Is modern life 'worth it'?

[MrsTroutfire]

Obviously, not an entirely 'serious' question as I doubt many people would want to live in the conditions our predecessors did 200 years ago with limited healthcare etc, and it's not likely that society will change anytime soon anyhow.

However, I drive a lot for my job and have a lot of time to endlessly ruminate over the universe. One thing that I always return to is the fact that as a society we work the majority of hours in a day, the majority of days in a week, the majority of weeks in a year, and the majority of years in our lives.

Then, in our mid/late 60s, with our youth decades behind us, we then finally get the freedom to spend our days as we wish, finances and health allowing. If you're male, the likelihood is that you'll probably have worked for over 40 years without a single month away from your work environment, as most people only get a few weeks leave each year and paternity leave still isn't really very common.

I'm pretty sure this was never planned and just evolved that way, but when you look around your place of work and think "this is the majority of my life" it's not a great thought!

Of course life was much tougher in previous centuries, but people were mainly trying to survive. Nowadays it seems like the main purpose of work is churning profit. Even with financial difficulties abound I don't know many people who literally have to worry about survival.

So I sometimes wonder what we actually spend our entire lives working for. No doubt, the machine would stop turning if a huge proportion of the population ceased to make and spend money, but in some ways it seems the system runs us nowadays rather than the reverse, in the sense that money was originally created as an alternative to barter, but is now the principle determinant of quality of life (health issues aside). For example, food may be plentiful, even going to waste, but that's no longer the issue as you'll still starve without the money to buy it (whilst I still appreciate that there has to be some alternative to bartering/swapping of physical goods and a currency is necessary).

It seems like we create new unnecessary technologies, and in turn a market which needs workers to populate it, and this keeps future generations in employment, but at the cost of moving ever further away from subsistence.

Of course people don't want to give up their OLED TV's, iPhones, game consoles, foreign holidays etc, and I don't either tbh. But then a part of me reflects that most people just seem happy to 'play the game' and are so involved in the various aspects of their lives that they don't consider that the biggest sacrifice most of us make is spending the vast majority of our life doing something that we don't really want to and which isn't ultimately necessary for survival in the truest sense.

I'm defo waffling now, but I'd love to be able to contrast our society against a parallel one where our focus has been on prioritising the bare essentials such as food and healthcare etc and people spend a much bigger percentage of their lives actually living them rather than sitting at a desk. Of course they wouldn't have all the gadgets and toys we have but they wouldn't know any different - hell, perhaps in a hundred years time when teleportation has become a thing, people will wonder how we stayed sane only leaving our country 1-2 times a year rather than daily!

I think many people find a sense of self worth through being very busy. This seems to be a fairly modern malaise.

You have to play the system to exist in it but I do feel like my life is purposeless.

I don't want my 'purpose' to be working hard in a job that doesn't mean much to me personally, and earning money just so I can go on a nice holiday abroad for one week of the year.

I'd rather be satisfied all year round. Being in touch with nature, growing or foraging my own food, looking after children. Looking after animals. I'm sure it would be a lot harder than I'm imagining it though!

I do wonder if hunter-gatherers felt like their lives had more purpose. Where you can see the outcomes of your efforts - e.g. you forage for food and feed your family or community with what you collect.

Of course, I can't say that I'd like to go back to a different time, with no healthcare, transportation, entertainment, luxuries... Maybe if I'd never known those things, it would be easy to give them up.

I do worry about my health and posture, sitting at a desk all day.

I hope that one day a universal basic income becomes a thing, or shorter working weeks (for the same pay).

I have a job that I don't particularly love, but it's only part-time and for the rest of my time I'm studying (went back to uni), look after my dc and enjoy my life. We are financially quite frugal. Plan, budget, no impulse buying etc.. But we're very content and have stability in the way of being mortgage free and owning a rental property. I would hate living in the way you describe. There's more to life than stairing at the same office walls for 40+ years. I would rather die than not live a full life. We did work very hard in our 30s to achieve this lifestyle though. Had an absolute carefree 20s. Now in our 40s, living in a small town surrounded by nature. And we don't come from money, never inherited anything and never will. Just life choices..

@TinyGlassOwl

It's an interesting point OP. In 1930 Keynes predicted that technology would free us from work to the extent that we'd only need to work a 15-hour week. Obviously that's not the case!

