Thinking about work

There’s an interesting discusson on work over at /.. This particular comment made me think “Man, I wish I had moderator points left”:

It seems to me that for a well educated, technically skilled, first world people, there are basically three optimal strategies one can choose in finding work:

1 – Find a job that you love, so that working itself makes you happy, where happiness may include the feeling that you’ve accomplished something worthwhile, even if the day to day work isn’t pleasant. (eg. the physicist or aid worker options)

2 – Find a job that requires minimum effort and time and allows you to spend most of your time doing things that make you happy. (the writer who’s also a security guard option)

3 – Find a job that sucks but allows you to make a lot of money, then retire early and spend the rest of your life doing things that make you happy. (the investment banker turned surfer option.)

Personally, I’m trying to move into a #1 situation. I think I could swing #2 easily as well if I got interested in something other than computers, and did that as my “minimal time” job.