Today, we did a tour of the Margaret River area of Western Australia, which encompassed far more than just wineries that Australians usually talk about first when mentioning WA. We started the day with canoeing along the river, visited a little creek area and learned about local, healing honey, and had a delicious lunch among the wine vats at the boutique Fraser Gallop winery. Then we progressed onto seeing the Wilyabrup Cliffs in a secluded area you can access only by a 4WD. When the day ended with our guide, who toured six of us around, we went on to a forest to see these endless regional trees and visited a beach to see the surf.
One person who was on our tour was actually local, and she was originally from Melbourne but moved out to Margaret River once her daughter decided to move there. She originally just wanted to visit, but she fell in love with the area when visiting and decided to stay. Her friend who accompanied her on the tour who was visiting was going back to Sydney, but she had lived in the area for a few years, working random jobs at wineries, reaping the benefits of the wine discounts and just there to enjoy life. When the guide asked her what she did for work, she responded that she just needed a job, any job, and decided to work at a winery. She’s working to live, not living to work, so whatever paid the bills and allowed her the lifestyle she wanted would be what she’d do while in the Margaret River.
It’s so rare to hear anyone in my industry say they are working to live, not living to work. In tech, the way it works is that it’s the cool and trendy and “right” thing to say that you will do whatever it is that is needed for your company so that in our startup case, you will get bought or go public because that’s the end all and be all of your life. If you were to ever say that you worked to live, no one would ever compliment you; in fact, people would be more likely to look down on you and think you are some loser who doesn’t fit into the “culture” of the company. We’re all supposed to be ambitious, trying to achieve the most for the company and our careers. Anyone who doesn’t fit that will not fit in.