>I know people who are working right here with me who can get up and leave right now, they have the wealth and the health. They are here because they enjoy working.<

Or they can't think of anything else to do.

Folks we knew a while back ahd worked very hard to build a business. After 15 years, they were bought by a large firm for 8 figures.

"Well Gordon, what are you going to do with yourself now?", says I.

"I'm going to continue with the new company", says he.

"Gordon, you don't have to work anymore".

"What else is there to do"?

I do like my job, and I even like all of my bosses and the people with whom I work, but after a vacation I am never eager to go back to work. This is true whether it is a long-anticipated trip overseas or simply using a couple days to make a long weekend. It's a good idea in theory to have your job be the same as what you would do if you did not get paid, but I'd make no money reading, lounging around, and taking it easy!

No. It pays the bills, nothing more. I vacation from July 2 to July 9 and am morose thinking about getting back to work on July 10.

Good point ira! I know people who don't work and it seems like they spend too much time rounding up friends for lunch and play. That's fun now and again but it gets boring fast.

I love my job but I hate working. Does that make sense?

Well, Ira, I am looking at this woman right now who is an heiress and we are both at "work". The movers and shakers here love what they do and they have fufilling private lives too.

Maybe top execs who can use their creativity at "work" are a different breed.

I think a wonderful profession can bring joy to a person. I think you are thinking of a day to day drudgery job where you begrudge it day in and day out for the best years of your life.....then you retire and start puttering or you buy a

continued....metal detector and comb the sand for coins.

I guess I am among the few ones who love their job and love the work they do. Mine even has as "fringe" benefit the possibility to travel to interesting places...

What do I do? I teach Anthropology and coordinate a women's studies research center.

No, I don't like it but don't hate it either, although I know I can do a much more challenging work, using more of my language skills. And I feel now is the right time to start looking for a new job, having discovered my boss has been tampering with money that should have gone to my pension saving account.
Up until this last trip (from which I returned 10 days ago) I'd never felt myself miserable having to go back to work. But this time it's different; my trip to France has been incredible, never before have I felt France's sensuality more strongly (weather, landscape, food, language, culture, art). It made me feel more secure in my ability to find a better job. So it has been harder to go back. Plus, I've fallen sick (my system probably couldn't take so much excitement).

I love my job, I'm a poor musician. But I really love my husband's job which allows us to travel frequently.

>>"What else is there to do"?<<

I find it very sad for people who cannot think of anything to do if they don't work. How sad their lives must be with so few interests outside of work.

Sadly, I do not like my job, but it's okay because it has forced me to do something with my life after working for the same studio for 23 years. Sometimes we need a negative force in our lives to turn it into something positive.

I will beable to now travel when I want to and have more freedom in my life

Enormously. But that doesn't stop me from feeling sad when I come back from European jaunts. It's been 5 wks now since I was in Paris and it feels like it never happened...boo hoo...

I love teaching school, but I also love one of its few benfits--time to travel. I have felt the way you describe (but not after every trip) after being in Switzerland and in Italy. None of my other trips really affected me the same way. I think it is because of the way I could actually imagine LIVING in those places full time versus just visiting.

Deja Vu - I hate that feeling, going on a trip, coming back, and feeling as though it never happened. By taking a lot of pictures, not just the monuments, museums, etc. but of people who I have met along the way helps bring the trip back to life for me.

Maybe I don't understand why someone would spend most of their lifetime working at a job they hate. I also never could understand the people who say thank goodness this day is almost over, day after day. Do they realize they are wishing away their own lives?

Thanks Robespierre for your encouragement.

I can shoot par or under fairly regularly but the problem is that the course I play is not set up that difficult during the season. I am a member at a course that is on the European Tour, but it is only set up like that for 1 week

I heard a pro say that a scratch player on his own course would shoot 3 to 4 over in a PGA event and on a course he wasn't familiar with, about 6 to 7 over and I tend to agree.

I have to work mainly on chipping and putting and also the mental aspect as I can get quite 'excitable'.

I'll give it my best shot, as long as I'm having fun trying, then I'll keep going.

If work were fun, they wouldn't have to pay us to do it.

Given financial security, I'd never "work" again. But I might take up some parts of my job as a hobby - minus the corporate hassles, aforementioned sharply armed office politicos and the "She who stays in the office latest, wins" mentality.

I win much too much. What a loser.

I enjoy my job because I get to do it in France, in what I think is the most beautiful place I've ever been, the Dordogne. We came here in 1987 on holiday, decided to move here the next time we came, in 1988. It took us longer than we thought, but by 1994 we were able to come here full time and to make a living renting out part of our own house, and looking after other people's houses. What has always amused (amazed) me is the number of people, much more finacially secure than we are, who 'would love to be able to do what you did.' Obviously not everyone can, but if you really want to do something - make your work and your vacation one, you can do it. It's all a matter of choice. And after 12 years here, we know we have made the best choice for us.

That doesn't mean that we aren't looking forward to retirement, when we can have more time to ourselves, and do more of the travelling we thought we'd be doing here. But it does mean that we have been able to earn enough to support ourselves, meet lots of interesting people, and enjoy what has been the most important thing for us - our life in France.

I'm lucky...I work at a major wine retailer. So I get to relive my vacations every time we do a tasting. Plus all the vineyard tours for business/vacation is an added plus!
LisaS