This blog resonated very strongly within me, because I have had a nearly identical thought process.

I had a pretty good entry-level IT position for a year with a lot of responsibility that was good experience, and I walked away from it because I couldn’t stand the grind.

Here’s what I learned: In the real world, there is no such thing as a “9 to 5″. It’s more like a 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. kind of thing, and you only get paid for the “9 to 5″ When you add in the prep time and travel time, work ends up dominating a large part of your existence.

Revelation: The average person is awake 16-18 hours a day, and in a “professional” career, you work 10-14 hrs a day. Assuming you have no errands, chores, family, etc., you get 2-6 hrs of free time per night, and then the carrot, weekends. This is a huge difference from what we are used to as kids or even college students, and suddenly we’re nailed down to one routine for much longer than we’ve really done anything else. All the variety and freedom is gone.

The “shock” factor is being felt by a lot of our generation, and the word “passion” keeps popping up when we discuss work.

Humanity has gone through phases where there is a dominant belief system, and we are in the third phase. The first phase was religion, the second nationalism, and now the third, is capitalism. Our icons? The dollar and materialism. I believe there is a serious lack of love in the world behind the motivations of most people. They’ve turned us against each other and we live in concrete jungles where none of us wants to get to know each other.

You and I agree on the truth about reality, it sucks. We had no choice in this bullshit machine and only realized what all our grooming was for when it was over. We want to reject it, but society does not provide an alternative context, so we’re left confused, frustrated, disappointed…

My challenge to you: how would the world be if you could change the carrot and the stick?

My ideal fourth phase in humanity: the belief system changes to humanism, our icon is one another and all our motivations are driven by love, not profit.

You may say that I’m a dreamer…

I really wish I could break out of the mundane.

I think the traditional “job” or “daily grind” is what I am referring to. When I seek purpose, or feel productive, it is most usually not when I am work, I feel 100% more fulfilled and productive each time I make a blog post here then I do after a long day of work.

You’ve hit one of my worst fears right on the head, and what’s most depressing is that it’s almost a certainty that I will actually end up in a routine and daily grind. Granted, I’ve been given opportunities that might make my grind more tolerable than soul-killing 9-to-5′s, but I wonder what I would actually do with my life if I didn’t have to fit right into the sequence of “Birth, Infancy, School, More School, Work, Retirement, Death” you mentioned.

I agree with you on the non-traditional job/self employment front, though. I work a minimum-wage job with no benefits that I would *love* if it had a boost in either, but I’d love to do something–off the grid. Build a nerd commune. I dunno. I don’t think they worked very well for a reason, and without the nose-to-the-grindstone mass-production thing, that’s pretty much what you’re left with.

Being productive and having purpose is definitely one of the main driving forces behind everyone, myself included. I love feeling productive and I hate feeling useless. Thing is, I do not usually feel entirely productive at work, even when I am getting a lot of work done, mostly because I never see any benefit from my work output. I never see anything extra for the days I work extra hard.

I think the traditional “job” or “daily grind” is what I am referring to. When I seek purpose, or feel productive, it is most usually not when I am work, I feel 100% more fulfilled and productive each time I make a blog post here then I do after a long day of work.

I think my overall point was – I wish there was a better way to get by, have the money I need, and not have to go to a traditional job. It all rolls back into my desire to be self employed.

I do not wish to have the ability to NOT work, I wish to have the ability to set my own schedule, and live my life the way I want to live it, and not by the traditional 9-5 schedule.

With any existential argument you can run yourself in circles until you realize, “Oh shit, its time for work.” Or you can simply decide that pondering about it is useless and depressing. That’s the conclusion I came away with from my existential phase anyway.