Do you really love your job or the money you make? I guess this question applies more to professions that “pay more” than the average job. I did a little survey among random group pf friends. The answers were pretty interesting.

Doctor Friend : His background is that his father was a doctor and he followed his footsteps. Did you really have the burning desire to “save lifes”? Well, he certainly did when he was studying medicine. Did he really enjoy his job because he enjoys it or because the money was “good”. Dr Doctor was honest with me and said that he can’t really answer that because he has “no complaints about his work” and the “money is good”. Jury out on him.

Real Estate Friend : Well, she got into the business because clearly the “money was good”. It may not be as great right now but she has had her good years. Does she really “love your job or career”? Hard to answer honestly. She can obviously do any sales job and if real estate does not pay, she would have never gotten into it in the first place. The jury is out for her as well. One thing is for sure : she will never work for a corporation in the normal sense. She’ll always be a free independent agent.

Ms Advertising : Ms Advertising has just quite her job and going to Business School. She wants to get a job on Wall Street. Being in the advertising business seldom gets you a six figure salary (according to her), while a first year MBA on major Wall Street firms nets at least $120,000! The decision to take her MBA to allow for a “career change” was a no brainer for her. But in my opinion, it will be a no-brainer if she does get her wall street job! Clearly, money is the motivating factor. When I asked her what type of job on wall street would she want (trading, sales, investment banking, stocks, bonds, commodities), she said she was indifferent. Anything will do! Well, at least she was honest about it. Money Talks and Bullshit Walks.

Ms Artist : Ms Artist is well, an artist and this is something that she honestly loves doing. Is the money great? Well, it can be. But to great great money, Ms Artist says that you need to be a publicist and be great at marketing. The days when Artist just did their stuff and hope for the best are over. Ms Artist feels that many of the very successful modern artist are masters at publicity and that it is a skill she may not necessarily have. But she clearly enjoys what she is doing.

These are just a few examples of friend’s response when I pose the question of whether they really their job or were they in it for the money. The truth is that for some people, it is purely for the money, while for others, they truly love what they are doing. However, I think that for the most of us that have a high paying job (career), we aren’t really too sure about whether we really do love our job or is it because of the money. It could be that we learnt to love our work because the money was good. I suspect that is the case with many of us.

But why is this question so important. It is important because I think that the truly successful people in every profession has a passion for their work (not just loving their work but having true passion). If you really want to excel in something, passion is what keeps you going. The problem arises when we have a good and high paying career but it is something that does not ignite our passion. What do we do then? Look elsewhere, or just continue (as most of us do) because hey, it pays well and pays the bills! Well, it would be interesting to hear what you think.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 18:13 and is filed under Personal Finance & Frugality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.