To Take Or Not To Take A Promotion, That Is Still The Question

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To Take Or Not To Take A Promotion, That Is Still The Question

May 2, 2008 – 6:22 am

I’m curious about how those of you feel about work. Yesterday I posted about a potential job change within my current company that would involve a promotion (here).

The question I have today is whether or not work is just a means to an end (retirement, early or otherwise). I love the book Your Money or Your Life (YMOYL for short), and one of the concepts in the book is that work is just a means to an end. You’re trading your “life energy” for dollars by working, and the more quickly you can meet your needs without have to exchange your “life energy” at a 9-5 job the better.

I’m paraphrasing a bit, but my interpretation is that the authors view work as a way to reach your retirement goals. Period. It doesn’t matter (to them) if they like work or not. If they have to sacrifice for a reasonable period of time or not. They’re simply focused on their goals, and will do what it takes to reach them as soon as possible.

I spend quite a bit of time thinking about retirement, but lately I’ve become a bit disenchanted with the idea of retiring early. Or rather, I guess it would be more accurate to say that I’m not seeking early retirement as aggressively as I used to be. I’m not sure it the right thing to do for me. My thoughts at the moment are:

it’s good to be productive, to perform work and accomplish goals
work provides discipline
work doesn’t have to be “paid” in the typical employment sense to be valuable, but on the flip side there are a lot of ways to earn an income from a hobby/passion/skill set while still helping others
as long as I’m healthy and capable, I feel somewhat of a duty to work. If I give all of the money away because I don’t need it, that would be fine too someday.
to my knowledge there’s no reference to retirement in the Bible besides the Levites (priests) leaving work at age 50. Most people worked until the couldn’t work anymore, and then their children supported them.

So my question is, am I making a mistake by passing up an opportunity to make more money? Is it irresponsible of me to turn my back on this opportunity?

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