, which to be fair to you is very common.

In summary, the answer to your question is...

Stop asking.

Start doing.

Unless you have a plan for finding a lover on this forum, every question you ask here is wasted precious time, and a step backward.

The philosophy I'm using in my replies to you is as follows...

If the things we want to hear...
Could take us where we want to go...
We'd already be there.

There is a method to my madness. I'm not just getting in your face for the fun of it, hope you can understand that.

-- Updated May 18th, 2016, 7:42 pm to add the following --

But like some people I have not much motive to stay a conformist and get married and having children, because this life is like a robot's life:

Carefully type up all your theories about such things on high quality paper, assemble them in to an organized notebook with extensive footnotes, and then throw the notebook in the fireplace.

This isn't an insult. I'm trying to help you see that the next great leap forward for you on these subjects is to face the reality that you don't know anything at all.

Wipe the slate clean, and start fresh. Ignorance is your friend here, embrace it.

You said you did not want to be a father. Trying to recapture fatherhood in your old age with bad advice? Leaping without thought is bad advice. It is like advising a child to cross a busy highway without looking both ways!

[Leon]

Just doing the things I do, seems to be necessary, and not pursuing dreams, but enjoy dreaming.

[Above us only sky]

But I always have this concerns: when we live our lives, we have to do something that is against our nature: for example: suppose you have had strong opinions against business people, but the only job you can find is to be a sales person, so you have to dress up, learn the business etiquette, and learn and speak their language (profit, labor costs, blue sea…) on the one hand, life push you into a direction, you have to learn those lessons in that direction and you are hoping to have your own business one day so there will not be a boss watching your back and counting how many customers you have called everyday but on the other hand you do not want to go to that direction, you do not want to wear a stupid business suit, deceive your customers, you do not want to make so much phone calls every day because you are a quite introverted person, and you think all business people are making the profits off the working people, what should you do?

-- Updated May 23rd, 2016, 8:33 pm to add the following --

These Stoic philosophers gave me a solution:

When a dog is tied to a cart, if it wants to follow, it is pulled and
follows, making its spontaneous act coincide with necessity. But if
the dog does not follow, it will be compelled in any case. So it is
with men too: even if they don't want to, they will be compelled to
follow what is destined.

Is it the only solution? Do we have to be like this?

-- Updated May 23rd, 2016, 8:38 pm to add the following --

A dog will naturally hope to go wherever it pleases. But as this metaphor implies, if it cannot, then it is better for
the animal to be trotting behind the cart rather than dragged and
strangled by it. Though the dog's first impulse may be to fight
against the sudden swerve of the cart in an awful direction, his
sorrows will only be compounded by his resistance

-- Updated May 25th, 2016, 6:30 pm to add the following --

If your options only include inadequate compensation, then take the first job and build up walls during your professional life, in order to keep your sanity for your regular life.

Could I ask what you mean by “building up walls”?

-- Updated May 25th, 2016, 6:45 pm to add the following --

You mean if a person do not like his job but he still need to endure it to save enough in order to switch to something he likes better in the future? But what if in this long process he lost his original passion and became one of the people he originally hate?

-- Updated May 25th, 2016, 6:50 pm to add the following --

If it is so difficult like this, then is it better to forget his passion?

[Boots]

What are the best ways to spend your years before getting old so when you are old you will not regret?

From my observation on people around me, There are three options taken by them:

1. Pursue a career, put your youthful dreams aside,be a conformist in the company, please the boss, move up in the corporate hierarchy, get married and having children, make as much money as possible...

2. Abandon that career, escape from that professional life and travel around and just wander and wonder...

3. Pursue your passion (helping others, making documentaries, producing music, philosophy...), although your passion could not ensure you a good career and a worldly success.

like most people, I currently is in option 1, But like some people I have not much motive to stay a conformist and get married and having children, because this life is like a robot's life:
A robot acts according to the codes programmed in advance by a programmer, and in this option, a person is basically a robot; he goes to school once he reached a certain age, then he leaves school once he reached a certain age... he goes to work and get married and have babies once he reached more or less a certain age...He retired once he reached more or less a certain age...
The absurd thing is, in his mind, he thinks he is pursuing the happiness: He wants worldly success and a happy family, so he has to do A, B, and then C, but once he worked really hard and he has accomplished A, B, and C, his life is near the end, then he looks back at his life, found that his whole life is merely one marathon after another...

I think this is why some people choose option 2 and 3, but the problems about option 2 and option 3 is that we as humans naturally desire worldly success, we desire others' admiration and option 2 obviously will not deliver that to us, and option 3 will only deliver it if we are very lucky.

So I ask this question on behalf of younsters confused by the remaining journey of life ahead: What are the best ways to spend your years before getting old ?

You cannot avoid regret. Don'y bother trying to live your life with this goal in mind. Just go ahead and leap in.

[YIOSTHEOY]

Most people are taught by their parents from an early age that they will need to grow up and find a job.

My parents prefaced that by saying to get a good job you needed to study hard in school first and learn a lot and get good grades.

So as a kid this was what I became passionate about.

My mom added one more thing to the calculus of it all with regard to cleaning my room (I was lucky enough always to have my own bedroom and it was "mine" so I was held responsible for it) -- that was to do a good job the first time because there is no reward for doing a bad job.

Thus my own "passion" became doing things right -- whatever needed to be done. I was thusly conditioned by my parents.

I suppose that makes them good parents overall. They were good teachers and they had their own heads on very straight.

My dad was a military officer and my mom was a dental hygienist. They were both professionals.

