The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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I think this is a major misconception about society. Social commentators think Americans are overworked due to forces outside of their control. I think instead Americans are choosing to work longer hours. For three reasons: 1. greater returns to capital in terms of investing (home ownership, stocks) and purchasing power. A century ago, a day's worth of work bought SPAM; now you can buy Netflix subscriptions, TVs, iPhone, etc. This material wealth is part of what creates an incentive to work. 2. Inflated wages creates an incentive work, especially for professionals. In the '70s there was no such thing as the $200k+/year white collar job like we see today. 3. Work is a form of escape and provides meaning to people's lives. This is why the PMC, who may have more than enough money to live comfortably off of, voluntarily continue to put in long hours. Americans could choose to work less and still maintain a good standard of living.
You seem to be taking a naive view that everyone can do every sort of job, and that switching costs don’t exist.
I’ve got serious health issues so physical labor is out of the question for me. Including things like serving and being a clerk etc. Almost 30% of adults in the U.S. have some sort of chronic health issue as well. It ain’t easy out in these streets brother.
What are some of these laid back jobs you are talking about?
My argument is that workers have more utility for the $ they earn: more purchasing power. This creates an incentive to work more than necessary.
The situation does seem pretty bad in this regard.
I mean I don’t understand your argument. Obviously more money = more purchasing power?
I guess what I’m saying is because most higher status higher paying jobs have agreed on a schelling point of at least 40 hours a week, it’s incredibly hard to find a “Good” job that also doesn’t overwork you. Add taking care of a household, handling a relationship, pets, kids, older relatives, etc into the mix and we have almost zero leisure time.
Used to be one adult’s salary could fund a whole household of kids and a spouse. The spouse handled all household stuff so there was more time for leisure. Now both adults have to work full time+ and clean and take care of kids so it becomes an impossible race.
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