going to spend a large part (for many, a majority) of the waking hours of your prime years doing something, it’s not just *contributory* to the rest of your life, it *is* your life, by definition. Meaningful or not, it’s how you spend your life.

Yes, we all have to do something to make a living, and not everyone gets to do something they love or even really enjoy. But if you do enjoy the function of your daily work, you are far ahead of the game. Much more than I think most people realize. Is it worth it to be bored or dislike the 40+ hours of your life that comes every week just to have a bigger house or ski behind your own boat for a few hours on a few weekends in the summer?

Some people hate work, but work hard and look forward to retirement, and if you can get there soon enough that might be a fair trade, but it never seems to be in real life. Most people who could retire younger get into a lifestyle trap and still retire pretty old.

So all this is just to say that if you have an engineer’s mind and enjoy and engineer’s work, you’re probably doing it right. You might hate having to deal with people’s crazy and the stress of managing an office of weirdos. Doing something you’re good at and you actually enjoy is a pretty big deal.

My initial plan was to be a dentist. Instead I’ve gone through a path that was interesting throughout and I felt fit my talents well. Now I’m full-time at something most people do for fun and have been blessed to have the financial side (largely through investment) be great as well. Glad I’m not a dentist.