[rv-de]

Shouldn't you rather continue working to make sure that if such a destiny awaits you, you have enough money to at least buy yourself some comfort? If he wasn't a former successful actor, he couldn't afford "to move around" in his condition.

[itsoktocry]

>Shouldn't you rather continue working to make sure that if such a destiny awaits you, you have enough money to at least buy yourself some comfort?

Until when? How much is "enough"? Life is uncertain. Take Michael J. Fox, for instance.

I mean, this is the plan for a ton of people who go to California, particularly in the software world: "I'll work really hard for <major company> and put away a lot of money, then I'll move to a small place and work on what I really want to do, and live happily ever after."

How many people actually achieve this? It's harder than you think.

[rv-de]

my comment is obviously tongue in cheek. I'm leading the conclusion of OP ad absurdum. maybe I expect too much from the HN crowd.

[keenmaster]

The irony in an ironic statement is difficult to detect when a sufficiently high percentage of the population believes it unironically. That is why sarcasm cues, like obvious exaggeration, can be useful.

[sokoloff]

Instead of calling their parents now? That seems a priority inversion to me.

[rv-de]

Isn't that more of a metaphor? I mean how long does it take to call parents? 5 to 10 minutes? You can do it in the lunch break if you have to.

[sokoloff]

I have some sympathy with your perspective and still live my life a lot aligned to that mindset.

But the idea that you should wait until a lunch break to do <any actually important life thing> suggests that work and generating income is strictly higher priority than living.

For the same reason that you “pay yourself first” to save for retirement, you probably should think even more strictly about how you prioritize your time.

So sure it’s a metaphor, but a well-chosen one.

[randallsquared]

> I have some sympathy with your perspective and still live my life a lot aligned to that mindset.

I've struggle with this as well. I think the key is to avoid thinking "priority" as one dimensional.

A goal can be high-priority because it is urgent. Continuing to work until today's lunch break is more urgent than calling your parents, because you can only work until today's lunch break today, while you can call your parents at any time.

A goal can be high-priority because it is important. As a goal, calling your parents may be more important than continuing to work until today's lunch break.

In order to avoid the outcome that calling my parents is important, but I haven't called them in months because it was never urgent, I have to increase the urgency of the goal by constraining it in time: It's important to call my parents, and urgent to call my parents before the upcoming holiday.

[CydeWeys]

That doesn't make sense. Having reasonable scheduling doesn't imply strict prioritization. It makes no difference whether you call your parents now or in two hours. You can't live a productive meaningful life using short term unscheduled strict prioritization.

[kyanne]

Does prioritizing work truly make one's life more meaningful? Does being productive for a company (less abstractly, for someone else, whoever owns the capital) really give life purpose?

Work that is not benefitting your community and strengthening the bonds between others is worth putting off for a ten minute phone call with those who love you.

[CydeWeys]

You do need to prioritize work to some extent because if you don't then you'll be unable to maintain a job, and then you'll have no money and be homeless and unable to feed yourself. Your life will be a lot worse in aggregate than if you merely prioritized work to at least some extent and were able to maintain an income to pay for creature comforts.

You can't just, at every moment, prioritize whatever is most fulfilling or heartwarming or whatever at that moment, and then have it negatively affect other long-term important stuff like maintaining your income. I'm not gonna skip a meeting that people are expecting me to attend to call my mom when it can wait until later in the day. If she were on her deathbed -- of course. but she's not.

That is all overly sanctimonious.

[DenverCode]

You have clearly never spoken on the phone with my mother.

[bradknowles]

Mine are dead.

It’s going to be a while before I can talk to them again.

[Cthulhu_]

That's more a problem with the society you live in than your own personal priorities. Nobody should be left behind if they haven't got the means.