Thanks for the great comments. You all gave me a lot to think about. I'll definitely be mulling them over. This post, it seems, was full of all sorts of ideas… some of which you agreed with and some of which you did not. Good. That's what blogging is all about.

To clarify one point: I never said it was wrong to love your job. I love my job, too. I did poke a little fun. The actual point of the post is: are we really workaholics?

My opinion is that we aren't. Like Stephen says above, I believe that later in life, we'll find we're capable of having a lot more on our plates, and that we'll look back on all this touted workaholism nonsense as youthful self-centeredness.

And taking up what Milena says, there are real workaholics out there. I have a few friends who honestly cannot stop working, even when they know it's not important and it's ruining them physically in real pain-inducing ways and getting in the way of their personal relationships, even at young ages. And those people are not proud of it.

So, lots of great thoughts here. I think there's definitely some blog fodder for future posts!

I applaud your honesty and your stance on this issue. There is nothing wrong with working hard. But, there does come a point when work can no longer be the *only* aspect of your life. You can be successful in your career without sacrificing everything to have it.

I remember a couple of years ago when my dad told me what I should do with my life. I didn't agree with him I wanted to make the bold moves, the risky decisions. SO I told him, "you are telling me to do this, but many of the most successful people in the world believe exactly the opposite. to be honest, I'd rather take my chances with them."

Well, same here. You may be wrong, but giving what you've been through, I take my chances with you.

I agree with what others have said that this generation is really no different. Change/progress still happens, yes, because we build our own talents on the backs of those who've come before us, but our own attitudes/hubris are the same as any other generation's. In the 80s Gen Y would have fit in quite well with yuppies.

I think that one lesson of getting older is realizing how much we really are like everyone else, however much we'd like to be different.

My workaholic-ness was in grad school…though circumstances prevented a tenure-track search, I'm glad I got off the merry-go-round. I've never been happier, either – but that's because I now have a 40 hour work week and don't EVER check that e-mail at home!

Because, I think that workaholism is just a fun word we're using to show how devoted we are to jobs we do luhhhvvv. Like when we say, "OMG, I drank two beers last night, god I'm an alcoholic." It's not REAL. We're just kidding. I doubt it's truly a huge issue for any of us yet.

Although, speaking for myself, I'm proud to find something I want to be devoted to, considering so many people (including, now, yourself) decide for me that my job could not possibly be interesting or something I love to do. Because yours isn't anymore?

This is one of those posts that might have been better served as a reflection on your own workaholism (that has now, since, been tackled, apparently). Instead of, in the process of giving an interesting perspective, actually came off pretty offensive.

Also?
He has a business in the sense that he’s not freelancing or consulting or designing websites
This made me LOL. His business is more important? Well, I have a business in the sense that I design websites and I can tell you that based on the amount of clients I have, it's very much a lucrative business.

I think it's great that you've come to your own conclusions with work/life balance, but really? You're generalizing an entire generation based on YOUR own experience. I feel like this is the exact formula for why I don't write, nor I read advice blogs anymore. Too limited of a point of view.

But I'm not sure your argument about change makes sense. All generations are rebellious and naive when they are young, which helps further change and progress because they try to do stuff everyone else says can't be done. This isn't a generation thing, it's a happy side effect of inexperience.

But this effecting-of-change in particular does not highlight any of the differences between the generations (at least to me), because it's actually something they have in common. I don't know; maybe I'm just looking at it a different way.