About The Joy of Not Working - An Online Interview

[Ernie Zelinski]

Below is an online interview I did about The Joy of Not Working for A New Dawn Blog:

1 - Tell us a little bit about yourself. (i.e. where you were born, where you grew up, etc.)

I was born in Athabasca, Alberta, Canada and was raised on a farm around Grassland, Alberta until I was 14 and then finished high school in Lac La Biche. I didn't know what career path to choose, but I was very good at mathematics, trigonometry, and physics. So, on the advice of my teachers, I stupidly enrolled in engineering at the University of Alberta in 1966. In my second year of Engineering I missed over 85 percent of my classes and still ended up with the 7th highest grades out of 250 engineers. Even so, it took 7 years for me to complete a 4-year program because I quit twice and stayed out a year. You can read more about this in an article called The Joy of (Not) Engineering. After working for Edmonton Power for five and a half years, I was fired for taking two months of unauthorized vacation. My firing was, in fact, the best thing that ever happened to me because I hated being an engineer. (Just as important, I hated corporate life.) As Hal Lancaster once said, "Getting fired is nature's way to telling you that you had the wrong job in the first place." I am proud to say that I have not had a real job for 28 years.

2 - For those who have not read the book, how would you describe the central idea in the The Joy of Not Working??

The Joy of Not Working is all about learning to live every part of your life - employment, unemployment, retirement, and leisure time alike - to the fullest. If you have a job, the book is about how to thrive at work by being more leisurely. If you are unemployed, the book will help you be happier than most people who have jobs, simply because happiness is a matter of choice, whether you have a job or not. If you are retired, The Joy of Not Working will help you find just as much purpose - even more - as you had in your career life.