congratulations, me!
I’ve been having trouble answering this question ever since… probably since I dropped out of law school in 2002. Ever since I’ve retorted with “uhmmm…” followed by anything from incoherent ramblings to “i do online things” to “this” [where I proceed to do the robot].
A few months ago I started saying “I smuggle exotic animals for a living” and most recently I’ve just been telling people I’m a “lifestyle designer.”
Coincidentally I’ve also grown quite disfond of actual words and ones that have lots of negative association attached to them – most notably the word WORK.
So I invented a new word : PLORK.
It’s play as work. I got it by chopping off the nonfunness of working by adding the “play” part, while retaining the “doing stuff” meaning of the word “work”. Here’s a scientific definition:
play + (work – mindless drudgery) = plork
Can you use it in a sentence, you’re asking? Sure. “So I was plorking on my Macbook at a Starbucks in Miami last weekend choosing the logo designs for SHS, when Spielberg called me…”
So now that I decided to replace work with plork let me take a moment to officially declare this to the world:
I decided to never work again. I will either enjoy the moment, play, plork, or go on fun adventures. That’s it!
So this pretty much means that I’m retired. I refuse to do anything in life that’s not fun, fulfilling, or makes me feel alive. People will say “hey, we all need to do things that are not fun like [blah blah blah]” but this is where I will stop listening and go dance, do the robot, or go across the room and talk to the girl in the weird hat. I’ll let them have their reality. I’ll stick with mine.
This has nothing to do with how much money I have in the bank. By “normal standards” you need a bazillion dollars to retire, but I don’t agree with normal standards. I have a few grand in the bank, and that’s plenty. For now. How else money will come into my life remains one of the fun mysteries of the future. Right now I have the money I have and I don’t have the money I don’t have. Yes, it is that simple.
But I do know that the world is awash in money and I will have plenty of opportunities to play with it as it comes in and out of my life – in whatever quantities that may be. It’s abundant, it will flow. This I know.
So from now on, if you’re ever curious about what I’m up to – I’m probably either having fun or plorking. Either that or I’m taking a nap. Speaking of which…
Hahahaha Plorking. Good word! Pretty silly
Tell me more about the money. Are you kinda like “We’ll see what happens?” or do you have lots of savings and stuff?
By the way, I’ve been discovering the joys of unplanning. Sure, sometimes I do mindless useless things. But a lot of the time I am drawn to things that are important to me. Thanks for putting words to something that I had been wanting to play with (unplanning) for a long time!
I have the money I need now. I am also supremely confident that I will have more when I need it. You either always don’t have enough money or you always have enough. The amounts don’t matter. The mindset does.
I may create informational products, design tshirts, possibly buy and sell sites, put on events I like, whatever sounds fun – I’m not quite sure about how the money will show up – I just know it will. I know I have a lot of value to give to the world and I will be paid for sharing it consciously.
Congrats on your success with unplanning! I was quite happy this morning to be sitting there with girlfriend, looking at my completely empty iphone calendar schedule for 2010.
or maybe publish my book for me????? Hmmm. Or edit my interviews and construct a short documentary out of them. Both very intriguing ideas I know.
Peace. out.
LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!
Hi Markus,
I also have decided to focus my ‘work’ on creative and fun projects that I am interested in. I have been working for myself for most of my life, but unfortunately I don’t think it is possible to escape all ‘mindless drudgery.’ Even the fun stuff has a lot of boring work attached.
For example, I love putting my ideas on my blogs. However, right now a plugin is not working properly and I have a developer trying to fix it. It is not fun, nor challenging but it is absolutely necessary to make my site work as I want it to. There is a lot of that type of ‘mindless drudgery’ every day.
I always say that even rock stars get bored of being on the road all the time. Sex, drugs and rock n roll sound glamorous but living out of suitcases and tour buses gets tiring very fast.
For me the goal is not to avoid work. Work is necessary in order to accomplish anything in the world. I focus more on the reward. Editing blog posts every day is work. Getting my ideas into the world and connecting with other like minded people is the reward. I will gladly do the work to get those types of rewards.
Thanks for the comment, John. I think most drudgery can be eliminated or outsourced. I’d wager to say 90% of what people think they “have” to do, they don’t. (And I totally make up 90% of my statistics). Anything left – you can always change the “how” or your attitude about doing it. Even if I’m installing WordPress, plugins, etc. these days – I now do it enthusiastically and with a completely different quality – it’s fun and I’m alive as I’m doing it, there’s a carefree attitude about it. I’m listening to music, enjoying pressing the buttons on the screen. That was not so in my earlier years when I viewed most things that I was doing as means to an end.
You can either get rid of drudgery (elimination) or find a way to change how you do it (mindset).
Markus I just ended up here from Write to Done and I love the site and this post in particular. I’ll be following. Keep up the great work! I checked out Abroadening and last post I saw was from December. Anything new going on there? That’s an interesting concept. Cheers.
I took a hiatus from Abroadening for a bit. Looking to get it started back up soon. Just got a really nice video camera for it and sound equipment I need. I have footage from the last few months of different places/trips – learning to edit it all myself as we speak so I can have creative control.