Reply #109: there have been threads on this (things to do) [View All]

the things I do are kinda sporadic. Mentoring would be more productive, IMO, for younger kids, because teaching basics is important for everyone. Even, as I think about the teenager that my BiL mentored. According to my sister it was not so much that the kid learned alot of college level academics, but he became less of a thug, and that is certainly helpful.

That nobody should do anything for money sounds like a nice ideal in one sense, but it also sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. I cannot imagine being paid well to do what I love because it is totally foreign to my experience in the work world where usually I am poorly paid to do what I hate. Much of the necessary work of the world is inherently uninteresting and unfun and much of the profit motive in our society seems determined to make it more so.

I am reminded of my college roommate. He entered college as a pre-med major. When that proved to be impossible, he seemed to be unable to adapt, flunked out, got into drugs, and was working as a city bus driver before he killed himself before age 35. Not that ambition was even a secondary cause of that, but it seems to me that society does not respect people who are not stars, and often people do not respect themselves if they cannot or will not reach the stars. Bus drivers too are necessary and even if they are neither paid well nor doing what they love deserve a little respect and happiness.