Sunday, December 9, 2007

? Money V/s Satisfaction ?

I had a misconception about myself, which was dispelled recently.
I always had a question when "adults" spoke about their jobs. I used to wonder how many of them really like what they do? Do they do it because they like it? Or do they do it for the money?
And then I used to question myself, hypothetically of course, given a choice between money and job satisfaction, who would I go with? And my answer almost always was MONEY, without a doubt. The argument went, if I don't have enough money, I was bound to crib, which again entailed dissatisfaction, so money was a definite choice for me.
Recently, very early on professionally, I actually had to choose between two job options, one that gave me money and the other, immense job satisfaction. To my very great surprise, I chose job satisfaction; I did not stick around the other job for the money! I did not care for the money!
Again I asked myself, if I were to earn my bread, earn my livelihood doing this, would I still choose satisfaction over money? And this time around the question has left me in the 'don't-know/can't-say' zone!
Why is this question so important? I have no idea, but I wanted it out with it, so there!

4 comments:

Vaibhav Deshpande said...

I once did a job in which I was forced to select money over satisfaction,pooj you might be knowing this scenario core mech firm v/s software firm, well I didnt choose software firm, it was more of a forced choice, the experince was OK, I learned some internals of how those kind of companies work, I got lot of money, enjoyed that as I almost spent it all, but satisfaction was almost zero, very low motivation was present while working,i struggled to work there, still experince was good, but while working next time I would make sure this doesn't happen again, I discovered that software dev aint easy and I would like that only as a hobby definitely not as 8 hr job.

Regards,
V

The Solitary Dreamer said...

@V
I was actually wondering if forced, would I still give my 100% with no satisfaction and had to work only for the money? Would I get the same results I would've had I done something that satisfied my native and creative juices?

I guess, you have to accept and face whatever life has to give, can't crib forever, I guess, one eventually finds happiness in "dire straits".

Vaibhav Deshpande said...

I guess you should try to have a trade off in between these to opposite poles satisfactio v/s money, as always buddha's path of moderations seems the most practical and logical to endeavour :).

It really depends which side of equation you are, would you like to create a mark in this world or would you like to mix up with the surroundinds, like would you prefer to be a zebra or a chameleon.

what say you?

Regards,
V

The Solitary Dreamer said...

very profound.

thank you for the comments and all the explanations that it ensued. :)