personal satisfaction

1405-april11-2005

this post has been edited on april 11, 2005 14:07

so i guess i'm a dirty hippy. geoff and i were talking today about working. i was complaining about my job and saying how i'd like to work for myself. he pointed out that working for myself would mean 100+ hour work weeks, lots of stress, similar income, and no benefits at all. basically, he said that unless working for myself led directly to a large increase in income, it isn't really worth it.

my response was that my personal satisfaction would increase "infinitely". i think for me, this has to be the number one reason i dislike my current job and one of the most important things to me about a job.

geoff's response was quotable

call me a cynic, but personal satisfaction doesnt put food on the table

its maybe the third or fourth most important thing about a job

so... am i just a crazy idealist? it wouldn't be the first time someone would have accused me of this, for sure. i just figure, i can barely pay the bills now. i might as well not pay the bills doing something personally satisfying.

let's hear your thoughts

comments

re: comment

from: z (2005-04-11 14:51:31)

so there's this big rich business man on vacation in the bahamas. and he hires one of the local fishermen to take him and his son out fishing. the business man can't stop talking about how when he retires he's going to retire in the islands, and fish all the time.

so the fisherman takes them to this really secluded spot that none of the other locals even know about. and they catch all kinds of fish. more than they can even eat. and the business man says,

"you must be the best fisherman down here."

"i guess so."

"so you must be doing pretty well. why don't you buy another boat, and hire another captain?"

"why?"

"then you would make even more, and you could afford to buy two more boats, and hire more captains."

"and why would i want to do that?"

"eventually you could afford to have an entire fleet of boats making money for you."

"and then what?"

"then you could retire--"

"and spend all my time fishing?"

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as cute as it is, the point the story doesn't touch on is the fisherman's quality of life. or the quality of his kids lives for that matter. education, insurance.

idealism is a beautiful thing, but it has to be tempered by the very real necessities of life...however much you may disagree with whether or not those things SHOULD be necessary.

that's not to say that if you struck out on your own you wouldn't be successful enough to live quite well. you probably would be. but not at first. and not for a while.

and you can't pretend money doesn't matter. you just can't. not now. not here.

re: a little bit of both

from: arjune (2005-04-11 14:55:19)

i think the most personally satisfying job for me would be as a professional musician. however, most musicians are on the poverty line.

while being a doctor is not as personally satisfying, it's a close second, with a virtual guarantee of a decent salary. with said salary, i can afford the time and equipment necessary to make all the music i want.

in sum, i go for a job that satisfies the need to put food on the table with personal satisfaction. i see it as a proportion instead of a priority list.

re: arjune hit the nail on the head

from: chad (2005-04-11 18:14:37)

it's all about finding something that maximizes your personal enjoyment without killing your quality of life, financially speaking. There are some jobs you would love but would pay you nothing (writing elscorcho for example...you could sell ads or whatever, but this will never pay the bills) and other jobs you would be rich off of but couldn't ever enjoy (like most financial arena jobs...i-banking or whatever, which would drive you nuts). the key is finding that job that you enjoy enough that when you wake up in the morning you are content (you may not wake up thinking "YESSS!!! WORK!!!!" but you don't want to be thinking "I wonder if I can use a sick day today..." either) and that pays you enough and offers you enough free time that you can then go home and use a good computer to write on elscorcho and have interesting things to write about, ya know? like, i enjoy my job, for sure, but it doesn't pay me a ton. however, it pays me enough that i can do most of the things i want to do and i can enjoy my life. if money was no object, i would be doing development work for a not-for-profit and working at a baseball stadium or something. those would be ideal jobs, i think. but money, sadly, does matter, so i do something else

personal satisfaction

comments

re: comment

re: a little bit of both

re: arjune hit the nail on the head

dangly parts