human beings without work go to seed, page-8

I think there's a lot of truth in this. I was laid off last year and I got a good redundancy package nod have good savings so took an extended time off work.

And FB before you chime in I did not accept a dime of welfare or dole payments.

Anyway I took time off to do things that interested me and also explore some future business ideas. At fist i thought this is great, ill have so much tome now to explore my interests and do things i want to do.

But I can definitely say it was much more difficult than I expected. I lacked the forced discipline work gives you and the structure it provide to your life. It became easy to sleep in and waste the early hours of the day. It was indeed very easy to become lazy, indulgent and adopt an unhealthy lifestyle. I can see how people could become much more dependant on alcohol or drugs.

Also I noticed an impact to social interactions and activity being away from the work place.

So although I fought to maintain focus on my goals and be disciplined I can easily see the pitfalls of a life without work and too much idle time on your hands. I suppose it depends on how self-disciplined and focused you are.

But I think the general idea of the article is that as humans we are hard wired to look for meaningful roles or work in our lives. One thing I can say having travelled recently to many developing countries. Although these people have no welfare system and are considered very poor they often lead very rich and fulfilling lives and seem a lot happier than most people I see in the wealthy western countries.

It's definitely made me see the evils of too much welfare dependency in developed countries. whilst well intended you must be careful not to make it too enticing to live on welfare rather than participate in some kind of work or productive activity..

Free will I think your case is different as you said you were raising 3 young kids. Actually this is the most important and valuable "work" that exists in out society. Just people don't refer to I as work but the traditional nurturing role of the mother should be undervalued only at a societies own peril.