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Let your next career move come to you.

Tips for a happy stress free life
Sir Woke XR Re… 20 May 23 21:36
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Never be a company director

Never be a trustee

Never engage in business as a principal including being a partner in a professional firm

Never handle other people’s money

Never stand for election

Never own real property EXCEPT, for one’s own occupation, a single detached residence less than 25 years old and built on greenfield land.

heh at being rich leading to less stress - obviously poverty is stressful but otherwise I see no correlation with less stress as one gets wealthier - indeed rather the opposite.

what amazes me is how wealthy people feel the need to create stress for themselves eg - with huge houses that require enormous upkeep hassles, multiple homes, boats, holidays to far flung places that requires ten hours sitting on a plane,  even if you go sofa bed class - what is the point of all this?  I don't get it.

Heh at rich lawyers saying it's stressful 

I tell you what is stressful, not knowing if you can afford to feed your kids and keep the lights on

Everything else is of no consequence 

Obviously don’t have children. 

Achieve seniority in your job, whatever it is. 

Have to agree with Davos - the law bashing is from people who think they were born to be paid lavishly because. Being able to retire before 65 is a huge privilege that most lawyers will achieve. 
 

Own shares and don’t waste time with BTL, or any investment which basically becomes a side hustle.

Davos is right that relatively affluent people massively underestimate the stress involved in being (even relatively) poor, particularly if you have kids.

Safety nets are the key to not feeling stressed. if you have fvck all money and nobody around you has any money then even something that could seem relatively minor can be hugely, hugely stressful.  One of the big privileges of having money is being able to fix those moments for those you love. 
 

Equally as you get more money it is very easy to reach the stage where it takes big sums of money to keep the show on the road if there is a problem. Too many of us in the city reach that golden handcuffs stage and wind up very stressed as a result. 

Ultimately what is the point of anything we do Guy? We are all just trying to find distractions from the fact we are born, live inconsequential lives and then die (often terrified and in pain). Mostly without leaving in any real mark on this world. 
So we do whatever makes us feel better about that. 

DD - I guess I particularly hate hassle and have little interest in possessions so find it hard to understand - even with unlimited money I would not live anywhere bigger or grander than I do now - a nice but quite small house 

I’m with Guy on this

My ideal way of passing my time on earth would be reading books and enjoying ample leisure time with family while owning a moderately sized house, nowhere chi-chi, that I own outright.

What Davos and Donny said.

The thing with the money merry go round is that for a lot of people, they dont know when to get off it, or harbour a fear that if they do, that they're somehow wasting their talent. Doing what they do may sometimes be the one thing they're really good at.

And then there are those who simply want to be the richest graveyard inhabitant as it gives them their (peculiar) sense of self.

The thread title might also have distinguished between negative and positive stress. There's a marked difference.

 

Cut these out - long commute/travel, living in more than one place, helicopter parenting, unhealthy habits, excessive boozing, long hours. Add kids to local state where they can walk themselves, garden more, swim outside or play your favourite sport once a week. Buy a nice house with a nice garden but not a killer mortgage. Live as if you have 5 years left. 

Live as if you have 5 years left. 

Bedridden, medicated up the wazoo, friends dying off in droves, visited by an over busy care worker for 15 minutes a day with no other human contact, dementia so bad you think your cat is your sister.

That sort of thing?

I like working because it's an intellectual focus I can get really into and shed the worries of the real world for a bit.

But i don't have to juggle it around anything else i guess.

I like working and focusing. That is the ideal state. Not commuting or worrying about what have to do, other people being d**** ;  just doing it and finishing on time to do other stuff.

Pre kids I used to love my job. Post kids it was a horrendo struggle juggling it all and then throw covid and the restrictions into the mix and it was the absolute pits. 
 

I’ve not had work dread or stress for nearly 2 years now and I’m not sure how I’ll cope with it when I do go back. I’m certainly not looking forward to it 

Own shares, BTL and your own gaff. Have a managerial role that requires almost no learning but just the exercise of common sense in light of experience. Milk it to death. 

Being senior makes sense - no more dreading your annual review - no more cancelling plans at short notice to suit a disorganised psycho’s work schedule. For me at least being a senior lawyer is infinitely preferable to being a junior shmuck.

you have to be very fooking senior not to worry about an annual review.        Certainly in law, partners   come under far more pressure than associates,

I don’t agree - I’m at a bang average shop and if you produce the £ goods they leave you well alone. Review based on pounds and pence not subjective bullshit like ‘teamwork’ and ‘analytical legal skill’…most partners are stressed because they have 2 houses, a shot commute, a pet spouse and 2-3 children in private school. 

The thing about private school is the wraparound options. If they go to state what happens between 3 and your day end?

I just can't understand why people who aren't rich have kids. 

Review based on pounds and pence not subjective bullshit like ‘teamwork’ and ‘analytical legal skill’

 

Pretty much true of anyone beyond about 5 years PQE

“Review based on pounds and pence not subjective bullshit like ‘teamwork’ and ‘analytical legal skill’”

sounds fvcking awful

who wants to be appraised on pounds and pence?

Those with a book of business I guess. Appreciate everyone is different but I don’t find being an averagely decent lawyer terribly stressful. It’s paperwork. Same on reviews - they don’t concern me in the slightest but they used to when I was an associate chasing promotion. 

The kids can let themselves in with their key or  hang about at someone else’s house or on the streets with a few other kids until parents turn up. Lighten up a bit on the parenting. 

heh, I do loads of sh1t that I have identified as 'stressogenic' and there is stuff I would do (very) differently if it was only me I had to worry about. 

The 'keeping up with the joneses' thing is thankfully not one of them and not something I understand at all but that is probably because our friendship group (and family) is pretty diverse in terms of affluence rather than being in some bubble of people all jostling within a narrow range. There is one group that we are on the edge of that seems very into that and it looks exhausting.  

The real challenge is how much money do you spend to be able to allow you (and those around you) to do the things (and to a lesser extent have the things) that you all enjoy vs how much money do you set aside to be able to stop working at some point/have the safety net. It's the whole 'could be run over a bus tomorrow, lets do it' vs 'let's not be eating beans on toast in old age' dilemma. 

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