Work. What a terrible idea.

Have no misconceptions; I work. I have a good job that is turning into an even better career. But when I stop and think about it, what are we really doing to ourselves?

Lets say you work a 8-5 job with a 1 hour lunch. You are 30 mins from work, and go to sleep at 10:30pm.
You wake up at 6:30am, take an hour to get ready, drive to work, work, take lunch, work, drive home, and have free time until bed time.
You spend 10 hours working or doing work-related activites.
You spend 5 hours not working.

But you get the weekends, right?
Per week:
50 hours working
52 hours not working
(asuming you sleep in weekends until 9)

50/50 work/play seems like a healthy way to live right? Just wait. Now, "not working" doesn't mean doing whatever you want (I'm sure I don't have to tell you this), especially weekend time. Because on weekends, you have to do all the stuff you didn't have time to do on the weekdays. because you were working, right? So, you go to the bank, you go to the market, you do your laundry, you tidy up a bit, yes, the place is a sty! you run one or two generic errands, and BAM. I'd wager you've lost 30%-50% of your "not working" time. WARNING: CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATE! :)

My question, is this: Who decided that this is how it should be? When I have kids, I'm going to want to spend more than 30 hours with them a week! AND, kids usually go to bed before 10:30pm right? I'm not even married, and I'm already cutting time away from my kids!

Most people to to work to support their life. In their "life" they want to do X, z, and sometimes Y. Well, X, Y, and always Z require money. As do many staples of existance. (food, water, optical mice) Hence, we must "work" to support our "life", right? If any of you are nodding... stop it. What most people don't realize, is that work IS their life.

We "work" (overall) more than half our "life".
"Work" gets us money to spend on "life".

So, we work to make money to buy things we need to live longer and continue working.

Money is worthless unless you spend it. And if you work too much, there's no time to spend it.
I spend more time in my chair at work than I do at my apartment, in my car, at a movie, or out paintballing. And, I must work to pay for these things. Is anyone else sensing an inbalance? Are we doomed to work twice as hard for a pay off that is half as much?

I'm not sure what I'm asking/hoping for. I mean, the obvious solution is to work less and make more money, and that will balance things out. But shouldn't the balance be where we all start? Then, once we're balanced, you can choose to ignore your kids, spend more time working to get that boat, or choose to spend less time working, skip the boat and spend more time with your kids. a bad example, but you get the point

I'm not sure to whom I'm compaining, or blaming, if anyone but I came to that realization a bit ago--

and I found it disturbing.