u/DPP-Ghost

A while ago, my cousin Anastacia was diagnosed with cancer.

I do not know all the medical details, but my understanding was that complications with her treatment meant the out-of-pocket costs not covered by insurance would be substantial. She asked the extended family for financial help.

For context, most of my extended family are not well off. The older generation are immigrants who worked hard just to give their kids a better life, and the younger generation are mostly still early in their careers. I am one of the few who sits in the middle: old enough to have built my career, and fortunate enough to benefit from my parents' sacrifices.

Because of that, I received a lot of pressure to contribute meaningfully. I gave $20,000. Two other cousins gave $10,000 each, and between the three of us, we covered most of the expected gap fees.

Thankfully, Anastacia responded really well to treatment and apparently did not need the full amount the family raised, which was around $50,000. I do not know exactly how much was used, but her mother later told the family that insurance covered most of the medical costs.

Obviously, I was relieved for her.

Then, at a family gathering (that Anastacia did not attend because she was still recovering), her mother casually mentioned that Anastacia was excitedly planning a luxurious holiday overseas.

That confused me. She had just asked the family for money because she could not cover medical expenses, so I asked her mother what money she was using for the holiday. Was it the donation money?

Her reaction basically answered the question.

I called it out on the spot. I said that if Anastacia did not need the money for medical treatment, the unused portion should be returned to the people who donated it. To me, that feels like common sense. The money was given for medical costs, not a luxury holiday.

Surprisingly, I got some backlash. To be fair, I think most relatives either agreed with me or understood my position. But a small group pushed back, including one cousin who donated $10,000. She is very close with Anastacia, so I am not shocked she defended her.

Their argument was that once the money was given, it was Anastacia's to use however she wanted. They also said she had an awful year and deserved something nice after everything she had been through.

I think that is ridiculous. If she wants a holiday, she should buy it with her own money, not money she asked for on the basis of medical hardship.

For added context, Anastacia and I have a strained relationship, so I accept that may affect how people view my reaction. But I genuinely do not think this is about our history. I think it is about what the money was raised for.

AIO?

Many years ago, my ex-partner cheated on me.

To keep a long story short, we had been together for several years before she started sleeping with a colleague during the last four months of our relationship. Another colleague of theirs, who was also a mutual friend of mine, found out and told me. They were all in the same graduate program at a bank, which is how everyone knew everyone. We eventually ended things.

It completely blindsided me. I genuinely had no idea there were any issues in the relationship. Only a few months before I found out, I had taken her and her family, her mother and two younger siblings, away for the weekend to celebrate her 25th birthday.

Anyway, I ended the relationship and never spoke to her again. It has been years now. I am over it and have moved on.

However, we still have a lot of mutual friends, and they dropped a bit of a bombshell on me the other night. Apparently, she and the guy she cheated on me with have been together ever since, on and off. From what I heard, it was never a particularly good relationship, but things escalated badly recently. Badly enough that my ex ended up in hospital, and he was arrested.

And honestly, I do not really know how I am supposed to feel about it, because I feel fine.

I am not going to say she deserved it. I do not think anyone deserves that. But I also cannot pretend I have much sympathy for someone who showed me such a complete lack of empathy and respect when it mattered. When I was told, I had to act like I cared more than I actually did. But deep down, it did not affect me at all.

I slept perfectly fine that night, and I imagine I will keep sleeping perfectly fine.

Does that make me a monster? I don't know. Probably. But it's how I feel.

I see a lot of people say they are miserable because they have to work 40 hours a week, and dread doing it for the rest of their lives.

I think that mindset needs to change.

For most people, work is not meant to be your happy place. It is not there to fulfil every emotional, creative, social, and existential need you have. It is there to pay your bills, give you independence, and fund the life you actually want. Someone has always had to work to provide the life you enjoy. When you were younger, that was probably your parents. But unless you are generationally wealthy, at some point that responsibility becomes yours. It does not disappear just because you would rather be doing something else.

If you find work you genuinely love, great. But that is a bonus, not the standard. A more realistic goal is to find work that pays well, gives you stability, does not ruin your health or relationships, and is something you can tolerate long term. Your fulfilment should come from the life you build outside of work. Work gives you the means to enjoy the people, hobbies, goals, and experiences that actually make life worth living. That is what can make work worth doing.

If work feels unbearable, then yes, improve your situation. Change jobs. Change industries. Retrain. Build skills. But do not expect work to be your entire source of meaning. Build a life outside of work that is worth clocking off for.

Work is much easier to tolerate when it is funding a life you actually want to return to.

Happy Friday, everyone 😊

Edit:

Reading the comments has made me realise I came at this from a pretty narrow perspective.

I do not come from money, and I have had to work hard to get to where I am, but I can also recognise that I am in a position now where I have it pretty good. My job pays me enough, does not completely drain me, and I have enough outside of work that I can separate my job from my sense of meaning.

Not everyone is in that position. Some people are underpaid. Some people are overworked. Some people are mentally or physically exhausted by the end of the day. Some people do not have enough stability, support, time, money, or energy outside of work to simply shrug it off and find meaning elsewhere.

So while I still think there is value in not expecting your job to fulfil every part of your life, I also think I framed it too much as "play the hand you're dealt", rather than asking "how do we shuffle the deck so that the house isn't fucking us over?".

The discussion has been genuinely enlightening. I posted this thinking I might change a few minds, but I think mine has probably changed the most.