How to work a full 8-hour day?

I actually used to like my job (and some days I do now). I work to earn a paycheck,; being challenged in my mind and have social interaction are benefits. But in all it's simple -I work to keep a place over my head and food on the table. Of course I have been working 40 years and am approaching retirement but I still hear my college professor saying "You want the money you work." Blunt but true.

Actually I probably work more than 8 hours a day, but I love it, so it energizes and excites me. I'm a high school teacher. I'm lucky to work with a great team in a small school with motivated kids. It's fortunate for me that I love it, because thanks to my divorce (and my own financial illiteracy) I won't have much in the way of a pension. They will have to drag me out of my classroom kicking and screaming... But I know it has to happen one day.

I had a colleague who was our admin manager and travel coordinator, who was still working in her 80s. She LOVED her job. She contracted cancer but absolutely refused to stop working. She was at her desk planning a school trip a week before her death.

This is the best I've got:

Chinese Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture, World's Second Largest Medical System

Self-Treatment and Miscellaneous

Also what @Licorice said about loving your job. If you find something that you're really excited about doing, it probably takes a lot less effort to stay motivated. It's not necessarily so easy to find a job like that though, especially one that will pay all your bills.

I see what you mean. It's really important to love your job.
I love my line of work, even though I am currently unemployed. But my body is against it. My psyche likes it, but my body doesn't. But when I used alcohol, my body liked it, it didn't hurt, but my psyche didn't like it.
I'm still looking for a compromise between the two.

Do you use doping in the form of coffee or something like that? How much?
Do you relax with alcohol? How much?

Acupuncture is something I need to look for. I had something like this done once when I was a kid, but that was a long time ago.
Did you do acupuncture yourself? Did it help you?

Yes, and it was helpful. It can be expensive though, so a lot depends on how much you have to pay for it.

It's supposed to be a good treatment for PTSD.

I found such centers in my city. Yes, it's expensive.

I'm not really sure how my PTSD affects how to work an 8 hour work day. It seems to me that the problem is different.

I'm still trying to find people who can work an 8 hour work day without doping or improper relaxation. While maintaining good focus and love for their work. And not have illnesses due to that kind of work regimen.

What this means to me is this: is it just me or is it everyone's problem?

It's just that if it's just my problem, then that's one way to solve it. If it's a general problem, then there are other options. At the very least it's worth talking about.

Acupuncture is helpful for a wide variety of conditions, but works best for pain and stress-related conditions. It would probably help with your ability to perform an 8 hour work day, but depending on how much was charged for treatment, it wouldn't necessarily be cost effective. Community-style treatment is often cheaper, but even that can be expensive. I'm relatively more confident that it would help with PTSD. Dietary changes and Chinese herbal medicine may be relatively more cost effective for treating low energy and depression.
I think it's a bit of both. While there are some people who work an 8hr/day, 40hr/week, 50wk/year schedule, and also love their jobs, it's more common for people to struggle through a schedule like that (or are only able to maintain it for a short time), hate their jobs, or some combination. Work is a struggle for most people, but it's more of a struggle if you have health problems and the job market and wages are poor.

It looks like people do unloved work to the detriment of their health for most of their life time just to live and do unloved work to the detriment of their health. And even if they do the loved work, it's still to the detriment of their health.
If this is not stupidity, then what is stupidity? Seems to me, from that angle, death is the smart move

I think for a lot of people work is just a way to get money, and they live for the time they have away from work.

I don't think that's true. Generally people who love their work seem to be energized by it.

Most people have difficulties and struggles of some kind, but most people are not suicidal. Your position is more difficult than it is for most people because you have trauma and illness to deal with, in addition to living in a country that is at war. You definitely have more of a challenge than most people do, but it's not impossible for you to find a way through.

Your English language skills are excellent, and you probably have other talents and skills too. There might be a way to apply those things in a way that will give you enough income to get by.

Yes, it is. It's one third of the time in a day. If you factor in travel time, it's even more. I don't want to spend a third of my life doing something that hurts me.

I had a lot of energy while I was doing what I love, saw my professional growth. But I faced the fact that even though my soul loves it, my body is against spending so much time at work. It's a problem I can't solve. What to do?

The problem isn't finding a job to cover my minimum spending. It's that it's hard for me to work full time. For me, every day becomes a torture. My feet and knees hurt from standing on my feet for long periods of time. My buttocks and lower back ache from sitting for long periods of time. My neck hurts from lying down for long periods of time. My feet hurt from walking for long periods of time (I'm walking a lot right now). That's me listing options for how I can work.

So do all the other people just endure this pain or do they have no pain at all?

Or do they just drown it out with regular alcohol drinking? Even in small amounts.

Covert advertising of alcohol and workaholism is very aggressive in movies and television.
I think it is done to make people work hard and relax their bodies with alcohol. I am now 2 years without alcohol and I feel my body like never before. It's against that kind of exertion.

What were you doing when you were doing what you loved?
Quite a few people have pain related to sitting, standing, or walking for long periods of time. You may have more pain than most people your age do.