Dad was college educated but mom was not. But both of them were the kids of professional parents -- one grandparent a lawyer and the other an architect. So my parents learned their own values and passions from their own parents as well.

So after you pay attention and study hard in school, to make the most out of your education, then you should pick something that you are both good at and which you are passionate about. And this choice should become your career path.

I did that with math. I became a business financial consultant.

There will always be some regrets for some choices that were made along the way. This is because hindsight is 20-20 and because some things are not foreseeable. That's life however.

[Ormond]

....what should you do?

Stop thinking, and start doing.

Would you like to have your own business? Ok, that's a good idea, the path I chose as well.

So what's your plan for achieving self employment? Lay it out for us, show us the details. Which steps in your plan have you completed, and which steps remain? What challenges are you facing as you implement your plan?

Do you have a specific plan? If not, why? Find out!

If you have no specific plan for achieving self employment, and no plan to create such a plan, then stop wanking yourself to death with worry and concerns and overthinking etc. and make peace with joining the corporate gulag. Being an employee has it's benefits, so figure out what they are, and focus on enjoying them.

Again, you apparently think you are moving forward by starting all these threads, but you aren't moving forward unless you are translating what you're reading in to specific concrete actions.

Without specific actions directed at specific goals these threads are actually moving you backwards, because they are creating a pacifying illusion of movement where none probably exists.

[LuckyR]

If your options only include inadequate compensation, then take the first job and build up walls during your professional life, in order to keep your sanity for your regular life.

Could I ask what you mean by “building up walls”?

Certainly. If you have the option of either a position with adequate compensation you hate or one with inadequate compensation then choose the adequate compensation (that you hate) and construct a series of emotional, psychological and/or even intellectual "tricks" or crutches to help you get through the day, potentially for a few decades and retain you humanity, your sanity and allow yourself to enjoy you time away from the job, such that you embrace your passion on your off work time and have that to buoy up your overall life experience quality. An example of an psychological crutch might be to concentrate on seemingly innocuous and boring personal interactions in a mostly technical job, if you happen to be a "people person" stuck in a windowless room and a computer screen.

[Above us only sky]

Would you like to have your own business? Ok, that's a good idea, the path I chose as well.

So what's your plan for achieving self employment? Lay it out for us, show us the details. Which steps in your plan have you completed, and which steps remain? What challenges are you facing as you implement your plan?

But there is a difference between” self-employment" and "have your own business" and becoming a boss.
Having your own business means hiring someone to do the work for the boss and all the profits goes to the boss while self-employment means making your own living without working for a boss.

Sometime I wonder why do people want to become the boss, is it simply because they want to dominate others instead of being dominated?

If you have no specific plan for achieving self employment, and no plan to create such a plan, then stop wanking yourself to death with worry and concerns and overthinking etc. and make peace with joining the corporate gulag. Being an employee has it's benefits, so figure out what they are, and focus on enjoying them.

I prefer to be self-employed because I do not want to be part of the corporate gulag any more, but I also do not want to be a boss, because being a boss means setting up an oppressive corporate gulag for others and receiving the profits all by yourself.
Currently I 'm facing a choice, I can either find another corporate gulag or I can quit the corporate gulag and find something to do and become self-employed. For me, there are some benefits of staying in a corporate gulag: if I want to travel to Africa, I can find a company which has operation in Africa and let my boss sent me there and I do not need to take care of the traveling expenses by myself. But if I’m a self-employed person, then I may not have the means and the money to travel there. Of course being self-employed means freedom, I have a plan on being self-employed ( I want to be a freelancer software designer or a science writer and a technical translator) , but I do not know if I will find enough customers or If I will make enough to support myself by being self-employed.

The problem of becoming self-employed is that a self-employed person can not really compete with a corporation: for example, suppose you are good at software design and you are self-employed, but in a software company, there are twenty software designers so a software can be designed within a week; but for you it takes a month (because you are self-employed and you have to do the project all by yourself, while in a software company, the software can be developed by twenty people at the same time, their development speed is twenty-times faster than you.)

By the way, May I ask are you a self-employed person or a boss?

[Ormond]

Yada, yada, yada, you're still thinking and worrying and farting around, and not acting, or even planning to act.

Seriously, you have so many opinions about so many things you know nothing about. Being a boss doesn't have to involve oppression. It can be very rewarding to provide jobs for people, and help them grow in their skills.

By the way, May I ask are you a self-employed person or a boss?

Mostly solo self employed, but some boss too, years ago.

[Above us only sky]

Seriously, you have so many opinions about so many things you know nothing about. Being a boss doesn't have to involve oppression. It can be very rewarding to provide jobs for people, and help them grow in their skills.

Mostly solo self employed, but some boss too, years ago.

Most of my opinions about the system are from my own experience as a employee, yes, I have not been a boss before. But if you were an employee and you were ordered by your boss to work in Saturday and Sunday at will without any pay or if you were injured at work but your boss did not give you any help, then you surely will have some opinions about the system.

What is so depressing is this: for that person, the only way to get out of the situation is to be a boss himself, but that means becoming the part of evil which he is against.

Last week, I went home and brought a bag of fruit from a vendor, the vendor said what he has to say, he said his fruit is sweet and delicious, so I brought some, but I found it taste really bad so I have to throw it away.

In this example, Does being a business guy means abandoning morality? ( or in other words, use morality only to your advantage? )

-- Updated May 29th, 2016, 4:56 am to add the following --

Yada, yada, yada, you're still thinking and worrying and farting around, and not acting, or even planning to act.

I 'm thankful for your advice, tomorrow I will take some action, I will quit my current job at the factory tomorrow and then spend two or three days to gather some information and make a decision.