Jove — I take what you say to heart, and while I didn’t address the quality-of-work issue explicitly in my post, it’s not that I miss the point. I DO think it’s very important to get more out of EVERY part of our lives, very much including our working lives.

(By the way, I blog about that kind of stuff a lot at my professional blog.)

The trouble is, lots of folks I talk to see their working-stiff-type jobs as a barrier to their happiness, instead of a potential mode of self-expression and self-fulfillment. For these folks, going to work *is* like sitting in traffic or doing unwanted chores — it’s drudgery.

Maybe I should unpack this more in a follow-up post, because I think the points you raise are very important. Thanks for reading!

And the other drawback to expecting to live to 110 (his number; not mine) is that one can then become obsessed with saving enough money to maintain one’s standard of living for that long after retirement. Then you don’t take the risks of earning a living doing something you love, or reducing your paid work hours (individually or collectively) so you can spend more time with the kids or whatever else might really be your priority if you really did have only 37 days to live.

Thanks for sending me over there…