>I envy people who love their jobs. It seems like a simpler, more satisfying life. It's just never been that way for me.
We don't have some mental deficiency, absent in you, that stops us from hating our jobs. We have simply found jobs that we don't hate. Just like you.
Just because you are self-employed, doesn't mean that you don't have a job. And if you don't have a controlling share in your company any more, you aren't any more self employed than me.
>I could have the best job in the world and because I'm not working for myself, I'm not going to be happy.
This statement is not internally consistent. If it is the "best job in the world," then by definition you would be happy to do it. It reminds me of people who say things like "I like my chips to be TOO salty!" No you don't.
It also sounds like a self-imposed rule put in place for reasons of contrarianism, which would be deeply maladaptive and self-defeating, but as accusing people of contrarianism is becoming a bit of a meme round here, forget I said that.
EDIT: I appear to have been contrarian over the issue of accusing people of contrarianism. If the internet implodes in the next hour, my bad.
In this case all jobs are equally bad (and equally good,) therefore the words "best job," or even the words "good job" or "bad job" can have no meaningful interpretation.
No, it could be the case that someone is unhappy whenever they're working. For someone like that, the best job is one that pays a lot for a small amount of work. The lower the pay rate, the worse the job.
I think that's a meaningful interpretation. In fact, I think this situation is pretty common among people in the world.
Touché. Although I think bringing higher reasoning into what was clearly a bit of pleasingly pointless formal logic pedantry is a bit unfair. Like taking an assault rifle to a waterfight.
I worked for myself for 4 years (did consulting work, co-founded a startup) but, due to various reasons, decided to find a full-time job. The job I found is fantastic and I still work there. I love it, I love the people, I love my work. I build apps and do some consulting in my free time, and could easily leave and work for myself again, but I choose not to. I'm sure if I worked for a company I hated I would have left long ago. I do what makes me happy, and right now that involves having a full-time job and also working on other things I love to do on the side.
I think it was obvious from the context that by "job" he meant "job where I work for someone else". All he was saying was he won't be happy working for someone other than himself.
We don't have some mental deficiency, absent in you, that stops us from hating our jobs. We have simply found jobs that we don't hate. Just like you.
Just because you are self-employed, doesn't mean that you don't have a job. And if you don't have a controlling share in your company any more, you aren't any more self employed than me.