Why?
I'm completely with you on making your money work for you over time, but why frown on someone because they don't feel the need to acquire the same material wants you do?
They may not be a match for you, doesn't mean there's something wrong with them...
Peace
That's kind of my feeling.
Life is short; a lot of you people don't seem to realize how short.
My life is for working at things I enjoy, and then coming home at the end of the day, leaving my work
at work, and enjoying time with my family and friends.
I want a partner who feels exactly the same way.
Once my kids have moved out, we can go back to living in a
one bedroom apartment, for all I care (it's something we're arguing about right now; he thinks it would be nice to have a spare room; I think having an extra 250 dollars a month would be nicer than having a spare room would be).
If you like cooking pizzas, go work at pizza hut. Work there forever, for all I care, but come home happy. Be content with your life, and don't try to bring
me down. That's all I ask.
I like cooking a lot. I've cooked in several restaurants; one was an Italian restaurant; I really had a lot of fun there.
I also worked in the dietary department of a large hospital once. I started out, you know, cashiering in the cafeteria. After awhile, I told them, "I really like to cook. I'd rather cook than work with the public. What have you got for me?" So they moved me to tray line and hosting, which entailed making the patient trays and delivering them to the various floors of the hospital, to the patients' rooms. I also did some catering on the side, with some of the people who worked there. After hours, there was a private banquet room off the main cafeteria that the hospital rented out, and I helped with catering banquets, which was great fun. I even got to bar-tend a little bit.
Anyway, I did really good at that job, and after about a year, the dietary clerk quit. She's the one who took orders about what diets the various patients were on, and made the meal plans for them. There were special diets for cardiac patients, for diabetics, full liquid, clear liquid, I can't remember what all. So they had me fill in in her spot. I was one of the few people in the cafeteria who spoke very good English, other than the managers and things.
So I did that. I was sitting at a desk answering the phone, making meal plans for patients, leading tray line- no longer working tray line, just supervising, making sure the appropriate foods went on the right trays. No longer delivering patient meals. At first, I was kind of stoked about it; I was proud of myself. It was sort of a major accomplishment, considering my sketchy background, my non-education and lack of respectable previous work history.
I took it as a challenge.
I did so well at
that, that they decided to give me a raise and let me have the position permanently. Even though a dietary clerk was really supposed to have at least a Bachelor's degree in Nutrition Science or something.
But the job was stressful. It was a lot of hours, it was a lot of responsibility, a lot of accountability. People who had been my friends in the kitchen didn't like me anymore. They tried to sabotague me. I don't blame them. I was the only white girl in the dietary department, I was twenty years younger than most of them, I'd been working in the hospital barely a year, and here I was being promoted to the highest position in the cafeteria. Being their boss.
I was a hard worker, but so were they. The only reason I got the promotion is because I was white and so were the managers; I spoke English better than the other kitchen workers did, etc. It was obvious. Even I could see it.
Eventually, i just quit. I never even went back to pick up my last paycheck.
So anyway, that's my story about working a hard, stressful job with a lot of responsibility.
I wasn't happy when I was doing that. I came home and was unpleasant to my family. I spent all my time working or sleeping. And I decided that I would never again work a job that made me unhappy, even if it was presented to me as a "promotion" or a reward, even if it brought in a fat paycheck.
I do stuff that I like. I like helping the less fortunate. I like working with kids, old people, the indigent, and the handicapped. I like working with animals. I like jobs where I can be creative. Whether or not I'm getting paid very much for these things, this is what I spend my time doing, because I enjoy it. I find it fulfilling.
As far as material things, I could care less about them. Wanting things is a type of slavery. I'd rather be free.
It is absolutely crucial that I have a partner who is on the same page with me about all this.
I'm lucky to have found one.
And that's all she wrote.
Some people may think we're ambitionless losers. I don't care; if we are, at least we're happy losers ("slackers" is the term we prefer).
Neither money nor material things make us happy in and of themselves. Fulfilling work and adequate stress-free leisure time makes us happy.
And security- the future- is not something we have to worry about overmuch.