One thing I really struggle with is the 'moral good' that is attached to work, at least in western society. Of course some jobs are necessary or fulfilling, or ideally both. But generally people who suggest that that may be more to life than slogging in an office for 40 hours a week in order to enrich shareholders and to Buy More Stuff are viewed with suspicion. And I agree that the impact on mental health is significant.

I would highly recommend reading Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber and Not Working by Josh Cohen.

None of this is meant to suggest that going back to some pastoral idyll (that never existed) is preferable. Life before the 20th century was indeed nasty, brutish and short for most. But that doesn't mean we should just sit back and pretend we've sorted it all out now either!

This is so true. Yes there are many vocational jobs that are worthwhile, but the vast majority of people simply work to make money for a company/ shareholders. And if you mention the problems with modern life, people seem to think you want to go back to living without electricity, running water or medicine etc. Eh, no, surely we can have a compromise. You can embrace some modern technology without accepting all of it infiltrating your life.

I fully agree with you OP, and I think many people feel the same. However you will never convince the masses, so I would focus on how you can make your life more reflect the values you hold.

My dream (hope it will happen someday) is to have a smallholding and a little cottage somewhere keeping a few animals, growing my own food, learning new skills. Living to more of my own schedule and working with the rhythms of nature.

Whilst it's pretty much impossible to be completely self sufficient, I would like to take more control over where most of my food comes from, and learn to work the land on my own little patch of earth, and I love caring for animals.

To me that would be a lot of hard work, but also fulfilling. I have done similar when I volunteered on organic farms whilst living abroad, and it gave me such satisfaction that I have never had from a paid job before.

@Toothpaste123 “I would rather die that not live a full life” is a bit of a silly thing to say, isn’t it?

Really?

Mortgage free with a rental property, after working hard in your 30s but a carefree 20s means you’ve had some financial luck along the way. I have worked really hard to be in a good position - I feel I’ve earned it. But - there was luck in that I was born with the right kind of academic success possible, graduated at a time when there were jobs around - not easy pickings, but not the current situation. Healthy.

So I think however hard you have worked yourself, there’s been some good fortune in your life. It’s a bit smug and silly to said you’d rather be dead than living the life that many on MN currently feel they have to, for financial reasons.

No it’s not.

@TinyGlassOwl

It's an interesting point OP. In 1930 Keynes predicted that technology would free us from work to the extent that we'd only need to work a 15-hour week. Obviously that's not the case!

One thing I really struggle with is the 'moral good' that is attached to work, at least in western society. Of course some jobs are necessary or fulfilling, or ideally both. But generally people who suggest that that may be more to life than slogging in an office for 40 hours a week in order to enrich shareholders and to Buy More Stuff are viewed with suspicion. And I agree that the impact on mental health is significant.

I would highly recommend reading Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber and Not Working by Josh Cohen.

None of this is meant to suggest that going back to some pastoral idyll (that never existed) is preferable. Life before the 20th century was indeed nasty, brutish and short for most. But that doesn't mean we should just sit back and pretend we've sorted it all out now either!

Yes - this takes me right back to my degree days!

Lots of responses are simply unimaginative in that they see it as a dichotomy between the life we live now vs (their idea of) the past. You have to be a bit creative to think about how you can take the best of both.

But society is so large, and the vast majority of us don't look outside the norms of existence. Indeed, remodelling the world to MY fantasy version of it would be no mean feat even if we all agreed that my vision was a perfect utopia.

And I 100% agree that roles that are morally and socially beneficial are a bit of a crock. For one, most of them are only required because the rest of us are dragged along by jobs that are neither!

"So I sometimes wonder what we actually spend our entire lives working for.*

Me too.

@Cocomarine OK you called me out. I can be a bit dramatic in my output 🙈 We didn't have 'luck' as you put it. Just went without a lot of things many others wouldn't have been willing to go without, planned well, took advantage of opportunities that came our way. To some extent you make your own luck and you decide what is most important to you. If you're not happy to buy second hand furniture if drive an old car, that's your choice, but doing that might open a better more satisfying future for you and your family. I've never had an iPhone, don't even have Netflix.. But that's my choice.

The problem is capitalism. I worked for part of a company that made a steady profit, but our division was shut by the new owners because our profits were not increasing. The investors didn't want steady, they wanted growth. So we needed to shift more products; create a need to flog more stuff. Then consumers have to stay on the hamster wheel to be able to afford all of the things that they didn't even know they needed 10 years ago.