I guess if you made anyone sit or stand long enough, they'd probably experience some pain.

Particularly if you can't find affordable acupuncture, there's an acupressure self-massage sub-linked in the self-treatment link that I posted earlier that might help.

A lot of people with physical or mental illness will use alcohol to self-medicate, but this just makes everything worse in the long run.

I used to do search engine optimization for websites. One of my best tasks in this job was to analyze competitors and make an action plan to increase traffic. One of my worst tasks was to explain to my boss verbally what needed to be done. I was good at explaining it in writing because I could do it in enough detail. However, it was quite difficult to do it in verbal communication.

I also faced the fact that my boss twisted my words in verbal communication as he wanted. Our calls were turning into some kind of battlefield. On the one hand I wanted to do the best for my projects, but on the other hand I faced tremendous resistance from my boss. He often asked repetitive questions, he often clung to one thing in my words and ignored everything else. It was quite abusive on his part. One of our conversations lasted 2.5 hours. And the whole time he was just trying to convince me to do what he wanted, even if it went against all of our original agreements that I had agreed to. I.e. he wanted me to do something other than what I had agreed to. Eventually he started threatening to fire me. The funniest part is that when I did what he wanted me to do, he chided me for not doing what we had agreed on before. With the contradictions of new tasks to old ones, I didn't know how it could be done. But these reproaches and accusations did not stop.

@Licorice , in the thread about ChatGPT you talked about the need to communicate and find common ground. Here is my best response to what you said. Perhaps in time I'll have an even better answer, but that's what it is right now.

My strength, I think, is analytical thinking. I delve very deeply into a problem, and I find very interesting solutions. What's interesting: my suggestions to improve the sites condition were taken skeptically by my boss 2 years ago, but after a while he started implementing my plan. Of course, he didn't tell anyone that they were my ideas. I feel a little resentful.

Not too long ago I had a job interview. And I was faced with the fact that I need to show results from a past job. But my results and all my work are under a non-disclosure agreement. Plus, it's important for recruiters to see a confident person. And I don't talk very confidently if I have any doubts. One big doubt I have is working eight hours. It's torture for me. Besides, they need a person who will be in charge of 3-5 projects at a time, and that is not my style. I am able to dive deeply into one task, but several at once is a problem.

I've come to the conclusion that I need to look for a good team first, not just money. But I am not sure that the business wants to give me what I need. And I am not sure that I can give the business what it needs. Especially if it meets contradictions and resistance within me.

People who get management positions are often best skilled at self promotion. They are experts at taking credit and avoiding blame. So if your boss can get you do to something that you didn't agree to and it goes well, your boss can take credit. If it doesn't go well, your boss can blame you for not following what you agreed to.

An American term for this is "heads I win, tails you loose" (spoken about a coin toss where either a "heads" or "tails" side of the coin lands).

It's manipulative. And I don't like it. I don't like being accused, especially when it's not my fault.
It's also dishonest. And I don't like that either.
I have the impression that people with no moral principles occupy leadership positions. I don't like that either.

Dislike is a soft word. I often get angry.

After all, he couldn't make me do anything we didn't agree on. And I told him that he promised some steps that he didn't take.

I think I am cut out for this life. I have to be dishonest and have no morals to live a good life. I guess it doesn't seem that way to me.
I know people who have lived a lifetime in a sedentary job. All of them have musculoskeletal problems.

I found a little more info on this, thanks.

@may71

I'd like to clarify a little more. I've been working for about 20 years. I have only 3 months of work experience in my labor book. This is the basis on which the pension is paid when I reach retirement age.

Today the situation is such that for remote online work in Ukraine no one offers official registration, on which will go the labor record. Therefore, I cannot expect a pension at the appropriate age.

However, employers accept only contracts with an physical person-entrepreneur. Physical person-entrepreneur is a form of business in Ukraine. According to this form, a person can provide services to other people and businesses. He pays taxes for this. And he also has a labor record, on the basis of which he will be paid a pension at retirement age.

In fact, any remote online work in Ukraine is a business-to-business interaction. So it is not a traditional interaction between employer and employee. Therefore, in my opinion, it cannot contradict the arrangements, as it is a contract.

If it was a traditional interaction between employer and employee, then I would agree with you that the boss can do that. But it is not.

As for my physical limitations. Right now I sit at my desk for about 2 hours. I've been up and moving around a bit. But I'm already feeling pain in my hip joints.

Oh, I'm not saying it's either legal or good, but that's what they do.

It's not always like that, but there's a tendency for people low moral character to rise through the ranks of corporations.

I don't like it either.

Thank you mr @may71
I appreciate what you're doing. It means to me that I'm not as crazy as I think I am. Maybe a little crazy, but not as much as I thought I was.
I still don't know how I'm going to work full time. I must be really fired up at work. I've been working 10-12 hours a day for the last year. And I didn't get the results I wanted to get. I guess I really wore out my body during that period, so it's fighting back hard.

I want Gabor Matè's book The Myth of Normal to be included in this topic as well. For me, this means that my thoughts are not so wrong after all. And that's very good.