<p>Don’t assume your conclusions about the life of most of us and the careers many have are accurate - IMO they’re not. </p>
<p>Very few people just ‘stare at a computer screen’ all day long. Many are engaged in using a computer to perform their job functions and what may appear to be staring at the screen to an outsider is actually being quite engaged for the individual whether it’s in writing a program, evaluating an excel spreadsheet, composing a critical email, doing research, or something else.</p>
<p>Very few people work 80 hours per week at all and for those who occasionally do they don’t do it consistently. </p>
<p>Very few professionals (or anyone else) do the same thing for 40 years or even practice a profession in the same way for 40 years. Think back 40 years for a particular profession and consider if it was done the same way then as now. In addition, there are many more professions now that didn’t really exist 40 years ago. Regardless of where you get started you’ll likely not be doing the same thing in 40 years or even in 20 years. If you don’t like what you’re doing you can change your career by seeking different opportunities in the same company or elsewhere.</p>
<p>It’s not a big deal to be able to take vacations every year and pursue your outside interests but of course they need to be done within your means. It doesn’t cost much to do a 2 week National Park camping/hiking vacation for example. It can cost quite a bit to do a European or Tahiti vacation but this isn’t something most people do every year. If that’s what you want then you do modest vacations for some years and the expensive one every now and then. If you’re big into golf then figure out inexpensive ways to pursue that as well - like finding a 9 hole course for $5 at certain times or something. If you want to have adequate money for the above I suggest not rushing out to get the new BMW or other expensive car since that’ll suck up a huge amount of money. Just decide where you want to spend the money you have.</p>
<p>I don’t know what your internship experience was like but don’t assume that it repesents all business and all your options. A lot of interns are given fairly rote and more trivial tasks to perform. It’s not necessarily representative of what most of the people at the company are doing. You also don’t have to have a ‘passion’ for your career. IMO that word is overused on CC when it comes to selecting colleges, majors, and careers anyway - some people have a passion but plenty of people don’t and rather, have interests in a number of areas. Just try to understand the options out there your major will enable you to enter keeping in mind that for most professions there’s a wide variety of particular duties and work environments to choose from and for most majors there are multiple careers one could go into. Also keep in mind that people don’t usually do the same exact thing for 40 years but rather change what they do and how they do it every now and then and some completely change careers from time to time. You don’t need all the answers now.</p>