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Comment by apalmer | Hacker News Reader

'Doing work for money, especially when you have passions and interests in something bigger, is the most soul-sucking and demoralizing thing you can do.'

You have lived a very sheltered life.

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This comment gets better if you rewrite it to avoid the "you", such that it doesn't read like a personal attack. For example: "Many people would be thrilled for their biggest problem in life to be working, for money." That implicitly suggests the benefits of a broader perspective without suggesting any fault on behalf of the author.

Perhaps the GP comment could have been better phrased, but read it in impersonal "you" tone and it will make more sense and sound a lot less like a personal attack (which I think it isn't).

Stupid statements such as the quoted one should be called out. (Living a sheltered life is not anyone's fault by the way.)

I came here to write this. But then I notice that he said "especially when you have passions and interests in something bigger ...". So you see he's got an escape-hatch there. The people who think the most soul-sucking and demoralizing thing they've ever done is watched their own child literally shit himself to death for lack of drinkable water are still correct. Their greatest conceivable passion and interest is working for money, so they don't qualify.

Indeed. Most people who are afraid of failure are people who simply can't afford failure. They are supporting their family, their family is not supporting them. It's a nice problem to have if your fear of failure is simply based on ego. That said, it is nice to become the family that can support the younger generation being able to follow their passions, and support them in favour.

He is clearly sheltered, but he has a point. Most people live demoralized, defeated, horrible lives, and corporate work is the cause because it truly sucks. But let's remember that exceptions can happen for any of us. May the odds be ever in your favor.

Personally, I'm OK with working for money as long as I'm actually paid-- at a consulting rate, not a 40-hour engagement. At $500 an hour, I'll do boring work (for a couple hundred hours). If I'm going to be spending 40 hours per week at it, though, for a middle-class salary; the work damn well better be worth doing.

I am all for doing what makes you happy etc... i just found the comment hilarious.

People on earth are getting killed, raped, enslaved, women are stripping to put clothes on their kids back, etc etc etc

working for money is not the most soul sucking horrible thing ever.

Everything doesnt need to be over the top melodrama, dude didnt like his job, quit it to pursue something he found more meaningful, good for him... i hope the angle he is on does lead to some improvement in the world. but the writing style is annoying.

OTOH, if those living "sheltered lives" do not have this "melodramatic" sense of purpose and passion for changing the world, then who will help those being killed, raped, enslaved, etc?

>>Most people live demoralized, defeated, horrible lives, and corporate work is the cause because it truly sucks.

I agree, to this 100%.

>>At $500 an hour, I'll do boring work (for a couple hundred hours).

$500/hr * 8 hrs/day is $4000 per day or $20,000 per week or $80,000 per month. How does one go about by finding such a job?

I am darn serious and I'm asking you. Do you know how to find such work?

Note: In my country(India) $80,000 comes to around. 40,00,000 per month. That's simply too much, If I ever get paid that much- Frankly speaking I don't even how to spend it.

I think he was saying that if somebody were to pay him that much, he would do the work for a while. I don't think he necessarily makes that much (at least not consistently). There are very few professions that pay that level of salary. A few that come to mind would be some corporate executives, a few specialized types of doctors, top lawyers, coaches of college or professional sporting teams, and presidents of some major universities.

I'm not sure people's sense of unhappiness is particularly finely grained. Plenty of people kill themselves in situations that most people in history would probably have found enviable.

It may well be that working for money is the most miserable he can be, that any further stimuli would fail to make him any more so.

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