Alan Watts - What if money was no object?

[FireLane]

I saw this on social media and had to look up the original quote:

What do you desire? What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like?

Let’s suppose, I do this often in vocational guidance of students, they come to me and say, well, "we’re getting out of college and we don't have the faintest idea what we want to do". So I always ask the question, "what would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?"

Well, it’s so amazing as a result of our kind of educational system, crowds of students say well, we’d like to be painters, we’d like to be poets, we’d like to be writers, but as everybody knows you can’t earn any money that way. Or another person says well, I’d like to live an out-of-doors life and ride horses. I said you want to teach in a riding school? Let’s go through with it.

What do you want to do? When we finally got down to something which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, you do that and forget the money, because, if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.

https://genius.com/Alan-watts-what-if-money-was-no-object-annotated

Trust the Buddhists to recognize the foolishness of consumption as a means of chasing happiness. I think that philosophy aligns very well with MMM's emphasis on Stoicism. It's many of the same ideas, expressed in an Eastern context rather than a Western.

[bacchi]

Sounds like someone who has never had to make rent from their day job of waiting tables while waiting for their band to get big.

I dated a horse trainer who got into it because of a love for horses. It's really hard to make money there, too.

[Cranky]

A blast from the past! LOL

[theninthwall]

I remember this going around as a viral video. From some quick googling maybe about ten years ago?
I think I took it to heart, and it has worked out well for me since. Obviously, as per one of the above comments, it is not for everyone (and I had the privilege of being young with no kids, no debts etc), but if you are in the right place in life it can be powerful.

[Askel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu2HhlTEHMc

[Villanelle]

I think this is one perfectly valid approach to life, but certainly not the only one.  Working a job you don't enjoy (but that isn't soul-sucking) but that pays you very well, so you can quit more quickly and not have to work at all is also a perfectly valid approach to life.  Working jobs that feel neutral but allow you to take periodic sabbaticals?  Also good.  Or maybe you have a rando but decent paying job during the week and on the weekend you work a few hours at a horse barn, feeding your equestrian yearnings but also having a steady paycheck, a job that is less hard on your body (a concern longer term), and paying you enough to have the 5 kids you always dreamed of or to live close to family in a HCOL city. 

I know if doesn't get Youtube clicks or sell self-help books, but the fact is there is more than one way to live a great, fulfilled life.  So much of this depends on individual preferences and abilities.  (If that person who wants to be a painter has no skill whatsoever at painting, it's probably not going to be a good choice for him to "do that", and that alone.)  And even for one specific person, there is surely more than one way to find happiness while also feeding one's belly.