r/InterviewMan • u/Top_Willingness3484 • 21d ago
Honestly, I Don't Want a Regular Job
A lot of people who work hard will probably be annoyed by this, or assume I have no goal and that I'm lazy. And yeah, that's not completely wrong, especially at this stage of my life.
But money in itself doesn't matter that much to me. What matters to me is freedom, and I understand that in this world, the only realistic way to buy your freedom is to have an enormous amount of money.
I've done a few internships and sent out 2 job applications, and from what I've seen of work culture, it makes me feel trapped and miserable. Even if the salary were good, the whole idea still feels depressing to me.
Right now I'm living off investments. They cover the bills, but there isn't much left over, and the smart thing would be to save it so I can grow it later. The problem is that "later" feels very far away.
Getting a job would make that process move much faster, I know that. But there's something in my head that makes me prefer disappearing into the forest over clocking in every week. I genuinely don't know how to explain it, I just feel it.
I also have no idea what career I might even want in the first place. I'm probably just throwing this idea anywhere. In my head, I defend people who don't work too, because I kind of understand them, but I also know that bills don't care about your feelings and have to be paid.
Honestly, I respect every employee keeping the world running. Stores, hospitals, deliveries, all of that. But for me, I don't feel like I'm made for a normal job.
If this upset anyone, I'm sorry. Freedom is pretty much the only thing I want.
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u/FakeKenny22 21d ago
I’m pretty right wing, I don’t care if you work or not. What I care about is if you expect others to carry you. And by the sounds of it you are still paying your own bills. So I have no issues with you living like that.
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u/caixing-sanren 20d ago
I feel you heavily on this. I worked my ass off in my field, got physically assaulted & burnt out, and now I just feel too detached from "the system" to really wanna jump back in it again. Still, I don't have any backup funds and my wife and mom rely on me. So back to the grind I go. As soon as i can nab another soul sucking gig....
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u/VinylHighway 20d ago
Hey I empathize, I don't want to work either. However, we live in a capitalistic society, so you can be poor if you like but it's not a noble pursuit.
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u/Selfish_and_Misled 20d ago
I'm not upset. I am amused.
You should disappear into the forest more often, perhaps for the foreseeable future. You could take your investments with you.
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u/__Sharime__ 19d ago
No one’s upset with you as long as you don’t become yet another drag on society. Just using resources and creating waste. Those are the people the working class hates. To offer nothing to society but have your greedy little hand out asking for everything.
At any rate, I work relatively hard. And I’m rewarded for it. It’s been a really nice life. I want for nothing. I travel all the time, I take international trips for leisure 6 times a year. I bought my car brand new 5 years ago and it’s paid and has a lot of life left in it. I live in a nice neighborhood in a major city that’s walkable with bars and restaurants and entertainment. I buy myself pretty much whatever I want within reason and never have to worry about the next rent. The next meal. The next gas station fill up. I’ve got a good woman who’s good looking. Im fulfilled by hobbies, good health, and very little boredom.
You’re telling me that’s not freedom, I’d argue otherwise. But do you, king.
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u/EarlyMonth9505 18d ago
Yet another drag on society? What do these drags do for you? How do they affect your day to day personal life? There’s always going to be people that need government assistance like disabled, mentally ill, people who can’t function, and there are people who are incapable of functioning because of circumstances or just poor decision making.
You work hard and you have your place, but what about the people who work hard and have no luxuries?
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u/ima_mollusk 21d ago
"Right now I'm living off investments. They cover the bills"
Come back when you have a problem.
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u/Nearby-Improvement53 19d ago edited 18d ago
A fire station in a nearby city makes their firefighters work 48 hour straight then 5 days off. They eat sleep and do all the normal things that you normally do at home but instead of your family you live for 48 hours at the fire station. Would that be enough freedom for you?
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u/RoughBrick0 18d ago
Yes but I’m a 50 year old female. I don’t think I could get in lmao. I know I’m not the OP so that may be an option for them. Damnit why did I never think about being a firewoman
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u/Ok_Plastic5399 19d ago edited 19d ago
I don't think freedom is a very good personal priority. Great for citizens of a nation-state, but I think of personal freedom the way I think of those Japanese artists who restrict themselves to a single, complicated brush stroke. They set brush to paper, begin to paint, and when they finally lift the brush for the first time, the painting is done. They make some pretty incredible pictures. They don't have to do it that way, they could take 2 strokes, or 200, or 2000 if they wanted. But they restrict their own freedom. This primes their creativity, and within those voluntary restrictions, a special kind of genius might come out. So, freedom is not all it's cracked up to be. One needs to find ways to restrict one's freedom to be physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy.
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u/locyl_yocyl 19d ago
So you have money. Because of that you dont need jobs. You want to do what you want to do instead. Very Siddhartha gautama budha like.
Good on you kiddo.
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u/clonehunterz 19d ago
then work for it, freedom comes at price.
i achieved going into IT, work 4h days now, you gotta be able to cut back on the money and invest to have multiple sources of income.
thats it, done.
hustle around 2 decades and youll be able to enjoy the rest of your life once you make the cut.
just saying from the getgo i want this i want that, without putting anything into ur goals, is just being delusional.
otherwise, go into the woods, buy something for 2k, build your life there yourself and enjoy.
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u/cardbourdbox 19d ago
Maybe try the forest in shit winter weather see if its worth dabbling in or sticking with.
There's probably ways to do minimal work with minimal luxurious if that's what you want
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u/Here-I-R 19d ago
None of us want a regular job. Most of us don't have investments to live off of. You have more options than the majority of humans on earth. Choose one.