@MrsTroutfire you might be interested in this anecdote... about 20 years ago I was on holiday in the Dominican Republic. I went white water rafting with a company owned by a German guy, and got chatting with the owner. His staff were a mix of young seasonal German workers (who had the experience he needed) and local workers. His aim was to give local workers all the same opportunities and pay them the same as the Germans. So he was training them as raft guides, not just using them as drivers and porters. He told me he had a problem... from a business point of view, he wanted them to work 5 days a week. But, because he ethically wanted to pay them “German” rate, they didn’t want to work more than 3. Not laziness, he was quick to point out - simply, after 3 days they felt they’d earned the money they needed for the week, and had no need to work 2 more days. They didn’t just not show up - they were clear - I don’t want to work. I don’t know what he resolved to do in the end - I met him whilst he was trying to decide himself. He didn’t want to pay less, but he needed staff. He didn’t want to employ more people and have a part time workforce, because he wanted to build experience and the training was an investment, and to put double the training time into two part time workers.

Obviously not every local was the same, but he said the vast majority of local young men applying did not want to save for a rainy day, “the future”, or gadgets. They were happy with what they had, and the balance of more leisure time. Which didn’t seem to be spring on complex hobbies or extra studies... but just hanging around with friends and family, being.

@OrangeRug

I agree with you.

I had a conversation with my Dad a few months ago about society and mental illness. I posed the question - are more people mentally ill these days or is it just that it's talked about more? Probably a mixture of both. I think our society breeds poor mental health. we work all the time, constantly compete and compare ourselves on social media, always want the latest gadget or handbag. It's all so meaningless. Doesn't help when we're constantly bombarded with negative/scaremongering media too.

I think I'd be a lot happier being closer to nature - living in a cottage somewhere remote with lots of animals, growing my own food.

But that will never happen!

Sums up my thoughts.

@thepeopleversuswork

See I see this the other way round: I would argue that this is all the more reason for people to get jobs they enjoy. Yes we can tweak our own lives to some extent to derive some work/life balance but only so much: and the more you try to reduce work the more you depend on a partner/the state or limit your own earning power.

If you want autonomy over your finances and unless you've inherited a shit ton of money, you have to work.

I think women in particular would benefit from focusing as much as possible on finding jobs that they get satisfaction from as opposed to finding ways to avoid doing less work. But I'm a workaholic, so my views probably aren't representative...

This is what I think. Meaningful work that you enjoy is invaluable. I would continue in mine regardless of whether I needed the income or not.

And for most of us, the work of the past would have been dangerous and/or backbreaking as well as ill-paid. Many historians and sociologists argue that what we think of now as ‘leisure’ is basically an invention of capitalism, where work became highly structured (rather than, say, seasonal, if you worked the land) and free time pursuits needed to be scheduled around it. Not that people didn’t have a form of leisure pursuits in medieval and early modern times, but it was more likely to be communal and associated with religious festivals or hunting for food.

@Toothpaste123 I’d still argue that you had some luck there.
My sister and I had the same upbringing and opportunities.
We both are a fan of a bargain, and happy with secondhand.
We’re both savers.
She’s socially awkward and struggled to ever fit in at work, whilst I forged ahead with promotions for performance and because my face fitted in a way hers never could.
In our 20s, we worked equally hard in NMW vs regularly increasing corporate professional wage. Both of us still saving and buying second hand.

She has crippling anxiety and lives on ESA now. I’m a higher rate tax payer with a paid off mortgage.

I’d say the difference in our two financial situations is entirely luck - I have good health and she does not 😕

That’s not to say I haven’t worked hard, gone without, made active choices about finances - and made my own luck. But it’s not just that.

Interesting topic!

I somewhat agree, and I am interested in the concept of a UBI.

However I'm not sure about the hours of work thing. When you have no modern comforts, you spend many hours each day just surviving.

Also, although not working/retiring early is a popular idea, actually it doesn't work out for many. People are often at a loose end when they retire, they feel bored and like they have no purpose. And the long term unemployed also aren't known for having happy fulfilled lives. I suppose work is like eating healthy or exercising. It's annoying when you are doing it, but at the end of the day you feel better than if you ate a load of junk and sat on the couch.

YANBU

but when you dare stating that holidays are not a luxury for some of us, you get abused.

I personally don't see the point of working and get nothing but paying basic bills out of it.

It doesn't mean some people can't prefer a quieter life, it's a choice.

