Career Choices

Matthew Grass wrote us a deep question – he wrote:

“This is a prety deep question, but I need to know! So I just graduated college and the debate over a career is intense. My question is whether it’s better to choose a job because you love doing it, or should I choose a job because it will allow me to provide more comfortably for my family? Is it better to be happy at work and not have all the comfort you want for your family, or do you sacrifice the day job so that you can have the family comfort? Please help!”

Decisions like this, where you choose between time and money, or between freedom and security, will be with you for the rest of your life. You’ll get to make this choice a lot. So if you blow it the first time; lather, rinse, repeat… I think we said that already.

Part of the reason it’s hard to deal with questions like this is money’s easy to quantify. Well-being, isn’t.

“You love me, huh? How much love? 624?” 624 what? Love-units?

But with money, you know what 624 dollars means. It means like, a new bike or a PS3… But it can’t hold you on a dark stormy night and tell you everything’s going to be okay… Not yet… That’s probably PS4 material.

Philosophers for millennia have downplayed the importance of material things. Even counciled people to avoid them, as a means to happiness.

All you need is love? What hippie wrote that? Oh wait, it really was a hippie.

Your question is also difficult to answer because it’s a joint decision. And it’s probably already been decided. I’m going to say that your Wife’s opinion on this matter probably outweighs yours. And it definitely outweighs mine!

Most women who are homemakers really like security. Maybe even more than they like you… Okay probably not. But diapers don’t grow on trees.

Like we said before, this one’s gonna be a joint decision… But the good news is, virtually all of life’s choices are temporary.

Because eventually where you live, what you do, the choices available to you, even the things you want, will change. Don’t assume that the job you choose right now will be the one you’re doing in five or ten years. Maybe this choice will guide the rest of your life, but a lot of people who start off doing what they think they want to do, end up changing their minds down the road.

Like me, wanting to be a college science professor. And then talking to some college sciences professors.

Or like me, wanting to work on Wall Street, and then finding out what kind of hours you have to work when you work on Wall Street.

Or like me, getting a job in sales and then realising, I hate sales!

Or like me, consulting to help small business owners cut costs… And then realising, I am one of those costs.

Or like me, wanting to be a fireman, in kindergarten. Kind of early on.

Most of the time, you can pull out later. I know of a contractor who later became a lawyer. I also knew a lawyer, who later became a plumber. I think being a lawyer was just too dirty for him.

There isn’t really a right and a wrong to this kind of question, but we should all be grateful we live in a society with enough freedom and affluence that we even have a choice to begin with… Not everyone does.

So no matter where you live or whatever you’ve chosen to do with you life, be grateful for the freedom your country has brought you. And have a happy 4th of July.

And you’ll end up doing a daily show on the internet… Wondering where that’s gonna take you.

Transcribed by: LtSten

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