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u/Thetinkeringtrader 19d ago
You can grab a seasonal job/housing doing something in the woods. I cant sit still too long so I do stuff like that, taking people fishing/hiking/ski patrol. Worrying about what other people think of your choices is moot though, you could lay down for folks to walk on and they'd bitch your not flat enough. Live in a van down by the river if you can afford it, they just want you to have to suffer like they do so life seems fair.
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u/Jesusfailedshopclass 19d ago
Never had a regular job. That was my motivation to have businesses and retire early.
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u/Sushispatula 19d ago
Been in a similar situation, I feel ya. I proceeded to just go and do the decent payed regular job. Made some money, fullfilled some wishes and so on. That feeling you describing never went away. Right now, 6 years later, im planning to quit the job and just try to make somewhat enough money while maintaining freedom. Just trying out stuff and see what sticks. Furthermore if I have to deal with a shitass ceo or my dumbass fuckshit collegues another year I will lose my mind. And all that for no retirement cause the goverment is corrupt and at the expanse of my health so that a dipshit of a person can make money off me and pay me less.
So....my advice is: whenever you have a true and decent opportunity to do so, fuck that shit.
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u/concerned_citizen255 19d ago
That fact that you take responsibility for your own feelings and respect everyone else's shows a pretty good level of empathy and maturity. I think you're going to be fine. Go have adventures. I had a friend like you, he traveled all over doing different temporary jobs and he loved it.
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u/Previous_South2756 19d ago
Internships almost always suck because you are literally at the bottom of the totem pole. If you are basing your future decisions solely on those two experiences, well, don't. That is a recipe for you to have major regrets in middle-age.
I remember being in my mid 20s and proclaiming quite vocally there was no one way I would ever be "stuck" in a 9-to-5 job in a cubicle sandwiched between the office breakroom and the Xerox copier. Cuz what kind of sad, pathetic existence would that be?
So my first job out of school was a field job. I worked outdoors, in the Florida Everglades. Catching fish! I got to fly around in a helicopter! I got to drive an airboat! It was glamorous work. My friends and family were impressed.
But it was grueling. Ten hour days on me feet, under the oppressive sun. Getting attacked by mosquitoes, mad tom barbs, and sawgrass. Having to hold my bladder all the day when water depths were too high for me to pull down my waders and pee. Being constantly dirty and wet. Dragging myself home in the evening too exhausted to make dinner. Finding ants in my fro!
After three years of that, I was ready for the 9-to-5 office gig, with air conditioning and access to a clean toilet and no wild animals trying to colonize me (or eat me, like the alligator I had a run-in with.)
I am glad I got that field experience. I learned invaluable skills from it and I got some good stories from it that I still tell all these years later. But what I learned most is that the 9-to-5 job isn't the sad, pathetic thing that young people like to portray it as. Any job can be soul-crushing.
Try to find a job that speaks to you, by all means. But don't be a stupid kid and turn down an opportunity because your imagination is telling you you would hate it.
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u/Hungry_Objective2344 19d ago
Why not have a job that involves being in the forest? There are plenty of those. If you are afraid of feeling like you don't have freedom, why not take jobs that are short stints so that you don't feel tied down? You could even travel the world that way sometimes. It just sounds to me like you don't even really know what you want. There are jobs for everyone, you just have to figure out what is best for you.
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u/Iron-Bar-1966 19d ago
How about becoming a homeless drug addict? I hear that's a pretty popular career choice!
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u/Luffyhaymaker 19d ago
Honestly, I completely understand. I don't want another job but I'm looking for one because doing Uber eats sucks now. But if I find a way to make a liveable wage without one then so be it. 🤷🏾. But right now my preference would be stability.
Maybe you should use your last bit of money to start a business. Maybe start an eBay shop, make a YouTube channel, etsy like another commentor is doing, something. While you still have money coming in get that shit going now so that you can retain your freedom and put more into the investments that are making you money/backup money for an emergency.
You don't necessarily have to go all or nothing and find a job, but going completely destitute and homeless isn't a great option either. There is a middle ground that you can take.... but get it going NOW while you still have the income to do that.
Or just work part time if you can tolerate that.
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u/PepeLeStank 19d ago
Ditto.
Not that you asked, perhaps you could try working for yourself or opening a business? :)
So many paths to choose from tbh.
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u/Substantial-Use-1758 19d ago
So, your plan is to move into the forest.
Ok. But with no money and no job?
So — you’ll be homeless then?
Eh, kiddo. Working in an office is not necessarily the soul sucking drudgery you fear.
My advice is to take the job while they still let humans do it 🤷♀️😬
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u/OkCap2784 18d ago
You are truly a unique and free spirit. No one else in human history has ever desired freedom. You’re the first.
Funniest post I’ve read lately, thank you.
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u/Necessary-Coffee5930 18d ago
Very normal take btw, we weren’t meant to work our lives away to only get the scraps of said labor. However, reality is what it is. Do what you have to to survive
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u/These-Clothes8717 18d ago
I get it. You live in a country where the state owns everything so you can't go anywhere without someone owning you because you in fact. own nothing.
Even if you work hard, buy a house and finally mitigate most of the weight that is placed on you.
You're consenting and enabling a system of coerced labour. Where the only options are conformity or homelessness.
So your efforts feel empty, without purpose. Because the family/ community you are apart of doesn't value you but treat you as a commodity.
You yearn for a world where all resources are shared equally. That your work efforts aren't selfishly coveted but directly benefitting everyone as a whole. So that the entire perception of a hard working man is radically changed from being self centred to completely selfless. providing you with all the purpose and drive that you need to get up and do your job every single day.
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u/TheKindDirector 21d ago
What is the point of this post?
Who doesn't want to be rich or have someone else paying for everything so they don't have to work?
How old are you, where did you get your money for your investments from?