Providing a good lifestyle for my kids is really important, and I like the modern pace and luxuries. I like it even better when I can work from home as much as I possibly can.

The only "modern life" issue I'd change in a heartbeat is the commute, but hopefully that will disappear.

Very interesting discussion, and am broadly in agreement with you @MrsTroutfire.

One of the things that really gets to me and which I think is pertinent to the mental health perspective, is that we are continually sold the lie that working hard and making the right choices will lead to a positive outcome. It does for some, but not necessarily the vast majority IMHO. When you keep getting knocked down but try to get up again every time, there is a moralistic attitude that it is your own fault, which often overlooks market forces, health crises, caring responsibilities (especially for women) and a whole bunch of variables often out of your control.

Getting it right and achieving what society deems acceptable feels like the Holy Grail - a mythical object always out of reach.

At 52 I beat myself up every day about my lack of success, not because I'm not relatively secure at the moment, but because at anytime something could fall apart and I will have no solid back up plan. I take satisfaction from the point of view that I have raised children into adulthood and - touch wood - they are doing as well as can be expected in the current climate, and that I have taken on caring responsibilities when needed for older relatives, but at the same time, it has made it impossible for me to build a career in any meaningful sense, and now at my age I feel very out of the loop.

I don't need or want a grandiose lifestyle, but I'm acutely aware that if I don't pull my finger out and spend the next 20 years building my business in some way, after it has been utterly shattered by the pandemic, I have very few options. If I try to go back into the job market, I'm technologically challenged, too old, my transferable skills are less important than being able to navigate psychometric online filtering, and it looks like the only thing I will qualify for is care work now. Which is laudable, but having done it for close relatives, I don't think I'm suited for it day in day out.

I'm not averse to hard work, but even when I've made some headway, a crisis has occurred driving me back to other responsibilities. DP and I are both only children and thanks to jolly old blended families, we have five living parents between us, my DM having passed from cancer last year, my DMIL is in end stage dementia in a home after we cared for at home for nearly two years, my Dad has splenic lymphoma and a bunch of other stuff, my SM has vascular dementia and long tern mental health problems, my SMIL has depression and cares for my FIL who has a laundry list of health conditions. I spend alot of time just waiting for the next call about a major crisis which I will have to step up and manage because DP is working to keep our heads above water.

Modern life leaves alot of people teetering on a brink, and all the benefits we enjoy come with a hefty slice of admin to keep track of it all.

My creativity has been stamped out and I see so many people burned out and neglecting self-care just to keep the merry-go-round turning. But even people crying out for help are castigated for their lack of resilience.

Sorry for the pity party, but this wonderful world we live in, and all the goodies we aspire to - or are encouraged to aspire to to keep making a select few wealthier feels like a bit of a sham overall.

@PurrBox

I think many people find a sense of self worth through being very busy. This seems to be a fairly modern malaise.

It's no true that its a modern malaise for people to work hard. Until very recently the vast majority of people were so back-breakingly busy at hard, physical work that they died early deaths.

It really irritates me when people trot out this "busyness for its own sake" stuff: I would argue for women that busyness and generally being employed is an unmitigated good tbh. The alternatives are to derive your sense of self worth through caring for your children fine and noble in itself except that it leads to your being exploited into doing it all by default or for caring for a man.

It's all very well saying that its better for people to work less. But the corollary of this is that for most people this means depending on someone else to support you financially. Which is not generally a great thing, either for your financial independence or your sense of self-worth.

@fluffedup

I agree.

It only surprises me that you are presenting this as something people may not have considered. I'm 55 and have had this on my mind for the past 40 years.

I will have to work till I'm 70 at least. That will be 49 years of full time work - not counting university. I had an average of three months' maternity leave for each of five children. DH will probably have to work till 70 too, and he's been working full time since 17.

We have a very average life, but as time goes on the cost of living rises. The biggest factor is the cost of housing, and there seems to be no political will to take the heat out of the housing market, eg by providing plenty of stable low cost rental housing so that there is a good alternative to buying.

As more services are privatised, their cost goes up, eg gas, water, electricity, school meals.

We are being farmed.

Personally I would not want my tax dollars going to make life easier for people who choose to add five humans to an overpopulated planet.

