I'm surprised every week by what it's like to be a parent. I never expected it to round my life out in such a healthy way, both mentally and physically. Not just because I have offspring but because I'm doing a ton of things I haven't done in years, decades.
One of the great things in being a parent is that I can once more forget myself for hours when building snow castles or burrowing tunnels into a snow mountain at the end of the street, and no one bats an eye 'because kids'. Having kids also changes you in a way that you once more remember how awesome that was in the first place.
There are effects of this morning routine, which I cannot directly explain, that make my upcoming work day so easy and productive.
Being a parent also gives you a great excuse to finally buy that drone!
Frack, you're winning at parenting. I'm a dad and have never ever even once thought of it in those terms. I've never once thought, "thank goodness I'm a parent, it gives me something physical to do."
One should absolutely have a diverse set of skills and interest and knowledge, but it's also important to pick one or two things to truly master.
Parenting is absolutely a vocation, and your perspective toward it is quite refreshing.
This reminds me of that write-up that tried to put a price on a stay-at-home parent by listing all the activities they do, looking at the price of a specialist, and adding it up. I'm bookmarking yours for future conversations like that since it's shorter, has more activities, and is more fun to read. :)
She retired (at the old age of 29) to be a full-time mom. I found a job where I work 100% from home.
We have not attempted to quantify our decision. All we had to do was discuss it qualitatively and it was a no-brainer.
My oldest just turned 2, my youngest is almost 3 months. These are the greatest times of our lives. Why would I want to miss this for anything? No amount of money can replace these extra long mornings, lunchtime park/toboggan hill outings, and 4pm Mom-induced visits from my toddler who runs into my office, grabs my hand, and guides me to his building blocks.
I'll leave Bret Victor's website [0] here for anyone interested in continuing this train of thought. Most of his work posted there revolves around this in some way, but just to link to a specific presentation here's Humane Representation of Thought [1].
Bret Victor changed what I think of computation technology's progress and what I expect of it. I'd go as far as to say that his presentations are eye openers.
I've recently become obsessed with woodworking videos on YouTube. I think watching Paul Sellers spend two hours making a drawer with hand tools has become for me a cathartic release of my frustrations at spending the day in front of a screen interacting with nothing physical except a keyboard.
https://gizmodo.com/you-can-pay-to-watch-strangers-eat-on-th...
As an aside, I'm floored by the wholesomeness of this whole thread. It's inspiring.
Ah, the smell of baking bread!
The grass is always greener.
It's like when you are living your boring monotonous day to day life, you can't wait to go on an adventurous vacation. Once you are on vacation, you can't wait to get back to the comforts of your home.
First world problems.
Too bad it paid, you know, a tenth of what I make programming.
It was great. No screens, just a normal-ass cash register to work from time to time. No sitting unless I wanted to, no meetings, golf cart to drive around once or twice a day. Firewood to carry. People to talk to. Plenty of time to read or write and no-one remotely interesting in claiming the copyright anything I did then, let alone during time I was off the clock. Pretty much nothing about the job was evil, while so many tech jobs are at least a little. None of that general soul-grime of corporate life.
I'd do that for a whole career if it paid anywhere near what software dev does. I'm only in software because 100% of the things I actually want to do pay half as well, at best, and some of them require a lot more up-front spending and time for education. Programming's great when I need to do it for a personal project. As a career, it blows, compensation aside. It's not even high status, for the most part, despite the comp.
Why would a person suggest to another that if they can't be happy where they are, they wouldn't be happy anywhere? Is "a sedentary office job" the summit of all work for all people? Do we not accept that people can have preferences?
I'm going to start a dating website called "The grass is always greener". Customers get matched with one person, ever.
The only way your idea would work if somehow work and income were divorced from each other. That seems rather utopian than practical. Maybe if you were wealthy enough, you could try out multiple careers. Or maybe wait til retirement though that also seems impractical.
Mortgage and family would make that more difficult, but from my perspective ($80k/year, single, and quite comfortably not spending even half of that), $200k/year certainly sounds "wealthy enough" to me.
At the time, it didn't seem like a great job. But now, looking back after 5+ years of staring at a screen for 8 hours a day, I miss the physicality of being a baker. I hope the next computer revolution will untether computers from a sedentary work environment.