[quote Cocomarine]@MrsTroutfire you might be interested in this anecdote... about 20 years ago I was on holiday in the Dominican Republic. I went white water rafting with a company owned by a German guy, and got chatting with the owner. His staff were a mix of young seasonal German workers (who had the experience he needed) and local workers. His aim was to give local workers all the same opportunities and pay them the same as the Germans. So he was training them as raft guides, not just using them as drivers and porters. He told me he had a problem... from a business point of view, he wanted them to work 5 days a week. But, because he ethically wanted to pay them “German” rate, they didn’t want to work more than 3. Not laziness, he was quick to point out - simply, after 3 days they felt they’d earned the money they needed for the week, and had no need to work 2 more days. They didn’t just not show up - they were clear - I don’t want to work. I don’t know what he resolved to do in the end - I met him whilst he was trying to decide himself. He didn’t want to pay less, but he needed staff. He didn’t want to employ more people and have a part time workforce, because he wanted to build experience and the training was an investment, and to put double the training time into two part time workers.

Obviously not every local was the same, but he said the vast majority of local young men applying did not want to save for a rainy day, “the future”, or gadgets. They were happy with what they had, and the balance of more leisure time. Which didn’t seem to be spring on complex hobbies or extra studies... but just hanging around with friends and family, being.[/quote]
This reminds me of something I read before about when the European settlers arrived in Australia, and encountered the Aboriginees.

They were trying to convince them to come work for them, for payment, and couldn't understand why the Aboriginees didn't want to give up their time to work for someone else.

They usually 'worked' for 2 or 3 hours a day - hunting, fishing, cleaning etc. And then spent the rest of their day sleeping, eating, dancing, leisure time etc. Basically a great work/life balance.

They didn't really need money - if they needed a new hut, they came together as a community and built one, if they needed to eat, they got together and hunted or gathered food.

They basically had what they needed, they had enough.

@PerveenMistry

You do realise the smug irony of your rather unpleasant post?

The over-populated planet argument is very over used. And a conundrum of huge proportions. We have the technology to ensure equitable distribution of resources but greed and politics leads to the myth that it's the fault of people breeding that the inequity exists. Birth rates in many countries are falling. In the current capitalist model we actually need children to be born to perpetuate the system because people are living longer and need the infrastructure to expand. If society and the economy was genuinely structured to provide everyone the means to grow and prosper, your precious tax dollars wouldn't have to be ring fenced to avoid payouts to "reckless breeders".

Have you ever stopped to wonder why there are so many divisions in society being actively fostered right now? If we're all at each other's throats and running empty on our hamster wheels, we're too busy to look closely at the top tiers who keep sucking the economy dry.

@Cocomarine yes being healthy is lucky and being unhealthy is unlucky. But I would argue a majority of young adults are reasonably healthy to make their own luck and plan their life. It's the culture of 'I might die tomorrow, why not enjoy it whilst I can' culture that puts people on the hamster wheel as they don't plan for the future. I'm actively planning for my old age now, and I'm only 40! My mom died young, so I could think I won't see the old age either, but I'm still planning in case I will live longer and need an income. I know many people who for example said they couldn't afford to buy a property in their 20s and 30s when in fact they just couldn't afford a property in a part of town they desired. And carried on renting. Whereas we bought the only property we could afford with all the social stigma attached to it and went from there. It's tolerating discomfort socially and sometimes physically (no boiler for example!) for some time in order to get where you want to be later. I don't think that's luck.

You are wrong. Awfully wrong.

Never working class or middle class have had the kind of living standards we are enjoying today. Yes, we work. So did our parents/grandparents often for a pittance and without the same level of enjoyment. They couldn't afford holidays, great food, restaurants, universal health cover or education.

My parents worked very hard to give me an education and could only afford a restaurant once a year, and never a holiday abroad. My mom still washed most of clothes by hand, washing machines were still a luxury. She never knew what was to have a diswasher.

We've become so oblivious to the hardships to our parents and grandparents time that we think we've got it tough. Our generation is one of the most pampered one, I doubt our grandchildren will be able to say same.

My grandparents were tenant farmers. Worked on the land 7 days a week for 40 years. Never took a holiday as they had no-one to take care of the animals if they went away. Managed the odd day trip. Before the NHS they could not afford to call the doctor unless someone was dying.

My modern life is better than that, no doubt. It’s a mistake to idealise the olden days. Whenever I moaned about work-stress my grandmother asked me how else I planned to keep a roof over my head.

I do suspect one of my dc will decide to work less and have less though, which is a perfectly legitimate choice.

Out of all possible ways of surviving, smallholding is one of the most difficult and time consuming.